The organized set of information or beliefs that we have about a person is called a person schema Information received early tends to carry more weight in one's assessment of a person than information received later, this is called the primacy effect . Attribution is the process of ascribing a person's behavior to a specific cause. Fundamental attribution error is less likely to occur when people make attributions about their own behavior than when they make attributions about someone else's. This is referred to as the actor-observer discrepancy . A schema for particular groups of persons is called a stereotype .
Ingroups are groups to which a person belongs.
Outgroups are groups to which a person does not belong Outgroup homogeneity effect is when people perceive members of an outgroup as very similar to each other, but do not perceive members of an ingroup that way. The just-world bias is a general tendency to believe that life is fair. Social comparison is the process of identifying our unique characteristics and measuring our abilities by comparing ourselves to other people The reference group is the group with whom the comparison is made The self-enhancing bias is when people see themselves as better than they really are in comparison to others. Self-effacing bias is when people see themselves as worse than they really are in comparison to others. Impression management is the set of ways by which people either consciously or unconsciously attempt to influence others' impressions of them.