SOCIAL PERCEPTION: Explain how attribution concepts are relevant for understanding these song lyrics.
[Hint: Consider internal and external attributions, the fundamental attribution error, and the actor-observer difference.]
What Would You Do? City High
[1st verse:]
Boys and girls wanna hear a true story?
Saturday night was at this real wild party They had the liquor overflowin' the cup, about 5 or 6 strippers tryin to work for a buck and I-took one girl outside wit me, her name was Loni, she went to Junior High wit me,
I said, Why you up in there dancin for cash?,
I guess a whole lots changed since I seen you last
She said.. [Chorus:]
What would you do?, if your son was at home crying all alone on the bedroom floor, cuz he's hungry and the only way to feed him is ta sleep wit a man for a little bit of money, and his daddy's gone somewhere smokin' rock now, in and out of lock down,
I aint gotta job now, so for you this is just a good time but for me this is what I call life
[2nd verse:]
Girl you aint the only one wit a baby, that's no excuse to be livin all crazy then she looked me right square in the eye and said everyday I wake up hopin' to die, she said- ---- I know about pain cuz, me and my sista ran away, so my daddy couldn't rape us, before I was a teenager
I done been through more s---, you can't even relate ta!
[continued on next page]

What Would You Do? (continued)
• [Chorus]
Ooooo
Then she said, What would you do? if....
Get up on my feet and let go of every excuse
What would you do? if....
Cuz I wouldn't want my baby, to go through what
I went through
What would you do? if....
Get up on my feet, stop makin tired excuses
What would you do? if...
Girl I know if my mother can do it, baby you can do it
Oooo, oooo, oooo-(yea, yea, yea, yea)
[Chorus]
What would you do? if yo son was at home, crying all alone on the bedroom floor, cuz he's hungry and the only way to feed him is to sleep wit a man for a little bit of money, and his daddy's gone somewhere smokin rock now, in and out of lock down,
I aint gotta job now, so for you this is just a good time but for me this is what I call life (mmm]
[Chorus]

• How do we make inferences about another person from nonverbal behavior?
– Social Interpretations Task (SIT; Archer & Costanzo; Archer
& Akert)
– How well can we detect deception?
• How do we make attributions about social behavior?
– Internal versus External attributions
• Do people make attributions in a logical, rational way? Or, do we make some consistent errors?
– Fundamental attribution error
– Actor-observer bias

How do we make inferences about another person from nonverbal behavior?

How well do you perceive others?
• Social Interpretations Task (SIT) developed by Dane Archer and colleagues.

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2.
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5.
6.
7.
8.
IPT Accuracy (based on 438 undergrads)
Chance % Accuracy %

• Are there gender differences on the IPT?

• The IPT is stable – reliability coefficients around .70 (e.g., over 2 wks)

• Correlates modestly with personality measures
• High self-monitors ( who attend to social/situational cues) tend to score
__________ than those who are low selfmonitors (who are less likely to change their behavior in response to situational cues) .
• Extraverts score _______ than introverts
(Akert & Panter, 1986).

What does the IPT demonstrate?

Lie Detection Rate Among Different Groups
(Ekman & O’Sullivan, 1991)
In this study, Ps had a 50-50 chance of guessing accurately. Chance = 50%
Group
College students
Accuracy Rate
CIA, FBI, military
Police investigators
Trial judges
Psychiatrists
U.S. Secret Service Agents

• How do we make social inferences, from both verbal and nonverbal behavior, to understand WHY a person might be behaving in a particular way?

•

• Internal attribution : Explain in terms of something about the person (attitude, personality)
• External attribution : Explain in terms of something about the situation

• How do people explain another’s behavior?
– Role of subjective vs. objective
• What kinds of errors do people make when explaining another’s behavior?

• Fundamental attribution error
• Actor-observer difference

Fundamental attribution error
• Fundamental attribution error : the tendency to overestimate the impact of internal, personality causes and to underestimate the impact of situational causes when explaining another person's behavior.

Jones & Harris (1967)
• Observers readily attribute another's behavior to personality even when situational factors clearly important
• Read essays or listened to speeches supposedly written by members of debating team. Speech supported or attacked Fidel Castro.

Jones & Harris
• IV #1: Debater choose or was assigned the pro- or anti-Castro position
• IV #2: Speech was Pro or Anti
• DV: Observers estimated debater’s true opinion

Fundamental Attribution Error
(Ross, Amabile, & Steinmetz, 1977)
Demonstrates how people ignore the situation, and attribute behavior to dispositions.
Simulated quiz game

Causal Attribution
•
The Actor/Observer Difference
The actor/observer difference is the tendency to see other people’s behavior as dispositionally caused, but focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one’s own behavior.

Causal Attribution
•
The Actor/Observer Difference
One reason for the actor/observer difference is perceptual salience (figure vs. ground): actors notice the situations around them that influence them to act, while observers notice the actors.

Causal Attribution
•
The Actor/Observer Difference
The actor/observer difference also occurs because actors have more information about themselves than do observers.

Causal Attribution
•
The Correspondence Bias: People as
Personality Psychologists
The Two-Step Process of Attribution occurs when people analyze another person’s behavior by first making an automatic internal attribution, and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior, after which one may adjust original internal attribution.

Causal Attribution
The Correspondence Bias: People as
Personality Psychologists

Lying by College Students & Community
Members in Everyday Life (DePaulo et al.,
1996)
• Number lies/week
• % lied to/week
• % said told no lies
• Reasons for lying
• Self-centered
Other-oriented
• Neither

Lies, Lies (DePaulo et al., 1996)
• How was lie delivered?
• Face to face
• By telephone
• In writing
• Was lie discovered?
• No
• Yes
• Don’t know
• Unclassified response
• % said would tell the lie again