Perceiving Individuals and Attribution - PDF

Perceiving individuals and attribution Perceiving individuals – Forming first impressions Excercise: first impressons based on photos What is this person like? Who attended a university, a vocational training? Who does sports? Who likes reading, rock concerts, art galleries?  Who are good at p...

Perceiving individuals and attribution Perceiving individuals – Forming first impressions Excercise: first impressons based on photos What is this person like? Who attended a university, a vocational training? Who does sports? Who likes reading, rock concerts, art galleries?  Who are good at perception of others? Some are accurate in judging their friends, others in judging aliens, still others in judging themselves Secret service agents are good in detecting lies (unlike police detectives, custom house officers and CIA agents) An experiment (Rosenhan, 1973):  A psychologist sends problem-free people to 12 psychiatric institutes  All they claim they hear voices  They behave normally in all other aspects  They spent averagely a fortnight in the institutes, they remain unveiled  But some other patients are suspicious  Perceiving individuals We are suprisingly willing to draw conclusions about personality on the ground of mere pictures We believe that appearance and behavior reflect on personality traits, preferences and lifestyles. What are our grounds for this? Physical appearance, age, sex/gender, clothing, gestures…: “people wearing glasses are intellectual,” “red-headed are heated,” “blondes are sociable”. People wearing glasses are intellectual  Physical beauty: positive expectations We expect particularly attractive people to be warmer, more interesting, more sociable and experts in social interactions. Research shows that people help strangers with attractive appearance more than with less attractive appearance. Teachers think attractive children to be more intelligent based on their photos Attractive defendants are released for a lower bail Attractive people are also preferred in employment etc.  What attracts attention? What is outstanding, different from normal. A dad in suit with a stroller: 1. at the weekend kindergarten picnic 2. at a business dinner What impression do we make of him? It depends on what the information is. 1. the suit 2. the kid But in both cases, we will have a strong opinion. We think him to be either an unusually rigid stock-broker or an exceptionally careful dad. Salience  Schematic processing of information Schemas: results of perception and thinking, mental representations of people, objects, situations etc. They are useful in simplifying and organizing the huge amount of information we receive. Even if data could be collected from people in a systematic and undistorted way, and if we did not judge in a moment, our perception would be nonetheless distorted by our expectations, presuppositions and theories about what the data should be.  Since we are mostly able to detect only what we are expecting, we can easily sort the incoming data into the appropriate schemas and provide the corresponding memory structure. This schematic processing allows us to process and organize enormous amounts of information with great efficiency. So we do not need to memorize every single detail, simply link everything to an existing schema.  Schemas are strong There are schemas for different types of people: extroverted, communicative, melancholic, friendly, loud, impetuous, skateboarding, emo, kitty-cat, humanities student, rocker, princess, hipster etc. We also have schemas for ourselves: the sum of concepts of the self = self schema For example, if we meet a job advertisement, we compare the description, the schema with our self- concept But the efficiency of processing has a price: our perception is distorted (single-line self-descriptions on dating sites can even make it difficult to find the appropriate partner).  What is our impression about Joe? Joe left home to buy stationery. He went out on the bright street with two of his friends and enjoyed the sunshine while he was walking to the store. He entered the stationery, which was full of people. While he waited for the seller to serve, he talked to one of his friends. Going out, he stopped talking to a schoolmate who had just come into the shop. He left the shop for the school. On the way, the pretty girl came across whom he had first met on the night before. They talked for a while, then Joe went to school. After the class, he came out of the classroom alone. Leaving the school, he started his long walk on his way to his home. The street was sparklingly bright. Joe went on to the shady side of the street. On the way, the pretty girl came across he had first met on the night before. He crossed the road and went into a pub. The pub was full of students, and he noticed some familiar faces. Joe waited patiently for the line and then ordered. He sat with his drink at a table on the side. When he finished his drink, he went home (Luchins, 1957, 34-35). Explanation of the experiment: priority effect Do you think he is friendly and open, or is he weird and introverted? 78% of the readers think that Joe is rather friendly. But let us look at the description more closely: it consists of two different but equal parts. 95% of those who saw the first half of the description only found Joe friendly, but of those who saw the second half of the description only, only 3% found him friendly. But when the same description was read so that the unfriendly half of the paragraphs appeared first, only 18% found Joe friendly. Generally, the first information obtained has the greatest impact on our overall impression. This is called as the priority effect: processing information, our brain considers the schema that appears the most (easily) graspable to be the starting point, since this is the simplest strategy.  The priority effect – another experiment People were asked to judge the general abilities of a student they observed who tried to solve difficult, multi-choice problems. Although the student always resolved exactly 15 problems out of 30 correctly, they found her more talented if her correct choices were closer to the beginning of the series. In addition, when test subjects were asked about how many problems the student had solved, people who saw the 15 successful solutions at the beginning of the series estimated 21 correct solutions on average, while those who saw success at the end of the assignment estimated 13 correct answers on average. It is hard to get rid of the first impression Schematic processing While many factors contribute to the priority effect, it primarily seems to be the consequence of schematic processing. When trying to create impressions of a person for the first time, we are actively looking for the schema(s) in the memory that are best suited to the incoming data. At a certain point, we make a preliminary decision, for example: This person is “friendly”. Thereafter, all the additional information is merged into this schema, and we neglect all new information that does not match as if it would not characterize the person. An immanent part of the operation of our schemas is recognizing (or seemingly recognizing) correlations. The halo effect a cognitive bias, whereby with a perceived positive or negative characteristic (e.g. attraction) of a person, we incline to unconsciously associate other attributes that seem consistent. A single perceived characteristic affects how we see the person in full. For example, attractive people are seen as intelligent. Group attractiveness effect – cheerleader effect a cognitive bias, whereby people seem to be more attractive in groups than alone. In their research, Walker and Vul (2013) asked test subjects to judge the attractiveness of male and female faces. The same faces were shown on group photos and separate photos. Test subjects judged that faces on group photos were more attractive. (Results were the same with male-only, female-only, and male-and-female faces, and with groups of four and sixteen too.)  Attribution Seeing a kind of behavior, we decide how it can be attributed to one of the many possible reasons Attribution: inference to the causes of a kind of behavior We are all intuitive and naïve psychologists, since we live among people and automatically try to understand the behavior of other people (or at least explain it to ourselves). „So if it’s good, it’s Mr. Coffee. If it’s bad, it’s me.” Attribution: function It is essential for adapting to a social environment: what causes the actions of others? Directly observable: behavior → directly not observable: characteristics Why is it important?  There is a need for seeing and understanding the world coherently  There is a need for us to have control on the environment Knowing the causes of the actions of others→prediction→satisfying the two needs above Prediction Attribution: when will it happen? Basically anytime but mainly if  unexpected, unusual actions  unachieved goals  negative, unpleasant consequences occur. Why?  Usual, expectable events normally do not require extra explanation  Where can causes be found? Either outside or inside (1) environment: external influence, situation, norms, money, threats…  situational attribution (2) internal characteristic, personality traits, values  dispositional attribution Fundamental attribution error We tend to take behavior at face value and underestimate the situational causes of behavior. We tend to ignore situational requirements and infer from behavior to personality traits. We have a general causal pattern for understanding behavior that puts too much emphasis on the person and too little on the situation.  Fundamental attribution error – an experiment In their now classical research, Jones and Harris (1967) asked test subjects to read essays featuring Fidel Castro in positive and negative light. When test subjects were informed that the essay writers were free to choose whether to write a positive or negative essay, they automatically considered the authors of the positive essays to be Castro-supporters. When test subjects were informed that a coin toss had been made to decide who had to write a positive or negative essay, as a big surprise for the researchers, test subjects on average believed that the writers of positive essays were personally more positive about Castro than the writers of negative essays, even though the situation alone would have been perfectly adequate to explain the behavior.  Fundamental attribution error – another experiment Ross, Amabile and Steinmetz (1977) in their research asked the question whether our social roles related to a quiz game (i.e., questioner and player) affect our judgment on the expertise of the participants. 18 pairs (one questioner–one player, randomly assigned), 24 observers from University of Stanford students. Questioner was asked to fabricate 10 questions based on her knowledge and ask the player to respond them in 30 seconds. Players and observers judged the knowledge level of questioners systematically higher than that of players (questioners did not judge their own knowledge level higher). Too much emphasis is given to dispositional factors, whereas situational causes are underestimated.  Self-attribution Surprisingly, our judgments about our own thoughts, behavior and personality are often characterized by similar processes as the judgments of others. Our mistakes are also similar: we very easily misunderstand what we do and why we do that. An example: one receives a “heart tone” feedback while watching photos of others. S/he will find the photo of the person more attractive looking at which his/her heart tone “speed up”. (Horror movie musics are also like quick heart tones, e.g. in the movie Jaws.) One attributes behavior causes from signals accessible for external spectators to myself. I swallowed my nail all day  surely something hurt me (in parallel: you swallowed your nail all day  surely something hurt you; though it may simply be broken)  Self-serving bias We are tempted to attribute our success to internal, dispositional causes while blaming external factors and circumstances for our failures. For example, if we get a job, we take it as a result of our great CV, achievements and excellent interview performance, but if we do not, we think the interviewer simply did not like us. Incorrect consideration of consequences Assignment of responsibility for an accident (Walster, 1966)  The attributed responsibility of the actor is greater in the case of actions when the consequences are serious, in contrast with those when the consequences are trivial  Implied personality theories Stereotypes (i.e., schemas constructed about groups of people) are in fact theories of correlations. We have stereotypes about boys/girls, politicians, gays, policemen, professors etc. But research shows that we are not at all accurate in identifying correlations: we overrate them and also identify non-existent correlations as correlations. In addition, once recognized, they are perdurable. Implied personality theories: specific patterns and biases that are applied when we form a first impression about an unknown person on the basis of limited information.  Incorrect inferences affecting accuracy Are fat people happier?  Data collection: taking cases into consideration only if they fit to the hypothesis and preliminary expectations  encoding: interpreting and classifying data in accordance with preliminary theories  Overrating two (rare) correlating events: illusory correlation Bank cashier? Vegetarian bank cashier? A bad understanding of statistics Bank cashiers Vegetarians  Understanding correlations A common stereotype: homosexual males are moving like females What would be the correct test principle? Taking a sample and examine the number of … what? 1. Homosexuals who move like females? 2. Homosexuals who do not move like females? 3. Non-homosexuals who move like females? 4. Non-homosexuals who do not move like females?  The correct method for identifying a correlation of two components is examining whether the ratio of feminine-moving people among homosexual males (left-side column on the next slide) is different from the ratio of feminine-moving heterosexual males (right-side column). First the numbers of both columns should be combined so that we would know how many males belong to the two samples. Then we can see that 10 out of 100, i.e., 10% of homosexual males move like females, and 100 out of 1000, i.e., also 10% of heterosexual males move like females. Hence, based on these data, there is no correlation between sexual orientation and feminine moving. Fictive data! Homosexuals Heterosexuals Feminin motion 10 100 Non-fem 90 900 motion 100 1000 Notice that in order to identify the correlation, each and every column of the table must be taking into account!  What would intution say? All relevant information is almost never available. We can almost never estimate the frequency of people belonging to category C, i.e., that of homosexual males not moving in a feminine way (unless we know some of them personally). Category B is also problematic. When seeing a feminine-moving male, we simply used to presume that he is homosexual, even though we have no knowledge of his sexual orientation. He can belong to category A or B with equal chance. Category A (and the stereotype) is confirmed, incorrectly, even when there is no reason for confirmation. False stereotypes often live with us simply because we focus on phenomena belonging to category A and we ignore all other phenomena. In the case of these fictive data, there is no correlation between the two factors.  The power of non-events We notice salient information more than not salient information. It is especially difficult to take category D into account (and to understand why it must be taken into account), i.e., males who are neither homosexual nor feminine-moving. Category D, containing the majority of cases, so-called NON-EVENTS. Hence, if someone is not homosexual and not feminine-moving either, he is ignored at a conscious level while forming the stereotype. (Furthermore, males belonging to category C are automatically thought to belong to category D, further strengthening, incorrectly, the false stereotype.) Stereotypes are not defects. They are naturally inherent in information process to some degree.  Illusory correlation Observers presume correlation between two events, phenomena or characteristics even if there is no correlation, or it is smaller than perceived. In his research, Chapman (1967) provided two lists of words to test subjects. Pairs of words were created (combining every word with every other). Pairs were read to test subjects several times. The task of test subjects was to estimate the frequency of occurrence of the particular pairs. Even though in fact each pair was read twice, subjects overestimated the frequency of pairs calling up real associations (e.g. tiger-lion, ham-egg) and of those which were very different from the others due to their length or weirdness (e.g. cherry flower – exercise book).  Gender stereotypes Females – home, children, marriage, high level of anxiety, low self-esteem, low social status and qualified work (the media also supports this image via non-events) An experiment: a photo of people leaning over a table. Question: who is the leader of the group? If a male sits on the main table then the answer is obviously him; if a female sits there then test subjects often choose someone else (or noone). Stereotypes about males (wage-earner, calm, balanced, good father etc.) are also dangerous and destructive. The main concern with stereotypes is not that they are always negative (they are not necessarily so) but that they are not about us personally but an abstract category which is usually independent from us. The Self-fulfilling Prophecy  Self-fulfilling expectations In an experiment, Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid (1977) gave a folder about a college girl including a photo of a beautiful/less beautiful girl. Test subjects were asked to call the girl on phone, taking a 10-minute interview. In fact, photos were randomly assigned to folders (the girl on the photo was not the same as the one to be called on phone). The girls also did not know that the boys believed them beautiful/less beautiful. Those boys who believed that they talk to an attractive girl were more open, more interested and more sociable in general than those who believed that they talk to a less attractive girl. Boys believing they talk to a beautiful girl found the girl more open and nicer and they did not think that their behavior caused the girl’s positive attitude towards them. External observers (hearing only the girls) also found the girls whom the boys believed to be attractive as more open, nicer and more sociable than the girls whom the boys believed to be less attractive.  Self-fulfilling job interview With job interviewees, interviewers are more positive and supportive (e.g. they lean forward) if the interviewee is white. They presume that non-white applicants will perform less well. Due to that attitude, the performance of non-whites will really be worse. An experiment: copying this behavior, whites were interviewed. Some of them were treated as blacks are usually treated, others were treated as “normal”. The difference in performance was significant. Even those who observed the situation on video recordings found interviewees less prepared if they were interviewed in a less friendly manner. Result: people with prejudices interact with others in a way that triggers the stereotypic behavior, thereby maintain and strengthening the stereotype   The Pygmalion effect – the power of expectations School situation: teacher expectations towards students will provoke the appropriate performance. An experiment: a test is taken in a class, and then the teacher is told that this test predicts near-future progress of intelligence. Test results are made public, randomly assigning “development potential” to pupils. At the end of the term, results are checked: precisely those pupils improved their results significantly whom the fake test allegedly predicted to improve. Why? There is no such predictive test but even in objective situations like math, expectations matter a lot (with a pupil believed to be better, the teacher is more patient, she will receive more nonverbal confirmation and implicit help than others etc). The Pygmalion effect also works with non-cognitive skills: e.g. training officer and fitness of soldiers Pupils also learn to accommodate to expectations. The validity of the self- fulfilling prophecy also depends on the pupil: how responsible she is, since this is a two-pole interaction Summary Attribution theories examine how we attribute different personality traits and characteristics to others and ourselves. We seek for, and find, causes, but in the meantime we make characteristic mistakes (attribution biases). Information is organized into schemas in order to increase the speed of processing, but our correlation theories of characteristics are naïve, unfounded. Schematic information processing makes it possible to process and organize an infinite amount of information surrounding us with a great efficiency. Meanwhile, several biases follow from its operation, e.g. the priority effect, the halo-effect, implied personality theories and ignoring non-events. Stereotypes are about many people but in fact they are about no one. They influence the thinking of people not having any close connection with the stereotype in question but also those who feel they are possibly stigmatized. Literature Smith, Eliot R. - Mackie, Diana M. – Claypool, Heather M. (2014) Social Psychology (4th edition), New York: Psychology Press. Chapter 3.