Chapter 10: Social Judgment
Social Psychology by
Tom Gilovich, Dacher
Keltner, and Richard
Nisbett
Topics we will cover



Quality of information available
How we judge probabilities
Errors and biases in social though
Biases in Information Presented Firsthand
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
Biases in Information Presented Firsthand
b. Memory Biases
Rehearsal
Encoding
Sensory Input
Attention
Retrieval
Sensory Memory
Short-Term Memory
Long-Term Memory
Biases in Information Presented Firsthand
b. Memory Biases
flashbulb memories - vivid recollections
of the moment one learned some
dramatic, emotionally-charged news
Biases in Information Presented
Secondhand
a. Sharpening and Leveling
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
These processes influence our judgment of
secondhand information in a number of ways.
The Information Available for
Judgment
b. Secondhand Impressions of Other People
c. Ideological Distortions
d. Distortion in the Media
e. Perceptual Vigilance and the Asymmetry Between
Positive and Negative
How Information is Presented:
Impression Formation
Impression Formation- how we form
impressions of others
–
–
–
central traits (e.g., warm-cold) strongly shape
the overall impression of a stranger
primacy effect- information presented first often
has stronger impact on impressions
impressions of others consist of both exemplars
(examples of specific behavior) and abstractions
(mental summaries of general behavior)
How Information is Presented
2. Framing Effects
the influence on judgment resulting from the way
information is presented, including the order of
presentation
a. spin framing
b. gains and losses
Prior Knowledge and Knowledge
Structures
Bottom-up processes - “data driven” mental processing in
which one takes in and forms conclusions on the basis of
the stimuli encountered in one’s experience
Top-down processes - “theory driven” mental processing in
which one filters and interprets new information in light of
preexisting knowledge and expectations
Prior Knowledge and Knowledge
Structures
Schema- mental framework built around a
specific theme (organizes social information)

Types of Schemas
–
person- schemas about people

–
role- schemas relating to specific roles

–
“nerd”, “jock”, “librarian”
“professor”, “student”, “physician”
event (script)- indicates typical sequence of events

“restaurant”, “exam”, “first date”
Prior Knowledge and Knowledge
Structures
1. How Do Schemas Influence Judgment?
a. Attention
b. Inference and Construal
c. Memory
encoding - filing information away in memory based on what
is attended to and the initial interpretation of information
retrieval - the extration of information from memory
Sources of Error (“Tilts”)

To understand the social world we can use:
rational processing- follows basic rules of logic
– intuitive processing- relies on hunches (gut-level)
intuitive processing used more for processing
social information
 automobile safety devices (e.g., air bags) have
not been proven to be safer, yet intuitively they
should work
–
Psychic Powers Demo
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pick a number from 1-9
Subtract 5
Multiply by 3
Square the number
Add digits until you only get 1 digit
If number < 5 add 5; else subtract 4
Multiply by 2
Subtract 6
Map the digit to a letter in alphabet
Pick name of country that starts with letter
Take second letter in country name and think of mammal
Think of color of mammal
Reason, Intuition, and Heuristics
Heuristics- mental shortcuts for making decisions
(help to reduce information overload)
 Representativeness- judging by resemblance
Bob is a lawyer, because he looks like typical lawyer
Note: often population base rates are ignored
–

Availability- judging by how quickly examples come to
mind
k as first letter seems more common than k as third
priming- increased availability of information resulting from
exposure (e.g., “medical student syndrome”)
–
Forward
Rothman and Hardin Study
More likely to rely on
amount of information
available.
More likely to rely on
ease with which they
could bring information
to mind.
Impoliteness Ratings
Asked
male and female students to recall either 3 or 6
5
Hypothesis
Hypothesis
2:
1: Participants
Participants will
will rate
rate the
theirother
owngender
gender(outgroup)
(in-group)
Previous
Thinking
Asked
them
research
of to
sixrate
examples
shows
women
it should
is
and
easier
men
influence
toon
remember
several
dimensions,
three
of of their
impolite
behaviors
they
had
recently
seen
byamount
members
4.55
of three
examples
should
affect
ease
of
recall.
as
asThinking
more
more impolite
impolite
when
when
they
they
had
had
recalled
recalled
three
six
behaviors
behaviors
rather
rather
4.34
examples
information
including
impoliteness.
as (in-group)
opposed
recalled.toand
six members
examplesof
ofthe
behavior.
own
other gender
4.5gender
six
three
behaviors.
behaviors.
(outgroup).
4
3.59
3.59
3.5
3
2.5
Ingroup
Outgroup
3 Behaviors
6 Behaviors
Reason, Intuition, and Heuristics
2. The Representativeness Heuristic
a. The Resemblance Between Members and Categories:
Base-Rate Neglect
Kahneman and Tversky (1973)
b. The Planning Fallacy
tendency for people to be unrealistically optimistic
about how quickly they can complete a project
c. The Resemblance Between Cause and Effect
Planning Fallacy
Planning Fallacy (Optimistic Bias)- tendency
to:
make optimistic predictions for completing a task
– assume we are more likely than others to experience
good outcomes, and less likely to experience bad
It occurs because we tend to:
– focus on future while ignoring related past events
– overlook important potential obstacles
as motivation to complete task increases, so does
the planning fallacy
–

Buehler, Griffin, & MacDonald
Persons expecting a refund predicted
they would file much sooner than
persons not expecting refund.
Number of Days Prior to
Deadline
28expecting
Hypothesized
that people
a refund
would have strong
Both groups
submitted
30
forms
laterthey
expected
Phoned
Also
asked
peoplepeople
random
whenand
they
asked
expected
them
ifthanthey
would
expected
file
their
a taxreturn.
refund.
motivation
toatcomplete
the
task
and
therefore
make
overoptimistic
25 about when they would file their return.
predictions
20
17
15
13
15
10
5
0
Predicted
Actual
No Refund
Refund
Magical Thinking
Magical Thinking- thinking based on
irrational assumptions


law of contagion- two objects in contact pass
properties to one another
– fear of wearing sweater worn by AIDS patient
law of similarity- things that resemble each other
share basic properties
– fear of eating chocolate shaped like a spider
Thought Suppression
Thought Suppression- preventing unwanted thoughts
from entering consciousness
 Thought suppression involves two processes:
monitoring- automatically searches for unwanted thoughts
– operating- conscious attempt to distract oneself
Rebound effect- suppressing unwanted thoughts may actually
increase them
– people high in reactance- react negatively to threats to
freedom- more likely to show rebound effect
–

Edwards & Bryan
Participants told to ignore emotion provoking
information rated him as most guilty and most
deserving of a harsh sentence.
5
Index of Perceived Guilt and
Harshness of Sentence
The
subjects
were
then
asked
toarousing
rate
guilt
the
suspect
5 are
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Reasoned we
have little
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and
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it. (EMOTION Ignore
PROVOKING).
4
Don't Ignore
3
2.5
1.9
1.4
2
1
0
Emotion Provoking
Neutral
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
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