PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: In-Group Favoritism, Classical Conditioning, Amygdala

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jens C Pruessner

Document Summary

Attributional bias: we tend to overemphasise the importance of personality traits and underestimate the importance of the situation. We tend to be systematically biased in our social information processing. We make self serving attributions consistent with our personal beliefs, and fail to take into account that other people are influence by social circumstances. People of eastern cultures use much more information when making attributions than do. They are also more likely to take situational forces into account, whereas people in the west place overriding importance on personal factors. Stereotypes: cognitive schemas that allow for easy, fast processing of information about people based on their membership in certain groups. They occur automatically and most of the time without our awareness. In and of themselves, they are neural and simply reflect efficient cognitive processes. They are made because of limited neural resources; it is impossible to scrutinize every person encountered, thus the need for grouping.