PSY004 EXPLORING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

- Lecture 3 Social Thinking – Social Beliefs and Judgments

Social Perception
 The process by which people come to understand one another.
 We’ll look at:
 The “raw data” of social perception (Physical
appearance, behaviors, and situation)
 How we explain and analyze behavior
 How we integrate our observations into coherent impressions of
other persons
 How our impressions can subtly create a distorted picture of
reality
 We’re both perceiver and target

Attribution Theories
 Attribution: The process of assigning causes of behavior, both your
own and that of others.
 Attribution theory: The theory of how people explain others’ behavior.
 Explanations can be grouped into two categories:
 Personal (internal) Attributions, such as ability, personality,
motives, mood or effort
 Situational (external) Attributions, such as task, influence of others,
environment or luck

Fundamental Attribution Error

 When we explain other people’s behavior we tend to:
 Overestimate the role of personal factors, and
 Overlook the impact of situations
 Findings suggested that the fundamental error is a Western
phenomenon.

The Actor-Observer Bias

 When we act, the environment commands our attention.
 When we watch another person act, that person occupies the center of our
attention and the environment becomes relatively invisible
 An attribution bias showing that we prefer external attributions for our own
behavior, especially if outcomes are negative, whereas observers tend to
make internal attributions for the same behavior performed by others.

Summary
 People often form a quick impression based on a brief sample of behavior.
 More likely to commit the fundamental attribution error when one is
cognitively busy or distracted.
  Western culture emphasizes the importance of individual personal
responsibility.

Kelley’s Covariation Theory

 Covariation principle
 Harold Kelley (1973) described how we explain behavior by using information
about “consistency,” “distinctiveness,” and “consensus” .
 Consistency: Is the person’s behavior consistent over time in similar
situations?
 Consistency has to do with whether the behavior is a reliable
indicator of its cause.
 If yes, the behavior always happen in similar situations, consistency is
high.
 If no, the behavior is just a one-off special event, consistency is low.
 Consensus: How are other people reacting to the same situation?
 If you find everybody react in the same way, high consensus.
 If you find only the person react in that way, low consensus.
 High consensus leads to a situational attribution.
 Distinctiveness: Does the person react the same or differently to different
situation?
 If there is something unique or distinctive about the situation that
could have caused the behavior, high distinctiveness.
 If the behavior occurs when there is nothing distinctive or unusual
about the situation, low distinctiveness, then we make a person
attribution.
 The combination of high consensus and high distinctiveness always
leads to a situational attribution.
 The combination of low consensus and low distinctiveness always
leads to a person attribution.