Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Fundamental Attribution Error, Social Influence, Social Perception

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: Maxwell- Smith

Document Summary

Attribution theory: applied to other people: attributions (in the context of social thinking) = inferences that people draw about the (cid:272)auses of othe(cid:396)(cid:859)s (cid:271)eha(cid:448)iou(cid:396) Modes of social information processing: automatic processing = effortless and uncontrollable judgements; w/o any thought, person perception is an automatic process, controlled processing = effortful and elaborate judgements; intentional thought. Judgements about others are either made with or without cognitive thought. Ingroup vs. outgroup ((cid:862)the easy path of categorization(cid:863)) People have more favourable attitudes toward ingroup members: outgroup (cid:894)(cid:862)the(cid:373)(cid:863)(cid:895): people dissimilar to the perceiver. People tend to see all outgroup members as being much more alike each other than they really are; but, in contrast, people see each ingroup member as a unique individual (cid:894)(cid:862)the outgroup homogeneity effect(cid:863)) If receivers are forewarned about a persuasion attempt on a topic that is personally important to them, it is harder to persuade them than if they were not forewarned. Psychology lecture 3 (part 2) social thinking, social influence.