Lecture 3 – social perception

What is perception?
 Mental grasp of objects through the senses
o Differs from sensation

What is social perception?

 Take in info and form impressions of other people

Common components of attribution theory

 Internal vs. external
o Internal
o External
 Stable vs. unstable
o Stable
o Unstable

Gilbert’s two stage model

 Initially make internal attributions
o Then, if motivated, will adjust attribution

Attributional errors
1. Fundamental attribution error
o Underestimate the impact of situational processes on behaviour (make
internal attribution)
2. Actor-observer bias
o External attribution for own behaviour, internal for other’s behaviour
3. Self-serving bias
o Internal attribution for own successes, external attribution for own failires

Social perception
 How we organiise information about other people
o … observing behaviour
o … from third parties
o … direct interactions
o Schemas

Schemas
 How we store much of information that we have
 Organiser set of thoughts and beliefs about a stimulus object

How do schemas work?

1. We perceive what we expect to perceive
2. Schemas are resistant to change
 Self-fulfillinf prophecy
2a. self-fulfilling prophecy
 Tendency to confirm our schemas by behaving in a way to provoke schema-
consistent behaviour from others
o Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)