Question

In the 1950s, there was a particularly violent football game between Dartmouth and Princeton. After the game was over, there was a great deal of disagreement over what had happened in the game. Psychologists Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantril decided to investigate this by interviewing students from each school and asking them questions about what had happened. The researchers found that despite the fact that they all had seen the exact same game, students from each school had surprisingly different interpretations and recollections of the game. The results from this study had a significant impact on one of the major psychological perspectives discussed in the text. Based on your current knowledge of psychology, which of the perspectives do you suppose it was?

Answer 1

Answer: It was proved to be Selective Perception.

Selective perception makes us stay in a stimulus according to our expectations.   It is related to preconceived ideas, our interests, and the desire or fear that something will happen. It is a biased and partial interpretation of reality.

In this study it was possible to realize that each student had a different image of what happened in the game, which favored the team belonging to the university to which the students were part.

Even if an event is happening, we will always use our own lenses, experiences and influences to absorb it.