ABSTRACT
Social perception is the process of using information to construct understandings of the social world and form impressions of people. This chapter discusses that a stereotype is a generalization about a group of people that distinguishes those people from another group. Although it introduces cognitive efficiency as a possible explanation, another motivation is self-enhancement. The chapter examines how observers make attributions regarding a person's behavior in a single situation. Social psychologists use the term schema to denote a well-organized structure of cognitions about some social entity such as a person, group, role, or event. There are several distinct types of schemas, including person schemas, self-schemas, group schemas, role schemas, and event schemas. Person schemas are cognitive structures that describe the personalities of others. Group schemas—also called stereo-types—are schemas regarding the members of a particular social group or social category. Impressions are informed by schemas that are selected through mental shortcuts called heuristics.
