Unit 4: Social Perceptions

Social Perceptions

____________: How we perceive and form impressions of others

Personal Attributions

__________: How we form impressions of others based on their traits and behaviors; focuses on how information is combined to judge a person.

• Summation vs Averaging Model

• Dilution effect

• Information Integration Theory

• Trait Negativity Bias

• Implicit Personality Theory

• Primacy Effect

Summation Model

_________: more you say the better, more positive traits = better impression

Averaging Model

____________:Overall impression is the average, adding neutral traits can lower evaluation. (better supported)

Dilution effect

_________:Adding weak information reduces impact of strong points.

• if you’re giving a speech, make only your best points, if you start adding others, you dilute the effects of your good points

Information Integration Theory

___________:Trait importance varies by perceiver

Trait Negativity Bias

_________: Negative traits outweigh positive ones; one bad trait can dominate many good ones.

• Ex. Student going to Montréal, did great work, run-off

Implicit Personality Theory (Soloman Asch)

_____________: People hold assumptions about which traits go together. says theories of personality plays a role

• Central traits: Strongly shape impressions

  • intelligent, skillful, industrious, (warm/cold), determined, practical, cautious

• Peripheral traits: Have weaker influence

Primacy Effect

____________: Information received first has greater impact

• “You only get one chance to make a good first impression”

• Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn

Ex. Job Interviews

_________:Little empirical support for accuracy, still widely used.

• Only true diagnostic question: “What do you know about our company?”

Attribution Theory

_______: Concerned with answering “Why did this happen?”

• Internal vs External

  • Fundamental Attribution Error

Heider: “Internal vs. External”

___________: Behaviour explained as Internal (personality, ability) or External (situation, environment).

• Ex. Taking a test

Fundamental Attribution Error—Jones and Nisbett

__________: We tend to attribute our own behaviour (especially if it is negative in consequences) to external factors but we attribute others’ behaviour to internal factors

•   Ex. Milgram, observers attribute obedience to personality rather than situation

• Ex. Class “Difficult Conversations” students assigned positions are still judged as holding these beliefs

• Ex. Public Defender—people will still make internal attributes to you

• Ex. Fidel Castro Study

Fidel Castro Study

Fundamental Attribution Error

• Participants assigned or chose to write pro- or anti-Castro essays

• Observers still assumed writers’ attitudes matches the essay

• Even when writers had no choice

• Demonstrates failure to account for situation

• We should be making the attribution to the situation, something external, yet we’re still making an internal attribution. It should tell us nothing about what their true attitudes are

Just-World Hypothesis—Lerner

_________:Belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people

• Closely linked to the fundamental attribution

• Leads to victim blaming

• Marla Hansen Case

Marla Hansen Case

Just World Hypothesis

• Model whose landlord hired attackers to slash her face

• Initial public sympathy faded

• People began blaming her character or behavior

• Reflects just-world thinking and FAE

  • “If something bad happened, she must have caused it”

• Linking to internal attributions

• She became a victim’s rights advocate, spent the rest of her career looking at how we often blame the victim

Correspondent Inference Theory—Jones and Davis

Theory to explain FAE

_________: Explains why people make internal attributions. We are all trying to make attributions all the time, typically internal.

• We try to infer whether behavior reflects true disposition

• Non-Common effects

• Ex. Seinfeld (fire episode)

  • Behaviour stood out, made internal attributions easy

  • If he acted like everyone else, people wouldn’t make them

Non-Common effects

Correspondence Inference Theory

_________: Behaviour that is unusual or goes against situational expectations

• Common behaviours give little information about personality

Kelley’s Covariation Model

Theory to explain FAE

_________:when you make attributions you weigh consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus

• Consistency: This actor in similar situations

• Distinctiveness: This actor in other situations

• Consensus: Other actors in the same situation

• Ex. Student asleep in class

Discounting Principle

Caveat to Kelley’s Covariation Modle

____________: When behavior is expected due to the situation, we discount it.

• Ex. Job interviewees acting friendly, waiters being polite

• Behaviour gives limited information about true personality.

Ex. Student Asleep in class

Situation A

• Consistency: high, (always asleep in this class)

• Distinctiveness:  low (sleeps in other classes)

• Consensus: low (no one else is asleep)

• Attribution: the problem is them, making an internal attribution

Situation B

• Consistency: high (always asleep in this class)

• Distinctiveness: high (not asleep in other classes)

• Consensus: high (many students asleep)

• Attribution: internal to the prof, they’re boring

Weiner’s Attribution Theory (WAT)

• Theory to explain FAE

• Focuses on outcomes like success or failure

• Explains how attributions affect emotion, expectations, and behaviour

Step 1: Outcome (WAT)

Failing a midterm

Step 2: Primary emotional response (WAT)

_______: Your immediate emotional response, stomach drops, haven’t thought about it yet

Step 3: Importance, unexpectedness, negative (WAT)

• it’s a midterm so it’s important,

• I thought I passed it was unexpected,

• this event was negative

If none of these were true, the model is done

Step 4: Causes evaluated along two dimensions: (WAT)

• Locus: internal vs. external

• Stability: stable vs. unstable

  • Stable: consistent and unlikely to change over time

  • Unstable: temporary and changeable

Step 5: Expectations, Emotions (WAT)

_________: Influence feelings (hope, shame, pride, depression) which in turn affects behavior

Step 6: Behaviour

Ex. Do you drop the course, study harder, persist

Attribution Retraining

_________: Shifts your attributions typically towards motivation/effort

Ex. Grad school, prof says you all have imposter syndrome, but whether you fail is in this model (WAE)

• Success is not luck or task difficulty

• Ability is assumed

• Outcomes depend on effort/motivation

Flaws in Weiner’s Attribution Theory

1. Not everyone has the ability, no matter how much they try

2. Effort has emotional and physical costs

Quote (Gandhi): “Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment”