SOCIAL BELIEFS AND JUDGMENTS

Week 3
 Lesson
Objectives
Describe and discuss how
01 we perceive, judge, and
explain our social worlds

Explain the expectation

of self in our social
02 worlds
PERCEIVING
OUR
SOCIAL
WORLDS
 PERCEIVING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS
striking research reveals the extent to which our assumptions and prejudgments guide our
perceptions, interpretations, and recall

PRIMING
is the awakening or activating of certain associations. In an experiment conducted by Bargh and his
colleagues (1996), they asked people to complete a sentence containing words such as "old," "wise,"
and "retired". Shortly afterward, they observed that these people walking more slowly to the elevator
than did those not primed with aging-related words.

PRIMING experiments (Bargh, 2006) in everyday life:

watching a scary movie alone at home can activate emotions that, without our realizing it, cause
us to interpret furnace noises as possible intruder

PERCEIVING AND INTERPRETING EVENTS

social perceptions are very much in the eye of the beholder, even a simple stimulus may strike
two people quite differently. Example: sports and politics
Researchers manipulated people's preconceptions with astonishing effects upon their
interpretations and recollections (interpretation of faces)
Construal processes also color other's perception to us. (What you said is often you)
we view our social worlds through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. That is one
reason our beliefs are important; they shape our interpretation of everything else
 PERCEIVING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

BELIEF PERSEVERANCE
Ross and others (1982) planted a falsehood in people's mind and tried to discredit it. Their research
reveals that it is surprisingly difficult to demolish a falsehood, once the person conjures up a
rationale for it.

Each experiment first implanted a belief, either by proclaiming it to be true or providing anecdotal
data. Then the participants were asked to explain why it is true. Finally researchers totally
discredited the initial information by telling the participants the truth. The new belief survived 75%
intact.

this phenomenon is called 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

CONSTRUCTING MEMORIES OF
OURSELVES AND OUR WORLDS
our memories are not exact copies of our experiences that remain deposit in memory bank, rather,
we construct our memories at the time of withdrawal. We reconstruct our distant past by using our
current feelings and expectations to combine information fragments
experimenters can manipulate people's presumption about their past (Example: Cafe Minamdang
Killer)
MISINFORMATION EFFECT (Loftus, 2003) - incorporating misinformation into one's memory of the
event, after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it
 PERCEIVING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

RECONSTUCTING OUR PAST ATTITUDES

AND PAST BEHAVIORS
Memory construction enables us to revise our own histories. Our memories reconstruct another sorts
of past behavior as well.

It is not that we are totally unaware of how we used to feel, just that what memories re hazy, current
feelings guide our recall.

When widows and widowers try to recall their grief they felt on their spouse's death five years earlier,
their current emotional state colors their memories.
JUDGING
OUR
SOCIAL
WORLDS
 JUDGING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

INTUITIVE JUDGMENTS - THE POWER OF INTUITION

Studies of our unconscious information processing confirm our limited access to what's going on our mind. Our
thinking is partly:
CONTROLLED PROCESSING - (reflective, deliberate, and conscious) or explicit and partly;
AUTOMATIC PROCESSING - (impulsive, effortless, and without our awareness) or implicit
schemas of word (sects or sex)
emotional reactions
sufficient expertise, people intuitively know the answer to a problem (chess players)

Some things - facts, names, aand past experiences - we remember explicitly (consciously). But other things - skills
and conditioned dispositions - we remember implicitly, without consciously knowing or declaring that we know

OVERCONFIDENCE
Overconfidence phenomenon is the tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of
one's belief.

Kahneman & Tversky (!979) gave people the following statement to fill in: "I feel 98% that the distance between
New Dehli and China is more than ___ miles but less than ___. Most individuals were overconfident. About 30% of
the time, the correct answer lay outside the range they felt 98% confident about.

What produces overconfidence? Why doesn't experience lead us to a more realistic self-appraisal? For one thing,
people tend to recall their mistaken judgments as times when they were almost right.
 JUDGING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

CONFIRMATION BIAS
a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.

It helps explain why our self-images are so remarkably stable (Self-verification) we seek companion that will bolster
our beliefs in our selves (Swann and Read, 1981) Example: Girl at the party going to those who will acknowledge her

HEURISTICS: MENTAL SHORTCUTS

With our little time to process so much information, our cognitive system is fast and frugal. It specializes in mental
shortcuts. With remarkable ease, we form of impressions, make judgments, and invent explanations. We do so by
using HEURISTICS - simple, efficient thinking strategies.

Heuristics enable us to live and make routine decisions with minimal effort.

Representativeness Heuristics Availability Heuristics

the tendency to presume, sometimes despite a cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things
contrary odds, that someone or something belongs in terms of their availability in memory. If instances
to a particular group if resembling (representing) a of something come readily to mind, we presume it to
typical member be commonplace
 JUDGING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS
Representativeness Heuristics Availability Heuristics

Linda, who is 31, single, outspoken, and very bright. Because of news footage of airplane crashes is a
She majored in philosophy in college. As a student, readily available memory for most of us - especially
she was deeply concerned with discrimination and since September 11, 2001 - we often suppose we are
other social issues, and she participated in more at risk traveling in commercial airplanes than
antinuclear demonstrations. Based on that in cars. Actually, from 2003 to 2005, U.S. travelers
description, would you say it is more likely that were 230 times more likely to die in a car crash than
on a commercial flight covering the same distance.

A. Linda is a bank teller In short, we worry about remote possibilities while

B. Linda is a bank teller and active in feminist ignoring higher probabilities, a phenomenon that
movement Cass Sunstein called as "PROBABILITY NEGLECT"

Most people thing that "B" is more likely, partly

because Linda better REPRESENTS their image of
feminists.
 JUDGING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING
in Olympic competition, athletes' emotions after an event reflect mostly how did relative to expectations, but also
their counterfactual thinking - their mentally stimulating what might have been.

Bronze medalists (for whom an easily imagined alternative was finishing without a medal) exhibited more joy than
silver medalists (who could more easily imagine having won gold)

ILLUSORY THINKING
Illusory Correlation
perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a
stronger relationship than actually exists.

Experiments confirm that people easily misperceive random events as

confirming their beliefs (Crocket, et.al., 1981). If we believe correlation
exists, we are more likely to notice and recall confirming instances. If
we believe that premonition and event's later occurrence.
 JUDGING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

ILLUSORY THINKING
Illusion of Control
the tendency to perceive random events as related feeds an illusion of control - the idea that chance events are
subject to our influence. This keeps gamblers going and makes the rest of us do all sorts of unlikely things.

Ellen Langer (1977) demonstrated the illusion of control with experiments on gambling. Compared with those given
an assigned lottery number, people who chose their own number demanded 4x as much money when asked if they
would sell their lottery ticket.

When playing a game of chance against an awkward and nervous person, they bet significantly more than when
playing against dapper, confident opponent.

Being the person who throws the dice or spins the wheel increases people's confidence.

In other ways, 50 experiments have consistently found people acting as if they can predict or control chance events
(Presson, et. al., 1996)

Regression toward the average

the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return towards one's average
 JUDGING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

MOODS AND JUDGMENTS

Social judgment involves efficient, though fallible, information processing. It also involves our feelings: Our moods
infuse our judgments. Moods pervade our thinking.

University of New South Wales social psychologist Joseph Forgas (1999) conducted an experiment that involves giving
bad and good mood to its participant.

Forgas and colleagues put participant in a good or bad mood, and then have watch a videotape (made a day before)
of yourself talking to someone.

If made to feel happy, participant feel pleased with what you see, and you are able to detect many instances of your
poise, interest and social skill.

If made to put in a bad mood, viewing the same tape seems reveal a quite different you - one who is stiff, nervous, and
inarticulate.

Given how your mood colors your judgments, you feel relieved how things brighten when the experimenters swithes
participants to a happy mood before leaving the experiment.
EXPLAINING
OUR
SOCIAL
WORLDS
 EXPLAINING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

ATTRIBUTING CAUSALITY: TO THE PERSON OR THE

SITUATION
Antonia Abbey and her colleagues (1998) have repeatedly found that men are more likely than women to attribute
a woman's friendliness to mild sexual interest. That misreading of warmth as a sexual come-on is an example of
MISATTRIBUTION or mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source.

ATTRIBUTION THEORY - how people explain others' behavior - for example attributing it either to internal dispositions
(enduring traits, motives and attitudes) or external situations

Dispositional Attribution Situational Attribution

attributing behavior to the person's disposition and attributing behavior to the environment or external
traits causes

Example: A teacher may wonder whether a student's underachievement is due to lack of motivation and ability
(dispositional) or to physical and social circumstances (situational attribution)
 EXPLAINING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

INFERRING TRAITS
Spontaneous Trait Inference
an effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior.

Jones and Davis (1965) noted that we often infer that other people actions are indicative of their intentions and
dispositions. If I observe R
ick making a sarcastic comment to Linda, I infer that Rick is a hostile person,

COMMONSENSE ATTRIBUTIONS
Consistency Pioneering attribution theorist Harold Kelley
How consistent is the person's behavior in this situation? (1973) described how we explain behavior by
using information about consistency,
distinctiveness, and consensus.
Distinctiveness
How specific is the person's behavior to this particular situation? Example: When explaining why Edgar is having
trouble with his computer most people use
information concerning consistency (is Edgar
Consensus usually unable to get his computer to work?),
To what extent do others situation behave similarly distinctiveness, (does Edgar have trouble with
this other computers or just this one?) and
consensus, (do other people have similar
problems with this computer?)
 EXPLAINING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

Consistency
Does this person usually behave this way in
this situation? (If yes, we seek explanation)

External Internal
Attribution Distinctiveness Attribution
(to the person's Does this person behave differently in this
(to the person's
situation) situation than others?
disposition
(high distinctiveness) (low distinctiveness)

(high consensus) (low consensus)

Consensus
Do others behave similarly in this situation?

if Mary and others criticize Steve (with consensus), and if Mary isn't critical of others (high distinctiveness), then we make an
external attribution that (it is something about Steve) but If Mary alone (low consensus) criticize Steve, and she criticize
many other people (low distinctiveness) then we can infer an internal attribution that it is something about Mary.
 EXPLAINING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

-- the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimates dispositional influences upon
others' behavior. (Also called correspondence bias, because we so often see behavior as corresponding to behavior)
(Lee Ross, 1977)

Ex. We may infer that people fall because they are clumsy, rather than because they were tripped; that people smile
because they're happy rather than faking friendliness; that people speed past us on the highway because they're
aggressive rather than late for an important meeting.

In short, we tend to presume that others are the way they act. Observing Cinderella cowering in her oppressive home,
people (ignoring the situation) infer that she is meek; dancing with her at the ball, prince sees a suave and glamorous
person.

If anything, intelligent and socially competent people are more likely to make the attribution error. (Block & Funder,
1986) In real life, those with social power usually initiate and control conversations, which often leads to overestimate
their knowledge and intelligence. (Ex. Medical doctors seen as knowledgeable of all information even outside
medicine)
 EXPLAINING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

WHY DO WE MAKE ATTRIBUTION ERROR?

Perspective and Situational Awareness
ACTOR VERSUS OBSERVER PERSPECTIVES
Attribution theorist pointed out that we observe others from a different perspective than we see ourselves
(Jones, 1976). When we act, the environment commands our attention. When we watch another person act, that
person occupies the center of our attention and the environment relatively become invisible

THE CAMERA PERSPECTIVE BIAS

In some experiments, people have viewed videotape of a suspect confessing during police interview. If they
viewed the confession through the camera focus on the suspect, they perceive the confession as genuine. If they
viewed it through the focus of the detective, they perceived it as more coerced. Aware of this research, New
Zealand has made it national policy that police interrogations be filmed with equal focus on the officer and on
the suspect.

PERSPECTIVES CHANGE WITH TIME

For most of us, the "old you" is someone other than today's "real you." We regard our distant past selves (and our
distant future selves) almost as if they were other people occupying our body.

SELF AWARENESS
A Self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own
attitudes and dispositions.
 EXPLAINING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

WHY DO WE MAKE ATTRIBUTION ERROR?

Cultural Differences
Culture also influence attribution error. A Western world-view predisposes people to assume that people, not the
situation, cause, and events.

The fundamental attribution error occurs varied cultures. Yet people in Eastern Asian cultures are somewhat more
sensitive to the importance of situation. Thus, when aware to social context, they are less inclined to assume that
others' behavior corresponds to their traits.

Those who attribute poverty and unemployment to personal dispositions (they are just lazy and undeserving) tend
to adopt political positions unsympathetic to such people. This dispositional attribution ascribes behavior to the
person's disposition and traits. Those who make situational attributions (if you and I were to live with the same
overcrowding, poor education, discrimination, would be any better off?) tend to adopt political positions that offer
more direct support to the poor.
 EXPLAINING OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

WHY WE STUDY ATTRIBUTION ERROR

1. It explains some foibles and fallacies in our social thinking If our capacity for illusion
and self-deception is shocking, remember that our modes of thought are generally
adaptive. Illusory thinking is often a by-product of our mind's strategies for simplifying
complex information.
2. For focusing on thinking biases such as the fundamental attribution error is
humanitarian (Gilovich & Eibach, 2001). "Great humanizing messages is that people
should not always be blamed for their problems"
3. For focusing on biases is that we are mostly unaware of them and can benefit from
greater awareness.

Social psychology aims to expose us to fallacies in our thinking in the hope that we will
become more rational, more in touch with reality. The hope is not in vain, Psychology
students explain behavior less simplistically than similarly intelligent natural science
students.
EXPECTATIONS
OF OUR
SOCIAL
WORLDS
 EXPECTATIONS OF OUR SOCIAL WORLDS
Our social beliefs and judgments do matter. They influence how we feel and by so doing their own
reality. When ideas lead us to act in way that produce apparent confirmation, they have become
what sociologist Robert Merton (1948) termed SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY - beliefs that lead their own
fulfilment.

TEACHER EXPECTATIONS AND STUDENT

PERFORMANCE
Teacher's Teacher's
Student's behavior
expectation behavior
Smiling more at Rena, teaching her
"Rena's older brother was brilliant. I Rena responds enthusiastically
more, calling on her more, giving
bet she is, too."
more time to answer.

CONFIRMING
 EXPECTATIONS OF OUR SOCIAL WORLDS

GETTING FROM WHAT WE EXPECT

Studies show that self fulfilling prophecies also operate in work settings (with managers with high or low
expectations), in courtrooms (as judge instruct juries), and in simulated police contexts (as interrogators with
guilty and innocent expectations interrogate and pressure suspects)

There are times when negative expectations of someone lead us to be extra nice to that person, which induces
him or her to be nice in return - thus disconfirming our expectations. But a more common finding in studies of
social interaction is that, yes, we do to some extent get what we expect (Olson & others, 1996)

Several experiments conducted by Mark Snyder (1984) at the University of Minnesota show how, once formed,
erroneous beliefs, a phenomenon called BEHAVIORAL CONFIRMATION.

Behavioral Confirmation
a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectation lead them to behave in ways that cause
others to confirm their expectations.

It occurs as people interact with partners holding mistaken beliefs. People who are believed lonely behave less
sociably. Men who are believed sexist behave less favorably toward women. Job interviewees who are believed to
be warm behave more warmer.
THANK YOU!
 TERM PAPER VII. DATA RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Make your conclusions or closing statements.
Determine whether or not your hypothesis was
true or false.
I. TITLE PAGE
Create a page, separate from the rest of the VIII. RECOMMENDATIONS
paper, which includes the title of the paper, Offer your views and suggestions for future
your name, the course name, the name of the research on the chosen topic.
instructor and the date.
IX. REFERENCES
II. ABSTRACT List all of your sources used in research and in
Summarize your whole paper the text. Remember to list in alphabetical order,
and following the APA citation format.
III. TABLE OF CONTENTS

IV. INTRODUCTION
State your topic or describe your subject
Where do you derived your studies (Theories)
Rationale: Explain why you chose to research
this topic
FORMAT
7,000 - 10,000 WORDS
Additional Information: Add any other NOT LESS THAN 20 PAGES BUT CAN BE MORE
relevant introductory information THAN
ARIAL, 11, DOUBLE SPACED (12 FOR TITLES)
v. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE WITH PAGES
5 books, 5-10 online articles, 5 published APA CITING
works, not later than 1970s SUBMISSION IS ON MARCH 2 - ONLINE