PSYCH101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Social Proof, Cognitive Dissonance, Fundamental Attribution Error

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Richard Ennis

Document Summary

Lecture 11 textbook notes: social psychology (modules 43-46) Social psychologists study how people think about, inluence, and relate to one another. Atribute theory: the theory that we explain someone"s behaviour by crediing either the situaion or the other person"s disposiion. Fundamental atribuion error: the tendency for observers, when analyzing another"s behaviour, to underesimate the impact of the situaion and to overesimate the impact of personal disposiion. Aitude: feelings, oten inluenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a paricular way to objects, people and events. Aitudes inluence behaviour when other inluences are minimal, and when the aitude is stable, speciic to the behaviour, and easily recalled. Central route to persuasion: occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favourable thoughts. Peripheral route to persuasion: occurs when people are inluenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker"s atraciveness.