Week 3: judgement and decision making

Perception

Attribution

Biases from the perceiver

is when we observe an event or behaviour, we want to determine whether it is caused by internal factors such as your personality ,belief, ability, etc) or by external factors like situation, social factors)

Judgement and decision

Biases from the target

Purpose : introduce the most common tendencies and biases in our cognitive minds

There are 3 characteristics of the event or behaviour:


  • Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations. For example:  if this person only laughs at this comedian. Distinctiveness is high.  If the person laughs at everything distinctiveness is low.

  • Consensus: the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation. for example: Everybody in the audience is laughing.  Consensus is high.  If only one person is laughing consensus is low

  • Consistency: the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs. For example: if a person always laughs at this comedian. Consistency is high.  if the person rarely laughs at this comedian consistency is low.

Perception

a target's characteristic shapes our perception

We tend to make references about a person's characteristics based on the social category he/she belongs to. This is known as the Social Identity Theory.

attribution

Judgement and decision making

  1. Reaching a conclusion/opinion about something/someone, and developing a commitment to a course of action accordingly

Definition: receiving and interpreting information through our senses to give meaning to the environment

Goals & Needs: Immediate needs filter the info that you receive

Existing Knowledge: How much you know or think you know

Emotions: You emotional experience will shape how you see the world.

Examples: Halo effect which is drawing a general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic (e.g., physical attractiveness) and Social Prototype

the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.