1Social PerceptionToday, we’ll finish talking about social cognition and then move on to discuss social perception.Soundtrack: “What Would You Do?” City High.Ironic processing & Thought Suppression (for 9/29 test)• Monitoring process (automatic): Search for evidence that unwanted thought is about to pop into consciousness.• Operating process (controlled): Attempt to distract self from detected unwanted thought.• Problem: If under cognitive load (tired, hungry, stressed, under time pressure), operating process breaks down.• Ironic because when we try to STOP thinking about something, it keeps popping into our mind (if we are under cognitive load) How can we be better thinkers? (for 9/29 test)• Given that humans make a lot of errors in reasoning, what can we do to improve our thinking?– TAKE STATISTICS!Nisbett and colleagues found that students who had formal training in statistics (psychology and medicine grad students) performed better on a test of reasoning than grad students in disciplines (chemistry, law) requiring less training in stats (see p. 89 of your text)Effects of Graduate Training on Statistical Reasoning (Nisbett et al., 1987) (for 9/29 test)Percent Gain on a Test of Statistical Reasoning020406080100Chemistry Law Medicine PsychologyGraduate DisciplinesConclusions (for 9/29 test)• Schemas and judgmental heuristics help us make sense of the world• They increase our efficiency and speed• They often operate automatically, without conscious awareness• But, they can sometimes lead to serious errors in judgment!Social Perception: Overview (new –not covered on 9/29 test)• How do we make attributions about social behavior?– Internal versus External attributions• Do people make attributions in a logical, rational way? Or, do we make some consistent errors?– Fundamental attribution error– Actor-observer bias• How do we make inferences about another person from nonverbal behavior?– Social Interpretations Task (SIT; Archer & Costanzo; Archer & Akert)– How well can we detect deception and lying?2Attributions• How do we make social inferences, from both verbal and nonverbal behavior, to understand WHY a person might be behaving in a particular way?ExampleCausal attributions• Internal attribution: Explain in terms of something about the person (attitude, personality)• External attribution: Explain in terms of something about the situation2 big questions• How do people explain another’s behavior?– Role of subjective vs. objective• What kinds of errors do people make when explaining another’s behavior?Two attributional biases• Fundamental attribution error• Actor-observer differenceFundamental attribution error• Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to overestimate the impact of internal, personality causes and to underestimate the impact of situational causes when explaining another person's behavior.3Jones & Harris (1967)• Observers readily attribute another's behavior to personality even when situational factors clearly important• Read essays or listened to speeches supposedly written by members of debating team. Speech supported or attacked Fidel Castro. Jones & Harris• IV #1: Debater choose or was assigned the pro- or anti-Castro position• IV #2: Speech was Pro or Anti• DV: Observers estimated debater’s true opinionExampleFundamental Attribution Error(Ross, Amabile, & Steinmetz, 1977)Demonstrates how people ignore the situation, and attribute behavior to dispositions.Simulated quiz gameRandomly assigned Stanford students to role of questioner or contestantQuestioners: Generate difficult trivia questionsVariables• IV: Role of questioner or contestant• DV: Rate general knowledge (relative to average Stanford student) of contestants and questioners4Causal Attribution• The Actor/Observer DifferenceThe actor/observer difference is the tendency to see other people’s behavior as dispositionally caused, but focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one’s own behavior.ExampleCausal Attribution• The Actor/Observer DifferenceOne reason for the actor/observer difference is perceptual salience (figure vs. ground): actors notice the situations around them that influence them to act, while observers notice the actors.Causal Attribution• The Actor/Observer DifferenceThe actor/observer difference also occurs because actors have more information about themselves than do observers.Causal Attribution• The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality PsychologistsThe Two-Step Process of Attribution occurs when people analyze another person’s behavior by first making an automatic internal attribution, and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior, after which one may adjust original internal attribution.5How do we make inferences about another person from nonverbal behavior?• Body language, facial expressions, touching, tone of voice• Nonverbal cues can provide a range of information (e.g., information about a person’s relationship to another person, or about whether a person is lying) How well do you perceive others?• Exercise: Social Interpretations Task (SIT) developed by Dane Archer and colleagues (AKA as “Interpersonal Perception Test)IPT Accuracy (based on 438 undergrads)Chance % Accuracy %• 1. (kinship)• 2. (intimacy)• 3. (status)• 4. (kinship)• 5. (deception)• 6. (competition)• 7. (status)• 8. (intimacy)Lie Detection Rate Among Different Groups (Ekman & O’Sullivan, 1991)In this study, Ps had a 50-50 chance of guessing accurately. Chance = 50%GroupAccuracy RateCollege studentsCIA, FBI, militaryPolice investigatorsTrial judgesPsychiatristsU.S. Secret Service Agents• Do men and women differ in their scores on the Social Interpretations Task?Results for Gender6Scores are fairly stable over time• The IPT is stable – reliability coefficients around .70 (e.g., over 2 wks)IPT• Correlates modestly with personality measures• High self-monitors (who attend to social/situational cues) tend to score ___________on the IPT than those who are low self-monit o r s (who are less likely to change their behavior in response to situational cues). • Extraverts also are ___________than introverts (Akert & Panter, 1986). Interpreting your scoreWhat does the IPT demonstrate?• People attend to _____________of nonverbal and verbal behavior in order to decode and understand a social situation• They do so