social perception
The process of combining, integrating, and interpreting information about others to gain an accurate understanding of them.

Meeting New People: An Opportunity for Social Perception
Meeting new people presents many opportunities to combine, integrate, and interpret a great deal of information about them—the process of social perception.
Attribution
The process through which individuals attempt to determine the causes behind others’ behavior.
Personal identity
The characteristics that define a particular individual. social identity
Who a person is, as defined in terms of his or her membership in various social groups. social identity theory
A conceptualization recognizing that the way we perceive others and ourselves is based on both our unique characteristics (see personal identity) and our membership in various groups

Social Identity Theory: An Overview
According to social identity theory, people identify themselves in terms of their individual characteristics and their own group memberships. They then compare themselves to other individuals and groups to help define who they are, both to themselves and others.

correspondent inferences Judgments about people’s dispositions, their traits and characteristics, that correspond to what we have observed of their actions.

internal causes of behavior Explanations based on actions for which the individual is responsible. external causes of behavior Explanations based on situations over which the individual has no control.
Kelley’s theory of causal attribution
The approach suggesting that people will believe others’ actions to be caused by internal or external factors based on three types of information: consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness. consensus In Kelley’s theory of causal attribution, information regarding the extent to which other people behave in the same manner as the person we’re judging.

consistency
In Kelley’s theory of causal attribution, information regarding the extent to which the person we’re judging acts the same way at other times. distinctiveness In Kelley’s theory of causal attribution, information regarding the extent to which a person behaves in the same manner in other contexts.
Consensus high, consistency high, distinctiveness high – external factors
Consensus low consistency high distinctiveness low - internal perceptual biases Predispositions that people have to misperceive others in various ways. Types include the fundamental attribution error, the halo effect, the similar-to-me-effect, first- impression error, and selective perception. fundamental attribution error
The tendency to attribute others’ actions to internal causes (e.g., their traits) while largely ignoring external factors that also may have influenced behavior. halo effect
The tendency for our overall impressions of others to affect objective evaluations of their specific traits; perceiving high correlations between characteristics that may be unrelated.
The Halo Effect: A Demonstration
One manifestation of the halo effect is the tendency for people rating others to give either consistently high ratings (if the individual is generally perceived in a positive manner), or low ratings (if the individual is generally perceived in a negative manner). Because each rating dimension is not considered independently, inaccurate evaluations may result. team halo effect
The tendency for people to credit teams for their successes but not to hold them accountable for their failures. similar-to-me effect The tendency for people to perceive in a positive light others who are believed to be similar to themselves in any of several different ways. selective perception
The tendency to focus on some aspects of the environment while ignoring others.

first-impression error The tendency to base our judgments of others on our earlier impressions of them. self-fulfilling prophecy The tendency for someone’s expectations about another to cause that person to behave in a manner consistent with those expectations. This can be either positive (see the Pygmalion effect) or negative (see the Golem effect) in nature.
Pygmalion effect
A positive instance of the self- fulfilling prophecy, in which people holding high expectations of another tend to improve that individual’s performance.
Golem effect
A negative instance of the self- fulfilling prophecy, in which people holding low expectations of another tend to lower that individual’s performance. stereotype A belief that all members of specific groups share similar traits and are prone to behave the same way. stereotype threat
The uncomfortable feeling that people have when they run the risk of fulfilling a negative stereotype associated with a group to which they belong. rebound effect
The tendency to think about something when you try intentionally not to think about it. impression management Efforts by individuals to improve how they appear to others. performance appraisal The process of evaluating employees on various work-related dimensions. learning A relatively permanent change in behavior occurring as a result of experience. operant conditioning
The form of learning in which people associate the consequences of their actions with the actions themselves. Behaviors with positive consequences are acquired; behaviors with negative consequences tend to be eliminated.

Law of Effect
The tendency for behaviors leading to desirable consequences to be strengthened and those leading to undesirable consequences to be weakened. positive reinforcement
The process by which people learn to perform behaviors that lead to the presentation of desired outcomes.

negative reinforcement
The process by which people learn to perform acts that lead to the removal of undesired events.

punishment
Decreasing undesirable behavior by following it with undesirable consequences. extinction The process through which responses that are no longer reinforced tend to gradually diminish in strength.

contingencies of reinforcement
The various relationships between one’s behavior and the consequences of that behavior— positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, and extinction. continuous reinforcement A schedule of reinforcement in which all desired behaviors are reinforced. partial reinforcement
A schedule of reinforcement in which only some desired behaviors are reinforced. Types include: fixed interval, variable interval, fixed ratio, and variable ratio. intermittent reinforcement
See partial reinforcement. fixed interval schedules Schedules of reinforcement in which a fixed period of time must elapse between the administration of reinforcements. variable interval schedules Schedules of reinforcement in which a variable period of time (based on some average) must elapse between the administration of reinforcements. fixed ratio schedules Schedules of reinforcement in which a fixed number of responses must occur between the administration of reinforcements.

variable ratio schedules Schedules of reinforcement in which a variable number of responses (based on some average) must occur between the administration of reinforcements.

schedules of reinforcement Rules governing the timing and frequency of the administration of reinforcement observational learning (or modeling)
The form of learning in which people acquire new behaviors by systematically observing the rewards and punishments given to others. training The process of systematically teaching employees to acquire and improve job-related skills and knowledge. classroom training
The process of teaching people how to do their jobs by explaining various job requirements and how to meet them. apprenticeship programs Formal training programs involving both on-the-job and classroom training usually over a long period, often used for training people in the skilled trades. cross-cultural training (CCT) A systematic way of preparing employees to live and work in another country.

corporate universities Centers devoted to handling a company’s training needs on a full- time basis. principles of learning
The set of practices that make training effective: participation, repetition, transfer of training, and feedback. (See transfer of training.) participation
Active involvement in the process of learning; more active participation leads to more effective learning. repetition
The process of repeatedly performing a task so that it may be learned. transfer of training
The degree to which the skills learned during training sessions may be applied to performance of one’s job.

feedback
Knowledge of the results of one’s behavior.
360-degree feedback The practice of collecting performance feedback from multiple sources at a variety of organizational levels. discipline The process of systematically administering punishments. progressive discipline The practice of gradually increasing the severity of punishments for employees who exhibit unacceptable job behavior..