PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Fundamental Attribution Error, Confirmation Bias, Social Cognition

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Penelope Kostopoulos

Document Summary

Social cognition: how ppl think, how we make decisions in social situations attribution: inferred reason or cause behind someone"s action. Internal attribution: because of you as an individual: external attributions: situational. The self-serving bias: something good happens because of you (internal attribution), when something bad happens because of something else (external attribution). Fundamental attribution error: regardless of positive or negative in general u make external attributions for yourself, and u make internal attributions for somebody else: u have privilege access to ur own mind, so u observe urself differently. Primacy affect: the first info u get abt somebody is remembered better than the info that comes later. Halo effect: if somebody has a positive trait, they must have other positive traits as well. Accuracy of first impressions: study; group of students at end of semester filled out a personality questionnaire. Thin slicing: little snippet of behavior, where u can infer on average accurately based on that snippet.