Chapter 4: Perceiving Persons Part 3: Sept. 22, 2010

Some sources of the FAE 1) Actor-observer difference. What is it? – Example? 2) Time perspective – 3) Cultural differences – how does collectivism or individualism relate to situational explanations?

Motivational Biases Self-serving biases – Influence of need for self-esteem – Belief in a just world

Impression Formation How do we integrate information to form impressions? Common deviations from rules: – Perceiver characteristics – Priming effects – Target characteristics

Implicit Personality Theory – – Using info about one trait to infer other traits – Links with primacy effect – Which trait do we learn about first?

Confirmation Biases Belief Perseverance - search for confirming evidence – Some events are ambiguous – What do we do with disconfirming evidence? “More compelling evidence is needed to alter beliefs than to create them” Remedy ?

Confirmation Biases (cont.) Self-fulfilling prophecy – – Expectations can lead to fulfillment Pygmalion in the classroom – what are the results? – Negative expectations - – Positive expectations – Differences between typical experiment in this area vs. reality? Research on how targets can overcome the effect: