Person PerceptionPerson PerceptionSeptember 25th, 2009 : Lecture 5September 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

ContextContext

ContextContext

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:

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Schemas

Classic example from last Friday’s lecture:

Schemas

Classic example from last Friday’s lecture:

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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

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Ease of AttributionEase of AttributionHeider & Simmel (1944)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)

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:

ConsensusDistinctivene

ssConsistency Attribution

↓ ↓ ↑ Internal

↑ ↑ ↑ External

↑ or ↓ ↑ 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?

http://www.youjustgetme.com

What your stuff says about you:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90829875

Alexa’s Survey