Transcript File - Teaching psychology

Social Perception
Seminar 4
Before we start the class…
You will get one question from me.
Write your answer on a piece of paper.
Do NOT discuss with your neighbor
[I will reveal the purpose towards the end of the class]
People want to understand others
How do we do that?
Part 1
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Non-verbal communication (NVC)
How people
communicate,
intentionally or
unintentionally, without
words
–
–
–
–
–
–
Facial expression
Tone of voice
Hand gestures
Body position/posture
Touch
Eye gaze
Functions of NVC
– Express emotion
– Conveying attitudes
– Communicating one’s
personality traits
– Facilitating verbal
communication
Is non-communication (e.g., silence) a type of NVC?
Popularity of NVC in “pop-psychology”
Does NVC vary across cultures? Yes.
1. Gestures
2. Display rules
Does NVC vary across cultures? No.
Facial expression of emotion
•1872: Charles Darwin: The expression of
emotions in man and animals
– Concluded that NVC of emotions was speciesspecific, not cultural-specific
– What was Darwin’s methodology? (Remember
that this was in 1800s)
The universal emotions
Originally based on (field) experiments
by Paul Ekman (1970s)
•Use photographs of posed facial emotions
•Present to others (cityfolks, isolated villages)
“What is this emotion?”
•Evaluate the consistency within/between cultures
Try this!
The classic
And you have this…
Only 6?
• Remains very contentious whether there are even universal
emotions in the first place
Jack et al. (2012). Facial expressions of emotion are not culturally universal. PNAS.
Gender bias in facial
emotion recognition
M/F facial expressions changed very slowly from
1. Neutral to happy
2. Neutral to anger
Example
Time
When you see a new emotion, press [Space]
Bijlstra et al. (2014). Stereotype associations and emotion recognition. Pers Soc Psy Bull.
Results
What would you predict?
3,000
2,750
Time (msec)
2,500
2,250
Neu -> Happy
2,000
Neu -> Anger
1,750
1,500
1,250
1,000
Male faces
Female faces
Part 2
PERSONALITY SCHEMAS
Implicit personality theories
Schemas about what personality traits go together
•Assumption #1: People do not fill in their schemas
with random content (recall: last class)
•Assumption #2: People are unaware that the traits
they filled in are due to such schemas.
Inferences about “unseen” traits
Ali
attractive
+
honest
(inferred)
intelligent
+
When inconsistency happens
Violates implicit personality
theory
Ali
What happens?
• Attempt to reinterpret
• Attribute to situation
attractive
Dishonest*
(--)
+
intelligent
+
• Forgetting
• Repress? Denial?
• Change implicit theory
(unlikely, but possible)
Evaluatively mixed representations
Jack
Disorganized
(--)
Artistic (painter)
(++)
Temperamental
(--)
Part 3
ATTRIBUTIONS
Attributions
Explanations we make about other people’s behavior
1. What is the person doing?
2. Why is the person doing so?
Attributions are important
She wants to
fulfil her duty.
She loves me.
“My wife cooked dinner tonight.”
She did something
wrong last night.
She wants me to
buy her that
handbag.
Attributions are important
Taxes have remained
the same for 40
years already.
Country needs
money.
“The minister wants to raise taxes.”
The minister has no
clue what s/he is
doing.
The minister
wants more
money
Attributions are important
Needs to lower
unemployment rate
What?!?!
“Iran wants to build its own nuclear program.”
Wants to use nukes
as bargaining chips
Wants to attack US
Basic distinction
• Internal attributions
– Explanations about the person’s disposition (e.g.,
personality, intentions, “character”)
• External attributions
– Explanations about the person’s situation
Why are attributions important?
Example: Attributions within marriages
“List the positive and negative things your partner did recently”
Event (IV1)
Marriage Type (IV2)
Attribution (DV)
Positive things
Satisfied marriage
Internal
Dissatisfied marriage
External
Satisfied marriage
External
Dissatisfied marriage
Internal
Negative things
What direction is the causality?
Attribution to self
Pessimists explain negative events as:
– Global
• Nothing goes right in my life
• I’m a loser
• I can’t do anything right
– Internal
• it’s always my fault…
– Stable (unchangeable)
• it’ll always be that way…
Clinical implications
The basic principles
behind CBT:
Cognitive attributions
 Problems
Buchanan & Seligman (1995). Explanatory style.
Kelley’s covariation model
According to pop psychology…
“Pay attention to the way she
touches her hair. Gentle movements,
such as mindlessly twirling a strand
around her finger or running her
fingers through it slowly are signs that
she's very interested. Quick, jerky
movements indicate that she's
embarrassed or impatient, especially
when paired with wandering eyes.”
Guys, imagine you’re out on a date and a woman
displays this behavior.
Is this woman interested in you?
Kelley’s covariation model
• Three factors
– Consistency: Does A always behave that way?
– Distinctiveness: How A behave towards C, D,
E, F?
– Consensus: How C, D, E, F behave towards A
C
A
D
B
E
F
Kelley’s covariation model
“John is in a club. John laughs at the comedian"
Does J always behave that way? How J behave towards others? How others behave towards J?
Consistency
Distinctiveness
Consensus
Attribution
High
(always laughs at
people)
Low
(laughs at other
comedians as well)
Low
(only J is laughing)
Personal attribution
High
High
(J doesn’t laugh
elsewhere)
High
(everyone is
laughing)
Stimulus attribution
(something about
that particular
target(
Low
(doesn’t laugh at
the comedian at
other clubs)
Low
(laughs at other
comedian at the
club)
High
Circumstance
attribution
Wait a minute…
Kelley’s covariation is a computational model.
To consider that many factors, people surely
need time – to gather and think over facts.
Is there a default mode of judging others?
The fundamental attribution error
The tendency to overestimate influence of
dispositional factors when judging others
Sounds commonsense.
How can we prove it scientifically?
The classic experiment (1967)
Historical context: Cuban missile crisis (1962)
The classic experiment (1967)
Read an essay written by a fellow classmate on Castro.
Anti-Castro essay
Pro-Castro essay
Participants were told that classmate had:
Choice
No choice
DV: “What is the writer’s real attitude towards Castro?”
The logic behind the experiment
Estimate of writer’s true attitude towards Castro
(higher = positive attitude)
If people understood the situational
constraints of the writer
5
If people underestimated the
situational constraints of the writer
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
0
0
Pro-Castro
Choice
Anti-Castro
No choice
Pro-Castro
Choice
Assumption: Choices reflect true attitudes
Anti-Castro
No choice
What is one mechanism?
Perceptual salience: People can see only the
behavior, but not the situation
Sounds credible.
How do you know this explanation is correct?
One famous demonstration
confederate
Can see ___, but not ___
Can see ___, and ___
Can see ___, but not ___
Can see ___, but not ___
Can see ___, and ___
Can see ___, but not ___
confederate
One famous demonstration
Ratings of actor’s causal role (e.g., “how
initiative is Actor [ ]”?
Actor A
Actor B
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
See A, not B
Can see both
Viewing angle
See B, not A
Real world implications
Police interrogation videos
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
What about people judging
themselves?
Remember the answer(s) you wrote? This was meant
to demonstrate the
________-serving bias
Statistically speaking, it's logically impossible for both
ratios of _________:_________ attributions to be
correct simultaneously for all people.
What does it tell you about humans?
What about people judging
themselves?
Spotlight effect: people tend to believe they are noticed
more than they really are
You think you’re important.
But you are really not that important.
Yeah right
It’s all about ME!
Gilovich et al. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment. J Per Soc Psy.
Evidence: Spotlight effect
Imagine you have to wear this shirt
to give a short speech
Guess the number of people who will notice your shirt
Summary
• People want to understand others (and
ourselves)
• We rely on cues, which may or may not be
diagnostic
• Our judgments of others, and ourselves, are
sometimes bias