Download Chapter 6: Social Thinking

5 sources of information used in impression
formation:
1) Appearance
2) Verbal statements
3) Actions
4) Nonverbal messages
5) Situations
Types of impressions vary:
1) Snap
2) Systematic judgments
Attributions:
a) internal/external
b) stable/unstable
c) controllability
Used when:
1) Unusual event occur
2) Events have personal consequences
3) Motives seem suspicious
4) Person behaves in unexpected ways
Expectations also influence perceptions:
1) Confirmation bias
2) Self-fulfilling prophecy
Other sources of error (caused by perceiver distortions):
1) Categorizing
$ attitudes towards members of ingroup are
more positive
$ Tend to see members of the outgroup as
more similar to each other than they are in
reality
$ Categorizing heightens the visibility of
outgroup members when there are only a
few of them within a larger group.
2) Stereotypes
3) Fundamental Attribution Error
4) Defensive attribution
recurrent themes:
1) efficiency
2) selectivity
3) stability
The problem of prejudice
Prejudice
Discrimination
Causes of prejudice:
1) Cognitive distortions
$ Fundamental attribution errorBexplain situations
based on personal factors rather than situational
factors
$ Defensive attributions- blame victim for their
circumstances.
2) Authoritarian Personality
3) Competition between groups
4) Threats to social identity
Reducing Prejudice
a) move from automatic to controlled processing
b) intergroup contact
The power of persuasion
persuasion
Attitudes
central route
peripheral route
Power of social pressure
Conformity
$ group size
$
group unanimity
$ ambiguous situations
$ reason to doubt judgements
$ high/low status
compliance
Obedience
Milgram=s shock study (on obedience)
Zimbardo=s prison study (on conformity)