Social Psychology

The social self and social perception

Source 5: Perceptions of how others view us

Looking glass self: Think about how others view us to perceive ourselves

Spotlight effect: Belief that others are paying attention to our appearance and behavior more than they are

Illusion of transparency: Belief that others notice our emotions more than they will

Spotlight effect study: Participants wear embarrassing t-shirt into study room

Estimate how many people will notice: Estimate almost everyone will Measure how many people notice: Very few did

Illusion of Transparency study: Participants learn need to give a 3 min presentation and have no prep time

Estimate how nervous they thought they appeared

Observers rated how nervous the speaker appeared

Participants believed they appeared more nervous than the observers noticed.

Source: cultural influences

Individualism vs collectivism: Independent vs interdependent views of self

Individualism

values independence, autonomy, & self expression.

• Strive for personal achievement & promoting goals.

• Emphasise differences with others.

• Important to act true to internal beliefs and feelings.

Collectivism

values interdependence, cooperation, and social harmony.

• Derive more satisfaction from the status of the valued group.

• Emphasise group harmony and group goals.

• Important to act appropriately to roles and group norms.

Individualism vs collectivism: Avg difference around the world

Higher individualism, but ignores variability within nations. Countries can also possess elements of both

Pen and fish study

Americans more likely pick unique coloured pen compared to Asians

American - fish striking out on their own. Asian - group trying to catch up

What is self worth contingent on?

varied aspects of life + Success or failure in any of these domains impacts SE.

Self-complexity

tendency to define the self in terms of many domains and attributes. Found to be most beneficial for wellbeing.

Mechanisms of social enhancement

Core social motive

Method 1: Illusions and biases about the Self

Self-Serving Bias: People tend to have positive illusions about themselves (people tend to believe that positive personality traits describe themselves better than negative, overestimate own contributions to a group, abilities, etc., rate themselves above average) - can be good, or backfire

Method 2: self-handicapping (1)

Behaviours designed to sabotage one’s own performance in order to provide a subsequent excuse for failure. Why? Provides an explanation for possible failure, way of protecting self from seeing failure as due to a lack of ability.

Gender differences in self-handicapping

Men self-handicap > than women, especially behaviorally. E.g. Don’t prepare, drink/use drugs before task (e.g., exam)

Women create excuses - focus on physical ailments before task

Method 2: self-handicapping (2)

sandbagging - Downplaying own ability, lowering expectations, or openly predicting failure.

Ingenious way to protect the self, but comes with its costs. E.g. Negatively impacts performance. But also others tend to show less liking toward those engaging in it.

Method 3: Basking in the glory of others (BIRG)

We BIRG by associating with others who are successful or identifying with groups that are successful. (E.g., people wore team clothing more after their social group’s team won a game) More likely after threatening their self-esteem.

Also “cut off reflected failure” (“CORF”) by distancing ourselves from others who fail or are of low status. (E.g. Participants in losing team only 9% likely to take home a team badge compared to 68% among winning team)

Method 4: Downward social comparison

• Make comparisons with others who are worse off (Listing ways in which own partners are better than others led to greater relationship satisfaction than listing positive qualities.)

• Make temporal comparisons between past and present selves

• If tragic event, tend to: Affiliate with others in same predicament who are adjusting well. Compare ourselves with others who are worse off.

How does culture affect self-esteem?

Western interest in the individual began only in the 17th century enlightenment era. SE scores in individualist societies have increased in the last several decades.

Collectivists rate themselves as having less positive SE than individualists. SE scores appear to increase based on immigration status

Do people in collectivist societies really feel worse about themselves or do cultural norms shape expression of positive regard?

Using implicit measures of self-esteem (measure unconscious self-esteem), people in both individualist and collectivist societies found to positively evaluate themselves.

Need for positive self-regard universal, but expression of it may vary

Cultural differences impact how we respond to failure, self-enhancement, and experiences of negative emotion

Individualists more likely to try doing a task they succeeded at before, Collectivists more interested in trying a task they failed at before.

Collectivists less likely to endorse positive illusions about their future and perceive less control over their lives.

Cultural differences in coping with negative emotion.

Should We All Strive For High Self-Esteem?

Common assumption that low SE predictive of negative outcomes. However, high SE and narcissistic selfperceptions can be dangerous

Studies show that under threat, high but not low SE participants aggress against source of threat

Recent MA shows narcissism a major risk factor for aggression and violence.

Low SE is not necessarily good→importance of humility

Systematic analysis of newspaper articles: major baseball and football game articles

Quotations from both players and coaches differed depending on whether teams won or lost. Internal explanations were most likely after victories. External explanations were most likely after defeats.

Social perception

The process by which people come to understand one another.

Person factors: what are the 2 thinking systems?

System 1: fast, automatic, impulsive, effortless, outside of awareness System 2: slow, controlled, reflective, deliberative, conscious

First impressions subtly influenced by person’s appearance.

Judgments are often made very quickly.

How accurate are snap judgments?

Quite a bit. E.g. 6 second silent video gave strangers impressions similar to those who knew the video subject well. Dimensions: accepting, competent, honest, dominant, warm. E.g.2: 1 second judgments of candidates’ ‘competence’ accurately predicted election. (Greater the competence ratings, the larger the victory)

What do we see so quickly in another’s face?

Whether they should be approached vs. avoided and social standing

Nonverbal Expressions Across Cultures

Darwin’s (1872) conception of universality of emotion expression: High accuracy for anger, happiness, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise (Evidence from many countries).

However, recent review suggests more nuanced effect in recognizing emotional expression. Facial configurations not fingerprints that reliably indicate emotional state. Context matters, Brain constructs meaning. Some cultures may not interpret facial expressions with emotional words first

Situational and dispositional inferences

Situational Inferences – attributing behavior to the environment

Dispositional Inferences – attributing behavior to the person’s disposition and traits

Attribution Theories

Describe how people explain the causes of their own and others’ behaviour

Jones’s Correspondent Inference Theory

People try to infer from an action whether the act itself corresponds to an enduring personal characteristic of the actor. Make inferences based on: Person’s degree of choice, Expectedness of the behaviour, Intended effects of someone’s behaviour

Kelly’s Covariation Theory

People make attributions by considering potential causes that co-occur with the behaviour. Kinds of covariation information are useful: Consensus, Distinctiveness, Consistency

Situational attribution when high on all three dimensions

Personal attribution when high on consistency, but low on consensus and distinctiveness.

Game show study: contestant, observer, questioner (writes 10 challenging qs)

Despite the “obvious” advantage of the questioners, they were rated by spectators and contestants as being more knowledgeable.

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) / Correspondence Bias

represents our tendency to: Overestimate the role of personal factors. Overlook the impact of situational factors (much experimental evidence)

Weighing the Cause of Behaviour

Sometimes information available suggests either personal or situational factors might be responsible for the behaviour.

Study: People learn about a job candidate

Job requires being alone (Astronaut) or around people (Submariner), Candidate self-described as an introvert or an extravert. Participants asked to rate how extraverted they thought the candidate was in real life.

Findings of job candidate study

• More difficult to know what to conclude about someone behaving ‘in role’, but easy with someone who acts ‘out of role’

• Discounting principle proposes reduced weighting to a particular cause of behaviour if other plausible causes.

• Augmentation principle proposes greater weighting to a particular cause of behaviour if there are other causes that normally would produce the opposite.

Actor/Observer Difference

Tendency to see other people’s behaviour as dispositionally caused but focusing on situational factors when explaining our own.

Actor = greater access to information than observer about intentions & factors underlying behaviour.

• Perceptual salience of person & situation varies for actor and observer.

MA reveals that effect only emerges for negative events