What is perception in cognitive terms?
A cognitive process that enables interpretation and understanding of the environment.
What does physical perception involve?
Gathering information through the five senses and adding meaning to it.
Which three steps does perception use to process environmental information?
Selective attention, organization and categorization, and interpretation.
Why is perception unique to each individual?
Because people perceive the world around them differently.
How does perception act as a mechanism?
As a translation and distortion mechanism.
What is social perception?
The process by which people come to understand one another.
On what is social perception based?
Acquired and unconscious assumptions and mental models.
What guides social perception?
Needs, motivations, interests, and mood.
What type of process is social perception?
An interactive, intersubjective process.
What do perceptions influence in social perception?
Current and future behavior.
How is personality classified compared to identity?
Personality is a psychological question, identity is sociological.
To what is identity connected?
Perception.
What factors in the perceiver affect social perception?
Attitudes, motives, interests, values, familiarity, and self-concept affect the perceiver.
Which factors in the target influence social perception?
Novelty, motion, sounds, size, background, proximity, similarity, communication, and inferred intention influence the target.
What situational factors influence social perception?
Time, work setting, social setting, mood, experience, knowledge, and expectations influence the situation.
What are barriers to social perception?
Attribution errors, selective perception, stereotyping, first-impression effects, projection, and self-fulfilling prophecies are barriers.
What is selective perception?
Selecting information that supports one’s viewpoint while ignoring other information.
What does selective exposure involve?
Actively avoiding arguments that contradict one’s own opinions.
What is projection bias?
Attributing one’s own traits and beliefs to others and assuming they are commonly held.
How does confirmation bias influence information processing?
It biases the search, interpretation, and memory of facts in favor of an existing view.
What is the halo effect?
Drawing a general impression about a person from a single positive or negative trait.
What is the contrast effect in evaluating people?
Evaluating a person by comparing them with recently encountered people ranked higher or lower.
What does attribution theory explain about behavior causes?
It explains how people infer if behavior is caused by internal or external factors.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
It is the tendency to attribute others' behavior to internal causes while underestimating external causes.
What did Jones and Harris's 1967 study find about essay writer attitude inference?
Participants inferred attitude from essay content while neglecting if the writer was forced.
What is the self-serving bias?
It is the tendency to attribute successes to internal causes and failures to external causes.
What is a stereotype in social psychology?
A stereotype is the cognitive dimension of an attitude and a social belief about a target group.
What are the three steps in social identification?
Categorization, identification, and comparison.
How do people favor their in-group during social identification?
By comparing groups and favoring their own in-group.
What are three functions of stereotypes?
Simplify reality, support positive self-image, and help maintain control.
According to Fiske (1998), how are men stereotypically viewed?
As competent and independent.
According to Fiske (1998), how are women stereotypically viewed?
As warm and expressive.
Who researched sex stereotypes in 1998?
Fiske.
What distinguishes stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination?
Stereotype is cognitive, prejudice is emotional, discrimination is conative.
What is stereotype threat?
Tension from fear of confirming a negative stereotype.
What causes a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Expectations shaping interactions that make behavior match those expectations.
What IQ increase did Rosenthal and Jacobson find in late bloomers?
An average increase of 8 IQ points.
Name one factor explaining the Pygmalion effect.
Climate.
What behavior did children labeled inferior show in Jane Elliott's exercise?
They adopted the behavior and performance of inferior students.
What preference did most Black children show in the Clark Doll Experiment?
They preferred a white doll over a Black doll.
Test your knowledge with 23 questions on Perception and Social Cognition.
1. What does perception enable a person to do?
2. Which example best illustrates physical perception?
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