Real Life Examples of Social Perception in Action

📚 Quick Study Guide

• 🤔 Social Perception: The process by which we form impressions of others and draw conclusions about their characteristics and intentions.
• 🤝 Attribution Theory: Explains how we interpret the causes of behavior, either internal (dispositional) or external (situational).
• 🌟 Fundamental Attribution Error: The tendency to overestimate the role of dispositional factors and underestimate situational factors when explaining others' behavior.
• 🎭 Self-Serving Bias: The tendency to attribute our successes to internal factors and our failures to external factors.
• stereotyping: Using generalized beliefs about a group to form impressions of individuals.
• 😊 Primacy Effect: The tendency for first impressions to heavily influence our overall perception of someone.
• ✨ Confirmation Bias: The tendency to seek out information that confirms our existing beliefs and disregard information that contradicts them.

🧪 Practice Quiz

1. Which of the following is the BEST example of the fundamental attribution error?
   1. A) Assuming someone is late because they are irresponsible, rather than considering traffic.
   2. B) Blaming your own poor test score on a difficult exam.
   3. C) Giving someone a compliment to make them like you.
   4. D) Changing your opinion to match the majority.
2. A student gets a good grade on a test and believes it's because they are intelligent. They get a bad grade on another test and blame the teacher. This is an example of:
   1. A) The halo effect.
   2. B) Self-serving bias.
   3. C) Cognitive dissonance.
   4. D) The actor-observer bias.
3. Using stereotypes to judge someone is an example of:
   1. A) Accurate social perception.
   2. B) A cognitive heuristic.
   3. C) Objective observation.
   4. D) Ignoring individual differences.
4. You meet someone new and form a strong positive impression of them based on your first interaction. This is an example of:
   1. A) The recency effect.
   2. B) The primacy effect.
   3. C) Self-fulfilling prophecy.
   4. D) Cognitive bias.
5. Which bias leads you to seek out information confirming existing beliefs?
   1. A) Availability heuristic.
   2. B) Representativeness heuristic.
   3. C) Confirmation bias.
   4. D) Anchoring bias.
6. A coach attributes a team's win to their excellent training program, but attributes a loss to bad luck. This illustrates what concept?
   1. A) False consensus effect.
   2. B) Self-serving bias.
   3. C) Halo effect.
   4. D) Just-world phenomenon.
7. What is Attribution Theory most concerned with?
   1. A) How we persuade others to change their attitudes.
   2. B) How we explain the causes of behavior.
   3. C) How we develop romantic relationships.
   4. D) How we process visual information.