L5. Social Perception and Cognition

Social Perception

The processes by which we form impressions of other people’s traits and personalities.

Attribution

The process of observing others’ behavior and inferring causes (e.g., intentions, traits, motives, situational pressures) to explain why people act as they do.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to focus on information consistent with a belief and ignore or downplay information that is inconsistent.

Schemas

A well-organized structure of cognitions about a specific social entity (e.g., a person, group, role, or event).

Categorization

The mental tendency to perceive stimuli as members of groups or classes rather than as isolated, unique entities.

Prototype

An abstraction that represents the “typical” or quintessential instance of a class or group.

Schematic Processing

The use of schemas to influence recall, speed up information processing, guide inferences, and reduce ambiguity.

Complexity-Extremity Effect

The phenomenon where greater schematic complexity leads to less extreme judgments (e.g., about large/diverse groups), while less complex schemas lead to more extreme judgments (e.g., about small/uniform or outgroups).

Person Schemas

Cognitive structures that describe the personalities, temperament, and typical reactions of other individuals.

Implicit Personality Theory

A set of unstated assumptions about which personality traits and behaviors are correlated with one another.

Halo Effect

A bias where perceiving a person as generally good leads to the assumption they possess other positive traits, potentially causing inaccurate ratings.

Group Schemas (Stereotypes)

A set of characteristics attributed to all members of a specified group or social category.

Subtyping

The process of creating subcategories for stereotyped group members who are seen as exceptions, without challenging the overall stereotype.

Stereotype Threat

The experience of anxiety or concern that one will be judged based on a negative stereotype about their group, which can lead to impaired performance.

Social Role Model (Origin of Stereotypes)

A theory proposing that stereotypes arise from society's biased distribution of people into roles, with the characteristics of those roles then attributed to the individuals.

Stereotype Content Model (Origin of Stereotypes)

A model focusing on status, proposing that higher-status groups are stereotyped with positive characteristics and lower-status groups with negative ones.

Impression Formation

The process of organizing diverse information about a person into a unified impression.

Trait Centrality

The degree to which a trait has a large impact on the overall impression formed of a person.

Primacy Effect

In impression formation, giving more weight to information received early in a sequence than to information received later.

Recency Effect

In impression formation, under certain conditions, having the most recent information exert the strongest influence on impressions.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

When our behavior toward people, based on our impressions, causes them to react in ways that confirm our original impressions.

Heuristics

Thinking strategies or mental shortcuts that enable quick, efficient judgments.

Availability Heuristic

A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things based on how easily instances come to mind (their availability in memory).

Representativeness Heuristic

The tendency to presume someone or something belongs to a group if they resemble (represent) a typical member.

Attribution Theory

The theory of how people explain others' behavior by attributing it to internal dispositions or external situations.

Dispositional Attribution

Attributing behavior to the internal state (e.g., traits, motives, attitudes) of the person who performed it.

Situational Attribution

Attributing behavior to the environment or external circumstances.

Misattribution

Mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source.

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences when explaining others' behavior.

Focus-of-Attention Bias

The tendency to overestimate the causal impact of whomever or whatever we focus our attention on.

Actor-Observer Bias

The tendency for observers to attribute an actor's behavior to the actor's disposition, while actors attribute their own behavior to the situation.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency for individuals to attribute their positive outcomes to internal causes (taking credit) and negative outcomes to external causes (deflecting blame).

Words of Affirmation (Love Language)

Expressing love through verbal compliments, words of appreciation, and encouragement.

Acts of Service (Love Language)

Expressing love by doing helpful and thoughtful tasks for your partner.

Physical Touch (Love Language)

Expressing love through non-sexual physical affection like hugging, holding hands, or cuddling.

Quality Time (Love Language)

Expressing love by giving your partner your undivided attention through shared activities and active listening.

Receiving Gifts (Love Language)

Feeling loved when given thoughtful gifts as symbols of care and effort.