Social Perception and Behaviour
High-Yield Summary
- Social perception (social cognition) = 3 components: perceiver (own experience/motives/emotional state), target (person being judged), situation (determines available info).
- Impression formation: unfiltered cues → categorization → confirmation → selective attention to consistent cues. Asch: primacy effect (first impressions dominate) vs. recency effect (most recent info dominates); reliance on central traits; implicit personality theory underlies stereotyping.
- Halo effect (Thorndike, 1920): overall impression of a person bleeds into an unrelated specific judgment (e.g., attractive → assumed trustworthy). Just-world hypothesis (Lerner): belief that good/bad things happen to good/bad people — leads to victim-blaming.
- Self-serving bias: attribute own successes to internal factors, own failures to external factors — protects self-esteem via self-enhancement (motivational) and locus of control (cognitive). More common with high self-esteem; less common in close relationships (joint attribution instead).
- Attribution theory (Heider): dispositional/internal (person's traits/beliefs) vs. situational/external (context — threats, money, norms, peer pressure) causes.
- Kelley's covariation model — 3 cues: consistency (same behavior over time → dispositional), consensus (behavior differs from others → dispositional; matches others → situational), distinctiveness (varies across situations → situational). Correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis): intentional acts affecting the observer → dispositional attribution.
- Fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977): general bias toward dispositional over situational explanations, especially for negative behavior. More common in individualistic cultures (independence-valuing); less common in collectivist cultures (interdependence-valuing). Attribute substitution (Kahneman & Frederick): complex judgment replaced by a simpler heuristic question.
Key Terms
- Primacy effect
- First impressions carry more weight than later information (Asch).
- Recency effect
- The most recent information about a person carries the most weight in forming an impression.
- Halo effect
- A general impression of a person bleeds into an unrelated, specific judgment about them (Thorndike).
- Just-world hypothesis
- Belief that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people; promotes victim-blaming (Lerner).
- Self-serving bias
- Attributing one's own successes to internal factors and one's own failures to external factors.
- Dispositional (internal) attribution
- Explaining behavior via the person's own traits, beliefs, or personality.
- Situational (external) attribution
- Explaining behavior via features of the surrounding context.
- Fundamental attribution error
- General bias toward dispositional over situational explanations, especially for negative behavior (Ross).
Kelley's Covariation Model — 3 Cues
| Cue | High value points toward |
|---|---|
| Consistency (same over time?) | High consistency → dispositional |
| Consensus (do others act this way?) | Low consensus (unusual) → dispositional; high consensus → situational |
| Distinctiveness (varies by situation?) | High distinctiveness (situation-specific) → situational |
Just-World Hypothesis vs. Self-Serving Bias
| Concept | Direction of judgment |
|---|---|
| Just-world hypothesis | About other people/the world — outcomes are deserved (→ blaming victims) |
| Self-serving bias | About oneself — own success = internal, own failure = external |
Common MCAT Trap
- Primacy = early information dominates; recency = most recent information dominates — opposite directions, easy to swap.
- Halo effect is a general impression bleeding into an unrelated judgment, not the same as ordinary category-based stereotyping.
- Just-world hypothesis judges someone ELSE's misfortune as deserved; self-serving bias explains one's OWN outcomes — don't conflate self- vs. other-directed bias.
- Individualistic cultures commit the fundamental attribution error MORE often (dispositional lean); collectivist cultures LESS often (situational lean).
Quick Recall
A supervisor's impression of a new hire is permanently colored by that hire's strong first-day performance, months later. Primacy or recency effect?
Someone assumes an attractive coworker is also trustworthy and friendly, despite no evidence. Which bias?
A person is consistently rude, rude when almost no one else is, and rude in every setting. Dispositional or situational attribution?
A student blames a poor grade on an unfair test but credits a good grade to their own hard work. Which bias?
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