Transcript Social Cognition

Social Perception
“non-verbal behavior (NVB)”
Popularly called “body language”, but broader than that
– Facial expression
– Tone of voice
– Hand gestures
 The “OK” sign
 Thumbs-up
 Nodding vs.
shaking the head
 V-for-victory sign
Body
position/posture
Touch
Eye gaze
Function of NVB

Expressing (sending) and reading
(receiving):
– Emotion
– Attitudes
– Personality traits

Facilitating verbal communication
– email
Verbal-nonverbal consistency
Often consistent, sometimes not
 Sarcasm

– I’m so happy for you!
On the allure of body language in
“pop-psychology”
Perception of Emotions

The six universal emotions (Paul Ekman)
factors that can decrease
accuracy in face perception

Intentional efforts to conceal emotions
– Richards & Gross (1999)
 Consequences
Display rules
 Affect blends/ambiguity

Detecting lying
"People have got to know whether or not their
president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook."
"The White House has no involvement
whatever in this particular incident."
•"it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the - if he - if 'is'
means is and never has been, that is not - that is one thing. If it means there
is none, that was a completely true statement ... Now, if someone had asked
me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms.
Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have
said no. And it would have been completely true."
Concealment of emotions—
can people be “caught”?

Two paradigms, two different questions:
– from whom or what is the participant trying to
conceal their emotions?
– Machines (e.g. electrodes)

typically, sensitive equipment can pick up true feelings.
– Other people
 Easier to “fool” human observers than
machines.
 Gender differences
Important distinction:

Studies not having anything to do with
deception
– Females better than males

Participants asked to guess who is
being deceptive vs. honest
– Females worse than males
– “politeness” hypothesis
Why are women
(in general) more sensitive to emotions/
non-verbal behavior?

Something about gender per se
 Social role theory (Eagly, 1987)
– Women better because (a) well-practiced, and (b)
occupy subordinate positions
– Research more supportive of this hypothesis
– Two sources of converging evidence


Cross-cultural work (Hall, 1978)
Experimental research (Snodgrass, 1985, 1992)
Experimental evidence for social role
theory: Snodgrass, 1985




males and females assigned to superior (boss) vs.
inferior (employee) roles
Four type of dyads
DV: accuracy in reading partner’s emotions
Results:
– Gender makes absolutely no difference!
– All driven by role: employee always more accurate than
boss
– Converges on non-laboratory approach by Hall (1978)
Person perception
A sampling of some interesting recent findings
in the person perception literature


Power of “impression sets” (vs. memory sets) to
organize information about others
Automaticity in trait inferences about others
– Newman & Uleman (1989)

“Messenger” effects (Carlston & Mae, 2003)
“Mary is dishonest”
Bob
Internal vs. external attributions
Internal –dispositional causes
 External—situational causes


Recent examples in the news….
– Colin Powell and WMD
– Martha Stewart
– Michael Jackson
Dear Dr. ________,
I am writing to you to ask if would send me
information regarding graduate program in
psychology for the Fall 2000-Spring 2001
academic year. I am interested very much in
the type of program offer you offer their. I
have been told by many people that Washington
University has one of better phd programs and I
think I would enjoy attending. Just so you
know, I have been graduated three years now,
and I am still looking for a good job. I have
had some bad luck finding something, but I am
still hopefull. Hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely
Implicit personality theories
Inferences about “unseen” traits
Olivia
attractive
+
honest
(inferred)
intelligent
+
False memories
Surprise at inconsistency
/attempts to reconcile
Olivia
*violates implicit personality
theory; could lead to
attractive
+
Dishonest*
(--)
intelligent
+
•Attempt to reinterpret
•Attribute to situational
forces
•Forgetting
•Change implicit theory
(unlikely, but possible)
Evaluatively mixed
representations
Jack
Artistic (painter)
(++)
Temperamental
(--)
Disorganized
(--)
Interesting issue—asymmetries
in priming (Neely, 1991)

Artistic primes temperamental more strongly
than…
 Temperamental primes artistic
Ostrich primes bird more strongly than…
 Bird primes ostrich


Note: such effects occur for speeded naming tasks, but not
lexical decision tasks
Culture and implicit personality
theories

Creative (Western cultures)
 Shi Gu (China)

Interesting issue—due to
– Language, or
– Reality?
Do you feel that fundamental Christian movement is a positive force in the United
States? ____ (yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed in %)
Do you think there was conspiracy (i.e. an organized efforts to illegally
taint the vote-counting) during the presidential election of 2004, to ensure
that Bush was re-elected? ___ (yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you
____ (expressed in %)
Do you think that Sarah Jessica Parker is attractive? ____ (yes
vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed in %)
Do you think that Johnny Depp is attractive? ____ (yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed in %)
Conspiracy during 2004 election?
Actual distribution of attitudes
“no, there wasn’t”
“yes, there was”
70%
no
30%
yes
Perceived distribution of attitudes
53%
yes
47%
no
Extremely large FCE = +22
34%
yes
66%
no
Fairly accurate
Sara Jessica Parker attractive?
Actual distribution of attitudes
“Yeah—hot!”
“No”
57%
yes
43%
no
Perceived distribution of attitudes
64%
yes
36%
no
(Small) FCE = +7
53%
yes
47%
no
Fairly accurate
Johnny Depp attractive?
Actual distribution of attitudes
“Yeah—hot!”
“No”
61%
yes
39%
no
Perceived distribution of attitudes
66%
yes
34%
no
Fairly accurate
50%
yes
50%
no
Moderate FCE +11
Fundamental Christian movement a positive
force in U.S.?
no
Actual distribution of attitudes
77%
no
yes
23%
yes
Perceived distribution of attitudes
48%
yes
52%
no
42%
yes
58%
anti
One interpretation: No real FCE here. Rather, all students (regardless of views)
perceive WU students as more pro-Fundamental Christian than they really are
Famous errors in person perception

The “false consensus” error
(e.g. Ross,
Greene, & House, 1977)
– What it is
 Tendency to believe that one’s own attributes
are more common than they really are
– Why you get it
 Selective exposure
 Cognitive Accessibility
 Motivation
Do you feel that fundamental Christian movement is a positive force in the United
States? ____ (yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed in %)
Do you think there was conspiracy (i.e. an organized efforts to illegally
taint the vote-counting) during the presidential election of 2004, to ensure
that Bush was re-elected? ___ (yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you
____ (expressed in %)
Do you think that Sarah Jessica Parker is attractive? ____
(yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed in
%)
Do you think that Johnny Depp is attractive? ____ (yes vs.
no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed
in %)
Famous errors… continued

The “fundamental attribution error” (e.g. Jones &
Harris, 1967)
– What it is

Tendency to overestimate influence of dispositional
factors when judging others
– Why you get it



Selective exposure (again)
Perceptual salience
Different processes underlying attributions
– dispositional  automatic
– Situational  controlled
Jones and Harris (1967)
Estimate of essay
writer’s attitude
60%
choice
No choice
pro-Castro
anti-Castro
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic—insufficient adjustment!
Insensitivity to the power of the situation
Stages of social perception
Observe specific behavior
Identification (encoding)
Inferences about other traits
Inferences about the causes of behavior (attribution)
Automatic dispositional attribution
Controlled situational “correction”—but only if
perceiver has ability and motivation
Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull (1988)
all participants run in “no choice” condition.
Pro
“Pro-Abortion”
abortion
“Anti abortion”
Anti-
abortion
“unbusy” participants
“busy” participants
Self-serving attributions

Usual pattern for self—
– Positive events—internal
– Negative events—external

Reversed for depressed individuals
 Sports—winners vs. losers
– Rams vs. Patriots—2002 Superbowl
–
Unrealistic optimism
(Weinstein, 1980)

Basic effect
 Criticisms of this paradigm
– Referent group unclear?

Bottom line—effect holds up, even
controlling for possible problems
Belief in a just world
(Lerner, 1980)

Good things happen to good people, bad
things happen to bad people
 Two ways of conceptualizing
– Cultural belief system
– Individual difference variable
low
high
Lambert et al. (1999)

Belief in a just world
 But we find only weakly related to perceived
risk—WHY?
 Buffering hypothesis!
– Maybe just world beliefs “only matter” when world
is viewed as “threatening” in the first place
– Who sees world as threatening?

High RWA
Right-wing
authoritarianism
World
perceived
as a
dangerous,
scary
place?
NO
YES
Belief in a
just world
Personal
buffer
against
threat?
NO
HIGH
PERCEIVED
RISK
YES
LOW
PERCEIVED
RISK