unit 2 exam revision Flashcards
person perception
the mental processes we use to form our impressions of other people
physical cues
physical characteristics and behaviors of people that influence our impressions of them
saliency detection
we are likely to initially judge people based on salient characteristics. Refers to anything that is prominent like appearance
social categorization
is a mental shortcut used in person perception to categorize people into groups based on their shared social characteristics?
example of saliency detection
if you are interviewing for a new job, information that is important to you, such as the salary, would be more salient compared to other details like small talk.
social categorization example
a person might partner up with a new girl who looks intelligent, due to her appearance and quiet nature but after partnering with her you realise they lazy and incompetent
physical cues example
a person walks into a coffee shop and is wearing glasses and a button shirt you you might think they are a nerd and smart and another person walks in with a leather jacket you might assume they are a motorbike rider
personal attribution
an explanation due to the characterisitcs of the person, such as personality and ability
- they are internal factors
situational attribution
explanation due to factors external to the person involved such as actions of another person, the environment
-they are external factors
fundamental attribution error
our tendency to overemphasis personal factors and ignore situational ones when judging the behavior of other people
example of a fundamental attribution error
people on the dole are lazy and the victim must have done something to provoke it
actor-observer bias
when explaining our own behavior, we tend to have an opposite bias to the fundamental attribution
self-serving bias
tendency to attribute our successes to internal factors and our failures to external factors.
example of self-serving bias
if you win a game, then you might attribute your success to skill but if you lose then you might blame the rules
attitudes
an attitude in psychology is a person’s evalution of other people, objects, issues or anything else
tri component model of attitudes
this proposes that attitudes have three related components affective, behavioural and cognitive
affective component
emotional component of attitudes which involves how you feel about people, objects, places. These feelings ca be good or bad or neutral
behavioral component
this is the action component which involves what you do as an expression of your attitude. It also refers to how you might behave if a certain situation occurs
cognitive component
this is the mental component which involves beliefs or thoughts that you have about people, objects or places. Beliefs are linked to what we know about the world and develop long experiences
inconsistency between the components
sometimes a person’s behaviour does not reflect the attitude they hold- they are out of sync
limitation of the tri-component model
sometimes its assumed that if we understand an attitude we can predict a person behaviour
stereotypes
a collection of fixed ideas about members of a certain group in which their individual differences are ignored
stereotyping
the process of creating stereotypes and matching people to them
how stereotypes are useful
lets us use less information about someone to determine what we think about them and thus makes using certain thinkng and decision making skills a lot faster
how stereotypes are harmful
individuals are unlikely to have all the characteristics that the stereotype assumes and individuals differences are ignored
stigma
negative attitudes against someone based on distinguishing characteristics, such as mental illness, disability gender, and sexuality
in-groups
any group that you belong to or identify with
out-groups
any group that you don’t belong with or identify with
cognitive dissonance
the discomfort that people experience when they have conflicting beliefs or when their behaviors contradict their beliefs
influences on cognitive biases
type of belief-more personal have greater dissonance
value of beliefs
level of conflict
cognitive biases
includes errors in thinking that lead us to misinterpret the information we perceive around
anchoring bias
tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information that you learn which results in a person making insufficient adjustments in decisions
