The Self & Others

Perception as a process Perception is the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting

information from our senses.Selecting information

The first step of perceptions is selection- focusing our attention on certain sights, sounds, tastes, touches, or smells in our environment

o Salience: degree to which something is noticeable and significant to usOrganizing the information you’ve selected

The second step of perception is organization structuring selected information into a coherent pattern

o Punctuation: structuring information in chronological sequence that matches how you experienced the order of events

Interpreting the information The final step of perception is interpretation- assigning meaning to selected

informationo Schemata: mental structures containing information that defines

concepts characteristics and interrelationships Attributions are explanations for self and others’ comments or behaviors

o Attributions take two forms: Internal attributions (dispositional): behavior stems from

internal causes, namely personality Bad driver: that lady is an idiot No reply to email: no response b/c they don’t care

External attributions (situational): behavior stems from external causes, namely circumstances

Bad driver: rushing to the hospital No reply to email: no internet

o Three errors in attribution Fundamental attribution error

Make internal attributions about others as opposed to external

Don’t/cant perceive whole situations Don’t/cant know the external circumstances

Actor-observer effect Make external attributions about own behavior Believe that our behavior is more situationally variable

than others Assumptions of consistency: expect other to be

consistent and not influenced by situations external circumstances

Self-serving bias Make internal attributions regarding our successes, and

external attributions regarding our failures

o Exam passed: I’m a geniuso Exam failed: The exam was hard

o Constructing gestalts Gestalts are general impressions of people, either positive or

negative Based on few observations Made quickly Require little communicative or mental effort

Halo effect: positively interpreting what someone says or does because we have a positive gestalt of them

Horn effect: negatively interpreting the communication of people for whom we have negative gestalts

Pollyanna effect: perceive positive events as more likely to occur than negative ones

News coverage Positively effect/bias: the tendency for gestalts to be positive

when first formed Benefit of the doubt Con artists exploit

Primacy effect: the tendency to keep the first impression Negativity effect: the tendency to emphasize negative

information we learn