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PSY215: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social Perception – Chapter 4
Aronson et al. (2021)
LECTURE OVERVIEW
DEFINING SOCIAL PERCEPTION
HOW DO WE PERCEIVE OTHERS?
•
•
•
•
Non-Verbal Communication
Cultural Differences?
Emotions
Attributions
DEFINING SOCIAL PERCEPTION
READING OTHERS:
NON-VERBAL INFORMATION
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Conveying information, intentionally or unintentionally,
without words.
Channels for non-verbal communication include facial
expression, tone of voice, gestures, body positions and
movements, touch, and gaze.
Help us to express emotions, attitudes, and personality.
READING OTHERS:
NON-VERBAL INFORMATION
:)
:(
(^_^) (;_;)
(North) American
Happy and Sad Faces
Emphasize Mouth
Japanese
Happy and Sad
Emphasize Eyes
Yuki, M., Maddux, W.W., & Masuda, T. (2007). Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and
West? Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and
the United States. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 303-311.
READING OTHERS:
NON-VERBAL INFORMATION
Japanese
participants
rated
emoticons as
happier when
they had
happy eyes.
American
participants
rated
emoticons as
happier when
they had
happy
mouths.
Yuki, M., Maddux, W.W., & Masuda, T. (2007). Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and
West? Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and
the United States. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 303-311.
READING OTHERS:
NON-VERBAL INFORMATION
Cultural difference
replicated BUT
people with happy
eyes only were not
rated as that happy…
WHY? Maybe
problem with
assessing cues?
Yuki, M., Maddux, W.W., & Masuda, T. (2007). Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and
West? Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and
the United States. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 303-311.
READING OTHERS:
NON-VERBAL INFORMATION
WHY MIGHT WE HAVE PROBLEMS ASSESSING CUES?
AFFECT BLEND
Face registers more than one emotion simultaneously
DISPLAY RULES
Culturally bound ideas of appropriate emotional
expressions
READING OTHERS:
NON-VERBAL INFORMATION
READING OTHERS:
NON-VERBAL INFORMATION
Neal, D.T. & Chartrand, T.L. (2011). Embodied emotion perception: Amplifying and dampening facial
feedback modulates emotion perception accuracy. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
It is more difficult for
individuals who have
had Botox to perceive
emotions in others
(about 70% accurate)
relative to individuals
who have not had this
procedure done
(about 77% accurate).
Neal, D.T. & Chartrand, T.L. (2011). Embodied emotion perception: Amplifying and dampening facial
feedback modulates emotion perception accuracy. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
CAN YOU EXPLAIN IT?
ATTRIBUTIONS
Making inferences about the causes of behavior. We are
answering the question “Why did he/she/I do that?”;
Attribution is important – It often determines our
attitudes and future actions towards others.
In order to make an attribution:
1)Behaviour must be observed
2)Behaviour must be interpreted as deliberate
(intentional)
3)Behaviour is attributed to particular cause(s)
CAUSAL DIMENSIONS OF
BEHAVIOUR
LOCUS OF CONTROL
Internal – Caused by the individual her/himself (disposition)
External – Caused by something outside the individual (situation)
STABILITY
Stable – Unlikely to change over time or circumstance
Unstable – Likely to change over time or circumstance
CONTROLLABILITY
Controllable – The person can change/influence the behaviour
Uncontrollable – The person cannot change/influence the
behaviour
COVARIATION MODEL
The attributions we make depend on our evaluation of multiple
instances of behaviour across times, situations, actors and
targets (Kelley, 1967) .
KEY INFORMATION THAT WE PROCESS:
Consensus – How do other people respond in the situation?
Distinctiveness – Is this behaviour usual or unique for the person
we are evaluating?
Consistency – How often does the person respond in the same
way when under the same type of circumstances?
From PsySociety: https://psysociety.wordpress.com
BIASES
CORRESPONDENCE BIAS
Belief that others’ behaviour corresponds to their dispositions (e.g.,
traits/character/values).
ACTOR-OBSERVER BIAS
Attribute others' behavior to internal causes, whereas own behavior
is due to external causes.
SELF-SERVING BIAS
We see our successes as the result of internal causes and our
failures as the result of external causes.
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR (FAE)
Underestimating the influence of the situation and overestimating
the influence of dispositions.
BIASES
WHY DO WE MAKE THESE ERRORS?!
• Perceptual Salience (Focus of Attention)
• Underuse of Consensus Information
• Cognitive Resources and 2-part process
– (a case of Anchoring & Adjustment)
• Defensive Attributions for Negative Events
CORRESPONDENCE BIAS (& THE FAE)
Hurricane Katrina
New Orleans, LA
Levees broke and flooded the
city.
Why did people ‘choose’ to
stay ‘rather than heeding
warnings to evacuate?’
Leavers and Stayers differed in
social class, race, and
resources
Stephens et al. (2009). Why did they “choose” to stay? Perspectives of Hurricane
Katrina observers and survivors. Psychological Science, 20, 878-886.
CORRESPONDENCE BIAS (& THE FAE)
Do our evaluations go beyond internal attributions of an
individual’s behaviour?
HYPOTHESIS: Regardless of circumstances, engaging in
‘good’ action (i.e., leaving) will lead to positive
evaluations; Engaging in ‘bad’ action (i.e., staying) will lead
to negative evaluations.
METHOD: Participants provided descriptors of leavers and
stayers and read two vignettes, one about a leaver, one
about a stayer, before assessing their behaviour.
Stephens et al. (2009). Why did they “choose” to stay? Perspectives of Hurricane
Katrina observers and survivors. Psychological Science, 20, 878-886.
CORRESPONDENCE BIAS (& THE FAE)
LEAVER VIGNETTE
Survivor ‘‘K’’ had resources and evacuated (i.e., went to
another state to ‘‘stay with a friend until the hurricane
passed’’).
STAYER VIGNETTE
Survivor ‘‘D’’ lacked resources and stayed (i.e., ‘‘didn’t have
any close friends or family to stay with who lived outside of
the hurricane threatened area’’).
‘‘Given the situation, to what extent did the survivor’s
behavior make sense?’’
CORRESPONDENCE BIAS (& THE FAE)
Survivors were seen
negatively if observers
thought that they
engaged in a
“Normatively ‘bad’
model of action” (i.e.,
staying) despite
obvious and important
differences in
circumstances
Both disaster relief workers and lay people thought that the
leavers actions made ‘more sense’ than the stayers’ actions
Stephens et al. (2009). Why did they “choose” to stay? Perspectives of Hurricane
Katrina observers and survivors. Psychological Science, 20, 878-886.
POST-LECTURE BREAKDOWN
(WHAT SHOULD I KNOW NOW?!)
What is social perception?
What do we attend to when processing non-verbal
information? What can influence our perceptions?
How do we evaluate the behaviour of others?
What are some of the biases involved in our
evaluations?
READ UP ON IT…
MicroExpression (How to detect lies)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/12/psycholo
gy-lying-microexpressions-paul-ekman
Matsumoto, D. & Hwang, H. S. (2011). Science Brief: Reading
facial expressions of emotion. Retrieved online: https://www.
apa.org/science/about/psa/2011/05/facial-expressions.aspx
Treeby, M. et al (2015). Shame, guilt, and facial emotion
processing: Initial evidence for a positive relationship between
guilt-proneness and facial emotion recognition ability. Cognition
and Emotion, 1-8 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2015.1072497
TEST IT OUT…
Think about a celebrity you admire. Why do you admire this
person? To what extent has their position/role contributed to
your positive thoughts about them? Would you still admire this
person if they were not famous and lived next door to you?