Social Perception

1. Social Perception The power of first impressions? How do we interpret other peoples behaviours?

2. Have you ever not been able to explain your behaviour?? Or thought hmm well that was DUMB after doing something?

3. Try to be nice…. What FIRST IMPRESSIONS did you have of me when I first walked in? What are some things you noticed? Have these impressions changed over the past several weeks?

4. First Impressions

7. Primacy Effect The tendency to form opinions about others based on first impressions

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1rwRT229Uo

9. Kelley (1950) Guest lecturer experiment • Before lecturer arrived, students were given a note • “People who know him consider him to be a rather cold person, industrious, critical, practical, and determined” • “People who know him consider him to be a rather warm person, industrious, critical, practical, and determined”

10. Kelley (1950) Guest lecturer experiment • Asked to rate lecturer on several traits • Humourous, sociable, considerate • Results

11. The lecturer gave the same talk to all the students. Those who had warm in their descriptions rated the lecture more favorably and were more likely to ask questions and interact with the lecturer •  The students with cold in their descriptions rated the lecturer as aloof and unsociable. Only 32% said they wanted to ask him a question or interact with him, compared to 56% in the group that heard him described as warm.

12. Social Cognition • Definition: • Broad: How people think about themselves and the social world • Specific: How people select, interpret, remember and use social information to make judgments and decisions • Can involve automatic or controlled thinking

13. Schemas • Mental structures that people use to organize their knowledge about the world

14. Different Types of Schemas • schemas about objects • schemas about ourselves • schemas about other people • schemas about groups of people • schemas about events

15. What do schemas do? • Effects of schemas • Influence what we notice, think about, and remember • Schemas act as filters • Screen out information that is inconsistent with them • We often attend only to schema-consistent information

16. Accessibility and Schemas • Accessibility: the extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people’s minds • The more accessible a schema is, the more likely we will be to apply that schema when making judgments

17. Why do we have schemas? • We need to be able to relate new experiences to past ones. • We need to interpret ambiguous information

18. Accessibility and schemas • Chronic accessibility: Due to past experience • Temporary accessibility • Priming: bringing a schema or concept to the forefront of people’s minds

19. Higgins, Rholes and Jones, 1977“Donald” experiment • Cover story: participants would take part 2 studies: • Perception experiment - Memorize words while identifying colours • Reading comprehension - Read Donald passage and rated him

20. What Do Schemas Do? • provide clarity in ambiguous situations (Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977)

21. What Do Schemas Do? • Donald… • …climbed Mt. McKinley, shot the Colorado rapids in a kayak, drove in a demolition derby… • …didn’t really need to rely on anyone… • …only rarely did he change his mind… (Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977)

22. What Do Schemas Do? • Donald… • …climbed Mt. McKinley, shot the Colorado rapids in a kayak, drove in a demolition derby… • …didn’t really need to rely on anyone… • …only rarely did he change his mind… • How likable is Donald? Reckless? Adventuresome? (Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977)

24. What Do Schemas Do? • positive words = more positive impression (i.e., likable, adventuresome) • negative words = more negative impression (i.e., not likable, reckless) • the schema that is salient (adventuresome, reckless) influences how you perceive the story (Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977)

25. Problems with schemas • Schemas are hard to change • Once we have decided that we believe something, we will tend to keep on believing it, even in the face of disconfirming evidence. • Particularly if other people know of our belief, it can be embarrassing to climb down from our previous assertions. It is also difficult to remove a belief which has been woven into a wider web of belief, without disturbing those other beliefs.

26. Perseverance effect: beliefs persist even after disconfirming evidence

27. Problems with Schemas • schemas are resistant to change • People are motivated to maintain the schema (Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard, 1975) • participants shown research findings that either a) non-risky firefighters make the best b) risky firefighters make the best • told the findings were bogus • participants held on to their original beliefs (Anderson, Lepper, & Ross, 1980)

28. Why are schemas so hard to change? • Why? • Human memory is reconstructive, adding information to that which is actually noticed • Reconstructions are schema-consistent, further reinforcing the schema

29. Self-fulfilling prophecy • Jacobson (1968) • Administered IQ tests • Randomly assigned students to be “bloomers” • Tested IQ at end of year • Results?

30. Students who were labelled as “bloomers” did better in the class.

31. Scenario 1 A student asks her teacher for an extension on an assignment that she had one month to complete.

32. Scenario 2 • A teenage boy comes up past his curfew for the 3rd time in one month

33. Scenario 3 You are angry with your sister because it is taking her a long time to get ready for school.

34. The Attribution Process • Attribution = Judging people by observing and determining cause of behavior • Trait attribution • Traits, abilities, characteristics of person • Situational attribution • Environmental causes

35. Fundamental Attribution Error • The tendency to rely more on trait attributions than situational • Reasons for this not entirely clear • Varies by culture • Individualistic cultures emphasize individual behavior and success over group; more likely to make fundamental attribution errors • Collectivistic cultures emphasize group over individual

36. Scenario 1 A student asks her teacher for an extension on an assignment that she had one month to complete’

37. Scenario 2 • A teenage boy comes up past his curfew for the 3rd time in one month

38. Scenario 3 You are angry with your sister because it is taking her a long time to get ready for school.

39. Building Task How much did you contribute to groups overall success?

40. https://sites.google.com/a/sunsetparkhighschool.org/psychology/sociocultural/activity-fundamental-attribution-errorhttps://sites.google.com/a/sunsetparkhighschool.org/psychology/sociocultural/activity-fundamental-attribution-error

41. Actor/Observer Bias • When observing own behavior take more situational factors into account • Appears self-serving, but not always • Factors: • Cannot see own behavior, focused outward • Have different knowledge about self than other

42. Self-Serving Bias Tendency to make trait attributions for successes, situational attributions for failures Helps protect self-esteem May become too self-serving and hurt

43. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbWmBUONtFY

44. Paragraph Explain a time or multiple times you have fallen for the Fundamental Attribution Error or Self Serving Bias