Transcript Social Cognition

Do you feel that fundamental Christian movement is a positive force in the United
States? ____ (yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed in %)
Do you think there was conspiracy (i.e. an organized efforts to illegally
taint the vote-counting) during the presidential election of 2004, to ensure
that Bush was re-elected? ___ (yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you
____ (expressed in %)
Do you think that Sarah Jessica Parker is attractive? ____ (yes
vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed in %)
Do you think that Johnny Depp is attractive? ____ (yes vs. no)
Others in this room that agree with you ____ (expressed in %)
Conspiracy during 2004 election?
Actual distribution of attitudes
“no, there wasn’t”
“yes, there was”
70%
no
30%
yes
Perceived distribution of attitudes
53%
yes
47%
no
Extremely large FCE = +22
34%
yes
66%
no
Fairly accurate
Sara Jessica Parker attractive?
Actual distribution of attitudes
“Yeah—hot!”
“No”
57%
yes
43%
no
Perceived distribution of attitudes
64%
yes
36%
no
(Small) FCE = +7
53%
yes
47%
no
Fairly accurate
Johnny Depp attractive?
Actual distribution of attitudes
“Yeah—hot!”
“No”
61%
yes
39%
no
Perceived distribution of attitudes
66%
yes
34%
no
Fairly accurate
50%
yes
50%
no
Moderate FCE +11
Fundamental Christian movement a positive
force in U.S.?
no
Actual distribution of attitudes
77%
no
yes
23%
yes
Perceived distribution of attitudes
48%
yes
52%
no
42%
yes
58%
anti
One interpretation: No real FCE here. Rather, all students (regardless of views)
perceive WU students as more pro-Fundamental Christian than they really are
Famous errors… continued

The “fundamental attribution error” (e.g. Jones &
Harris, 1967)
– What it is

Tendency to overestimate influence of dispositional
factors when judging others
– Why you get it



Selective exposure (again)
Perceptual salience
Different processes underlying attributions
– dispositional  automatic
– Situational  controlled
Jones and Harris (1967)
Estimate of essay
writer’s attitude
60%
choice
No choice
pro-Castro
anti-Castro
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic—insufficient adjustment!
Insensitivity to the power of the situation
Stages of social perception
Observe specific behavior
Identification (encoding)
Inferences about other traits
Inferences about the causes of behavior (attribution)
Automatic dispositional attribution
Controlled situational “correction”—but only if
perceiver has ability and motivation
Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull (1988)
all participants run in “no choice” condition.
Pro
“Pro-Abortion”
abortion
“Anti abortion”
Anti-
abortion
“unbusy” participants
“busy” participants
Self-serving attributions

Usual pattern for self—
– Positive events—internal
– Negative events—external

Reversed for depressed individuals
 Sports—winners vs. losers
– Rams vs. Patriots—2002 Superbowl
–
Unrealistic optimism
(Weinstein, 1980)

Basic effect
 Criticisms of this paradigm
– Referent group unclear?

Bottom line—effect holds up, even
controlling for possible problems
Belief in a just world
(Lerner, 1980)

Good things happen to good people, bad
things happen to bad people
 Two ways of conceptualizing
– Cultural belief system
– Individual difference variable
low
high
Lambert et al. (1999)

Belief in a just world
 But we find only weakly related to perceived
risk—WHY?
 Buffering hypothesis!
– Maybe just world beliefs “only matter” when world
is viewed as “threatening” in the first place
– Who sees world as threatening?

High RWA
Right-wing
authoritarianism
World
perceived
as a
dangerous,
scary
place?
NO
YES
Belief in a
just world
Personal
buffer
against
threat?
NO
HIGH
PERCEIVED
RISK
YES
LOW
PERCEIVED
RISK