9/15/2014 1 CHAPTER 3 Perceiving Other Persons and the World Around Us Perceiving the physical world  Perception is organized: Gestalt principles of perceptual organization  Perception is selective: focus of attention and figure/ground contrasts  Internal factors affecting perception: motives, needs, values, past experience  External factors affecting perception: perceptual salience is affected by intensity, color, size, motion, and novelty9/15/2014 2 Similarity principle (color) Similarity principle (shape)9/15/2014 3 Similarity principle (size) Proximity principle9/15/2014 4 Continuity principle (the Big Dipper) Common fate principle9/15/2014 5 Closure principle Figure/ground contrast9/15/2014 6 Illusory movement Ambiguous figure9/15/2014 7 Ambiguous figure9/15/2014 8 Ambiguous figure (figure/ground contrast and closure) Ambiguous figure (figure/ground contrast and closure)9/15/2014 9 Ambiguous picture9/15/2014 10 Impossible figure (tuning fork)9/15/2014 11 Impossible figure (elephant) Perceiving the physical world  Perception is organized: Gestalt principles of perceptual organization  Perception is selective: focus of attention and figure/ground contrasts  Internal factors affecting perception: motives, needs, values, past experience  External factors affecting perception: perceptual salience is affected by intensity, color, size, motion, and novelty9/15/2014 12 Social cognition: understanding people  Social perception and attention: standing out from the crowd: social salience, unexpected events, inconsistent information  Salience influences causal attribution (social inference)  Salience influences the extremity of evaluations and emotional reactions  Salience influences memory for the person or event  Person memory  Influenced by the goals of impression formation, empathy, self-reference, and expectancy of future interaction  Ironically, anticipated interaction works better than actual interaction does Social cognition processes: Attention, memory, and inference ATTENTION MEMORY INFERENCE Increased salience of the other person9/15/2014 13 Social cognition: understanding people  Social perception and attention: standing out from the crowd: social salience, unexpected events, inconsistent information  Salience influences causal attribution (social inference)  Salience influences extremity of evaluations and emotional reactions  Salience influences memory for the person or event  Person memory  Influenced by the goals of impression formation, empathy, self-reference, and expectancy of future interaction  Ironically, anticipated interaction works better than actual interaction does Social cognition: understanding people  Inference: drawing conclusions from social information  Representativeness heuristic  Illusory correlation  Attribution: understanding the causes of others’ behavior  Consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness information  Attribution to an internal cause, an external cause, or a unique circumstance (prototypical data patterns)9/15/2014 14 Calvin became visibly upset when the new boss criticized him. High consensus, high distinctiveness, high consistency: This is a boss from hell. (external attribution) Low consensus, low distinctiveness, high consistency: Calvin is easily upset. (internal attribution) Low consensus, low distinctiveness, low consistency: Calvin is feeling particularly vulnerable today. (unique circumstance attribution) Lee filled out the sales contract incorrectly. High consensus, high distinctiveness, high consistency: The sales contract is complicated and confusing. (external attribution) Low consensus, low distinctiveness, high consistency: Lee doesn’t know how to do contracts. (internal attribution) Low consensus, low distinctiveness, low consistency: Lee forgot and left her glasses home today! (unique circumstance attribution)9/15/2014 15 Social cognition: understanding people  Causal attribution: some implications for work settings  Internal versus external causal locus: affects judgments of personal responsibility and praise versus blame  Stable versus unstable causal influence: affects judgments of what the outcome(s) will be in the future Ability / lack of ability Task ease / Task difficulty Effort / Lack of effort Good / bad “luck” Internal External Stable Unstable9/15/2014 16 When social perception fails: common errors in our efforts to understand others  Overestimating the role of internal causes: the fundamental attribution error  The self-serving bias: taking credit for success, avoiding blame for failure  Self-enhancement  Self-protection9/15/2014 17 Social perception: its role in job interviews and performance appraisals  The Halo Effect: how overall impressions shape judgments  Social perception and the job interview  The relative impact of positive versus negative information (negative information counts more)  Comparisons against other people also play a role  Visual information: appearance makes a difference  Nonverbal cues can have different effects, depending on the context  Social perception and performance appraisal: the role of evaluators’ attributions about one’s performance Impression management: managing the impressions other people have of us  Tactics of self-presentation  Enhancement strategies  Entitlement strategies  Ingratiation strategies  Excuses Excessive use of these strategies can