Exam 2 Review – Fall 2010
Chapter 4 – Perceptions of Others
 Importance of social perception in gaining information about people
o First impressions – facial features (baby-faced vs. mature features)
o Situational cues used to interpret behavior
o Deriving interpretations from nonverbal behaviors
 6 primary universal emotions – what are they?
 Mastumoto’s research on blind vs. sighted people’s facial
expressions for these universal emotions
 Eye contact & touch
 Interpretations of avoiding eye contact?
 Is touch related to dominance or control?
 Cross-cultural differences in nonverbal behaviors
 Detecting deception from nonverbal cues:
 Are facial expressions or body movements more accurate in
allowing us to detect deception?
 Are experts or novices better at detecting deception?
 How can microexpressions be used to detect deception?
(Ekman’s research)
 Security screening applications – what are other options for
detecting deception? (high cognitive effort tasks, strategic
disclosure – what are these?).
 Attributions
o Heider’s distinction between personal vs. situational explanations for
behaviors
o Attribution theories –
 Jones’ Correspondent Inference theory –
 Infer whether an action corresponds to personality based on
o Did the person have a choice?
o Was the behavior expected?
o How many positive effects were there?
 Kelly’s Covariation theory – attribute behavior to person/situation
 Consensus – what is the information we seek here?
 Distinctiveness – what is the information we seek here?
 Consistency – what is the information we seek here?
 How do consensus, distinctiveness, consistency combine to
determine personal or situational attributions?
o Attribution biases – what are heuristics and how can they create bias?
 Availability heuristic – what is it and what is an example?
 Can lead to false consensus – what is it?
 Can lead to baserate fallacy – what is it?
 Counterfactual thinking – what is it?
 How and when can it lead to dissatisfaction?
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o Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) – what is it?
 2-step model – quick attribution then adjust initial impression
o Sources of the FAE:
 Actor-observer difference – how does this cause the FAE?
 How could we reduce the FAE based on this?
 Time perspective – how does this cause the FAE?
 Cultural differences – how does this cause the FAE?
Motivational Biases
o Self-serving bias – how does it influence perception?
 Importance of need for self-esteem
 Belief in a just world – what is it and how is it used?
 How does belief in a just world affect our perceptions of
victims?
Impression Formation
o Summation versus averaging models – how do they differ?
 Which model has more support?
o Deviations from averaging model – priming effects
Implicit Personality Theory – info about one trait informs perceptions of other
traits
o Link with primacy effect – what trait info is received first vs. later?
Confirmation Biases
o Belief Perseverance – what is it?
 What do we do with disconfirming info?
 What is a remedy for this problem?
o Self-fulfilling prophecy – what is it?
 How could it occur?
 Covert communication
 Teacher behavior change
 Student behavior change
 Criticisms of this research – differences from real situations?
 How can we change/reduce self-fulfilling prophecy?
Chapter 5 – Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination
 Distinctions between definitions of stereotype, prejudice, discrimination
o How do each related to affective, behavioral, & cognitive components?
 Racism
o Differences between overt racism and ‘modern’ racism
o What is implicit racism?
 Eberhardt (2006) study of white defendants judging black
defendants
o How to best measure racism?
 Problems with self-reports
 Implicit Association Test (IAT) – how does it work?
o Perceptual differences based on race
 Ingroup vs. outgroup member judgments
 Interracial interactions
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“Guess Who” study by Norton (2006) – what were
behavioral differences exhibited by adults and kids?
Sexism
o Prescriptive vs. descriptive gender stereotypes – what are they?
o Ambivalent sexism – components of hostile and benevolent sexism (what
are each of these?)
o Links to discrimination – occupational differences & sex segregation
 Example of gender gap in wages
Stereotype Threat – research by Claude Steele
o What is it?
o How does it affect performance?
o Steele & Aronson’s experiments – how did they prompt stereotype threat
in participants?
o How can positive stereotypes be used?
o How can people protect against stereotype threat?
Sources of Prejudice
o Motivational Factors
 Optimal distinctiveness – what is it? Outgroup/ingroup difference
 Intergroup conflict:
 Sherif’s Robber’s Cave experiment – what happened?
What was the effect of competition? How did Sherif
resolve the conflict?
 Realistic Conflict theory – focus on limited resources
 Social Identity theory – importance of self-esteem and the role of
group status in boosting self-esteem
 Blue-Eyed/Brown Eyed Experiment
 Be familiar with the details of Jane Elliott’s work – the
original study of 3rd graders and their experiences ‘on the
bottom’ and ‘on the top’. What are her main points?
o Cognitive Factors
 Categorization effects – role of heuristics in info processing
 Outgroup homogeneity effect – what is it? Why does it happen?
 Perpetuating Stereotypes – what cognitive factors influence how
they persist?
 Illusory correlations – linking 2 variables that aren’t related
 Attributions – focus on explanations for behavior
 Subtyping – allows us to hold onto our stereotypes – how?
 Confirmation bias – role of searching for confirming info
 Stone’s experiment – listen to audiotape of ‘Mark Flick’s”
performance & rate it.
 Are stereotypes automatic?
 Devine’s research distinguishing automatic and controlled
processing. Cognitive effort involved in controlled
processing.
o Culture
 Socialization effects
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Gender stereotypes example – links between parenting attitudes
and kids’ play behavior.
 Media effects – how does the media portray men and women
differently?
 Archer’s research on ‘face-ism’
Reducing Prejudice
o Via intergroup contact – simple contact isn’t as effective as using certain
conditions (see Table 5.6) – importance of equal status, etc.
o Via Jigsaw classroom – how does it work? What are effects?
Chapter 6 – Attitudes (note that this material may change slightly based on class coverage
on 10/6 and 10/8 – check your notes to determine what was covered in class)
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Definition of attitude – affective, behavioral, cognitive components
Attitude assessment – problems with self-reports?
o LaPiere’s research on self-reports versus behavioral observations
o Use of bogus pipeline to improve self-report measures – how is it done?
o Fishbein & Ajzen’s research:
 Principle of Aggregation – how could this improve self-reports?
 Level of Specificity – how could this improve self-reports?
 Theory of Planned Behavior (see Fig 6.4)
 Intention is the closest predictor of behavior
 What are 3 antecedents to intention?
o Covert measures as alternatives to self-report
 Facial assessments, fMRIs, etc. – still problematic
 Implicit Association Tests (IAT) – how does it work?
Importance of roles in determining our behaviors & influencing attitudes
o Stanford Prison Experiment as example
 What are details of the study – how were participants assigned to
roles of ‘guard’ and ‘prisoner’?
 How did the role play impact their behavior & attitudes?
Persuasion
o Central route to persuasion – how does it work? Example?
o Peripheral route to persuasion – how does it work? Example?
 What determine which route we use?
o Source of Persuasion:
 Importance of credibility – how does this work?
 Self-interest might change this effect
 Importance of likeability – based on similarity and physical
attractiveness
 Sleeper effect – short vs. long term persuasion
o Message:
 Primary vs. recency effect for information & persuasion?
 Fear-based messages – are they effective?
 Positive emotions & use of peripheral route
 Subliminal messages – what are they?
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Greenwald experiment – self-help tapes with self-esteem
vs. memory focus; what were the results?
Murphy experiment – with Chinese characters – what were
the results?
o Audience
 How do individual differences affect our ‘persuadability’?
 Inoculation effect – how does this work?
 Reactance effect – how does this work?
Cognitive Dissonance – what is its role in persuasion
o What is this effect?
o Festinger’s original experiment
 Reconciling behavior that doesn’t match our attitudes
o Refining the theory – recent research on dissonance
 What are 4 steps for reducing dissonance?
 Unwanted negative consequences
 Feeling of personal responsibility for unpleasant outcomes
 Physiological arousal
 Make attribution for the arousal to own behavior
 Other explanations for changing attitudes to match behavior
 Self-perception
 Impression management
 Self-esteem