COMM Chapter 4

attribution

an explanation for an observed behavior

egocentric

unable to take another person's perspective

fundamental attribution error

the tendency to attribute others' behaviors to internal rather than external causes

interpersonal perception

the process of making meaning from the people in our environment and our relationships with them

interpretation

the process of assigning meaning to information that has been selected for attention and organized

negativity bias

the tendency to focus heavily on a person's negative attributes when forming a perception

organization

the process categorizing information that has been selected for attention

overattribution

the tendency to attribute a range of behaviors to a single characteristic of a person

perception

the process of making meaning from the things we experience in the environment

perceptual set

a predisposition to perceive only what we want or expect to perceive

positivity bias

the tendency to focus heavily on a person's positive attributes when forming a perception

primacy effect

the tendency to emphasize the first impression over later impressions when forming a perception

recency effect

the tendency to emphasize the most recent impression over earlier impressions when forming a perception

selection

the process of attending to a stimulus

self-serving bias

the tendency to attribute one's successes to internal causes and one's failures to external causes

stereotypes

generalizations about groups of people that are applied to individual members of those groups