Person Perception September 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

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:

Schemas Classic example from last Friday’s lecture:

Schemas Classic example from last Friday’s lecture:

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

Ease of Attribution 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 ) 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: ConsensusDistinctivenessConsistencyAttribution ↓↓↑ Internal ↑↑↑ External ↑ 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? What your stuff says about you:

Alexa’s Survey