Social Perception and Attribution (Lecture Notes)

A set of practice flashcards covering social perception, attribution theories, cognitive biases, motivational biases, and self-fulfilling prophecy concepts from the lecture notes.

What is social perception?

The way we form impressions and inferences about others, including the social self, perceiving others, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, and gender identity.

What are the core elements involved in social perception?

Observation, attribution, dispositions, integrations, and impressions.

How can impressions form in social perception?

They can form via snap judgments from cues or after more deliberate processing of information.

Describe the perceiver–observation cycle in social perception.

Perceiver → observation → people/situation/behavior (snap judgments) → dispositions → integration → impression → confirmation back to the perceiver.

What role does indirect observation play in understanding others?

We rely on indirect cues because we cannot directly observe someone’s internal mental or emotional states.

How does physical appearance influence first impressions?

First impressions are influenced by features like height, weight, skin/hair color, tattoos/piercings, glasses; baby-faced vs. mature features affect perceived warmth and competence.

How are baby-faced defendants perceived in court regarding intentional wrongdoing vs. negligence?

Baby-faced defendants are more likely to be favored when accused of intentional wrongdoing but may be ruled against for negligence.

What is the general social effect of baby-faced appearance beyond court judgments?

Baby-faced individuals are more likely to receive help due to perceived warmth and naiveté.

What is the evolutionary explanation for responding to infantile features?

Humans and some animals have evolved to respond with nurturing to infantile features.

How do facial expressions influence perceived trustworthiness?

Happy faces are perceived as more trustworthy; angry faces are perceived as less trustworthy.

What is the concept of scripts in social perception?

Mental representations of expected goals, behaviors, and outcomes for a given situation that help anticipate what will happen.

What role do past experience and culture play in social perception?

They shape scripts and expectations about how situations and expressions will unfold.

What makes nonverbal behavior important in understanding others?

Nonverbal cues (facial expressions, eye contact, touch, body language, vocal cues) reveal feelings without words.

What is the anger superiority effect?

People are quicker to spot and slower to look away from angry faces than from neutral expressions.

What is the eye contact effect?

Direct eye contact grabs attention, increases arousal, and engages important social brain areas.

Why can deception be difficult to detect?

Faces express emotions easily and are hard to control; nervous movements and vocal patterns are harder to fake, making deception detectable through cues that require cognitive effort.

What are dispositions in attribution theory?

Stable characteristics such as personality, attitudes, and abilities inferred from what a person says or does.

What is the difference between personal and situational attributions?

Personal attributions attribute behavior to internal traits; situational attributions attribute behavior to external factors like the task, other people, or luck.

What is Correspondent Inference Theory (Davis, 1965)?

People infer that an action reflects an enduring personal trait; influenced by choice, expectedness, and effects.

What is Covariation Theory (Kelly, 1967)?

People use three types of information—consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency—to determine the likely cause of a behavior.

What is the difference between System 1 and System 2 thinking?

System 1 is fast and automatic; System 2 is slower and more effortful; biases can arise from relying on System 1.

What is the false consensus effect?

The tendency to overestimate how much others share our opinions, attributes, and behaviors.

What is the base-rate fallacy?

Neglecting base-rate information and paying too much attention to specific, situation-specific information.

What is counterfactual thinking and its emotional impact?

Imagining alternative events that could have happened; can lead to worse emotions (regret) or better feelings (relief) depending on the imagined alternative.

What is Belief in a Just World and its social consequences?

The belief that the world is fair, which can predict negative attitudes and discrimination toward marginalized groups, such as people with mental illness.

What domains are most associated with counterfactual thinking and regret?

Education (e.g., I should have finished my degree), Career (e.g., if only I had applied for that job), Romance (e.g., if only I had asked them out).

What is the fundamental attribution error?

The tendency to overemphasize personal causes and underestimate the influence of situational factors on others’ behavior.

What are motivational biases in social perception?

Wishful seeing, need for self-esteem, belief in a just world, and victim blaming.

What is Wishful Seeing?

Motivated visual perception—seeing what you want to see.

What is the need for self-esteem in social perception?

People are motivated to maintain self-esteem, leading to self-serving attributions and biased interpretations.

What is victim blaming and when does it occur?

A motivational bias extending the fundamental attribution error, more likely when events are severe, threaten the self, or when people identify with the victim.

What is the information integration theory of impression formation?

Impressions are based on a weighted average of a person’s characteristics and their dispositions.

What is priming in the context of impression formation?

Recent experiences can bias interpretation of new information and influence impressions.

What are target and context characteristics in impression formation?

Target characteristics include trait negativity bias and the innuendo effect; context characteristics include situational factors like meeting someone right before an interview.

What is implicit personality theory?

The belief that one trait implies others (central traits) and guides how we infer a person’s overall personality.

What is confirmation bias and belief perseverance in social perception?

Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek and interpret information to confirm preconceptions; belief perseverance is maintaining beliefs even after evidence disproves them.

What is a classic example of the self-fulfilling prophecy in education?

Telling teachers that certain students are on the verge of a growth spurt can lead to those students performing as if they had higher potential, affecting IQ scores and teacher evaluations.

What are the three steps of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

1) A perceiver has expectations of a target; 2) The perceiver behaves in line with those expectations; 3) The target unconsciously adjusts behavior to confirm the expectations.