Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
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PSY 342 / SOC 342 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: SELF, ATTITUDES, SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Myers and Twenge 13/e, chapter 3 Slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020 and/or © McGraw-Hill 2020.
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
PREVIEW
How do we judge our social worlds, consciously and unconsciously?
How do we perceive our social worlds?
How do we explain our social worlds?
How do our social beliefs matter?
What can we conclude about social beliefs and judgments?
Perceiving Our Social Worlds 4
Priming: activating particular associations in memory • Can influence another thought or even
an action • Things we don’t even consciously
notice can subtly influence how we interpret and recall events • Kulechov effect
• Illustrates the idea that much of our social information processing is automatic
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Perceiving our social worlds, cont’d 5
Priming, cont’d:
Embodied cognition: mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments
• Brain systems that process our bodily sensations communicate with the brain systems responsible for our social thinking
Perceiving our social worlds 6
Think of 3-4 circumstances in which it matters whether your early impressions of a person are accurate.
• What are some circumstances? • Why use your intuition in these
circumstances? Why not?
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Intuitive judgments: why and why not
Some advocate “intuitive management”—tuning in to our hunches
Our thinking is partly automatic, partly controlled !Automatic processing: “implicit” thinking – effortless, habitual,
and without awareness; roughly corresponds to “intuition” and “gut feeling” – also known as System 1
!Controlled processing: “explicit” thinking – deliberate, reflective, and conscious—also known as System 2
Automatic thinking often involves schemas, emotional reactions, the effects of expertise, and snap judgments
Intuition has limits
Automatic, intuitive thinking can seem to “make us smart”; but the unconscious may not be as smart as once believed • Error-prone hindsight judgments • Capacity for illusion—for perceptual misinterpretations,
fantasies, and constructed beliefs
Note that although people create false beliefs, not all beliefs are false • To recognize falsification, it helps to know how it is done
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Perceiving Our Social Worlds 9
Belief Perseverance Persistence of one’s initial conceptions, as when the basis for one’s belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives
Perceiving Our Social Worlds 10
Constructing Memories Misinformation effect Incorporating “misinformation” into one’s memory of
the event after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Perceiving Our Social Worlds 11
Reconstructing our past attitudes Reconstructing our past behavior
Judging Our Social World 12
The Limits of Intuition Hindsight Bias Perceptual Misinterpretations
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Judging Our Social World 13
Overconfidence Phenomenon Tendency to be more confident than correct – to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs Alas, incompetence feeds overconfidence!
Planning fallacy Stockbroker overconfidence Political overconfidence
Judging Our Social World 14
Confirmation Bias Tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions
Helps explain why our self-images are so stable Self-verification
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Judging Our Social World 15
Remedies for Overconfidence Give prompt feedback to explain why statement is incorrect For planning fallacy, ask one to “unpack a task” – break it down into estimated time requirements for each part Get people to think of one good reason why their judgments might be wrong
Judging Our Social World 16
Heuristics: Mental Shortcuts Representativeness heuristic
Tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Judging Our Social World 17
Heuristics: Mental shortcuts, snap decision rules
Availability heuristic Cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory The more easily we recall something the more likely it seems
Availability heuristic 18
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Two heuristics among many 19
Heuristic Definition Example But May Lead to…
Representativeness Snap judgments of whether someone or something fits a category
Deciding that Marie is a librarian rather than a trucker because she better represents one’s image of librarians
Discounting other important information
Availability Quick judgments of likelihood of events (how available in memory)
Estimating teen violence after school shootings
Overweighting vivid instances and thus, for example, fearing the wrong things
Judging Our Social World 20
Counterfactual Thinking
Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn’t
Related to our feelings of luck
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Judging Our Social World 21
Illusory Thinking Our search for order in random events
Illusory correlation: Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists
Judging Our Social World 22
Illusory Thinking Illusion of control Perception of uncontrollable events as subject to
one’s control or as more controllable than they are Gambling Regression toward the average:
Statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward one’s average
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
23
Judging Our Social World
Moods and Judgments Good and bad moods
trigger memories of experiences associated with those moods
Moods color our interpretations of current experiences
A temporary good or bad mood strongly influenced people’s ratings of their videotaped behavior. Those in a bad mood
detected far fewer positive behaviors.
Explaining Our Social World 24
Attributing Causality: To the Person or the Situation
Misattribution Mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source
Attribution theory Theory of how people explain others’ behavior Dispositional attribution Situational attribution
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Explaining Our Social World 25
Inferring Traits We often infer that other people’s actions are
indicative of their intentions and dispositions
Commonsense Attributions (see next slide) Consistency Distinctiveness Consensus
Attribution 26
Kelley’s
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Explaining Our Social World 27
Fundamental Attribution Error Tendency for observers to underestimate
situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others’ behavior
Explaining our social world 28
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
Explaining Our Social World 29
Why do we make the attribution error? We observe others from a different perspective
than we observe ourselves Example: camera perspective bias
When recalling the past, we are like observers of someone else
We also find causes where we look for them And, western cultural bias facilitates it.
30
Expectations of Our Social World
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Robert Merton) Belief that leads to its own fulfillment
The movie “My Fair Lady” and the Greek myth Pygmalion & Galatea on which the movie’s story was based remind us of the power of expectations.
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
31
Teacher Expectations and Student Performance
The problem of experimenter expectations (demand characteristics) creating artifactual results in an experiment is an example of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Expectations of Our Social World 32
Getting from Others What We Expect Behavioral confirmation Type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people’s
social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
33
Prototype of a study of behavioral confirmation
Self-fulfilling prophecy, cont’d.
or
– 34 -Self-fulfilling prophecy, cont’d.
C
BA
Kerth O’Brien Portland State University Winter, 2020
Some slides © Kerth O’Brien 2020, other slides © McGraw-Hill 2020
What Can We Conclude about Social Beliefs and Judgments?
Our information-processing powers are efficient and adaptive, but people sometimes form false beliefs • Trying hard doesn’t eliminate thinking biases • Our intuition is vulnerable to misjudgment • If anything, laboratory procedures overestimate our
intuitive powers • False impressions, interpretations, and beliefs can produce
serious consequences • Heuristic snap judgments, however, enable efficient
thinking and can aid in our survival
36
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