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1. PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
Before reading about the pecific processes that you see use in perceving other people,
examine your own perception strategies by taking the self-test “How Accurate Are You at
People Perception?” on page 96.
TEST YOUR SELF
How Accurate Are You at People Perception?
Respond to each of the following statements with T if the statement is usualy or generally
accurate in describing your behavior or F if the statement is usually or generally inaccurate in
describing your behaviour.
...................1. When I know some things about a person, I can easily fill in what I dont know.
2. I make predictions about poples behaviours that generally prove to be true.
3. My expactions are usually borne out by what I actually see; that is, my initial expectations
usually match my eventual perceptions.
4. I base most of my impressions of people on the first few minutes of our meeting.
5. I generally find that people I like prossess positive characteristics and people Idont like
prossess negative characteristic.
6. I believe that the world is basically just, that good things happen to good people and bad
things happen to bad people.
How did you do ? This brief perception test was designed to raise questions to be considered
in this chapter and not to provide you with a spesific perception score. All statements refer to
perceptual processes that many of us use, but that often get us into trouble, leading us to form
inaccurate impressions. The qustions refer to processes to be discussed in this chapter:
implicit personality theory (statement 1), self-fulfiling prophecy 2, perceptual accentuatio 3,
primary-recency 4, consistency 5, and stereotyping 6. Statements 7 and 8 refer to two

2. common problems made when we attempt to attribute motives to other peoples and even our
own behaviors: overattribution 7, and the self serving bias that often involves a be lief that
the world is fundamentally just 8. Ideally, you would have responded with “fase” to all of
these statements, indicating that you regulary avoid falling into these potential traps.
What will you do ?
As you read this chapter, think about these principles and consider how you might use them
to form more accurate and resonable perceptions of people. Recognize that situations vary
widely and that these suggestions will prove useful most of the time, but not all of the time.
In fact, you may want to identifty situations in which you shuldnt folow these suggestions.
Implicit Personality Theory
Each person has a subconscious or implicit theory that says which characteristics of an
individual go with other characteristics. Consider, for example, the following brief
statements.
Note the word in parentheses that you think best completes each sentence.
1. Carlo is energetic, eager, and (intelligent, stupid).
2. Kim is bold, defiant, and (extroverted, introverted).
3. Joe is bright, lively, and (thin, heavy).
4. Eve is attractive, intelligent, and (likable, unlikable).
5. Susan is cheerful, positive, and (outgoing, shy).
6. Angel is handsome, tall, and (friendly, unfriendly).
What makes some of these choices seem right and others wrong is your implicit
personality theory, the system of rules that tells you which characteristics go with which
other characteristics. Your theory may, for example, have told you that a person who is
energetic and eager is also intelligent, not stupid, although there is no logical reason why a
stupid person could not be energetic and eager.
The widely documented halo offect is a function of the implicit personality theory
(Dion, Berscheld, & Walster, 1972: Rigglo, 1987). If you believe a person has some positive
qualities, your likely to infer that she or he also prossesses other positive qualities. There is

3. also a reserve hallo effect: If you know a person prossesses several negative qualities, youre
more liely to infer that the person also has other negative qualities.
In using impilict personality theories, apply them carefully and critically so as to
avoid perceiving qualities in an individual that your theory tells you should be present when
they actually are not. For example, you see “goodwill” in a friends “charitable” acts when a
tax deduction may have been the real motive. Simialarly, be careful or ignoring or distorting
qualities that dont conform to your theory but that are actually present in the individual. For
example, you may ignore negative qualities in your friends that you would easily perceive in
your enemies.
As might be expected, the implicit personality theories that people hold differ from
culture to culture, group to group, and even person to perso. For example, the Chinese have to
concept shi gu, which refers to “someone who is worldly, devoted to his or her family,
socially skillful, and somewhat reserved” (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 1999, p. 117). In
English, on the other hand, we have a concept of the “Artistics type”, a generalization that
seems absent in Chinese. Thus, although it is easy for speakers of English or Chinese to refer
to specific concepts-such as “sosially skilled” or “creative”-each language creates its own
generalized categories. Thus, in Chinese the qualities that make up shi gu are more easily
seen as going together than they might be for an English speaker, they are part of the implicit
personality theory of more Chinese speakers than English speakers.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when you make a prediction that comes true because you
act on it as if it were true (Merton, 1957). Put differently, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs
when you act on your schema as if it were true and in doing so make it true. There are four
basic steps in the self-fulfilling prophecy:
1. You make a prediction or formulate a belief about a person or a situation. For
example, you predict that Pat is friendly in interpersonal encounters.
2. You act toward that person or situation as if that prediction or belief were true. For
example, you act as if Pat were a friendly person.
3. Because you act as if the belief were true, it becomes true. For example, because
of the way out act toward Pat, Pat becomescomfortable and friendly.
4. You observe your effect on the person or the resulting situation, and what you see
strengthens your beliefs. For example, you observe Pats friendliness, and this
reinforces your belief that Pat is in fact friendly.

4. The self-fulfilling prophecy can also be seen when you make predictions about
yourself and fulfill them. For example, you might enter a group situation convidenced that the
other members will dislike you. Almost invariably you'll be proved right; the other members
will appear to you dislike you. What you may be doing is acting in a way that encourages the
group to respond to you negatively. In this way, you fulfill your prophecies about yourself.
A widely known example of the self-fulfilling prophecy is the Pygmalion effect. In
one study, teachers were told that certain pupils were expected to do exceptionally well, that
they were late bloomers. The names of these students were actually selected at random by the
experiments. The results, however, were not random. The students whose names were given
to the teachers actually performed at a higher levelthan the others. In fact, these students “IQ
scores even improved more than did the other students”.The teachers expectations probably
prompted them to give extra attention to the selected students, thereby positively affecting
their performance (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968; Insel & Jacobson, 1975). The same general
effect is found in miliatary training and business settings wheretrainees and workers
performed better whn their supervisors were given positive information about them (McNatt,
2001). The pygmalion effect is also seen in such areas asleadership, athletic coaching, and
effective stepfamilies (Eden, 1992; Solomon at al., 1996; Einstein, 1995). Findings such as
these have led one researcher to suggest applying the Pygmalion effect to improve worker
productivity. By creating positive attitudes about employees in superisors and by helping
employees to feel that their supervisors and the organizations as a whole value them highly
productivity would increase (McNatt, 2001).
Self-fulfilling prophecies can short-circuit critical thinking and influence another's
behaviour (or you own) so that it conforms to your prophecy.As a result, you may see what
you predicted rather than what is really there (for example, to perceive yourself as a failure
because you have predicted it rather than because of any actual failures).
Perceptual Accentuation
When poor and rich children were shown pictures of coins and later asked to estimate their
size, the poor children's size estimates were much greater than the rich children's. Similarly,
hungry people need fewer visual cues to perceive food objects and food terms than do people
who are not hungry. This process, called perceptual accentuation, leads you to see what you
expect or want to see. You see people you like as better looking and smarter than those you
don't like. You magnify or accentuate what will satisfy your needs and desires: The thirsty

5. person sees a mirage of water, the sexually deprived person sees a mirage of sexual
satisfaction.
Perceptual accentuation can lead you to perceive what you need or want to perceive
rather than what is really there, and to fail to perceive what you dont want to perceive. For
example, you may not perceive signs of impending problems because you focus on what you
want to perceive.
Perceptual accentuation can also lead you to perceive and remember positive qualities
more than negative ones (a phenomenon referred to as the Pollyanna effect) and thus distort
your perceptions of others.
Another interesting distortion created by perceptual accentuation is that you may
perceive certain behaviors as indicative that someone likes you simply because you want to
be liked. For example, general politeness and friendly behavior used as a persuasive strategy
(say, by a salesperson) are frequently seen as indicating a genuine personal liking.
Primacy-Recency
Assume for a moment that you're enrolled in a course in which half the classes are extremely
dull and half extremely exciting. At the end of the semester, you evaluate the course and the
instructor. Would your evaluation be more favorable if the dull classes occured in the first
half of the semester and the exciting classes in the second? Or would it be more favorable if
the order were reserved? If what comes last (or most recently) exerts the most influence, you
have a recency effect.
In the classic study on the effects of primacy-recency in interpersonal perception,
college students perceived a person who was described as “intelligent, industrious impulsive,
critical, stubborn, and envious” more positively than a person described as “envious,
stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, and intelligent” (Asch, 1946). Clearly, theres a
tendency to use early information to get a general idea about a person and to use later
information to make this impression more spesific. The initial information helps you form a
schema for the person. Once that schema is formed, you are likely to resist information that
contradicts it.
One interesting practical implication of primacy-recency is that the first impression
you make is likely to be the most important. The reason for this that the schema that others
form of you functions as a filter to admit or block additional informayion about you. If the
initial impression or schema is positive, others are likely to readily remember additional
positive information because it confirms this original positive image or schema and to easily

6. forget or distort negative information because it contradicts this original positive schema, and
they are also more likely to interpret ambiguous information as positive. You win in all three
ways-if the initial impression is positive.
The tedency to give greater weight to early information and to interpret later
information in light of early impressions can lead you to formulate a total picture of an
individual on the basis of initial impressions that may not be typical or accurate. For example,
if you judge a job applicant as generally nervous when he or she may simply be showing
normal nervousness at being interviewed for a much needed job, you will have misperceived
this individual.
Similiarly, this tendency can lead you to discount or distort subsequent perceptions so
as not to disrupt your initialimpression or upset your original schema. For example, you may
fail to see signs of deceit in someone you like because of your early impressions that this
person is a good and honest individual.
Consistency
The tendenct to maintin balance among perceptions or attitudes is called consistency
(McBroom & Reed, 1992). You expect certain things to go together and other things not to
go together.
On a purely intuitive basis, for example, respond to the following sentences by noting
your expected response.
1. I expect a person I like to (like, dislike) me.
2. I expect a person I dislike to (like, dislike) me.
3. I expect my friend to (like, dislike) my friend.
4. I expect my friend to (like, dislike) my enemy.
5. I expect my enemy to (like, dislike) my friend.
6. I expect my enemy to (like, dislike) my enemy.
According to most consistency theories, your expectations would be as follow: You
would expect a person you liked to like you (1) and one you dosliked to dislike you (2). You
would expect a friend to like a friend (3) and to dislike an enemy (4). You would expect your
enemy dislike your friend (5) and to like your other enemy (6). All these expectations are
intuitively satisfying.
Further, you would expect someone you liked to prossess characteristics you like or
admire and would expect your enemies not to possess characteristics you like or admire.

7. Conversely, you would expect people you liked to lack unpleasant characteristics and those
you disliked to possess unpleasant characteristics.
Uncritically assuming that an individual is cosistent can lead you to ignore or distort
your perceptions of behaviors that are inconsistent with your picture of the whole person. For
example, you may misinterpret Karla's unhappiness because your image of Karla is “happy,
controlled, and contented”. Consistency can also lead you to see certain behaviors as positive
if you interpreted other behaviors positively (the halo effect) or as negative if you interpreted
other behaviors negatively (the reverse hallo effect).
Stereotyping
One of the most common shortcuts in interpersonal perception is stereotyping. A sociological
or psychological stereotype is a fixed impression of agroup of people; it is a schema. We all
have attitudinal stereotypes-of national, religous, sexual, or raxial groups, or perhaps of
criminals, prostitutes, teachers, or plumbers. If you have these fixed impressions, you will,
upon meeting a member of a particular group, often see that person primarily as a member of
that group and apply to him or her all the characteristics you assign to that group. If you meet
someone who is a prostitute, for example, there is a host of characteristics for porstitutes that
you may apply to this one person. To complicate matters further, you will often “see” in this
person's behavior the manifestation of characteristics that you would not “see” if you didn't
know that this person was a prostitute. In online communication there are few visual and
auditory cues, so it is not surprising to find that people form impressions of their online
communication partner with a heavy reliance on stereotypes (Jacobson, 1999). Stereotypes
can easily distort accurate perception and prevent you form seeing an individual as an
individual rather than as a member of a group.
The tendency to group people and to respond to individuals primarily as members of
groups can lead you to perceive an individual as possessing those qualities (usually negative)
that you believe characterize his or her group (for example, all Mexicans are ...... or Baptists
are .....) and, therefore, fail to appreciate the multifaceted nature of all individuals and groups.
Stereotyping can also lead you to ignore each persons unique characteristics and, therefore,
fail to benefit from the special contributions each individual can bring to an encounter.
Increasing Interpersonal Effectiveness
Other-Orientation

8. Other orentation refers to the ability to adapt your messages to the other person, it involves
communicating attentiveness and interest in the other person and in what the person says.
Communicating Other-Orientation
You'll recognize the following behaviors in those with whom you enjoy talking.
 Show consideration and respect. For example, asking if it is all right to dump your
troubles on someone before doing so, or asking if your phone call comes at a good
time before launching into your conversation.
 Acknowledge the other person is feeling as correct and legitimate. Comments like
“You are right” or “That s interesting” or “I can understand why you are so angry,; I
would be, too” help focus the interaction on the other person that you are listening.
 Acknowledge the presence and the importance of the other person. Ask the other
person for suggestions and opinions. Similarly, ask for clarification as appropriate.
This will ensure that you understand what the other person is saying from that person
is point of view.
 Focus your messages on the other person. Verbally, use open ended questions to
involve the other person in the interaction (as opposed to questions that merely ask for
a yes or no answer) and statements that directly address the person. Nonverbally, use
focused eye contact, apporiate facial expressions, similing, nodding, and leaning
toward the other person.
 Grant the other person permission to express (or to not express) her or his feelings. A
simple statement such as : “I know how difficult it is to talk abuut feelings” opens up
the topic of feelings and gives permission to pursue such a discussion or to say
nothing.
Attribution
Think about each of the following situations.
1. A woman is begging in the street.
2. A store owner kills a thief.
3. A father leaves his children.
To what do you attribute the causes of these situations? Did the begging, killing, and
abandonment result form something within the person or from within the situation? The way
you would answer these questions is neatly explained in attribution theory. Attribution theory
explains the process you go through in trying to understand others behaviors as well as your

9. own (in self-attribution), particularly the reasons or motivations for these behaviors.
Attribution helps you to impose order and logical and to better understand the causes of the
behaviors you observe.
Attribution also helps you to make predictions about what will happen, what others
are likely or unlikely to do. If you can be reasonably sure that Pat gave money out of a desire
to help the poor (that is, you can attribute the behavior to a desire to help), then you can make
predictions made without this initial attribution to guide you.
Attribution Processes
In trying to discover the causes of anothers behavior, your first step is to determine whether
the individual or some outside factor is responsible. That is, you must first determine whether
the cause is internal (for example, due to some personality trait) or external (for example, due
to some situational factor). You assessment of someone's behavior as internally or externally
motivated will greatly influence your evaluation of that person. If you judge people's
cooperative behavior as internally caused (that is, as motivated by their personality) you are
more apt to form a positive evaluation of them and, eventuall, to like them. In contrast, if you
judge that very same behavior to be externally caused (the watchful eye of the boss is forcing
someone to behave cooperatively, for example), you are more apt to form a negative
evaluation and, eventually, to dislike the person (because he or she isn't “really” cooperative).
Consider another example. You look at an instructor's grade book and observe that 10
Fs were assigned in cultural anthropology. In a attempt to discover what this reveals about the
instructor, you first have to discover whether the instructor was in fact responsible for the
assignment of the 10 Fs or whether the grading could be attributed to external factors. Let's
say you discover that the examinations on which the grades were based had been made up by
a faculty committee, which also set the standards for passing or failing. In this case, you
could not attribute any particular motives to this individual instructor because the behavior
was not internally caused.
On other hand, let's assume the following: This instructor made up the examination
without any assistance, no departmental or university standards were used, and the instructor
created a personal set of standards for passing and failing. Now you wold be more apt
(though perhaps not fully justified) to attribute the 10 Fs to internal causes. You would be
strengthened in your beliefs that there was something within this instructor, some personality
characteristic, for example, that led to this behavior if you discovered that (1) no other
instructor in anthropology gave nearly as many Fs, (2) this particular instructor frequently

10. gives Fs in cultural anthropology, (3) this instructor frequently gives Fs in other courses as
well, and (4) this instructor is the only one responsible for assigning grades and could have
assigned grades other than F. These four bits of added information would lead you to
conclude that there was something within this instructor that motivated the behavior. In
forming such causal judgments, which you make every day, you use four principles: (1)
consensus, (2) consistency, (3) distinctiveness, and (4) controllability.
Consensus: Similarity with others, when you use the principle of consensus, you ask, “Do
other people behave in the same way as the person on whom I'm focusing?” That is, is yhe
person acting in accordance with the consensus, the majority? If the answer is no, you are
more likely to attribute the behavior to some internal cause and conclude: “This person is
different”. In the instructor exmple, you would be strengthened in your belief that something
internal caused the Fs to be given if you learned that other instructors didn't to this; that is,
there was low consensus. When only one person acts contrary to the norm, you are more
likely to attribute that person's behavior to internal motivation. If all instructors gave many Fs
(that is, if there was high consensus), conclude that the anthropology department uses a
particular curve in determing grades or that the students were not very bright-or any other
reason external to the specific instructor.
Consistency: Similarity over Time. When you use the principle of consistency, you ask if this
person repeatedly (consistently) behaves in the same way in similar situations. If the answer
is yes, there's high consistency, and you are likely to attribute the behavior to internal
motivation. If you knew that this instructor frequentlygives Fs in cutural anthropology, it
would lead you to attribute the cause to the instructor rather than to outside sources. If, on the
other hand, there was low consistency-that is, if this instructor rarely gives Fs-you'd be more
likely to look for external reasons. Again, you might conclude, for example, that this specific
class was not very bright or that the departement required the instructor to start giving out Fs.
Distinctiveness: Similarity in Different Situations. When you use the principle of
distinctiveness, you ask if this person reacts in similar ways different situations. If the answer
is yes, there is low distinctiveness, and you are likely to conclude that the behavior has an
internal cause. If the instructor reacted the same way (gave lots of Fs) in different situations
(other courses), it would lead you to conclude that this particular class was not distinctive and
that the motivation for the behavior could not be found in the unique situation. You'd further

11. conclude that this behavior is likely due to the instructor's inner motivation. Consider the
alternative: If this instructor gave all high grades and no Fs in other courses (that is, if the
cultural anthropology class situation was highly distinctive), you'd conclude that the
motivation for the failures was to be found in sources outside the instructor and for reasons
unique to this class.
Controllability: Behavior Control. Let's say your friend is an hour late for a dinner
appointment (cf., Weiner, Amirkhan, Folkes, & Verette, 1987). How would you feel about
the following two possible excuses ?
Excuse 1: I was reading this book, and I just couldn't put it down. I had to find out
who the killer was.
Excuse 2: I was stuck on the subway for two hours; a water broke, killing all the
electricity.
It is likely you'd resent the first and accept the second excuse. The first excuse says
that the reason for the lateness was controllable: Your friend chose to be late by completing
the novel. You'd therefore hold your friend responsible for wasting your time and for a lack
of consideration. The second excuse says that the reason was uncontrollable: Your friend
couldn't help being late. Here you'd not hold your friend responsible. This, by the way, is why
excuses involving uncontrollable factors are more effective than those involving controllable
factors.
Think about your own tendency to make similar judgments based on controllability.
For example, how you would respond to situations such as the following:
 Doris fails her midterm history exam
 Sidney's car is repossessed because he failed to make the payments.
 Thomas's wife has just filed for divorce and he is feeling depressed.
Very probably you'd be sympathetic to each of these people if you felt they were not
in control of what happened-for example, if the examination was unfair, if Sidney lost his job
because of employee discrimination, and if Thomas's wife is leaving him for a billionaire. On
the other hand, you might blame these people for their problems if you felt that they were in
control of the situation-for example, if Doris partied instead of studied, if Sidney gambled his
payments away, and if Thomas had been repeatedly unfaithful and his wife finally gave up
trying to change him.

12. In perceiving other people and especially in evaluating their behavior, you frequently
ask if the person was in control of the behavior. Generally, research shows that if you feel
people are in control of negative behaviors, you'll come to dislike them. But you'll feel sorry
for someone you feel isn't in control of negative behaviors, and you won't blame the person
for his or her negative circumstances.
Low consensus, high consistency, low distinctiveness, and high controllability lead to
an attribution of internal causes. As a result, you praise or blame the person for his or her
behaviors. High consensus, low consistency, high distinctiveness, and low controllability lead
to an attribution of external causes. Table 4.1 summarizes these four principles attribution.
Table 4.1 A summary of causal attribution
Situation: John was friend from a job he began a few months ago. On what basis will you
decide whether his behavior is internally caused (John isn't responsible) ?
internal if
 No one else was fired (low consensus).
 John was fired from lots of other jobs (high distinctiveness).
 John has failed at many other things (low distinctiveness).
 John could have been retained if he agreed to move another shop (high
controllability).
ekternal if
 Lots of others were fired (high consensus).
 John was never fired from any other job (low consistency).
 John has always been successful (high distinctiveness).
 John was not given any alternatives (low controllability).
Attribution Errors
Attribution of causality can lead to several major barriers. Here are there such barriers: the
self-serving bias, overattribution, and the fundamental attribution eror.
The Self-Serving Bias. The self-serving bias is a mechanism designed to preserve self-
esteem. You commit the self-serving bias when you take credit for the positive and deny
responsibility for the negative. For example, you are more likely to attribute your positive
behaviors (say, you get an A on an exam) to internal and controllable factors, to your

13. personality, intelligence, or hard work (Bernstein, Stephan, & Davis, 1979). You are more
likely to attribute your negative behaviors (say, you get a D) to external and uncontrollable
factors, to the exam being expectionally difficult or unfair.
Similiarly, the self-serving bias influences the way you view conflict (Schutz, 1999).
For example, you are more likely to describe your partner's negative behavior as internally
motivated and your negative behavior as externally caused (“I couldn't help it” or “They
made me do it”). Similarly, you are more likely to make excuses and justify your own
behavior rather than your partner's.
There is osme evidence (though it is not overwhelming) that we the behaviors of
ingroup and outgroup members differently (Taylor & Jaggi, 1974; Berry, Poortinga, Segall,
& Dasen, 1992). For example you are more likely to explain members positive behavior as
internally motivated and non members positive behaviors as externally motivated. Thus, you
would be more apt to explin, say, a high record of charitable contributions for members of
your own culture with something like “We are a charitable people; we believe in helping
others”. If this is shown to be true for members of another culture, you'd be more apt to say
something like “They are rich; they need tax deductions”.
Alternatively, you are likely to explain the negative behavior of members of your own
culture as externally or situationally causedbut to explain the very same behavior of members
of other cultures as internally motivated. Thus, for example, you would be more apt to
attribute a high college drpout rate (a negatively evaluated behavior) to external sources
(instructors who were not motivating or irrelevant educational programs) if this was shown to
be true of your own cultural group. If, on the other hand, it were shown to be true of another
culture, then you'd be more apt to attribute it to internal sources (the people aren't interested
in education: they lack motivation).
At times you might construct defensive attributions by which you try to explain
behavior in ways that make you seem less vulnerable. One way you might do this is with
unrealistic optimsm, maintaining the belief that good things are more likely to happen to you
than to others. For example, mos: people think that they will ultimately experience more good
things and less bad things than their peers (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert. 1999). A similar belief
is the just world hypothesis, the belief that bad things will happen only to bad people. Since
you are a good person, good things will happen to you. Of course, in your mindful state, you
know that good things often happen to bad people and that bad things often happen to good
people.

14. Overattribution
Overattribution is the tendency to single out one or two obvious characteristics of a person
and attribute everything that person does to these characteristics. For example, if the person
had alcoholic parents or is blind or was born into great wealth, there is often a tendency to
attribute everything that person does to such factors. So you might say Sally has difficulty
forming meaningful relationships because she grew up in a home alcoholocs, Alex overeats
because he is blind, and Lilian is ireponsible because she never had to work for her money.
To prevent overattribution, recognize that most behaviors and personality characteristics
result form lots of factors. You almost always make a mistake when you select one factor and
attribute everything to it. When you make a judgment, ask yourself might be operating here.
Are there other factors that might be creating difficulties for Sally to form relationship, for
Alex to control his eating habits, and for Lilian to behave irresponsibly ?
The Third-Person Effect
How effective are the media in influencing you as compared to, say, the influence media
exert on a group of your peers? Are you influenced less than your peers, about the same as
your peers, or more than your peers ? In a variety of studies conducted on college students,
research finds that students believe that they were influenced less by the media than were
their peers (Davison, 1983). Whether the topic was political advertising, rap music, or
pornography, students felt they were less susceptible to media influence tahn were their peers
(Hoofer et al., 2001). This belief, called the third-person effect, is especially unaccetable one;
for example, people thinkthat messages of violenc, racism, or sexism influence them much
less than they influence their peers. The effect is weakened but still present when the message
is a more acceptable one (for example, public service announcements).
Follow up
Try testing out this theory. For example, survey 10 or 20 people and ask them how influenced
they feel they are by, say, media violence or racism. Then ask them if their friends and
relatives are more influenced than they are. Perform another survey based on a more socially
acceptable issue such as media campaigns on the value of education or the importance of
proper diet. Follow this up by questions about how influenced they feel their friends and
relatives are by these same messages. Do you find a third-person effect ?
The fundamental Attribution Error

15. The fundamental attribution error occurs when you overvalue the contribution of internal
factors and undervalue the influence of external factors. It is the tendency to conclude that
people do what they do because that is the kind people they are not because of the situation
they are in. When Pat is late for an appointment, you are more likely to conclude that Pat is
inconsiderate or irresponsible rather than attribute the lateness to the bus breaking down or to
a traffic accident.
When you explain your own behavior, you also favor internal explanations although
not to as great an extent as when explaining the behaviors of others. One reason for giving
greater weight to external factors in explaining your own behavior than you do in explaining
the behavior of others is that you know the situation surrounding your own behavior. You
know, for example, what is going on in your life and you know your financial condition, so
you naturally see the influence of these factors. But you rarely know as much about other
and, thus, are more likely to give less weight to the external factors in their cases.
This fundamental attribution error is at least in part influenced. For example, in the
United States people are more likely to explain behavior by saying that people did what they
did because of who they are. But when Hindus in India were asked to explain why their
friends behaved as they did, they gave greater weight to external factors than did Americans
in the United States (Miiler, 1984; Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 1999). Further, Americans
have little hesitation in offering causal explanations of a person is behavior (“Pat did this
because ....”). Hindus, on the other hand, are generally reluctant to explain a person is
behavior in causal terms (Matsumoto, 1994).
Let's return to the three examples with which we opened this discussion of attribution as s
way of summarizing the principles of consensus, consistency, distinctiveness, and
controllability. Generally, you would consider the three actions-begging, killing, and
abandonment-to result from something inherent in the begging woman, the store owner, and
the father if other people behaved differently in situations similar to these (low consensus), if
these people behaved engaged in these behaviors in the past (high consistency), if these
people behaved similarly in other situations (low distinctivenese)., and if these people were in
control of their own behaviors (high controllability). Under these conditions, you'd probably
conclude that the persons bear the responsibility for their behaviors.
Alternatively, you would consider these actions to have resulted from something
external to the persons if many other people reacted the same way in similar situations (high
consensus), if these people had never behaved in this way before (low consistency), if these

16. people neve engaged in these behaviors in different situations (high distinctiveness), and if
these people were not in control of their own behavior (low controllability).Under these
conditions, you'd probably conclude that these actions resulted from external factors, that
these people had little or no control, and that, therefore, they are not personality responsible.