Social Psychology: PSYCH 135

Hypothesis 1: Situations are powerful

• We are built to be guided by situations

  • authority and norms guide us in our actions

  • mostly adaptive

• Situations are often invisible

  • Justin Bieber example with gun to head if he doesn't say he loves JB

• Situations influence our perception of others in unexpected ways

  • show womans face to class and told 1/2 she was sad, 1/2 she was disturbed

• History of situations you've been in shape your experience and relations today

Apollonian v Dionysian

Apollonian: strict, rigid regulation

Dionysian: loose, free non-regulation

Hypothesis 2: We often don't know why people do what they do

• Conscious experience is constructed and not always accurate

  • we are unaware how situational factors drive our perception

  • unaware that our own goals and needs alter our perception of others

  • We are also inaccurate about why we ourselves do the things we do

Hypothesis 3: We don't know what we don't know

• Information is not always available but our brain confabulates (invest stories and fills gaps)

  • blind person not knowing they're blind

• We are built not to know what we don't know

  • snake, people scared even though they are not always in a harmful situation

• We often dont know the bias in our judgements because they are made automatically

  • we SEE dangerous snakes

  • we SEE rude behavior and rude people

Hypothesis 4: It is amazing that we are as accurate as we are about why people do what they do and what kind of people they are

Our judgements are often accurate because they are made automatically

Hypothesis 5: People have two fundamental social motivations

• People want to be liked and have a need to belong

• People want to be accurate, consistent, and authentic

  • do you tell oriole they're wrong or do you not and try to fit

  • Prisoners dilemma: both people play game but they don't knock or know one another; can be selfish in gains @ expense of other person; Wall Street game: 68% selfish, Community game: 28% selfish

Adaptive Errors

ABCD, 11 12 13 14

• Help to understand the communicators intent because we make the same assumption in interpreting as they do in creating their message

• Spontaneous interpretations leave out key info that can get us into trouble

Prisoners Dilemma

two people playing the game, offering selfish gains or even gains

• calling it different titles cause different results

• 68% of people are selfish when it is called the street game

• 28% played selfish when called the community game

Reasonable Person Standard

relates to the Milgram's obedience to authority

• we use ourself as the reasonable person

• we base others on ourselves

carlin's law

problematic for Milgram

• inaccurate estimate of what we would do

• don't realize most of us would be in the "highest bar", highest level of the shock

• the 255 people are the best in society

Slippery Slope Effect

In Milgram test, it only increases by 15 volts so this is not as significant enough to make you feel like you're doing something wrong

• you would have to condemn yourself for what you just did before - we don't like doing that

Situational Factors on Subjects

they change the way subjects SEE their choices, changing their subjective construal

• authority allows them to see themselves as not responsible

• proximity changes the experienced force of authority

• slippery slope

Why We Misjudge Others

we have the wrong model/ theory of experience and seeing

• we think we record reality as it is

• believe our mental representations perfectly mirror reality

• believe it should be true for rational others too

Smart Phone Model of Seeing

objective reality -> we believe is accurate seeing and beliefs

• naive realists believe this

Constructive Model of Seeing

objective reality - (filters: expectations, beliefs, associations, motivations (invisible)) -> biased seeing and beliefs

• biased not bad

  • bias- can be bad but not instinctly bad, valuable

Situations

• The immediate physical and social environment

• Who and what are around you

• The implied physical and social environment

• What you believe others are thinking and how they might
  respond to you

• The significance for you determines the meaning of the
  situation and is often invisible to observers or even to you

• Your internal mental situation: Your own expectations, associations, and recent thoughts

Subjective Construals

• construe means to interpret

  • How we interpret reality

• refers to the way each of us as an individual interprets what we see around us in the world

• differs person to person (culture to culture, race to race)

• particular in social domain where ratio of seen to unseen elements is worse

• often automatic

  • we don't 'see' reality first and then add interpretation and evaluation, is constructive all the way down, even V1 is sensitive to expectations

  • Is not bad, is amazing. isn't a pure reflection of 'reality'

  • makes the ambiguous content of the world coherent without effort

• To believe SC is an ERROR

Subjective Construal Example

Dot moving across the screen

• All dots were separate dots, but our brain tells us it is moving across the screen

• motion pictures

• you 'see' things moving around the screen even though it is a series of still frames

Naive Realism

• disbelief/ alief, in (or non-appreciation of) subjective construal as the fundamental nature of experiencing reality and as naturally varying across people

• alief is an automatic or habitual belief- like attitude (automatic belief)

• acting as if you have a belief even if consciously unaware of it or deny it

• refers to mistaken belief that what we 'see' is reality and takes no account of the construal process

• IS AN ERROR

Chair Illusion (Naive Realism)

we think our view of a chair is the "correct" one, ignoring other perspectives.

Color Consistency (Naive Realism)

we believe the color we see is the true color, even if lighting changes it.

Consequences of Naive Realism

Empathy Gaps:

• we are NR 99% of the time

• can't imagine other people having different experiences than ours

  • ex. tapping demonstration of American song (knowing vs. not)

• you can't empathize with other group because you didn't have the same experience

• "curse of knowledge": creates empathy gaps, knowing more makes you understand others less

More Consequences of Naive Realism

Consequence 1: We judge others with different perspectives more harshly than we should

• Law of Crazy, Mean, Stupid, Biased or Lazy

Consequence 2: Without checking, assume that others know what we know and believe what we believe

• Makes us bad at teaching and empathizing

Consequence 3: Fail to recognize our own bias because we are the reference point

Tapping Demonstration

Empathy Gaps, curse of knowledge
People who know the name of the song overestimate how many people will be able to identify it

Empathy Gap

Difference between two peoples current states that make it difficult for one person to accurately understand or empathize with the others state

Law of Crapid

people call one another crazy and stupid when they don't agree with one another

• twitter arguments

Sacred Values

some things have a price, sacred things don't

• "perception of reality" can make the smallest debate sacred

• we gave a sacred belief that we see reality as it is

"Sacredization"

• temporarily acting as if something trivial is sacred. sacred subtext is may belief that I see reality as it is

Distrust of Unbiased Sources

News outlets:

• used to be one single truth, now there are right and left news outlets

Relation to Naive Realism:

• Hostile media effect 1985: people saw unbiased news outlet and the pro-Israel and not pro- I thought it was bias to the other side

• people think that everyone below them is against you (0-point scale)

• we think we are the reasonable person starting at 0

Hostile Media Effect

Liberals think CNN is conservative, conservatives think CNN is liberal.

Pro-Israeli people only view others as Pro-Israeli if they are more Pro-Israeli than them. Everyone else is viewed as Anti-Israeli

Donald Study

"Perception, then "reading comprehension" tests. Words primed in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th slots (had to memorize 10 words)

• People who were primed with applicable words, whether positive or negative, were highly affected in their interpretation of Donald.

• People who were primed with non applicable words were not particularly effected

Donald Study (Subliminal Priming)

• Press a key as soon as you see a flash

• Flashes masked subliminally presented words

• 20% or 80% of the words were hostility primes 'hostile', 'rude' 'whip' 'punch'

• Read 12 sentence paragraph about Donald ambiguous to hostility

• People with more hostility primes rated him as more hostile

Bias BlindSpot

everyone thinks that they are right and everyone else is bias

• Not Seeing Bias Study (Pronin, Lin, and Ross, 2002):

  • Self was rated lower on self-serving, bias attributes than what the average American was rated

False Polarization

• idea that people think they're further apart on issues than we actually are

  • ex. one is craypid bc pos group membership

• you will misperceive most things relevant to group agenda

• creates sense of polarization -> inability to find common ground

  • Liberal and Conservative example

    • affirmative action: thing those support aa, are pro choice. both groups are actually very close in pro choice views

Real Polarization

bubble living, rely on sources from bubble only

harsh separation on the belief that the opposite side is extreme

Asian or Female

Priming with "asian" led to better performance on a task.

Cross-Idealogical Conversations (2022)

• We have negative, and often incorrect perceptions about our ideological opponents and this leads us to avoid them.

  • Dropped out participant saying they could trust the other and being afraid of them not acting rationally

• In reality, people found conversations to be more enjoyable, less stressful, and with half as much conflict as expected.

• They tended to like their partners and found them to be more logical and less emotional than expected.

Contact Hypothesis

• sustained intergroup contact reduces prejudice, but effects are mixed in fragile/conflict settings.

• requires equal status, common goals, cooperation, and institutional support

Goldilocks Story of Automaticity

• -Freudman - unconscious thought (too smart)

• simple associations (too simple)

• Dynamic pattern completion (just right)

media, perspective-taking, & elite cues

• media shapes attitudes when promoting empathy.

• perspective-taking and elite cues (leaders promoting unity) reduce prejudice.

Dynamic pattern completion

• bicycle behind wall and you expect the rest of it to be completed the way you normally would

• could have come from a museum with half everything and maybe you wouldn't expect to see the other half

• have normal expectation that the other half of the bike would be there

• lots of competing inputs

• some constraints harder than others

• constraint satisfaction resolves

• Pattern satisfied the most constraints wins (most of the time)

• Long term associations get updated (changes landscape)

• Largely happens automatically

  • ex. red square - can't choose how we see it vs. long division problem

Contact and Exposure

• mere exposure without interaction can worsen prejudice, especially if superficial.

• inclusive national identities→ unity and reduces tensions.

• structural policy changes are needed alongside grassroots efforts to address prejudice.

• investment in meaningful contact→ understanding

constraint satisfaction

• process of computationally trying to satisfy as many of the constraints as possible to reach the best global construal / pattern

• looks for pattern that produces the least tension across all constraints

• soft constraints can be overdid/ updated

• can visualize as a landscape where low points are lower energy/ tension states

Multi dimensional representational states

• think man is honest (low)

• find out he's dishonest (low)

• much harder to go uphill than downhill

• diagram in the slides

Attractor States

• once you get close to attacher, self perpetuating features of associations draw you to center

• much easier to get into an attacher state than to get out of it, takes less energy

  • ex. Perspective study (Anderson, Lepper, Ross):

• " bad at math" , disbelief in study to give them insight and "fix study" -> after people felt worse about math

• you put yourself in the well once it is started, but it is hard to get out

• like subjective construals: hard to imagine other ways of seeing things

Asch (1946) Study

• read list of words describing a person, but in opposite order
  ( intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious)

• people described the person they thought the words described and one was positive and one negative

Wells, global minimum, local minimum

attractor states don't guarantee "truth"

• They guarantee a greater sense of coherence/ low tension than nearby states

• DPC explains how we "see" full bike from partial

• In social realm, we "see" mind from behavior only

Four Horsemen of Automaticity

1) doesn't require intention

• doesn't change if you see red square or not

2) doesn't require awareness (of the process)

• don't know brain processes

3) doesn't interfere with others

• can listen at the same time, see background of slide is white

4) doesn't require effect

forms of automaticity

perceptual, semantic, social

Priming

• the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response

  • asked for a woman name without prime, then told name Romeo and people are more likely to answer Juliet

    • facilitates automatic processes

Problems with Priming

• research primes one thing and show its effects in isolation

• suggests static automatic effects

• in reality, 100s of automatic processes bump against each other simultaneously

• they vote collectively and constrain one another

• reality is more dynamic

subliminal priming

things that happen all the time that are not in your conscious awareness

non-subliminal priming

• mostly primed by these (library)

• can be detected and counteracted

• effects a bit larger than subliminal

• what matter MOST is being unaware if the primes PURPOSE, not being unaware of the prime itself

Subliminal vs. Nonsumbliminal Priming

• Non-subliminal priming effects a bit larger

  • But, only non-subliminal priming can be detected and counteracted by target

• In real life we are mostly primed by non-subliminal primes (i.e. situational cues like being in a library)

• What matters is being unaware of the prime's purpose, not being unaware of the prime itself

• Priming works better in ambiguous situations

Where does automaticity come from

• unintentional / incidental practice and exposure

  • cultural norms

  • developing your native language

  • nonverbal communication

• Intentional practice

  • typing

  • musical instruments

  • sports

  • study/ dietary habits

Why Automaticity Matters

• Situations alter our subjective construals without our consent

  • 9/11 and George W Bush

  • Advertising effects

• Reliable and efficient

  • most of the time useful (library)

  • lab studies make us look irrational. We are smart but not perfect.

• Moral responsibility?

• We don't hold people responsible for automatic mental processes

  • But we assume too little is automatic because automatic behavior can look intentional. Don't recognize automatic influence of the situation

Hamsters Consciousness

Hamsters are conscious but they cannot think (thinking is processing and forming logical conclusions)

Conscious vs. unconscious automaticity

• not usually antagonistic (freud)

• unconscious processes offload habitual repeatable mental acts so our limited conscious thinking can focus elsewhere

• background auto processes work together, dramatically to give us rise to our conscious experience

why automaticity matters

• situations shape our subjective construals with our our consent or awareness

Pre reflective consciousness (immediate experience)

• stream of consciousness (William and James 1890)

• perception (broadly) driven by automatic construals

• seems like reality

• lots of simultaneous automatic processes

• not recognizing something walking down a hallway

• Outputs of prereflective processes feel like they happen to us (perception/emotion)

• MOST ANIMALS

reflective consciousness

• 'thought'

• reflections on the stream of consciousness

• has the quality of aboutness thoughts are about something)

• controlled processes: we experience reflective construals as some thing we control

• only one controlled process at a time

• like the movie critics who think about the movie and reconsider small segments over and over in order to analyze, evaluate, and consider alternatives. It can be summarized for others

• Outputs of reflective processes feeling like something we do (thinking/deciding).

• HUMANS (possibly only us)

Stream of consciousness

like how most of us experience movies most of the time. Lost in the ongoing experience

Controlled process

• are intentional

• involve awareness

• require effort

• interfere with other processes

• tend to be linguistic (can be described in words and propositions)

• experiences as 'my mental work' under my control, not reality out there

• special but limited resource

  • ex. counting backwards by 7s from 16,358

Ego (Resource) Depletion

• See very sad clip, then solve anagram

  • much slower

    • like a muscle for controlled processes; it tires out after awhile. Using it over and over may strengthen it over the long haul

False Logic

• Elevator Logic

• Is she a witch?

• just because we use controlled processes to reach these conclusions, does not make them correct

social psychology

• knowing others

• knowing how others know us

Automaticity and Control

• controlled processed the have the appearance of rational thought can actually be biased/ irrational/ incorrect

• we all have countless beliefs about people

• we can even specific the rules and conditions so they could sound logical

• lots of well- specified theories are wrong

• sounding logical doesn't equal logically sound

elevator logic examples

• okay to go to high floors starting at 3

• 0 wrong to just go to two or to take it down from 2

• we don't know the circumstance of the people getting in the elevator

false consensus effect

• we think there is a greater consensus of your view than there actually is

  • ex. wear sign for $50, those who say they will wear sign will say that they think more people would also say yes

• people are more likely to do it with someone they know

Purple America

We have gotten less diverse over time (less purple, more red and blue)

Diffusion of Responsibility

the tendency for individuals to feel diminished responsibility for their actions when they are surrounded by others who are acting the same way

How do people decide what others would do

• subjective construal: pre reflective

• how did you imagine the event

• reasonable person standard: projection

• pre reflective and reflective
  intuitive scientist: reflective consciousness

• "what would others do"

• why will this question get is into trouble even though we know how to protect from ourselves

cognitive load

• require you to do one thing that requires controlled processes that require you to do a second thing

• rehearsing a 9 digit number

• monitoring a certain cue (tone, letter, dot)

• time pressure

• if an effect gets slower or less accurate under cognitive load, it likely involved a controlled process

• impairs controlled processes

Crying Baby Dilemma

• Utilitarian choice took longer under cognitive load

  • If actions take longer under cognitive load, then they are not automatic (utilitarian choice is not automatic). If there is no effect, then they are automatic (nonutilitarian)

Rudeness Study

Told to do task then find experimenter down the hall. Those primed with "rude" words were more likely to interrupt.

Trivial Pursuit

Primed by picturing a day in the life of a professor or a supermodel, then asked a question. Supermodel participants got it wrong

Coke Priming 1950s

• Unsuccessful

• Drive or behavior must already be
  present or occurring in some form

• Priming can nudge the exact form the behavior takes

• Can't make you play trivia game, but can change how you play if you do

Impression Goals and Memory Goals

Primed with impression goals and memory goals in one level, and in the other level were told to form either impression goals or memory goals. Results were about equivalent, showing that priming was just as effective as telling them

Directors test example (cognitive load)

• director asks you to move a certain item in one direction (up, down one box, etc.)

• viewer must think of the directors view before moving the object because they may have a different view

• easy trial: relatively automatic process

• hard trial: depends on controlled/ effortful processes

• effect gets larger when there is cognitive load

Kleck and Strenta (1980) scar study

• half subjects had makeup scar

• subject interacts with partner

• subjects rates partner during interaction (tenseness and patronizing)

• scar was imaginary

• thoughts about the 'other' knowing that were have a scar changed how we interpret their behavior

• Assimilation/ priming effects

• automatic effect of a reflectively conscious thought

Thinking about others awareness of us

• powerful social force that affects our behavior and judgements

  • requires controlled processing

• impacts us less when we lack controlled processing resources, suggesting that we need controlled processing and to use this information

• alcohol, drugs, & sleep deprivation

• more free to be ourselves (????

Spotlight effect

• belief that they're in the spotlight, but everyone thinks this so most people don't notice

• most predict that a high percentage of people will notice things "out of the ordinary", but that may just be in their mind that it is not ordinary

reflective/ controlled processes

• essential to combining info in novel ways

• essential to planning

• essential to decision making
  essential to explaining

• BUT

  • limited (1 per customer at any one moment)

  • not immune from error (elevator logic and introspection)

Judging the President

When laughter responses were edited out, Reagan's ratings went way down

Milgram Obedience to Authority

• 150v- complains of pain (none stop)

• 160v- pleads to be let out (none stop)

• 300v- screams and then never heard again (32% stop)

• Reasonable Person Standard: we think anyone who would do worse than us is cruel. We also inaccurately estimate what we would do, misunderstanding their situation

• Actuality, people went way further than expected

• We don't account for Proximity, The Power of Authority, and the "slippery slope" effect and our need to appear consistent with ourselves

• compare one's next behavior to the last. Not thinking of absolute value of shock level (slippery slope)

Compliance Movie

People continued to do what the person told them to do because they thought he was a police officer

McGurk Effect

Ba sound makes Fa sound if played with person making that gesture with his lips

Who Am I (I… Statements)

• What is similar about your response:

  • Static, observable facts – positive traits

  • Generalization, abstractions (teachers, not teaching)

  • Many answers could describe lots of people in here

• What is missing:

  • Flow of ongoing experience

    • I am hungry… tired

  • Hopes for the future 

    • I hope to go to graduate school

• Defining ourselves from the outside

Paradoxical Self Metaphors

• Self as controller and controlled

  • “I dragged myself out of bed”

  • “I let myself go”

• Self as geographical location

  • “Are you out of your mind?”

  • “I’m really out of it today”

• Self in conflict with itself

  • “Why do you torture yourself?”

  • Song: “I am my own worst enemy”

Nightmares of Self

• When you wake up, how do you know you are the same person you were before

  • Dark City clip

  • Are they “the same person” each day?

• Would you be upset to find out that you had been someone else yesterday?

• Why does it matter to us?

Knowing Ourselves

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want - Lao Tzu

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be - Jane Austen

• often more theory bases than we would assume

• acts as if we have direct access to 'self' rather than applying a theory

• Our theories are often biased, hence other can apply better theories to us (sometimes) than we can our selves

• we do have some direct access

• what chocolate tastes best

Traditional View of Self

• Private, sealed from the world

• True source of who we are

• We have direct access to this knowledge

  • Might have to develop this skill

  • ‘Find oneself’

• Knowing will improve our decisions

• Know through “introspection”

Controlled Process (In Knowing Self)

• Social Psychology Controlled Processes

  • Knowing others

  • Knowing ourselves

  • Knowing how others know us

Introspection

• Turning our mental gaze inwards on ourselves

• “the examination or observation of ones own mental and emotional processes"

  • who we are

  • what we look like

  • what were good at

  • what we value

  • what we believe in

  • what should we do

SPOILER ALERT Study

• If you were reading a mystery novel, would knowing the ending lead you to enjoy the story more or less?

  • A) It would make me enjoy it less

  • B) It would make me enjoy it more

  • C) It wouldn’t affect my enjoyment

• Could you be wrong about this?

  • YES, study found people enjoyed the novel more when already knowing the ending

Telling more than we can know: Nisbett & Wilson (1977)

• For some, first task includes pair 

  • “Ocean-Moon”

• Second task - Which detergent do you prefer?

  • “All” or “Tide”

• More choose Tide in priming condition

• When asked why gave different reasons:

  • My mom uses it; It’s the most well known; I like the box

• Hypothesis 3: Don’t know what we don’t know

• The sorts of things I can find out about myself are the same as the sorts of things I can find out about other people, and the methods of finding them out are

• much the same....

• John Doe’s ways of finding out about John Doe are the same as John Doe’s ways of finding out about Richard Roe – Gilbert Ryle (1949)

telling good art from bad study

• asked to look at Monet painting vs. cartoon poster

• rate each one: 1/2 asked how much you like them, 1/2 asked to introspect on their reason and make a list or reasons

• with introspect: they are closer in rating

• a week later, they change their minds back to monet: regret, introspective error

Introspective error

• Easier to generate list for cartoon

• You are substituting the list you’ve made for your own affective response

• Its as if you handed the list to someone else and they had to guess your preference

• We’re guessing our own preference the same way

• Introspection does not always reveal “privileged” information

Choice Blindness

• Subjects given a choice b/w 2 photos

• Magic trick is used to give theme a different one

• 75% blind to mismatch, but 84% predict they would notice

• They confabulated explanations for so called choice

  • Say i prefer blondes, then justify choosing a brunette when switched

Making ease of introspective access for truth (Schwartz et al 1991)

• Either think of 6 instances when you were assertive or 6 instances when you were unassertive

• How assertive do you think you are in general?

• Either think of 6 instances when you were assertive or 6 instances when you were unassertive

• How assertive do you think you are in general?

• What if you think of 12 instances instead of 6?

• List 6 or 12 instances when you’ve been assertive/unassertive

• Pretests show generating 6 is easy, but 12 is hard

Imagine Judging Someone Else

• One person easily & quickly generates a time they were assertive

• Another person has difficulty generating a time they were assertive

• Who would you judge as more assertive?

• We judge ourselves the same way

• Switching from 6 to 12 instances moves us from the first group to the second