Social Psychology

social psychology

Scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people.

dueling proverbs

common sense gives us conflicting predictions.

Does “absence make the heart grow fonder” or is “out of sight, out of mind”?

hindsight bias

• Outcomes seem obvious and easy to predict in retrospect

• Makes findings of social psychology seem trite and banal

• When judging the decisions of others, ___ ___ affects our evaluations of them

• Examples:

  • Invasion of Iraq (WMDs)

  • Dylan Roof and the mass murder at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church

Ross and Samuels

Social psychologists study the power of the situation to influence behavior

• Participants identified as competitive or cooperative by dorm RAs

• Participants played a game labeled as either “Wall Street” or “Community”

Correspondence bias

We tend to overestimate the power of personality (internal factors) and underestimate the power of the situation (external factors) in determining the behavior of others (correspondence bias), resulting in erroneous internal attributions (FAE).

Construals

• How people interpret, understand, and represent social situations determines affect, cognition, and behavior.

• _____ are subjective and vary among individuals - social perception is a constructive process

• _____ are influenced by 4 primary motives:

  • to be accurate

  • to feel good about ourselves

  • to achieve acceptance and approval of others

  • to reduce uncertainty and enhance perceptions of control.

self fulfilling prophecy

Rosenthal & Jacobsen (1968)

“Bloomers” vs. “Non-Bloomers”

• Students identified as IQ Bloomer to teachers

• Bloomers exhibited a 4 pt higher increase in IQ than Non-bloomers

• Students not identified as bloomers but who showed IQ gains were less liked by teachers!

science vs common sense

• objective, rigorous data collection

• conclusions based on analysis of data

• error can be corrected

vs

• subjective, bias data collection

• impressionistic conclusions

• no corrective features - error persists

theory

a coherent set of related principles that explains observed phenomena

hypothesis

a specific falsifiable prediction derived from theory

internal validity

random assignment + control of extraneous variables

external validity

representative sample + psychological realism

High Internal Validity

“Bloomer” label assigned randomly + students/parents unaware of the label

High External Validity

Sample of varied ethnicity, ability etc. + Real classroom, real IQ tests

the factors that affect significance

• magnitude of effect

• variability in data

• sample size

samples

• we study ___, not population.

• we draw inferences about populations using data obtained from samples.

• therefore, any result can be due to chance alone.

• it’s always a question of probability, never of certainty.

statistical significance

When the outcome is probably not due to chance.

practical significance

When the outcome is large enough to make a meaningful difference in real life.

advantages of correlational research

• No manipulation or control of variables required

• You can use “in vivo” data

• Avoid many ethical and practical limitations

limitations of correlational research

• cannot control or manipulate variables

• no causal conclusions can be drawn

  • directionality problem

  • 3rd variable problem

human beings

• “Cognitive Misers”

• “Satisficers”

• Users of limited resource capacity, confronted by often impoverished information, subject to a plethora of biases

• “Meaning makers”

automatic social cognition

• non-conscious

• unintentional

• involuntary

• effortless

• fast

controlled social cognition

• conscious

• intentional

• voluntary

• effortful

• slow

schemas

Mental structures used to organize/process social information and experience

• regulate attention

• influence construals

• guide memory reconstruction

Examples: scripts, categories, associations

most influential when information is ambiguous or resources are taxed.

chronic accessibility

schemmas so often activated that they are “always” available

schema accessibility

• chronic accessibility

• temporary accessibility

  • goal pursuit activates related schemas

  • can be activated by priming

    • supraliminal

    • subliminal

    • examples

supraliminal priming

A psychological process where an individual is exposed to a conscious, fully perceptible stimulus that subtly influences their subsequent thoughts, judgments, or behaviors.

• Higgins, Rholes, & Jones (1977) had Ss memorize + or - words (e.g., reckless, foolhardy, OR adventurous, self- confident)

• All Ss read the same description of Donald

• Who was more likely to perceive Donald negatively? Who was more likely to perceive him positively?

subliminal priming

The presentation of a sensory stimulus below the absolute threshold of conscious awareness (the limen) that activates a mental representation and influences a subsequent behavioral, emotional, or cognitive response without the individual's conscious knowledge.

• Bargh & Pietromonaco (1982) exposed Ss to hostile or neutral words for 1/20 sec.

• All Ss read the same description of Donald

• Who was more likely to perceive Donald as hostile?

illusory correlation

• may be erroneous

• examples:

  • “it always rains when I wash my car..”

  • “crazy things are mor elilely when the moon is full”

  • Tversky’s “myth of the hot hand”

perseverance effect

relatively resistant to disconfirmatory evidence

example:

• Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard (1975): Ss were to guess which suicide notes were real

• Ss rec’d false feedback: Success (24/25) or failure (10/25)

• Ss were then informed feedback was false, then asked how many they believed they got right and how they would do on a new test.

Schema Perseverance

Other contributing factors

• Confirmation bias

• Sampling bias

• Self-fulfilling prophecy

• Culture & systems of shared beliefs

less likely

Priming Ss with the construct “politeness” made them ___ ___ to interrupt experimenter

slowly

Priming Ss with the social category “elderly” caused them to walk more ___

chameleon effect

Subject has the goal of affiliation!

• Ss primed to affiliate supraliminal or subliminal exhibited greater behavioral mimicry than controls. (Chartrand & Lakin 2003)

• Ostracized Ss engaged in more mimicry than controls who weren’t ostracized (Lakin et al., 2008)

heuristics

• availability

• representativeness

• anchoring and adjustment

availability

Judgment of likelihood based on how easily examples are called to mind

representativeness

Judgment of likelihood based on how closely a particular instance matches “typical” case

anchoring and adjustment

Judgment influenced by an arbitrary, unrelated value used as an “anchor” from which insufficient adjustment is made.

controlled social cognition

• Motivation + Resource Availability

• Motivation can be varied by manipulating outcome dependency

• Resource availability can be varied by manipulating speed, competing tasks, or fatigue

counterfactual thinking

• Upward vs. Downward _____

  • A function of proximity to “cutoff”

  • Upward = Negative affect, but increased motivation

  • Downward = Positive affect, but no motivational enhancement

Social perception

the process by which we form impressions of and make inferences about other people.

• a construcive process influenced by schemas.

nonverbal behavior

mostly automatic, and includes:

• facial expressions

• eye contact, gaze

• extravocal cues (volume, pitch speed, inflection)

• intentional gestures

• body language (posture, orientation, distance, etc.)

deception

People can mask or exhibit emotions contrary to what they really feel.

six basic emotions

• Fear

• Anger

• Surprise

• Happiness

• Disgust

• Sadness

Universal and appear early in life.

display rules

Influences emotional expression; ___ ___ that are unique to each culture dictate when different nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display.

display blends

Decoding < 100% accurate because people may ___ ___ of multiple affects simultaneously.

gender differences

Women are better than men at both decoding and encoding nonverbal behavior.

• exception: anger

causal attribution

• inferring the causes of outcomes (e.g., behaviors, performance, etc.)

• Heider’s dichotomy for people’s explanations: internal (dispositional) attributions and external (situational) attributions.

Kelley’s covariation model

how people make internal vs. external attributions:

3 dimensions

• Consistency

• Distinctiveness

• Consensus

EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION

If consistency is high, distinctiveness is high, and consensus is high

INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION

If consistency is high, distinctiveness is low, and consensus is low

fundamental attribution error

A mistaken inference that a behavior (or outcome) is caused by a person’s disposition (Example: an internal attribution).

Key Studies:

• Jones & Harris’ Anti- & Pro-Castro speechmakers

• Ross et al.’s “ Quiz Show”

possible causes of fundamental attribution error

• Correspondence bias

• Actor/observer difference due to perceptual salience

• Biased sampling (seeing others in 1 or very few situations)

• 2 step process

  • Automatic internal attribution

  • Controlled search for situational factors

• Cultural values/beliefs

attributional processes and biases

• Self-Serving Attributions

  • Positive outcomes » Internal

  • Negative outcomes » External

  • Why?

    • Maintain Self-Esteem

    • Self-Presentation to others

    • Self-efficacy, illusion of control, and unrealistic optimism

individualist

• more prone to FAE

• Subject to actor-observer and correspondence biases

• More prone to self-serving attributions

collectivist

• Less prone to FAE

• Subject to actor-observer and correspondence biases (when situational info is missing)

• Less prone to self-serving attributions

judgemental overconfidence

Overestimating the accuracy of our beliefs about others and ourselves.

• people thought they would be more correct when assuming other people.

causes of judgmental overconfidence

• We over-rely on dispositions to predict behavior

• We over-rely on first impressions, which may be grossly inaccurate (due to the influence of schemas, unrepresentativeness, etc.)

• Our implicit personality theories may be inaccurate

• Self-fulfilling prophecy and confirmation bias can contribute to a persistent belief in our own accuracy

defensive attributions

a conclusion that things that happen, if they are bad, happen because people bring it on themselves. They won’t happen to us so we are unlikely to have bad things happen to us.

• belief in just world

• why?

  • maintain self-esteem

  • reduce threat/uncertainty

  • self-efficacy, illusion of control, and unrealistic optimism

bias blind spot

believing we are less subject to such biases/errors than others.

• people think that others are highly susceptible to self serving bias while they themselves aren’t as susceptible.