Social Psychology The study of how we understand others and ourselves in relation to each other. Understanding others • Clearly we want to understand why other people behave the way they do. – Personality – Interpretation of emotions • We are very, very bad at it. Fundamental Attribution Error • We overestimate the influence of personality factors and underestimate the influence of situational factors when judging another person’s actions. • We do the opposite for ourselves. What this leads to • Actor/Observer bias • Actors attribute their actions to situations • Observers attribute others’ actions to personality • Self-serving bias • Ingroup/Outgroup bias Other biases • Schemas • Attractiveness • The Baby-face bias