Unit 4.1 Vocab Flashcards
What is person perception?
The mental processes we use to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics and motives of other people.
What is attribution theory?
The theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition.
What are dispositional attributions?
Explanations of someone’s behavior in terms of factors internal to the person, such as traits or preferences.
What are situational attributions?
Explanations of people’s behavior that refer to external events, such as the weather, luck, accidents, or other people’s actions.
What is explanatory style?
How people explain good and bad events in their lives and others’.
What is actor-observer bias?
The tendency to blame our actions on the situation and blame the actions of others on their personalities.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
The tendency for observers, when analyzing others’ behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.
What is self-serving bias?
Attributing our successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.
What is internal locus of control?
The perception that we control our own fate.
What is external locus of control?
The perception that chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate.
What is the mere exposure effect?
The phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them.
What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
When people behave in ways that elicit behaviors from others that confirm their beliefs or perceptions.
What are mirror-image perceptions?
Mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive.
What is social comparison?
Occurs when people evaluate themselves based on comparisons to others.
What is relative deprivation?
The perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself.
