Person Perception -Perceiving the prevalence of traits and behaviours - False Consensus

1. Person Perception -Perceiving the prevalence of traits and behaviours - False Consensus • The Ross, Greene, & House (1977) - study • How do you measure false consensus? • Explanations of it • Differential exposure - We tend to know people like ourselves • Self as an anchor - Our own behaviour is the starting point and we don’t correct enough • Motivation - we want our actions and beliefs to be popular • Beliefs about causation - When we believe the situation causes us to do something, we believe it will affect others as well

2. Pluralistic Ignorance • Pluralistic Ignorance - what is it? • When does it occur? • When our private attitudes don’t match our public behaviour because we feel some sort of constraint • We think that other people don’t feel the same constraints so we take their behaviour at face value • Pluralistic Ignorance and Bystander Intervention • Pluralistic Ignorance and Drinking at Princeton • Study 1 - simple measure of pluralistic ignorance • Study 2 - where do friends stand? • Study 3 - what happens over time? • Study 4 - keg ban study

3. Prentice & Miller (1993) -Study 1

4. Pluralistic Ignorance • Pluralistic Ignorance - what is it? • When does it occur? • When our private attitudes don’t match our public behaviour because we feel some sort of constraint • We think that other people don’t feel the same constraints so we take their behaviour at face value • Pluralistic Ignorance and Bystander Intervention • Pluralistic Ignorance and Drinking at Princeton • Study 1 - simple measure of pluralistic ignorance • Study 2 - where do friends stand?

5. Prentice & Miller (1993) -Study 2

6. Pluralistic Ignorance • Pluralistic Ignorance - what is it? • When does it occur? • When our private attitudes don’t match our public behaviour because we feel some sort of constraint • We think that other people don’t feel the same constraints so we take their behaviour at face value • Pluralistic Ignorance and Bystander Intervention • Pluralistic Ignorance and Drinking at Princeton • Study 1 - simple measure of pluralistic ignorance • Study 2 - where do friends stand? • Study 3 - what happens over time?

7. Prentice & Miller (1993) -Study 3 - Fall

8. Prentice & Miller (1993) -Study 3 - Winter

9. Pluralistic Ignorance • Pluralistic Ignorance - what is it? • When does it occur? • When our private attitudes don’t match our public behaviour because we feel some sort of constraint • We think that other people don’t feel the same constraints so we take their behaviour at face value • Pluralistic Ignorance and Bystander Intervention • Pluralistic Ignorance and Drinking at Princeton • Study 1 - simple measure of pluralistic ignorance • Study 2 - where do friends stand? • Study 3 - what happens over time? • Study 4 - keg ban study

10. False Uniqueness • Estimates of how much people drink and use seatbelts (Suls & et al. , 1988) • Differences between false consensus, false uniqueness, and pluralistic ignorance • False consensus and uniqueness are relative effects • Pluralistic ignorance is an absolute effect • False uniqueness can not be explained by some of the cognitive mechanisms that the other can be

11. Example of Relations between False Consensus, False Uniqueness, and Pluralistic Ignorance Percent Uncomfortable with Drinking on Campus FCE & PI FUE & PI Just PI Actual % of People 45 45 45 Estimate of People 15 25 20 Comfortable Estimate of People 25 15 20 Uncomfortable

12. Mischel’s Critique • What about the Situation? Hartshorne & May (1928) - You call .30 a relationship? • Reactions • Aggregation Approach - look at many behaviors and sum them up. Don’t look at just one behavior. • Can we still predict a specific instance of behaviour? • Why do the correlations increase? Does the size of the effect increase?

13. The Act Frequency Approach • Extroversion & Behaviour • Think of the three most dominant males (or females) you know.. • Some common or prototypical responses • I yelled in order to get my way. • I forbade her to leave the room. • I decided which programs we would watch on TV. • I told her to get off the phone so I could use it. • Similar studies with extraversion, agreeableness, introversion, submission, and gregariousness

14. Modified Idiographic Approach • The Bem & Allen Study • How much do you vary from one situation to another in how friendly and outgoing (conscientious) you are? • Monitored subjects self-reports of behaviour, others reports of their behaviour, and observations • Friendliness findings • self-rated consistent r=.57 • self-rated inconsistent r = .27 • Conscientious findings • did not work

15. Mischel’s Response to the Modified Idiographic Approach • Mischel & Peake • They used Bem & Allen’s conscientiousness procedure • They used additional measure of conscientious behaviours • They had self, parent, friend, and behavioural measures • For high consistency people self, parent, and friend ratings of behaviours correlated highly • But behavioural ratings did not

16. Perceiving Traits • We way overestimate the cross-situational consistency of behaviour • (Kunda & Nisbett, 1986)

17. Kunda & Nisbett (1986)

18. Perceiving Traits (Cont.) • Models of Attribution • Jones & Davis (1965); Kelley (1967) • The Fundamental Attribution Error - a.k.a the correspondence bias • Jones & Harris (1967) • Ross, Amabile, & Steinmetz, (1977) • Spontaneous trait inference • Winter & Uleman (1984)

19. Winter & Uleman (1984)

20. Perceiving Traits (cont.) • Models of Attribution • Jones & Davis (1965); Kelley (1967) • The Fundamental Attribution Error - a.k.a the correspondence bias • Jones & Harris (1967) • Ross, Amabile, & Steinmetz, (1977) • Spontaneous trait inference • Winter & Uleman (1984) • Carlston & Skowronski (1994)

21. Carlston & Skowronski (1994)

22. Perceiving Traits (cont.) • The Fundamental Attribution Error - a.k.a the correspondence bias • Jones & Harris (1967) • Ross, Amabile, & Steinmetz, (1977) • Spontaneous trait inference • Winter & Uleman (1984) • Carlston & Skowronski (1994) • Two-step models of attribution (Gilbert, 1989) • The first step is a snap - Person Attribution • The second step is a doozy - Correction based on the situation

23. Traits as an Interaction of the Person and the Situation • Personality psychologists are saying that it is the type of situation that matters while social psychologists are saying it is the situation. So whose right? • Both • The person in a particular type of situation - • Shoda, Mischel, & Wright (1994) Summer Camp Study • Mischel & Shoda’s (1995) response to Bem and Allen (1974)

24. Traits as an Interaction of the Person and the Situation (cont.) • The situation affects some people but not others - A new trait that predict who the situation has an effect on • Self-Monitoring

25. Self-Monitoring and Conformity

26. Interaction of the Person and the Situation (cont.) • The situation affects some people but not others - A new trait that predict who the situation has an effect on • Self-Monitoring • Self-Handicapping

27. Self-Handicapping and Expectations

28. Interaction of the Person and the Situation (cont.) • Some situations have more of an effect than others- Some situations influence people and others do not • Self-Awareness and Deindividuation

29. Self-Awareness and Stealing Candy