Social Judgment

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Social Judgment

• June 26th

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In general

• Social judgment is sometimes quite good, but does
  have limitations we will focus on the
  limitations
• Judgment can only be as reliable as the
  information on which it is based.
• Our focus is on the process rather than the
  outcome
• Bad processes can lead to good outcomes and vice
  versa
• People do not react or judge the actual person or
  the situation, but their mental representation of
  it (the importance of construal)

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We can only judge with the information we have

• To have unbiased judgment you need unbiased
  information
• Pluralistic ignorance - misperception of a group
  norm that results from observing people who are
  acting at variance with their private beliefs out
  of a concern for the social consequences
  behavior that reinforces the erroneous group
  norm

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I know because I saw it I was there

• Memory biases
• Human memory is fallible, even when were very
  sure of what we saw, experienced, etc.
• Flashbulb memories
• vivid recollections of the moment one learned
  some dramatic, emotionally-charged news
• What about secondhand experience?
• Is my judgment based on my friends tall tales?

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Biases in secondhand information

• Sharpening
• emphasizing important or more interesting
  elements in telling a story to someone else
• Leveling
• eliminating or deemphasizing seemingly less
  important details when telling a story to someone
  else
• Ideological distortions
• Distortion in media
• Perceptual vigilance

6
Presentation matters!

• We can judge the same objective information in
  different ways based on how it is presented
• Framing effects
• the influence on judgment resulting from the way
  information is presented, including the order of
  presentation
• Spin framing
• Gain/loss framing
• Order effects
• Primacy recency effects- disproportionate
  influence of information presented 1st last,
  respectively

7
Asian Disease Problem

• Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the
  outbreak of a rare Asian flu, which is expected
  to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to
  combat the disease have been proposed. Assume
  the exact scientific estimates of the
  consequences of the programs are as follows
• If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved
• If Program B is adopted, there is a 1/3rd
  probability that 600 people will be saved and a
  2/3rds probability that no people will be saved.
• Which do you prefer?

Now consider these two alternative scenarios

• If Program C is adopted, 400 people will die.
• If Program D is adopted, there is a 1/3rd
  probability
• that nobody will die, and a 2/3rds probability
  that
• 600 people will die.
• Which do you prefer?

8
Prior Knowledge is Very Important

• We employ both bottom-up and top-down processes
• Bottom-up processes mental processing in which
  one takes in and forms conclusions on the basis
  of the stimuli encountered in ones experience
• Top-down processes mental processing in which
  one filters and interprets new information in
  light of preexisting knowledge and expectations

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Prior Knowledge

• The brain is organized information resides in
  knowledge structures
• coherent configurations (schemas, scripts,
  frames, prototypes, or personae) in which related
  information is stored together
• schema - a knowledge structure consisting of any
  organized body of stored information
• Attention
• Inference contrual
• Memory
• Encoding
• Retrieval

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Remember Heuristic vs. Systematic?

• System 1
• Automatic
• Effortless
• Parallel processing
• Association-based
• emotional

• System 2
• Conscious
• Requires effort
• Serial Processing
• Rule-based
• Affect-neutral

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Heuristics (and biases)

• Heuristic - intuitive mental operations that
  allow us to make a variety of judgments quickly
  and efficiently
• Availability heuristic - the process whereby
  judgments of frequency or probability are based
  on the ease with which pertinent instances are
  brought to mind
• Representativeness heuristic - the process
  whereby judgments of likelihood are based on
  assessments of similarity between individuals and
  group prototypes, or between cause and effect

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Instances of availability

• Were there more men or women on the list?
• Is Gretchen a mean professor?
• How dangerous is the world?
• Media exposure encourages view of world as
  dangerous place
• How much did you contribute to the group effort?

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Representativeness

• Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and
  very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a
  student, she was deeply concerned with issues of
  discrimination and social justice, and also
  participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
• Rank from 1 to 4 (1 is most likely)
• Linda protests globalization/WTO
• Linda is a bank teller
• Linda is a social psychologist
• Linda is a bank teller who protests globalization
• Similarity is an easy judgment, likelihood is
  hard

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Other instances of representativeness

• Similarity between causes and effects
• Homeopathy
• Stereotyping
• Are you likely to mug me?
• Do you fit my prototype of a mugger?