Chapter 4: Perceiving Persons Review of Important Concepts

PART ONE Observation: The Elements of Social Perception

How We Judge Judging a book by its cover Clothing color (Vrij 1997) Not supposed to, but can’t help it Many famous scientists did Clothing color (Vrij 1997) Facial features (Hassin & Trope 2000, Zebrowitz, etc.) The “scripts” we develop about how particular social situations are supposed to go

Non-Verbals Use facial expressions, body language, vocal cues to determine a person’s feelings People usually don’t explicitly state their feelings Strong universal agreement on meaning of facial expressions Darwin and research suggests we’re evolved to be more aware of certain expressions, like anger, because they could mean danger

Non-Verbals continued Body language, eye contact, and touch also help interpret others These vary greatly across cultures In deception, tone of the voice seems to be the most revealing People can manipulate their words and face pretty easily, but less so their voice and body movements

PART TWO ATTRIBUTION: FROM ELEMENTS TO DISPOSITIONS

Interpreting Behavior Effective interaction requires understanding behavior “ATTRIBUTION”: how people explain the causes of behavior Personal – caused by characteristics of the person (ability, personality, mood, effort). Situational – caused by external factors (the task, other people, luck).

Jones’s Correspondent Inference Theory People try to infer whether an action corresponds to an enduring characteristic of the person by determining: Choice – if a person is free to choose, their actions say more about who they are Expectedness – if a behavior is unexpected or out of the norm in the given situation, their actions say more about who they are. Intended effects – actions that produce many desirable outcomes don’t tell us as much about a person’s motives as actions that produce only one desirable outcome.

Kelley’s Covariation Theory Attributing behavior to factors that are present when a behavior occurs and absent when it does not, using… Consensus information – how different people react to the same stimulus Distinctiveness information – how the same person reacts to different stimuli Consistency information – how the same person reacts to the same stimulus at a different time

Kelley’s Covariation Theory

Rules of Thumb (Cognitive Heuristics)… … for when we don’t have the time or the will to thoroughly process attributions. Availability heuristic: estimating the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind. False-consensus effect: overestimating the extent to which others share their opinions, attributes, and behaviors. Survey

More Rules of Thumb Base-rate fallacy: people are relatively insensitive to statistics. People overestimate the number of deaths by plane crash yet underestimate the number of deaths by heart attack, because one is vivid and traumatic.

More Rules of Thumb Counterfactual thinking: imagining alternative events or outcomes that might have occurred but did not. Reaction to same event can be different depending on whether we think “it could have been better” or “it could have been worse.” Explains why silver medalists often feel worse than bronze medalists.

More Rules of Thumb Fundamental attribution error: focusing on the role of personal causes and underestimating the impact of situations on other people’s behavior. This happens because a quick personal judgment is automatic, but a more careful discernment that takes situation into account takes thought and effort. Quiz show Actor-observer effect: attributing our own behavior to situational causes and the behavior of others to personal factors. Survey

Info About Attributions In Miller study, more Americans made personal attributions while Asian Indians made more situational attributions. Attributions are affected by our motivations – Klein and Kunda study showed that people rated someone that was supposedly their partner as more able than a supposed opponent.

Belief in a Just World The belief that individuals get what they deserve in life, an orientation that leads people to disparage victims. People are highly motivated to view the world this way. Otherwise, we’d have to face that our hard work might not pay off. People in poorer countries are less likely to hold this belief. Happens more when we’re similar to the victim and feel threatened by the circumstance – got to protect ourselves!

PART THREE INTEGRATION: FROM DISPOSITIONS TO IMPRESSIONS

Impressions Impression formation: integrating information about a person to form a coherent impression. Information integration theory says that impressions are based on 1) perceiver dispositions (we use ourselves as a benchmark, find our own traits desirable, and are affected by our mood) 2) a weighted average of a target person’s traits.

Impressions continued Priming: the tendency for recently used words or ideas to come to mind easily and influence the interpretation of new information. Higgins experiment primed participants with positive or negative trait words (brave vs reckless) and their impressions of the same person were influenced. Priming also influences our own behavior, as seen in Bargh politeness study. Trait negativity bias - negative information weighs more heavily than positive information.

Impressions continued Implicit personality theory: assumptions people make about the relationships among traits and behaviors. For example, OJ Simpson – based on what the public knew about him, it didn’t seem possible that he could kill two people. Makes use of central traits: traits that exert a powerful influence on overall impressions. (E.g., if you are “warm,” you are also happy).

First Impressions First impressions are critical. Primacy effect: the tendency for information presented early in a sequence to have more impact on impressions than information presented later. Once we think we’ve made an accurate impression, we pay less attention to the later info, especially if we’re not motivated to be careful. Some people have more of a need for closure: a desire to reduce cognitive uncertainty, which heightens the importance of first impressions.

PART FOUR CONFIRMATION BIASES: FROM IMPRESSIONS TO REALITY

Confirming Beliefs Once people make up their mind about something, it’s very difficult to get them to change, even in the face of new evidence. Confirmation bias: the tendency to seek, interpret, and create information that verifies existing beliefs. Snyder and Swann study: participants asked a stranger questions based on whether they were told the person was introverted or extroverted. Belief perseverance: the tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy When one’s expectations about a person eventually lead that person to behave in ways that confirm those expectations. Banks during the depression – if people are told a solid bank is failing, they withdraw their money and it does fail. “Pygmalion” study suggested that teacher expectations impacted actual student performance. The cycle can be broken if the perceiver is highly motivated to seek the truth.

PART FIVE SOCIAL PERCEPTION: THE BOTTOM LINE

The Bottom Line People are mostly unaware of their limitations in making accurate perceptions. We are overconfident in our assessments. We use the heuristics we use for a reason – they’re often right. We get better at making perceptions when: We have more time to interact We make judgments that are reasonably specific Know more about the rules of logic and probability Motivated to be accurate