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

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

Prentice & Miller (1993) -Study 1

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?

Prentice & Miller (1993) -Study 2

How Confortable?

4

5

6

7

8

Self Friend Average Student

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?

Prentice & Miller (1993) -Study 3 - Fall

Prentice & Miller (1993) -Study 3 - Winter

How Comfortable?

4

5

6

7

8

Self Average Student

Men Women

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

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

Example of Relations between False Consensus, False Uniqueness,

and Pluralistic Ignorance

Percent Uncomfortable with Drinking on Campus

FCE & PIFUE & PI Just PI

Actual % of People 45 45 45

Estimate of People 15 25 20Comfortable Estimate of People 25 15 20Uncomfortable

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?

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

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

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

Perceiving Traits

• We way overestimate the cross-situational consistency of behaviour– (Kunda & Nisbett, 1986)

Kunda & Nisbett (1986)

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)

Winter & Uleman (1984)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Self-Hanicappers Non Self-Hanicappers

Expect to do wellExpect to do poorly

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)

Carlston & Skowronski (1994)

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

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)

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

Self-Monitoring and Conformity

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

Self-Handicapping and Expectations

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

Self-Awareness and Stealing Candy