Chapter 4: Perceiving Persons Part 4: Sept. 23, 2011

Impression Formation How do we integrate information to form impressions? – Summation model – – Averaging model – – Which has more support? Common deviations from rules: – Perceiver characteristics – Priming effects – Target characteristics

Implicit Personality Theory – – Using info about one trait to infer other traits – Links with primacy effect – Which trait do we learn about first?

Confirmation Biases Belief Perseverance - search for confirming evidence – “On Being Sane in Insane Places” – classic 1973 article – Some events are ambiguous

Confirmation Bias (cont.) – What do we do with disconfirming evidence? Remedy ?

Confirmation Biases (cont.) Self-fulfilling prophecy – – Expectations can lead to fulfillment Pygmalion in the classroom – what are the results? – Rosenthal’s (1968) study – automatic process » 4 ways ‘bloomers’ were treated differently: – Negative expectations - – Positive expectations –

Differences between typical experiment in this area vs. reality? Research on how targets can overcome the effect: