Psy 352AB Social Psychology

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Psy 352A/BSocial Psychology
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Perceiving the World
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A Social Cognitive look

• Social Cognition
• process of thinking about ourselves, others,
  and our world
• how we attend to, interpret, and utilize current
  past events in our lives
• Social reality is constructed.
• People are motivated tacticians
  (Fiske Taylor, 1991)
• to MANAGE SELF-IMAGE
• to CONSERVE EFFORT
• to BE ACCURATE

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Constructing a Personal Reality

• How did the ref miss that call?!
  I saw it all the way up here!
• Self-serving views of own abilities status
• Students perceptions of football games (Hastorf
  Cantril, 1954 Loy Andrews, 1981)
• Other examples
• Political/ethnic wars ( US-Chinese relations)
• judging Presidential debates
• USS Vincennes v. Air Korea shootings
• ? ? ? ?

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Motive To manage the Self- image
Feeling Control
...influences how we subsequently perceive events

• Illusory correlation --
• People find evidence of control when there is
  none!
• Gamblers fallacy
• Find correlations in independent events

• Overconfidence --
• tendency to be more confident than correct
• What implications does this have for legal
  systems?

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Motive To manage the Self- image Seeing what we
want to see

• Confirmation bias -
• we actively seek information consistent with
  views
• We look to assure ourselves of our initial views
• related to development of Self (self-verification)
  
• Belief Perseverance
• initial beliefs persist despite later
  disconfirming info
• Based on the explanations initially generated
  when using the initial information
• Negated by actively considering specific
  alternatives

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Motive To manage the Self- image Remembering our
Way

• Memory is process of backward reasoning
  reconstruction of events as you see them
• Memory of past (attitudes actions) is
  influenced by present
• We revise the past to suit the present
• Can include info that has happened since the
  event of interest
• EX relationships seen as negative post-break-up
• EX belief that past actions consistent with
  current

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Motive Conserve effort

• Our goal is to be just good enough
• adaptive for an information-rich world
• Intuitions
• making judgments without reasoning or analysis
• information is accessed almost immediately
• debate Preferences need no Inferences
• Cognitive heuristics
• mental shortcuts used to make judgments (Tversky
  Kahneman, 1973)

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Motive Conserve effort Cognitive Heuristics

• Typically discussed in terms of short-comings
• Availability
• likelihood of events judged by availability in
  memory
• Representativeness
• judgments of events based on how well event
  matches prototype
• Ignoring Base-rate Information
• tendency to ignore base-rate information
• Anchoring Adjustment
• judgments are made by adjusting from a rough
  estimate

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A Social Cognitive look

• Social Cognition
• process of thinking about ourselves, others,
  and our world
• how we attend to, interpret, and utilize current
  past events in our lives
• Social reality is constructed.
• People are motivated tacticians
  (Fiske Taylor, 1991)
• to MANAGE SELF-IMAGE
• to CONSERVE EFFORT
• to BE ACCURATE

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Motive To be accurate

• People CAN be accurate social thinkers
• interpret use information systematically
• Attribution theory -- how people explain events
  in their worlds
• Heart of attribution is me vs. not me
• internal attributions
• about the actor (dispositional factors) me
• external attributions
• about the environment (situational) not me

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Motive To be accurate

• Commonsense Psychology (Heider, 1958)
• 1. people attempt to understand events
• 2. people believe that environmental personal
  factors are inversely related in causing events
• 3. the need for a predictable world leads to more
  attributions to stable personality dispositions
• dispositions determined by intentionality
• 4. covariation of cause effect is fundamental

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Motive To be accurateAn Attribution Model

• Covariation model (Kelley, 1967 1972)
• when making attributions we use an orderly
  process 3 types of information
• Results Situational or Dispositional attribution
• Distinctiveness
• does person act this way in other situations?
• Consistency
• does person act this way at other times?
• Consensus
• do others act this way in this situation?

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Kelleys Attribution model
Internal attribution
Consensus
Distinctiveness
Consistency
all else equal, would this happen elsewhere
all else equal, would this happen again
all else equal, would others act like this
External attribution
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Adding information to the model

• Isnt always so clear cut but still systematic
• When are you confident that Jack married for love?

Jack loves Jill Jacks friends like Jill
Jack loves Jill Jacks friends like Jill Jill is
wealthy Jill tolerates Jacks bad habits
Discounting principle --
We are less confident if any particular cause as
the number of possible causes increases
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Adding information to the model
When are you confident Jack married for love?
Jack loves Jill Jacks friends like Jill Jill is
dirt poor Jill wants to change Jacks habits
Jack loves Jill Jacks friends like Jill Jill is
wealthy Jill tolerates Jacks bad habits

• Augmenting principle --

We are more confident if any particular cause if
the event occurs despite opposing forces
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How accurate can we really be?

• Are our goals mutually-exclusive?
• managing self-image
• conserving effort
• accuracy
• Even given the intent to be accurate, people are
  not always objective
• Fundamental Attribution Error
• Self-Other (actor-observer) Divergence

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Fundamental Attribution Error Im just
unlucky, you must be stupid!
Quiz Exercise

• People tend to overestimate the effect of
  disposition in other peoples actions (Ross,
  Amabile, Steinmetz, 1977)
• Questioner makes up questions to ask
• Contestant doesnt know the answers
• Questioner is seen as more intelligent

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Self-other Divergence /aka the Actor-Observer
Effect

• Ones attributions are related to ones
  perspective (Jones Nisbett, 1971)

• FIGURE v. GROUND
• figure
• ground
• actors and observers fundamentally have
  different perspectives

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Functioning in our Worlds

• Multiple goals (not independent)...
• Manage Self-image
• how we see ourselves, how we view others
  information we receive, how we remember
• Conserve Energy
• reliance on cognitive heuristics cues
• To be Accurate
• attribution models describe process by which
  people make judgments about events

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Attitudes and Behavior
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Attitudes

• Definition
• Structure
• Attitude Formation
• Functions
• A-B Consistency

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• Attitudes

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• Attitudes
• Our evaluation of virtually any aspect of our
  social world
• Favorable/unfavorable reactions to objects,
  people, events, ideas, .....anything/everything

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Structure

• pro choice pictures

• Affect
• Cognitions
• Behavior

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Attitude Formation

• Social Learning
• Social Comparison
• Genetic Factors

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Functions

• Knowledge function
• Identity function
• Self-esteem function
• Behavioral guide function

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Fundamental Issue of this area
Attitudes
Behaviors
?
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Do attitudes lead to behavior?
Attitudes
Behaviors
Moderators

• constraints
• choice

• Situational factors

• origins
• strength
• specificity

• Attitudinal factors

Simple answer NO, not as expected Real answer
Depends what you look at
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Theory of Planned Behavior
How do attitudes lead to behavior I?
Attitude towards tattoos

• Fishbein Ajzen, 1975 Ajzen Fishbein, 1980
  Ajzen, 1991

Subjective Norm
TATTOO
Intentions
Perceived Behavioral Control
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Attitude to Behavior Process Model
How do attitudes lead to behavior II?
Attitude towards tattoos

• Fazio, 1989

Behavior
Defines Event/Object
Event Object
Social Norms
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Prototype/Willingness Model
How do attitudes lead to behavior III?

• Gibbons et al, 1998

Subjective Norms
Behavioral Intention
Behavior
Prior Behavior
Attitude
Prototype
Behavioral Willingness
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Attitude - Behavior Review
Do attitudes lead to behavior?
Attitudes
Behaviors
Expressed Attitude

• Situational characteristics

• Attitudinal characteristics