Social Thinking andSocial Influence

Adjustment in the 21st CenturyDr. Mehran Rostamzadeh

INTI International UniversityNilai ,2015

Learning Outcomes

● Cite the five sources of information people use to form impressions of others.

● Explain the key differences between snap judgments and systematic judgments.

● Define attributions and describe two attribution-based expectations that can distort an observer’s perceptions.

● Recognize four important cognitive distortions and how they operate.

● Identify some ways in which perceptions of others are efficient,selective, and consistent.

Forming impressions of others• As people interact with others, they constantly engage in person

perception, the process of forming impressions of others.

Key Sources of Information

Because you can’t read other people’s minds, you are dependent on observations of others to determine what they are like (Uleman & Saribay, 2012).• In forming impressions of others, people rely on five key sources of

observational information:

• appearance,• verbal behavior, • actions,• nonverbal messages, • and situational cues.

Forming impressions of others1. Appearance. Despite the admonition “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” people frequently do exactly that.

Physical features such as height, weight, skin color, and hair color are some of the cues used to “read” other people.

Regardless of their accuracy, beliefs about physical features are used to form impressions of others (Olivola & Todorov, 2010), including people’s personalities (Naumann et al., 2009).

Styles of dress, clothing or jewelry that designate religious beliefs, body piercings, and tattoos also provide clues about others.

Example, Failing to dress appropriately for a job interview, can reduce the chances of being hired (Turner-Bowker, 2001).

2. Verbal behavior. what they say. People form impressions based on what and how much others self-disclose, how often they give advice and ask questions, and how judgmental they are (Tardy & Dindia, 2006).

If Tanisha speaks negatively about most of the people she knows, you will probably conclude that she is a critical person.

3. Actions. Because people don’t always tell the truth, you have to rely on their behavior to provide insights about them.

For instance, when you learn that Wade volunteers 5 hours a week at the local homeless shelter, you are likely to infer that he is a caring person.

4. Nonverbal messages. facial expressions, eye contact, body language, and gestures (Ekman, 2007; Knapp & Hall, 2006).

For example, a bright smile and steady eye contact signal friendliness and openness, just as a handshake can indicate extraversion (Bernieri & Petty, 2011).

5. Situations. The setting in which behavior occurs provides crucial information about how to interpret a person’s behavior (Cooper & Withey, 2009; Reis & Holmes, 2012; Trope & Gaunt, 2003).

For instance, without situational cues (such as being at a wedding versus a funeral), it would be hard to know whether a person crying is happy or sad.

Snap Judgments Versus Systematic Judgments

• People are bombarded with more information than they can possibly handle.

• To avoid being overwhelmed, they rely on alternative ways to process information (Kahneman, 2011).

• Snap judgments about others are those made quickly and based on only a few bits of information and preconceived notions.

•In forming impressions of those who can affecttheir happiness, people make systematic judgments rather than snap decisions.

That is, they take the time to observe the person in a variety of situations and to compare that person’s behavior with that of others in similar situations.

Attribution: attributions are inferences that people draw about the causes of their own behavior, others’ behavior, and events.

Perceiver Expectations

perceiver expectations can influence the perception of others (de Calvo & Reich, 2009).

There are two principles governing perceiver expectations: confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy.

Confirmation Bias

Shortly after you begin interacting with someone, you start forming hypotheses about what the person is like.

In turn, these hypotheses can influence your behavior toward that person in such a way as to confirm your expectations.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek information that supports one’s beliefs while not pursuing disconfirming information.

Perceiver Expectations

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Sometimes a perceiver’s expectations can actually change another person’s behavior (Madon et al., 2011).

A self fulfilling prophecy occurs when expectations about a person cause him or her to behave in ways that confirm the expectations.

Perceiver Expectations

The three steps in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

1. the perceiver has an initial impression of someone. (A teacher believes that Jennifer is highly intelligent.)

2. the perceiver behaves toward the target person according to his or her expectations. (He asks her interesting questions and praises her answers.)

3. The third step occurs when the target person adjusts his or her behavior to the perceiver’s actions, confirming the perceiver’s hypothesis about the target person. (Jennifer performs well in class.)

Cognitive Distortions

• Another source of error in person perception comes from distortions in the minds of perceivers.

• These errors in judgment are most likely to occur when a perceiver is in a hurry, is distracted, or is not motivated to pay careful attention to another person.

• Social Categorization

One of the ways people efficiently process information is to classify objects (and people) according to their distinctive features (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2001).

Thus, people quite often categorize others on the basis of nationality,race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, and so forth (Crisp & Hewstone, 2006).

People frequently take the easy path of categorizing others to avoid expending the cognitive effort that would be necessary for a more accurate impression.

• People classify those who are similar to them as members of their ingroup (“us”) and those who are dissimilar to them as being in the outgroup (“them”).

• Such categorizing has three important results.

• First, people usually have less favorable attitudes toward outgroup members than ingroup members (Brewer & Brown, 1998),

• Second, individuals usually see outgroup members as being much more alike than they really are.(Oakes, 2001).

• This phenomenon, in which others are seen as “all alike” and one’s own group is perceived to be “diverse,” is termed the outgroup homogeneity effect (Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992).

• The third result of categorizing is that it heightens the visibility of outgroup members when there are only a few of them within a larger group.

Stereotypes• Stereotypes are widely held beliefs that people have certain

characteristics because of their membership in a particular group.

For example, This widespread perception is termed the “what-is-beautiful-is-good” stereotype (Dion, Berscheid,& Walster, 1972).

Specifically, beautiful people are usually viewed as happier, more socially competent, more assertive, better adjusted, and more intellectually competent than those who are less attractive (Eagly et al., 1991; Jackson, Hunter, & Hodge, 1995).

Stereotypes

The Fundamental Attribution Error

When explaining the causes of others’ behavior, people invoke personal attributions and discount the importance of situational factors.

The fundamental attribution error refers to the tendency to explain other people’s behavior as the result of personal, rather than situational, factors.

Defensive Attribution• Observers are especially likely to make internal attributions in trying to explain the

calamities and tragedies that occur other people.

• for example: When a woman is abused by a boyfriend or husband, people frequently blame the victim by remarking on how stupid she is to stay with the man, rather than condemning the aggressor for his behavior (Summers & Feldman, 1984).

• Similarly, rape victims are often judged to have “asked for it” (Abrams et al., 2003).•

Defensive attribution is a tendency to blame victims for their misfortune, so that one feels less likely to be victimized in a similar way.

• Blaming victims for their calamities also helps people maintain their belief that they

live in a “just world” where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get (Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Haynes& Olson, 2006; Lerner, 1998).

Key Themes in Person Perception

• The process of person perception—how people mentally construe each others’ behavior—is a complex one (Trope & Gaunt, 2003).

• Nonetheless, we can detect three recurrent themes in this process: efficiency, • selectivity,• and consistency.

Efficiency

• In forming impressions of others, people prefer to exert no more cognitive effort or time than is necessary.

• Thus, much social information is processed automatically and effortlessly.

• According to Susan Fiske (1993), people are like government bureaucrats, who “only bother to gather information on a ‘need to know’ basis” (p. 175).

Selectivity

• The old saying that “people see what they expect to see” has been confirmed repeatedly by social scientists.

• In a classic study, Harold Kelley (1950) showed how a person is preceded by his or her reputation.

• Students in a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were told that a new lecturer would be speaking to them that day.

• Before the instructor arrived, the students were given a short description of him, with one important variation.

Selectivity

• Half the students were led to expect a “warm” person, while the other half were led to expect a “cold” one.

• All the participants were exposed to exactly the same 20 minutes of lecture and interaction with the new instructor.

• However, those who were led to expect a warm person rated the instructor as significantly more considerate,

• sociable, • humorous, • good-natured,• informal,• and humane than those who expected a cold person.

Consistency

• Considerable research supports the idea that first impressions are powerful (Asch, 1956; Belmore, 1987).

• A primacy effect occurs when initial information carries more weight than subsequent information.

• Primacy effects are likely to occur when perceivers—the people who meet us for the first time—are in good rather than bad moods (Forgas, 2011)

• Why are primacy effects so potent?

• Because people find comfort in cognitive consistency; cognitions that contradict each other tend to create tension and discomfort.

•Hence, once people believe that they have formed an accurate picture of someone, they tend to tune out or discount subsequent information that seems to contradict that picture (Belmore, 1987).

• It is not impossible to override an initial impression, but the built-in preference for consistency makes doing so more difficult than most people realize.