Social perception and behavior

Question 1

What is social perception/cognition?

Answer 1

Our ability to make an impression on someone or make judgements about others

Question 2

impression bias

Answer 2

selection of cues to form impressions of others
involves:
reliance on central traits - assigning traits like open-mindedness, trustworthiness, etc
primacy effect - first interaction most important
recency effect - most recent interaction is most important
implicit personality theory - judgements on personality are made quickly, often subconsciously

Question 3

halo effect

Answer 3

judgement of a specific aspect of a person can be influenced by our general impression of that person

i.e. if we already like someone, we will also think they are a good friend, good mother, trustworthy, good at their job, etc

also influenced by attractiveness

Question 4

Just-world hypothesis

Answer 4

good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people

consequences due to a universal restoring force

Question 5

self-serving bias

Answer 5

consider successes to be based on our own hard work (internal factors), failures are due to outside forces out of our control (external factors)

Question 6

attribution theory

Answer 6

How we decide what to blame/credit for another person’s actions or behavior.

Can be dispositional - attributed to the person’s character (internal)
or situational - based on the person’s surroundings (external)

Question 7

types of cues in attribution theory

Answer 7

dispositional: consistency cues (frequency of behavior)
distinctiveness: behavior similar only for similar situations because there is a factor that is out of a person’s control.
concensus cues: are other people exhibiting the same behavior based on the situation?

Question 8

fundamental attribution error

Answer 8

natural tendency to blame behavior on a person’s disposition rather than the situation, especially in negative contexts

tendency to attribute things to internal rather than external factors (in one’s self or others)

Question 9

cultural attribution

Answer 9

individualistic cultures: high value on personal goal and independence. (most western cultures) more likely to make fundamental attribution errors (dispositional)

collectivist cultures: high value on conformity and interdependence. (many african and asian cultures) more likely to attribute behaviors to situational causes.

Question 10

self-effacing bias

Answer 10

tendency to attribute one’s success to external factors.

Question 11

What kind of mating behaviors would be expected in a species with high/low sexual dimorphism

Answer 11

low - monogamous pair-bong

high - intense competition for mates