Chapter 3 Understanding Perceptions and Attributions

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Chapter 3Understanding Perceptions and
Attributions

• The Perceptual Process (esp. Figure 3.1, p. 68)
• Perceptual Selection
• Person Perception
• Perceptual Errors
• Attributions Perceived Causes of Behavior
• Exercise Truth or Consequences?

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Perception

• Definition The process by which people select,
  organize, interpret, and respond to information
  from the world around them.
• Perception (consciously and unconsciously)
  involves searching for, obtaining, and processing
  information in the mind in an attempt to make
  sense of the world
• Selection and organization often account for
  differences in interpretation/perception between
  individuals observing the same stimuli

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Basic Elements in the Perceptual Process (See
Figure 3.1, page 68)
Observation Taste Smell
Hearing Sight Touch
Environmental Stimuli
Perceptual Selection External factors
Internal factors
Perceptual Organization
Perceptual grouping
Interpretation Perceptual errors Attributions
Response Covert Overt
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Concepts Manifest in the Princeton Case

• Selective Screening the process by which people
  filter out most information so they can deal with
  the most important matters
• Perceptual Set an expectation of a perception
  based on past experience with the same or similar
  objects
• Pollyanna Principle the notion that pleasant
  stimuli are processed more efficiently and
  accurately than unpleasant stimuli an effect of
  motivation on perception
• Perceptual Grouping tendency to form individual
  stimuli into a meaningful pattern by continuity,
  closure, proximity, or similarity

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Person Perception

• Definition the process by which individuals
  attribute characteristics or traits to other
  people closely related to attribution
• Implicit personality theories personal beliefs
  about the relationships among others physical
  characteristics, personality traits, and specific
  behaviors
• Impression Management the attempt people make
  to manipulate or control the impressions others
  form about them

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Common Perceptual Errors

• Perceptual defense the tendency for people to
  protect themselves against ideas, objects, or
  situations that are threatening
• Stereotyping the tendency to assign attributes
  to someone solely on the basis of the category of
  people, of which that person is a member
• Halo effect the process by which the perceiver
  evaluates another person solely on the basis of
  one attribute, either favorable or unfavorable
• Projection the tendency for people to see their
  own traits in others
• Expectancy effects extent to which expectations
  bias how events, objects, and people are actually
  perceived
• Self-fulfilling prophecy expecting certain
  things to happen will shape the behavior of the
  perceiver in such a way that the expected is more
  likely to happen

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Nature of the Attribution Process

• Definition The ways in which people come to
  understand the causes of their own and others
  behaviors
• Most often an unconscious process (i.e., people
  are not normally aware of making attributions)
• People are constantly attributing the behavior of
  themselves and others to either internal (i.e.,
  personal) or external (i.e., situational) causes.

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The Attribution Process
Antecedents-- factors internal to the perceiver

• Information
• Beliefs
• Motivation

• Perceived external
• or internal causes
• of behavior

Attributions made by the perceiver

• Behavior
• Feelings
• Expectations

Consequences for the perceiver
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Theory of Causal Attributions
Consistency Does person usually behave this way
in this situation?
Yes
Yes
Distinctiveness Does person behave differently in
different situations?
Internal Attribution (to persons disposition)
External Attribution (to persons situation)
No
Yes
Consensus Do others behave similarly in
this situation?
No
Yes
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Frequent Attribution Errors

• Fundamental Attribution Error overestimating
  the personal causes for others behavior while
  underestimating the situational causes
• Self-Serving Bias attributing personal success
  to internal factors and personal failure to
  external factors