1 Perceiving & evaluating other people zWhy do we evaluate others? yall of us are naïve psychologists zAre we accurate? yoften yhowever, our judgments can suffer from a number of biases xwhen not using all our resources xwhen we have limited information xwhen we have hidden motives/goals e.g., our self-esteem is threatened

2 Social Comparison zDownward social comparison yCompare ourselves to others who are not as good (i.e. could be worse!) zUpward social comparison yComparing ourselves to others who are doing better (gives us hope/creates optimism)

3 Self-fulfilling Prophecies zWhen our beliefs and expectations create reality  Beliefs & expectations influence our behavior & others ’ zPygmalion effect yperson A believes that person B has a particular characteristic yperson B may begin to behave in accordance with that characteristic

4 Studies of the Self-fulfilling Prophecy zRosenthal & Fode ytested whether labeling would affect outcome ydivided students into 2 groups and gave them randomly selected rats  1 group was told they had a group of “ super genius ” rats and the other was told they had a group of “ super moron ” rats yall students told to train rats to run mazes  “ genius ” rat group ended up doing better than the “ moron ” rat group b/c of the expectations of the students

5 Attributions from behavior zAttribution  a claim about the cause of someone ’ s behavior yseeking a reason for the occurrence of events/behaviors yHeider xearly researcher  we intuitively attribute others ’ actions to personality characteristics

6 Person vs. Situation Attributions zHave to decide whether behavior is due to something about personality, or whether anyone would do same thing in that situation  Kelley ’ s 3 questions in making an attribution ydoes this person regularly behave this way in this situation? [distictiveness] ydo others regularly behave this way in this situation? [consensus] ydoes this person behave this way in many other situations? [consistency] zExample: Susan is angry while driving in a traffic jam

7 Kelley ’ s Attributional Logic (1) Does Susan regularly get angry in traffic jams? YES (2) Do many other people get angry in traffic jams? NO YES (3) Does Susan get angry in many other situations? No personality or situational attribution Situational attribution: traffic jams make people mad Personality attribution, general Personality attribution, particular YESNO

8 Kelley – in summary zWhen are we likely to make internal attributions? yLow consensus yHigh consistency yLow distinctiveness (see example with “boss insulting customer” on p. 683)

9 Person bias in attributions zPeople give too much weight to personality and not enough to situational variables zKnown as person bias ya.k.a. fundamental attribution error zConditions promoting person bias ywhen task has goal of assessment of personality ywhen person is cognitively loaded zConditions promoting a situation bias ywhen goal is to judge the situation

10 Two-stage Model of Attributions zFirst stage is rapid & automatic ybias according to goal (person/situation) zSecond stage is slower & controlled  won ’ t occur if cognitively loaded ywe correct our automatic attribution

11 Two-stage Model of Attributions What kind of person is Joe? How funny is the TV comedy? Person: Joe laughs easily Situation: the TV show is funny Observer’s goal Automatic Attribution Controlled Attribution Revision: could be a funny show Revision: maybe Joe laughs easily Book example: Joe laughs hysterically while watching a TV comedy. What can we conclude?

12 Cross-cultural differences zWestern culture ypeople are in charge of own destinies ymore attributions to personality zSome Eastern cultures yfate in charge of destiny ymore attributions to situation Age (years) Adult United States India Attributions to internal disposition

13 Actor-Observer Bias  Attribute personality causes of behavior when evaluating someone else ’ s behavior zAttribute situational when evaluating our own behavior zWhy? yhypothesis 1:  we know our behavior changes from situation to situation, but we don ’ t know this about others yhypothesis 2: xwhen we see others perform an action, we concentrate on actor, not situation -- when we perform an action, we see environment, not person

14 Prior Information Effects zMental representations of people (schemas) can effect our interpretation of them  Kelley ’ s study xstudents had a guest speaker  before the speaker came, half got a written bio saying speaker was “ very warm ”, half got bio saying speaker was “ rather cold ”  “ very warm ” group rated guest more positively than “ rather cold ” group

15 Effects of Personal Appearance zThe attractiveness bias yphysically attractive people are rated higher on intelligence, competence, sociability, morality ystudies xteachers rate attractive children as smarter, and higher achieving  adults attribute cause of unattractive child ’ s misbehavior to personality, attractive child ’ s to situation xjudges give longer prison sentences to unattractive people

16 Effects of Personal Appearance zThe baby-face bias ypeople with rounder heads, large eyes, small jawbones, etc. rated as more naïve, honest, helpless, kind, and warm than mature-faced ygeneralize to animals, women, babies

17 Attitudes zWhat is an attitude? ypredisposition to behave in a certain way toward some people, group, or objects ycan be negative or positive zCognitive dissonance theory yFestinger ywe we need our attitudes to be consistent with our behavior  it is uncomfortable for us when they aren ’ t ywe seek ways to decrease discomfort caused by inconsistency

18 Dissonance-reducing Mechanisms zAvoiding dissonant information  we attend to information in support of our existing views, rather than information that doesn ’ t support them zFirming up an attitude to be consistent with an action  once we ’ ve made a choice to do something, lingering doubts about our actions would cause dissonance, so we are motivated to set them aside

19 Dissonance-reducing Mechanisms zChanging an attitude to justify an action ywhen a person does something counter to their stated beliefs, then justify the deed by modifying their attitude yInsufficient-justification effect xchange in attitude that occurs because person cannot justify an already completed action without modifying attitude xoptimizing conditions include external justification, free choice, when action would cause harm

20 Insufficient-justification effect zFestinger & Carlsmith (1959) ygave subjects a boring task, then asked subjects to lie to the next subject and say the experiment was exciting ypaid ½ the subjects $1, other ½ $20 ythen asked subjects to rate boringness of task y$1 group rated the task as far more fun than the $20 group yeach group needed a justification for lying x$20 group had an external justification of money  since $1 isn ’ t very much money, $1 group said task was fun

21 Using Attitudes as Ways to “ Justify ” Injustice zJust-world bias ya tendency to believe that life is fair xit would seem horrible to think that you can be a really good person and bad things could happen to you anyway  Just-world bias leads to “ blaming the victim ”  we explain others ’ misfortunes as being their fault xe.g., she deserved to be raped, what was she doing in that neighborhood anyway?

22 Stereotypes zWhat is a stereotype? yschemas about a group of people ya belief held by members of one group about members of another group yhow can we study stereotypes? xearly studies just asked people  today ’ s society is sensitized to harmful effects of stereotyping xneed different ways of studying

23 Studying stereotypes  3 levels of stereotypes in today ’ s research ypublic xwhat we say to others about a group yprivate  what we consciously think about a group, but don ’ t say to others yimplicit xunconscious mental associations guiding our judgments and actions without our conscious awareness

24 Implicit Stereotypes  Use of priming: subject doesn ’ t know stereotype is being activated, can ’ t work to suppress it yanother study xflash pictures of Black vs. White faces subliminally  give incomplete words like “ hos_____, ” subjects seeing Black make “ hostile, ” seeing White make “ hospital ” Assign: Go to my website and click on Implicit Social Attitudes This will take you to the link you need to take the Harvard IAT. (or click this of you are online now )

25 Implicit Stereotypes  Devine ’ s automaticity theory ystereotypes about African-Americans are so prevalent in our culture that we all hold them ythese stereotypes are automatically activated whenever we come into contact with an African-American  we have to actively push them back down if we don ’ t wish to act in a prejudiced way. yOvercoming prejudice is possible, but takes work