Psychology 1552
Social Judgment
Mondays, 1-3, WJH 1408
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~psy1552/
Instructor
Nick Epley
Office: William James 1480
Phone # 4-7831
e-mail: epley@wjh.harvard.edu
Office Hours: By appointment
Course Description
Everyday life requires people to make a variety of judgments about themselves
and others—What is she thinking? Will we be happy together? Why did he do that? Am
I good enough to make it here? Although varied and diverse, these judgments are
generally guided by a small set of mechanisms. This course will examine how these
mechanisms guide people’s understandings of themselves, others, and the social world
around them. We will cover the role of heuristics, stereotypes, expectancies, and affect in
a variety of domains including casual attribution, perspective taking, anthropomorphism,
temporal comparison, social comparison, and social conflict.
Course Reading
1. T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The
psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 103-119). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Supplemental journal articles—discussed at first meeting.
Course Requirements
Participation (20%). This is not a lecture course, and thus all students are
expected to play an active role in discussion. All students are expected to come to class
ready to participate with questions, new ideas, or interesting insights.
Discussion Leader (20%). Each week, 2-3 students will lead, as a group, the class
in discussion. Discussion leaders are expected to introduce the day’s topic in whatever
manner they deem most appropriate to stimulate thoughtful and active discussion and to
introduce the “below-the-line” readings (to be described later). Please feel free to think
creatively about how to do this, including everything from movies to poetry to acting to
lecturing. Think of yourself as a hot-shot instructor whose main job is to get the class
excited about the day’s topic.
Each student will serve on a team as a discussion leader at least twice during the
term. Discussion leader assignments will be discussed further on the first day of class.
Thought papers/Discussion Questions (30%). In order to stimulate class
discussion, each student is expected to prepare a short thought paper for each class (no
more than 1 page, and I mean it!). There are no explicit guidelines for what should be
included in a thought paper, just say something smart. Perhaps bring up an interesting
point not considered by the authors, or a mortal flaw in a set of experiments, or a subtle
connection between topic areas.
To stimulate interactive discussion during the term, these papers will be posted on
the course website, rather than being turned into me directly. These papers must be
posted by 10:00 PM, the Saturday before each Monday class. This will allow time for
everyone in the class to read your paper, and for you to read theirs. It is expected that
you will have read the other students’ thought papers by class as part of each week’s
reading assignment. I will discuss how to post these in greater detail on the first day of
class.
I will grade these papers on a 4 point scale: exceptional papers will receive a +,
most papers will receive a , and those in need of improvement will receive a -. Papers
turned in late or not at all will receive a 0.
Term paper (30%). A more substantial term paper is due by 5:00 PM, January 12.
Ideally, this paper would be an empirical proposal that begins with a coherent argument
on some issue covered in the course and end with a proposal for future research. You do
not have to collect actual data to test your ideas, but doing so will NOT be discouraged as
long as it does not violate any ethical guidelines. If you do not wish to write an empirical
proposal, you may instead write a more theoretical review paper in which you present a
coherent argument extending, reinterpreting, or resolving contradictions in research we
have covered in the course. These papers should not simply be restatements of material
we have already considered but need to be an original contribution to our understanding
of judgment and decision making. Please discuss your term paper idea with me before
you begin writing.
There is no explicit limit for these term papers, although much more than 10
double-spaced pages seems excessive (make every word count).
Syllabus
Readings are divided by a line. Those above the line for a particular week are
required for the entire class and will serve as the focus for discussion. Those below the
line are recommended for the class but only required for the discussion leaders.
I. Background and Overview
9/15— Background, Seminar Overview, and Selection of Discussion Leaders
-- No Readings
II. Mechanisms in Social Judgment
9/22—Heuristics: Availability and Representativeness
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics
and biases. Science, 185, 1124-1130.
Sloman, S.A. (2002). Two systems of reasoning. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D.
Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 379396). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schwarz, N., & Vaughn, L.A. (2002). The availability heuristic revisited: Ease
of recall and content as distinct sources of information. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D.
Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 103119). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kahneman, D. & Frederick, S. (2002). Representativeness revisited: Attribute
substitution in intuitive judgment. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.),
Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 49-82). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
9/29—Theories: Expectations and subsequent adjustments
Chapman, G.B., & Johnson, E.J. (2002) Incorporating the irrelevant: Anchors in
judgments of belief and value. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.),
Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 120-138). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Epley, N., & Gilovich, T. (2002). Putting adjustment back in the anchoring and
adjustment heuristic. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and
biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 139-149). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ross, M. (1989). Relation of implicit theories to the construction of personal
histories. Psychological Review, 92, 341-357.
Ambady, N., Hallahan, M., & Conner, B. (1999). Accuracy of judgments of
sexual orientation from thin slices of behavior. Journal of Personality & Social
Psychology, 77, 538-547.
10/21—Motivation
Dunning, D. (1999). A newer look: Motivated social cognition and the schematic
representation of social concepts. Psychological Inquiry, 10, 1-11.
Dawson, E., Gilovich, T., & Regan, D. (2002). Motivated Reasoning and
Susceptibility to the “Cell A” Bias. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Murray, S.L. (2001). Seeking a sense of conviction: Motivated cognition in close
relationships. G.J.O. Fletcher & M.S. Clark (Eds.), Blackwell Handbook of Social
Psychology: Interpersonal Processes (pp. 107-126). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Sinclair, L., & Kunda, Z. (1999). Reactions to a black professional: Motivated
inhibition and activation of conflicting stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 77, 885-904.
10/13—No class: Columbus day
III. Social Judgments
10/20—Causal Attribution: Explaining actions
Gilbert, D. T., & Malone, P. S. (1995). The correspondence bias. Psychological
Bulletin, 117, 21-38.
Wegner, D., & Wheatley, T. (1999). Apparent mental causation: Sources of the
experience of will. American Psychologist, 54, 480-491
Dennett, D.C. (1975). True believers: The intentional strategy and why it works.
In Rosenthal, D.M. (Ed), The Nature of Mind (pp. 339-353). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Van Boven, L. D., Kamada, A., & Gilovich, T. (1999). The perceiver as
perceived: Everyday intuitions about the correspondence bias. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 77, 1188-1199.
10/27—Perspective taking: Anticipating thoughts, feelings, and attitudes
Meltzoff, A.N., & Brooks, R. (2001). “Like me” as a building block for
understanding other minds: Bodily acts, attention, and intention. In B.F. Malle, L.J.
Moses, & D.A. Baldwin (Eds.), Intentions and Intentionality: Foundations of Social
Cognition (pp. 45-68). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Keysar, B., Barr, D. J., Balin, J. A., & Brauner, J. S. (2000). Taking perspective in
conversation: The role of mutual knowledge in comprehension. Psychological Science,
11, 32-39.
Murray, S.L., Holmes, J.G., Bellavia, G., Griffin, D.W., & Dolderman, D. (2002).
Kindred spirits? The benefits of egocentrism in close relationships. Journal of
Personality & Social Psychology, 82(4) Apr 2002, 563-581.
Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social
judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and
appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211-222.
Epley, N., Savitsky, K., & Gilovich, T. (2002). Empathy Neglect: Reconciling
the spotlight effect and the correspondence bias. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 83, 300-312.
11/ 3—Anthropomorphism: Creating Agency
Gould, S.J. (1996) Can we truly know sloth and rapacity? Natural History, 105,
18-26.
Gilbert, D.T. (2000). The illusion of external agency. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 79, 690-700.
Wegner, D.M., Fuller, V.A., & Sparrow, B. (2003). Clever hands: Uncontrolled
intelligence in facilitated communication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
85, 5-19.
Caporael, L.R., & Heyes, C.M. (1997). Why anthropomorphise? Folk
psychology and other stories. In R. W. Mitchell, N.S. Thompson, & H.L. Miles (Eds.),
Anthropomorphism, anecdotes, & animals (pp. 59-73). Albany: State University of New
York Press.
Barrett, J.L., & Keil, F.C. (1996). Conceptualizing a nonnatural entity:
Anthropomorphism in god concepts. Cognitive Psychology, 31, 219-247.
11/10-No class
11/17—Magical Thinking and Superstition
Rozin, P., & Nemeroff, C. (2002). Sympathetic magical thinking: The contagion
and similarity “heuristics.” In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics
and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 201-216). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kruger, J., Savitsky, K., & Gilovich, T. (1999). Superstition and the regression
effect. Skeptical Inquirer, 23(Mar-April), 24 (6).
Keinan, G. (1994). Effects of stress and tolerance of ambiguity on magical
thinking. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 67, 48-55.
Gilovich, T., & Savitsky, K. (2002). Like goes with like: The role of
representativeness in erroneous and pseudo-scientific beliefs. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin,
& D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp.
617-624). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Phelps, K.E. (1994). The form and function of young children's magical beliefs.
Developmental Psychology, 30, 385-394
11/24—Temporal Comparison: The self and others across time
Gilbert, D. T., Driver-Linn, E., & Wilson, T. D. (in press). The trouble with
Vronsky: Impact bias in the forecasting of future affective states. In P. Salovey & L.
Feldman-Barrett (Eds.), The wisdom in feeling. New York: Guilford.
Epley, N., & Dunning, D. (2000). Feeling “Holier than thou”: Are self-serving
assessments produced by errors in self or social prediction? Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 79, 861-875.
Libby, L. K., & Eibach, R. P. (2002). Looking into the past: Self-concept affects
visual perspective in autobiographical memory. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 82, 167-179.
Wilson, A.E., Ross, M. (2001). From chump to champ: People's appraisals of
their earlier and present selves. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 80, 572584.
12/1—Social Comparison: The self in relation to others
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations,
7 117-140.
Mussweiler, T. (in press). Comparison processes in social judgment:
Mechanisms and consequences. Psychological Review.
Kruger, J. (1999). Lake Wobegon be gone! The “below-average effect” and the
egocentric nature of comparative ability judgments. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 77, 221-232.
Gilbert, D. T., Giesler, R.B., & Morris, K.A. (1995). When comparisons arise.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 227-236.
12/8—Moral Judgment
Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist
approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814-834.
Wojciszke, B. (1994). Multiple meanings of behavior: Construing actions in
terms of competence or morality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 222232.
12/15—Culture and variability/ Course Wrap-up