1. Causal Attribution and Social Judgment

2. Back to construal Misunderstandings across genders—the case of unwanted sexual advances

3. Back to construal Misunderstandings across cultures—the Hainan island incident-- collision of Chinese and US jets in 2001 Apology diplomacy Different cultural perceptions

4. Outline 1. Causal Attribution—how we make sense of other peoples’ behaviour 2. Self-knowledge—how we make sense of who we are and our own behaviour 3. Social Judgment—strategies, errors and biases in social decision making

5. Optimistic attributional style predicts future physical health Even controlling for earlier health

6. Why Attribution Matters Attribution – Explanatory style -

7. Why Attribution Matters Optmistic attributional style Pessimistic attributional style

8. Optimistic attributional style predicts Academic achievement Physical health Longevity Relationship satisfaction Likelihood of being elected to office

9. Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error: overestimating internal factors and underestimating external factors when explaining other people’s behaviour “Castro Study”

10. Jones and Harris (1967) ‘Castro study’

11. Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error: Anxious public speaker Friendly saleswoman Talkative talk show host Deranged suicide terrorist

12. Research shows Suicide Bombers are not… Mentally ill Suicidal Poor Suffering from personality disorders But they are: unmarried young adult men Better explanation: group dynamics (recruitment) and popular support for suicide attacks

13. Support for “martyrdom attacks” Regular attenders 1.8 times more likely to support Wald = 6.42, 95% CI for OR = 1.16--3.02, P=0.01 No independent effect of prayer frequency Control variables: prayer frequency, gender, economic satisfaction, education, refugee status, support for Islamic state Study 1: Palestinian Representative Sample, 1999 (N=1151) Ginges, Hansen, Norenzayan, 2009

14. Agreement that “Islam encourages or requires martyrdom attacks” Regular attenders 3.1 times more likely to support Wald = 8.473, 95% CI for OR= 1.45--6.47, P=0.004 No independent effect of prayer frequency Controls: prayer frequency, gender, economic satisfaction, education, refugee status and identification with Islamist Palestinian organizations Study 2: Palestinian University Student Sample 2006 (N=719)

15. The tombstone of Baruch Goldstein which describes him as “murdered as a martyr of God”. On the 25th of February, 1994 Goldstein died while killing 29 Muslims at prayer, and injuring 60 others, in the “Cave of the Patriarchs”, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews located in Hebron, the West Bank

16. P=.09 P=.04

17. 10-Nation BBC Survey of Religious Beliefs Mexico (Catholic) Great Britain (Protestant) Russia (Orthodox) India (Hindu) Indonesia (Muslim) Israel (Jewish) 4704 participants 52.7% female age 18 to over 55 Variation in SES & income Major religious groups Joint agreement with: 1) “ I am willing to die for my God (beliefs)” 2) “I blame other religions for the problems of the world”

18. Odds of supporting combative martyrdom Controls: age, sex, SES, education, human dev index

19. Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error: explanations Perceptual: Cognitive: Motivational: Cultural:

20. Cultural differences in causal attributions Sports articles: US newspapers, more dispositional attributions Hong Kong newspapers, more situational attributions Cultural differences disappeared for editorials Lee, Hallahan, & Herzog, 1996

21. The dilemma of the innocent victim JWB allows individuals to maintain a sense of purpose and control—bad things couldn’t happen to me Injustice in the world is a perceived threat Outcomes reflect personal traits – more FAE One pernicious consequence: blaming victims

22. Just World Beliefs (Lerner & Miller, 1978) Just-world beliefs- “By and large, people deserve what they get in life” “Basically, the world is a just place” “People who do their job will rise to the top” “People who meet with misfortune have often brought it on themselves”

23. Just World Beliefs Blaming the victim—experiments by Lerner & colleagues Participants watch another person suffer (victim) Restore Justice Condition: Participant (or someone else) can help the victim JWB Condition: participant (or someone else) cannot help the victim Outcome: Results:

24. Just World Beliefs Victim derogation is less likely Who believes in a just world?

25. Just World Beliefs: Summary & Clarifications When one believes in just world AND the victim cannot be helped = MORE victim blaming Not about self helping victim (empathy) Not about perceived competence of the victim (VB even when victim is “randomly assigned” to be a victim)

26. Attributional Biases Actor-observer effect: Example: perceptions in conflict Explanations: 1) 2)

27. Attributional Biases Self-serving bias:

28. Self-Knowledge o How and how much do we know ourselves? o Barriers to self-knowledge o Conscious vs. unconscious self- knowledge o Strategies for self-knowledge

29. Escape from the Self o Our defenses stop us from knowing ourselves, esp. undesirable aspects We escape self-awareness through Defensive strategies (suppression, denial) Addictions: alcohol and drug abuse, sex, eating, TV, suicide, etc. Work, hobbies, other people

30. Self-Knowledge o We may have limited ability to know ourselves o Ways into self-knowledge o Introspection o Observing our own behaviour o Learning about how others see us

31. Introspection Look inward to observe 1) Feelings, thoughts, desires 2) Reasons behind our actions More successful with 1) then 2) The causes behind our tendencies are not readily visible—psychological research better way to know this

32. Introspection--do we know the causes of our behavior? Confabulation: studies with split-brain patients (Gazzaniga & Ledoux) Pantyhose study (Nisbett & Wilson)

33. Language centres in Left Hemisphere

34. Introspection--do we know the causes of our behavior? Confabulation: studies with split-brain patients (Gazzaniga & Ledoux) Pantyhose study (Nisbett & Wilson) Cognitive dissonance studies, studies of discrimination—peoples explanations of their own behaviour have little to do with observed causes

35. Observing our own behaviour Self perception theory:

36. How Others See Us Our defenses prevents us from wanting to know ourselves But others who know us well can see through these defenses They can also be good observers of our behaviour Ex: my colleague’s hostility in the late afternoon

37. Strategies that facilitate self- knowledge Self-acceptance (less defensiveness) Connecting with our feelings and observing our thoughts without identifying with them Find out how knowledgeable others see us Visualizing our reactions to future situations Psychological research (esp. for reasons behind our actions)

38. “Thin slicing”: How first impressions matter The statue that didn’t look right (see Gladwell, Blink) First impression in dates, job interviews, consumer choices, …

39. “Thin slicing”: How first impressions matter Judging personality traits (Willis & Todorov, 2006)

40. “Thin slicing”: How first impressions matter Teacher evaluations (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993) 10, 5, 2 sec. long videotape of prof’s teaching …predicted student evaluations at the end of term

41. “Thin slicing”: How first impressions matter Do people agree on first impressions? Yes The 1 million $ chicken-egg question: 1) Is the (often biased) first impression coloring longer term judgment? Or 2) accurately perceiving what’s there takes only seconds?

42. Prop. of correctly predicted soccer games as a function of expertise and thought, Exp 1 (Dijksterhuis et al 2009) d Immed: 20sConsc: 2mUnconsc: 2m distr.

43. Heuristics in Social Judgment Heuristic:

44. Heuristics in Social Judgment Representativeness heuristic-

45. Heuristics in Social Cognition Availability Heuristic:

46. The statistics By number of deaths: Deaths due to car transportation: 40,000/year Deaths due to airline transportation: 200/year By number of passengers Car: 1/6800 deaths per year Airline: 1/1.6 million per year Controlling for distance covered 10-40 times more likely to die driving than flying

47. The statistics But media coverage is incredibly skewed: 0.02 cancer stories/1000 cancer deaths 1.7 murder stories/1000 homicides 2.3 AIDS stories/1000 AIDS deaths 138 plane crash stories/1000 airplane deaths

48. Social Cognition: Conclusions Naïve realism: belief that one’s own perspective reflects objective reality, whereas others are biased People are not objective observers of the social world; they construe their world in particular ways–heuristics and self-protective defenses to make sense of the social world These ways of construal have consequences (health, decisions, conflict,…)