Psych 338: Midterm 1, Week 3

Front 1

Perception

Back 1

the process of interpreting the messages of our senses to provide order and meaning to the environment
• The process through which people select, organize, and interpret information about other people

Front 2

Components of Perception:

Back 2

3 parts: perceiver, target, situational context
• The Situation (time, work setting, social situation)
• The Target (ambiguity, novelty, similarity)
• The Perceiver (Attitudes, Motives, Experience, Expectations, Interests)

Front 3

The Perceiver

Back 3

• needs, experiences, emotions can affect his or her perceptions of a target
• most important characteristics
• our needs unconsciously influence our perceptions

Front 4

Perceptual defense:

Back 4

the tendency for the perceptual system to defend the perceiver against the unpleasant emotions
• example: we “see what we want to see” and “hear what we want to hear”

Front 5

The Target

Back 5

• ambiguous targets are the most susceptible to interpretation and addition
• specific doesn’t mean less ambiguity

Front 6

The Situation

Back 6

• context can affect what one perceives
• example: receiving a critical comment when you’re up for promotion v. when you’re not
• the most important effect a situation can have is to add information about the target

Front 7

Social Identity Theory:

Back 7

A theory that states that people form perceptions of themselves based on their personal characteristics and membership in social situations.

Front 8

A Model of the Perceptual Process

Back 8

Model Example
Unfamiliar target encountered, Openness to target cues, Familiar cues are encountered, Target categorized, Cue selectivity, Categorization strengthened

Front 9

Three important characteristics of the perceptual process:

Back 9

1. perception is selective – can be efficient – this efficiency can both aid and hinder
2. perceptual constancy – the target is perceived the same way over time – eg. getting off on the wrong foot
3. perceptual consistency – the tendency to select, ignore and distort cues

Front 10

Primacy effect

Back 10

the tendency for a perceiver to rely on early cues or first impressions.

Front 11

Recency Effect

Back 11

the tendency for a perceiver to rely on recent cues or last impressions.

Front 12

Central traits

Back 12

personal characteristics of a target person that are of particular interest to a perceiver
• physical appearance; “attractive” equates “good”

Front 13

Implicit personality theories

Back 13

personal theories that people have about which personality characteristics go together.
eg. hardworking people are also honest

Front 14

Projection:

Back 14

the tendency for perceivers to attribute their own thoughts and feelings to others.
• can be efficient and sensible perceptual strategy

Front 15

Similar-to-me effect:

Back 15

Tendency for rater to give more favourable evaluations to people who are similar to him/her in terms of background or attitudes

Front 16

Halo effect:

Back 16

Rater’s tendency to let rating on one trait colour ratings on unrelated traits

Front 17

Stereotyping:

Back 17

the tendency to generalize about certain people in a certain social category and ignore variations among them.

Front 18

Three specific aspects of stereotyping:

Back 18

1. distinguish a category of people (Asians)
2. assume they all share certain traits (All good at math)
3. we perceive everyone in this group/category to possess these traits (all Asians are good at math)
• eg. “Ms. Smith” is perceived to be more masculine, achievement oriented, less likeable than “Miss Smith or Mrs. Smith”
• helps develop impressions of ambiguous targets
• tend to make assumptions about occupations

Front 19

Does Being Attractive Affect Your Salary?

Back 19

• Five years after graduation, lawyers of above average attractiveness were earning 8-9% more than those below average attractiveness.
• After 15 years the difference was 12-13% (Stone et al., 1992)
• Of 700 MBA students, male graduates rated most attractive got starting salary of $5,000 more than those rated least attractive (Frieze et al., 1991)

Front 20

Does being overweight affect your chances of getting a job?

Back 20

• Raters viewed 320 mock job interview videos then made hiring decision
• Interviewees who appeared to be overweight were less likely to be hired
• Effect was stronger for women (Pingitore et al., 1994)

Front 21

Discrimination: Correlational Evidence

Back 21

• All women workers: 73 cents on the dollar
• Full-time workers 81 cents on the dollar
• White and asian workers tend to make more than African American and hispanic
• education and gender are both related to pay

Front 22

Names and gender dominated professions

Back 22

The men who were working in the male-dominated professions were rated a lot higher than the females in the male-dominated professions, whereas the males in the female dominated trait were rated lower than the females, but still higher than the females in the male dominated fields. When it was gender neutral jobs the males were still rated higher

Front 23

Descriptive:

Back 23

What is or what a group members are like

Front 24

Proscriptive:

Back 24

What should be or how group members should be or behave

Front 25

How are males and females described?

Back 25

Males; Agentic; scientific, determined, skillful, industrious, shrewd
Females; communal; helpful, good natured, sincere, sociable, warm

Front 26

Lack of Fit Model

Back 26

• [Gender Stereotype + Stereotype of Position] => Degree of Fit => Expectations

Front 27

Violating Gender Sterotypes: Daring to succeed in a Male’s World (Heilman & Wallen, 2010)

Back 27

• Females in the male dominated jobs are not as well liked as the males, the males in the female dominated job were equally as well liked
• females in the male dominated jobs were not as well respected (but there wasn’t as much a distance as the liking), and the males were not nearly as well respected in the female jobs (but the females weren’t respected nearly as much either)

Front 28

Engaging in Gender Stereotypic Behaviour: Do Women Benefit from Helping at Work? (Heilmen & Chen, 2005)

Back 28

• males that helped were rated very highly, men that didn’t help were rated middle, and about the same for no information
• females that helped were rated average, not helping was rated very low, and the highest rating was with no information

Front 29

Reaping Rewards for Helping

Back 29

• men that participated in OCBs were more likely to get promoted
• women that participated in OCBs didn’t really have a difference

Front 30

Female Competence, Ambiguity and Team Performance

Back 30

Heilman & Haynes (2005)
• Provide individuals with performance information about successful team or individual performance
• individual feed back: men and women were rated about the same
• group feedback: men were rated higher, women much lower

Front 31

Ambiguity: Uhlmann & Cohen (2005)

Back 31

• males: rated low for street smart, high on education
• female: rated about the same for street smarts and education

Front 32

Attribution:

Back 32

the process by which causes or motives are assigned to explain people’s behaviour
• must decide whether behaviour is caused by dispositional or situational factors

Front 33

Dispositional attributes:

Back 33

explanations for behaviour based on an actor’s personality or intellect

Front 34

Situational attributes:

Back 34

explanations for behaviour based on an actor’s external situation or environment

Front 35

Questions for if its situational or dispositional?

Back 35

Implicit questions guide our decisions for whether it is dispositional or situational: (1) consistency?; (2) consensus?; (3) distinctiveness

Front 36

Consistency cues:

Back 36

attribution cues that reflect how consistently a person engages in a behaviour over time.

Front 37

Consensus cues:

Back 37

attribution cues that reflect how a person’s behaviour compares with that of others.

Front 38

Distinctiveness cues:

Back 38

attribution cues that reflect the extent to which a person engages in some behaviour across a variety of situations.

Front 39

Fundamental attribution error:

Back 39

the tendency to overemphasize dispositional explanations for behaviour at the expense of situational explanations
• occurs because we often discount the strong effects that social roles can have on behaviour
• also because we see people in constrained, constant sitiations – fail to see observed behvaiour as distinctive to a situation

Front 40

Actor Observer Effect:

Back 40

the propensity for actors and observers to view the causes of the actor’s behaviour differently

Front 41

Self-serving bias:

Back 41

the tendency to take credit for successful outcomes and to deny responsibility for failures
• can reflect intentional self-promotion or excuse making

Front 42

Workforce diversity:

Back 42

differences among recruits and employees in characteristics such as gender, race, age, religion, cultural background, physical ability, or sexual orientation