Psychology 4.1 (Attribution Theory & Person Perception)

Personality Psychology

Branch of Psychology that studies Stable Patterns in someone’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Social Psychology

Branch of Psychology that studies how someone’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are affected by a real, imagined or implied presence of others

Person Perception

Process of forming thoughts/views about ourselves and others quickly (Based upon stereotypes)

Attribution Theory

Theory that we explain someone’s behavior through their traits or a situation they’re in (Thinks someone is a drug dealer if they’re arrested)

Situational Attribution

How the environment and situation shapes someone’s beliefs on an individual more than through someone’s traits

Dispositional Attribution

Someone’s beliefs on an individual are from that person’s traits/personality

Fundamental Attribution Error

Tendency for someone to underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate someone’s feelings when analyzing a situation

Actor-Observer Bias

Someone attributes their own actions to external reasons, but when observing others they attribute the person’s actions to their personality

Social Comparison

Judge your success to others, feel better (Confidence up), feel worse (Confidence down), Ex. Class Reunions

Prejudice

Unjustifiable and USUALLY NEGATIVE attitude towards a group or its members

Stereotype

Generalized beliefs about a group of people

Discrimination

Unjustifiable NEGATIVE behavior/action towards a group or its members

Unconscious Patronization

The act of treating a specific group of people with less standards and usually negative stereotypes about their abilities

Just World Phenomenon

Cognitive bias where people believe the world is fair and that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people

In Group v Out Group

A group someone identifies with versus a group someone doesn’t belong to

Scapegoat Theory

Theory that explains that people displace their aggression or an innocent group or person

Other-Race Effect

Memory phenomenon where people are better at recognizing faces of their own racial group than faces from other groups