Soc 319: Sociological Approaches to Social Psychology

Thursday February 19, 2009

Social Cognition and Person Perception

I. Person Perception/Social Cognition

I. Social Perception and CognitionA. Review of cognitive theory

1. Salience2. Categorization3. Types of schemas

B. Person perception1. Implicit personality theory

a. warm-cold variable studies (Asch 1946; Kelley 1950)

2. Attractiveness stereotypea. Dion, Berscheid and Walster studyb. Explanations

i. “Halo” effect

Asch (1946)

A person is described as: Intelligent Skillful Industrious Determined Practical Cautious and either…

Warm, cold, polite, blunt, [control]

Asch (1946) “Forming Impressions of Personality”Overall

Impression

Warm Cold Polite Blunt No key trait

Generous 91 8 56 58 55

Wise 65 25 30 50 49

Happy 90 34 75 65 71

Good-natured

94 17 87 56 69

Reliable 94 99 95 100 96

Important 88 99 94 96 88

% of subjects choosing trait as a characteristic of unknown person.

I. Person Perception (cont’d)

C. Group schemas 1. Stereotypes

a. Often deeply embedded and not conscious.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RSVz6VEybk

2. Social sources of stereotypesa. “Kernel of truth” thesis (Eagly)

Source: Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2005

Data: A random sample survey of persons in 16 nations.

II. Advantages of Using Schematic

A. Efficiency1. Efficiency is not always a good thing

a. https://implicit.harvard.edu [take test on your own]

B. Aid in interpretation

C. Aid in Recall

III. Disadvantages of Using Schematic Processing

A. Erroneous inferences

1. Lack of individual differences

2. Complexity-extremity effect

B. Inflexibility of schemas

C. Biased nature of perceptions

1. Hastorf & Cantril (1954): “They saw a game study” focused on 1951 Princeton-Dartmouth football game.

“Which team do you feel started the rough play?

% Dartmouth students

% Princeton students

Princeton started it. 2 0

Both started it. 53 11

Dartmouth started it. 36 86

Neither/no answer. 9 3

Which team won the RU vs. Tennessee game in February 2008?

Final score: Tennessee 59 – Rutgers 58

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwYcfFvn-uY

IV. How are Impressions of Others Formed?A. Importance of positive and negative evaluations

B. Models of integrating information

1. Averaging model

2. Additive model

3. Weighted average model

C. The importance of first impressions

1. Primacy effect

2. Recency effect

3. Self-fulfilling prophecy

How would we obtain an overall assessment of our new roommate?

Friendly +8 Good listener +5 Financially responsible +9

Additive Model: +22 Averaging Model: +7.3

Next, we incorporate a new piece of information: Intelligent +3

Additive Model: +25 Averaging Model: 6.25

In the additive model, any new piece of positive information improves our overall assessment. In the averaging model a weak, positive piece of new information might lower our overall assessment.

What kind of football season did RU have in 2008? Fresno State L 24-7 UNC L 44-12 Navy L 23-21 Morgan State W 38-0 WVU L 24-17 Cincinnati L 13-10 UConn W 12-10 Pittsburgh W 54-34 Syracuse W 35-17 USF W 49-16 Army W 30-3 Louisville W 63-14 NC State W 29-23

V. Implications for Policy and Practice

Medicine Law enforcement

Controversies over Amadou Diallo (2002); Sean Bell (2006)

Education Media coverage of political and social issues

“The Police Officer’s Dilemma” (Correll et al., 2002)

“The Police Officer’s Dilemma” (Correll et al., 2002)