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