person perception september 25th, 2009 : lecture 5
TRANSCRIPT
Person PerceptionPerson PerceptionSeptember 25th, 2009 : Lecture 5September 25th, 2009 : Lecture 5
Person Perception
Social Information
Attribution
Self-serving Biases
Prediction
Social Information
What Goes Into Person Perception?
Behaviour
Context
Schemas!
Behavioural Input
Verbal Behaviour
Nonverbal Behaviour
Emblems
Power of Behavioural Input: “Thin Slices”
Emblems
Gestures that have well-understood meaning within a culture
Effectively: nonverbal language
“Thin Slices”
Approach within social psychology focused on the attributional power of brief exposure to others
SES in Social Interactions
How quickly can you detect someone’s socio-economic status (SES)?
SES in Social Interactions
Kraus & Keltner (2009)
Method:
SES in Social Interactions
Kraus & Keltner (2009)
Results:
Naive observers accurately detected parents’ income, mothers’ education, and subjective SES
Relative to high SES participants, low SES participants spent less time:
Grooming, doodling, manipulating objects
ContextContext
ContextContext
Context
Context matters
Provides additional input
Can completely change attribution
Schemas
What you expect is what you get
Schemas
Classic example from last Friday’s lecture:
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Schemas
Classic example from last Friday’s lecture:
Schemas
Classic example from last Friday’s lecture:
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are needed to see this picture.
Attribution
Explanation for an observed behaviour of another social object
Attribution
How Automatic is Attribution?
Attribution Theory
Internal/External Attributions
Fundamental (?) Attribution Error
Covariation Theory
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Ease of AttributionEase of AttributionHeider & Simmel (1944)Heider & Simmel (1944)
Automaticity of Attributions
How Automatic is an Attribution?
Very
Attributions = Pattern Matching
Attribution Theory
Primary Question:
Do we attribute behaviour to something about the person (“internal”) or something about the situation (“external”)?
Internal Attribution
Attributing a person’s behaviour to something intrinsic to that person
Personality, disposition, attitude, or character
External Attribution
Attributing a person’s behaviour to something about the situation in which the behaviour occurred
Specifically not changing beliefs regarding person’s character or personality
Fundamental Attribution Error
AKA, “FAE”
When perceiving others:
Tendency to overestimate the influence of internal causes for behaviour and underestimate external causes
When perceiving self:
Much more likely to attribute own behaviour to external causes
Fundamental Attribution Error
Jones & Harris (1967)
Method:
Fundamental Attribution Error
Jones & Harris (1967)
Results:Choice
No Choice
Perceptual Salience
Tendency to overestimate the causal role of information that grabs our attention
Two-Step Process of Attribution
Same process as Anchoring & Adjustment Heuristic
1. Make an internal attribution
2. Attempt to adjust away from internal attribution by considering situational constraints
How Fundamental is the FAE?
Gang Lu (卢刚)
Recent Physics Ph.D. from University of Iowa
On 1991/11/01, he killed 4 faculty, 1 Ph.D. Student, and paralysed a student researcher
How Fundamental is the FAE?
Morris & Peng (1994)
Method: Analysed Chinese- and English-language newspaper articles written about Gang Lu
Results:
Correspondence Bias
Tendency to infer that a person’s behaviour corresponds to their disposition, personality, or attitude
Covariation Theory
Assumption:
People are lay statisticians
3 Factors of Attribution:
Consensus
Distinctiveness
Consistency
Consensus
Do other people behave in this way?
Behaviour unique to person
Distinctiveness
Does this person behave like this with other stimuli?
Behaviour unique to situation
Consistency
Does the person behave like this over time?
Behaviour unique to this moment in time
Covariation Theory
3 Patterns Lead to 3 Attributions:
ConsensusDistinctivene
ssConsistency Attribution
↓ ↓ ↑ Internal
↑ ↑ ↑ External
↑ or ↓ ↑ or ↓ ↓ Situational
Self-Serving Biases
Self-Serving Attributions
Defensive Attributions:
Unrealistic Optimism
Just World Hypothesis
False Consensus Effect
Ultimate Attribution Error
Self-Serving Attributions
You do really well on a test. Is this because:
You are smart
The test was easy
You do really poorly on a test. Is this because:
You are dumb
The test was hard
Self-Serving Attributions
Positive outcome for Self:
Explain it in terms of internal factors
Negative outcome for Self:
Explain it in terms of external factors
Unrealistic Optimism
Tendency to expect:
Bad things are less likely to happen to you than to other people
Good things are more likely to happen to you than other people
Just World Hypothesis
Belief that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people
Leads to rejection of victims
False Consensus Error
Assumption that more people share your beliefs, attitudes, and preferences than actually do
Ultimate Attribution Error
Tendency to make internal attributions about an entire social group’s disposition based on the behaviour of one group member
Only applies to social outgroups
Prediction
How Good Are We At Predicting?
Implicit Personality Theories
How Good Are We at Prediction?
Demo!
Need 6 volunteers!
Implicit Personality Theories
Type of schema used to group certain personality traits together
E.g., Jane is warm. Will Jane lend Jeric $10 for lunch?
“We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.”
Next lecture (9/30):
Social Interactions
Relevant Websites:
How good at you at perceiving other people’s personality?
http://www.youjustgetme.com
What your stuff says about you:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90829875
Alexa’s Survey