PSY 2401 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Milgram Experiment, Fundamental Attribution Error, Self-Perception Theory
Social Perception- processes by we come to understand other people
●Not only doing this to others but they’re doing it to us
●Describes people, behavior, and/or circumstances
●Explains people, behavior, and/or circumstances
●Synthesize information to form an impression of another person
●Impressions influence our perceptions
Initial Impressions
●Almost always based on nonverbal information
○Do this by looking at someone's physical appearance
●Children as young as 3 years old do this
●Facial expressions- help us make impressions even if it’s neutral
○We especially orient towards people’s faces when it comes to nonverbal
information, known from birth
○Evolutionary purposes- people payed attention to facial expressions before there
was language
○6 facial expressions unique to worldwide culture- happy, angry, disgust, sad,
scared, surprised contempt is gaining attraction as the 7th
■People who have been blind their whole life still make these faces
suggesting an evolutionary purpose or underline
○pride , shame- less consistent than pride
■Extreme individualist cultures like USA, considered to be bad to exhibit
shame, be proud of yourself, don’t tend to physically respond to shame as
other cultures do
○Because facial expressions give us so much info that when we can’t see facial
expressions, communication is hard
■Ex: texting
Attributions- explanation somebody comes up with for themselves or someone else
●Attribution Theory (Heider, 1958): the way in which people explain causes of their
own and other people’s behavior
○Personal (internal) attributions- this person did this because it’s something
about them as a person (disposition)
■We have a tendency to rely on internal attributions because people are
more interesting to us not the situation
○Situational (external) attributions- something or somebody else, it’s external to
the person, maybe their family member is dying and they’re rushing, this situation
is forcing them to be this way
Correspondent Inference Theory- when we’re evaluating
●Choice: if they freely chose thing thing than we are relying on internal attributions
○If you choose to go to college it says more about you than your parents forcing
you to
●Expectedness: is this what we expect people to do
○If it’s not expected we’re more likely to rely on internal
○Elevator example if they don’t do what’s expected you can inference more about
them
●Effects: consequences of their behavior, if it is something good, then I’m less likely to
rely on internal attribution
○(+) everyone does this so it doesn’t tell me a lot about you
○(-) tells me more about you because you’re doing something without getting
something good
○(CIT) correspondence between you as a person and your behavior
Covariation Model (Kelly, 1967)
●attributions are formed by nothing if/how the person's behavior changes (covaries) across
time, place, different actors, and different stimuli/targets
●In order to assess to make an attribution we look at: consensus information,
distinctiveness information and consistency information
●actor= person were trying to explain, give an attribution to
●targets= other people that the actor is interacting with
○Other people but could be anything or anyone that the actor is behaving to
Consensus Information
●When we pay attention to what other people are doing
●Information about whether or not other people behave the same way toward the stimulus
(target) as the actor
●How do other people react to your best friend; if they react the same way we make
external attribution
●When other people don’t respond the same way to the target, we use internal attribution,
does covary
Distinctiveness Information
●Trying to decide if behavior we observed is unusual or not
●Information about whether or not the actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli
(target)
●If they hate all your friends you rely on internal attribution
●Abnormal behavior if they only hate Kayla- external attribution
Document Summary
Social perception- processes by we come to understand other people. Not only doing this to others but they"re doing it to us. Synthesize information to form an impression of another person. Do this by looking at someone"s physical appearance. Children as young as 3 years old do this. Facial expressions- help us make impressions even if it"s neutral. We especially orient towards people"s faces when it comes to nonverbal information, known from birth. Evolutionary purposes- people payed attention to facial expressions before there. 6 facial expressions unique to worldwide culture- happy, angry, disgust, sad, was language scared, surprised contempt is gaining attraction as the 7th suggesting an evolutionary purpose or underline. People who have been blind their whole life still make these faces. Pride , shame- less consistent than pride. Extreme individualist cultures like usa, considered to be bad to exhibit shame, be proud of yourself, don"t tend to physically respond to shame as other cultures do.