Social perception and attribution

born to attend faces

Evolved predisposition to respond selectively to faces ➢Innate and universal

Attentional biases to faces provide the foundation for social and cognitive development

social perception

We form impressions of what other people are like based on their perceived characteristics

Zero acquaintance: people we have never met (Kenny, 1994)

Thin-slices of behavior: based on

limited information within a brief period of time

Judgements based on brief exposure to the teacher’s behaviour in the classroom predicted students’ end of semester evaluations

Primary function of social perception

LIKING: warmth, friendliness, trustworthiness, empathy, kindness

RESPECTING: competence, power, efficacy, dominance, intellect, skill

Perceptions of warmth and competence account for 82% of variance in evaluative judgements of others

Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick (2006

first impressions

100 ms exposure to a face is sufficient to form impressions  

Impression formation processes occur on a preconscious level

Facial features

Warmth (facial expression)

definition: Features resembling expressions signalling approach or avoidance behaviour

Attempt to infer behavioural intentions

Evaluation is an overextension of the ability to read emotional expressions

 Anger & Sadness: neg. correlated      

 Smiles: pos. correlated with trustworthiness ratings (Winston et al 2002)

Compentence (facial expression)

Features signalling physical strenght

Facial maturity and masculinity serve as the basis of dominance evaluation

Babyfacedness:

judged to be warmer, more honest, more naïve, weaker, and less competent

more likely to be recommended for jobs calling for submissiveness and warmth

less likely to be found at fault for intentional actions

Zebrowitz & Montepare (2008)

REAL-WORLD OUTCOMES OF SOCIAL ATTRIBUTIONS

Political Voting

AL-WORLD OUTCOMES OF SOCIAL ATTRIBUTIONS

financial success

Competent- and dominant-looking CEOs are hired by more successful companies and receive larger salaries (Rule & Ambady, 2009)

Professional success within the military is predicted by facial dominance (Mueller & Mazur, 1996)

Trustworthy-looking people given better credit ratings on real credit websites

More likely to have loans funded (Duarte et al 2012)

criminal justice

Trustworthiness ratings of inmates predicted whether they were on the death row

Race did not predict trustworthiness

who can catch a liar

Meta-analysis of 108 studies: Presumed lie experts who routinely assess credibility in their professional life do not perform better than lay judges

Higher confidence does not correlate with accuracy in detecting lies

Aadmodt & Custer (2006), Ekman & O’Sullivan (1991

extraversion/trustworthiness

Preferences for images

shift as a function of the context:

high-salary consulting position

online-dating web site

Facebook photo

campaign poster as town mayor

villain in an upcoming film

Images of the same individual

can lead to different impressions

CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS:  Why first impressions often last

Primacy effect:

Information presented early in a sequence has more impact on impressions than information presented later

Why? Once we think we have formed an accurate impression of someone…..

we pay less attention to subsequent information (attention bias)

we start to interpret inconsistent information in light of the initial impression (confirmation bias)

Person A

Intelligent

Industrious

Impulsive

Critical

Stubborn

Envious

Person B

Envious

Stubborn

Critical

Impulsive

Industrious

Intelligent

Person a liked more

confirmation bias study

same info opposite view

Foundamental attriution error

Tendency to attribute others’ behaviour to their (stable) dispositions rather than to the (unstable) situation

is the fundamental attribution error a western bias?

Why first impressions last (salience)

Situation: often not physical, observable or concrete

People and their behaviour are salient

Actors and actions form perceptual units

Initial salience of situation wanes over time

Behavior has a stronger memory trace than the transient and pallid situation

Sleeper effect: advantage of dispositional explanations increases with time

salience study

why first impressions last: Actor-observer difference

why first impressions last: cognitive resources

cognitive resources study

covariation theory

covariation theory study (comedian)

covariance study pt 2