Psychology 2070A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Fundamental Attribution Error, Numeral System, Belief Perseverance

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2070A/B
• Professor: Alexa Clerke

Document Summary

Availability heuristic: estimating the odds of an event occurring by how easily previous instances come to mind. False-consensus effect: tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions. Base-rate fallacy: finding that people are relatively insensitive to numerical base rates or probabilities. Social perception: term for the processes by which people come to understand one another. Mind perception: process by which people attribute humanlike mental states to various animate and inanimate objects. Non-verbal behaviour: behaviour that reveals a person"s feelings through facial expressions, body language, and vocal cues. Attribution theory: group of theories that describe how people explain the causes of behaviour. Personal attribution: ascription to internal characteristics of an actor. Situational attribution: ascription to factors external to an actor. Covariation principle: idea that for something to cause behaviour, it must be present when the behaviour occurs. Counterfactual thinking: tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes that might have occurred but did not.