Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Confirmation Bias, Verbal Behavior, Social Perception

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: Matthew Maxwell-Smith

Document Summary

Forming impressions of others: as we engage in person perception, the process of forming impressions of others, we rely on five key sources of information, appearance, verbal behavior, actions, nonverbal messages, situational cues, snap judgments vs. systematic judgments. Internal attributions when people attribute the cause of others" behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, or feelings. External attributions when people attribute the cause of others" behavior to situational demands or environmental constraints: we are most likely to make attributions about others" behavior when: Others behave in unexpected or negative ways. When we are suspicious about others" motives: perceiver expectation. How we expect others to behave can influence our actual perceptions of them. Confirmation bias the tendency to seek information that supports one"s beliefs while not pursuing disconfirming information. " Self-fulfilling prophecies occur when expectations about a person cause him or her to behave in ways that confirm the expectations. : cognitive distortions. Some examples include ethnicity, race, gender, religion.