Psyc 379 Unit 4: Perceiving Persons

Social Perception

The processes by which people come to understand each other

opposite

As children, we are taught to never judge a book by its cover, but as adults, we do the (), forming first impressions based on a person’s face and physical appearance

attributions

The explanations we come up with as to why people behave the way they do are called ()

Personal Attribution

An Attribution which comes from internal characteristics of the actor, such as their ability, personality, mood, or effort

Situational Attribution

An attribution which comes from factors external to the actor, such as other people, a task, or luck

 correspondent inference theory

() predicts that people try to infer from an action whether the act corresponds to an enduring personal trait of the actor, being decided by degree of choice, expectedness of behavior, and intended effects of the behavior

Covariation Principle

 The principle which states that In order for something to be the cause of a behavior, it must be present when the behavior occurs and absent when it does not, based on consensus, distinctivness, and consistency of the bahviour

Availability Heuristic

 The tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind

False-Consensus Effect

A form of availability Heuristic in which The tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions, attributes, and behaviors

Base-Rate Fallacy

A form of availability heuristic in which  The finding that people are relatively insensitive to consensus information presented in the form of numerical base rates.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to focus on the role of personal causes and underestimate the impact of situations on other people’s behavior

Impression Formation

he process of integrating information about a person to form a coherent impression

Information Integration Theory

The theory that impressions are based on (1) perceiver dispositions and (2) a weighted average of a target person’s traits

Priming

The tendency for recently used or perceived words or ideas to come to mind easily and influence the interpretation of new information

Priming

 The tendency for information presented early in a sequence to have more impact on impressions than information presented later

Confirmation Biases

The tendency to seek, interpret, and create information that verifies existing beliefs

Belief Persrverance

The tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

 The process by which one’s expectations about a person eventually lead that person to behave in ways that confirm those expectations