PSYC 1010 Lecture Notes - Fundamental Attribution Error, Social Perception, Victim Blaming

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: all

Document Summary

Social psychology - the branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are in uenced by others. People s perceptions of others can be distorted by a variety of factors, including physical appearance. People tend to attribute desirable characteristics, such as intelligence, competence, warmth, and friendliness, to those who are good looking. Perceptions of people are also in uenced by their style of nonverbal expressiveness. People use social schemas to categorize others into types. Stereotypes are widely held social schemas that lead people to expect the others will have certain characteristics because of their membership in a speci c group. Gender, age, ethnic, and occupational stereotypes are common. In interactive with others, stereotypes may lead people to see what they expect to see and to overestimate how often they see it. The spotlight effect and the illusion of asymmetric insight illustrate the subjective natures of social perception.