© Tuan Tran, 2003

Social Perception & Attitudes

© Tuan Tran, 2003

Overview

Determining the causes of behavior Biases in attribution

Stereotypes Social comparison Attitudes

Attitudes & behavior

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Person Perception & Evaluation

We try to understand the personality characteristics of other people and their attitudes

How do we do this? Behavior

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Making Attributions

Attribution—any claim about the cause of someone’s behavior

Is someone’s behavior caused by personality characteristics or by the situation?

Dispositional Attribution Situational Attribution

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Attribution Example

You see Jim become angry at a cashier who is taking a long time

What is the cause of the anger at the cashier?

Jim has a short temper (dispositional) Jim is in a hurry and under stress (situational)

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The Logic of Attributing Causes of Behavior

Questions:

Attribution:

1. Does Jim regularly get angry at slow cashiers?

No basis for attribution to personality or situation. Fluke?

NO

2. Do many other people get angry at slow cashiers?

YES

Situational Attribution. Slow cashiers make people angry.

YES

NO

3. Does Jim get angry in many other situations?

Personality Attribution, general. Jim is easily angered.

Personality Attribution, specific. Jim can’t tolerate slow cashiers.

NOYES

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Biases in Attribution

Fundamental Attribution Error When trying to determine the cause of

another’s behavior, we too often attribute it to personality, when the situation may be the cause

Person bias News anchors assumed to be calm in all

situations We only see them in role of newscasts

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How Fundamental is the Fundamental Attribution Error?

Evidence for it comes from studies where participants have:

Clear goal of assessing personality Little motivation or time to consider other

causes of behavior

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2-Stage Model of Attribution

Observer’s Goal Automatic Attribution Controlled Attribution

To judge person

To judge situation

Person attribution

Situation attribution

Revision of attribution

Revision of attribution

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2-Stage Attribution Example

Observer’s Goal Automatic Attribution Controlled Attribution

What kind of person is Jim?

How stressful is the situation?

Jim has a short-temper

The cashier is too slow & Jim is

in a hurry

Perhaps Jim is angered easily

Jim yells at cashier to “Hurry up!”

Perhaps Jim needs to be somewhere

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Cultural Differences

Eastern and Western cultures differ in terms of beliefs in who controls one’s destiny

Western cultures—US, Western Europe Emphasize that individual is in charge of own destiny

Eastern cultures—East Asia, India Emphasize that fate or circumstances are in charge of

destiny

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Cultural Differences

People in Eastern cultures less likely to make dispositional attributions of behaviors

More often attribute behavior to the situation

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What About Our Own Behavior?

More of a situational bias Actor-Observer Discrepancy

Anger at cashier Self—situational attribution Someone else—dispositional attribution

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Explanations for Actor-Observer Discrepancy

More experience observing own behavior than behavior of another given person

See self in more varied situations Own behavior—watch situation; others’

behavior—watch person

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Prior Information & Attribution

Schema—organized set of information that we have about any entity or event

Schemas influence how we interpret another’s behavior

E.g., guest lecturer at MIT Participants given description of lecturer before class

½ descriptions said lecturer was “ a rather cold” person

½ descriptions said lecturer was “a very warm” person

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Biases Due to Schemas

Attractiveness Bias Attractive people are

judged to be more: Intelligent Competent Sociable Moral

Baby-Face Bias Those with baby-like

facial features are judged to be more:

Naïve Honest Helpless Kind Warm

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Stereotypes

Schemas for groups of people Nationalities, ethnic groups, occupations, etc.

More difficult to define specific stereotypes today

People are reluctant to admit holding stereotypic beliefs

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Stereotypes

Many social psychologists differentiate 3 levels of stereotypes:

Public—what we say to others about a group Private—what we consciously believe but

don’t say to others Implicit—set of learned mental associations

that can guide our judgments and actions without our awareness

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Implicit Stereotypes

Not necessarily consistent with conscious beliefs

We make mental associations from information in the environment

Others’ beliefs, vivid cases, etc.

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How Do We Stack Up?

One way to learn about ourselves is through comparison with others

Social comparison Depends on our reference group

Who we choose to compare ourselves with Intelligence: High school classmates vs. MENSA

members Helps us develop self-concept

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Social Comparison

Changes in reference groups can lead to changes in self-concept

E.g., moving from high school to college can influence our perceived academic ability

Big-Fish-in-a-Little-Pond Effect—people have higher self concepts when they compare favorably with others

John & Jane have equivalent academic abilities John attends a nonselective school Jane attends a selective school

John will have a higher self-concept

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Social Comparison

Better-than-Average Phenomenon Most people rate themselves as better than the

average person Why?

Feedback is generally positive People differ in criteria for success Self-Serving Attribution Bias

Tendency to attribute success to own qualities and failures to the situation

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Social Identity

Self-concept has 2 components: Personal identity—self-descriptions that

pertain to the person as a separate individual Tall, short, friendly, shy, talkative, etc.

Social identity—self-descriptions that pertain to social categories or groups that the person belongs to

KSU student, American, Methodist, member of sorority, etc.

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Social Identity & Self-Esteem

Feelings about ourselves influenced by accomplishments of groups that we identify with

Even when we play no role E.g., sports fans’ feelings about themselves

vary with favorite team’s success

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Identity & Self-Esteem

Our self-esteem also varies when our social groups are successful

E.g., K-State receives award for academic achievement Depends on what part of our self-concept we

focus on Social Identity—feel good about academic ability

Identify with group accomplishment Personal Identity—feel inferior

Social group serves as reference

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Cultural Differences

Individualist Cultures Strengthen personal

identities North America, Western

Europe, Australia Philosophical & political

traditions emphasize: personal freedom self-determination individual competition

Emphasis on self-fulfillment

Collectivist Cultures Strengthen social identities Asia, parts of Africa & Latin

America Philosophical & political

traditions emphasize: within family, workplace,

village, & nation Emphasis on fulfilling

duties to, and promoting welfare of, their groups

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Identity & Culture

Individualist cultures People describe themselves more frequently in terms of

individual traits E.g., shy, easygoing, intelligent, ambitious, etc.

Collectivist cultures People describe themselves more frequently in terms of

social groups and their roles within the group E.g., student at KSU, oldest son in the family, etc.

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Attitudes

Attitude—any belief or opinion that has an evaluative component

Good or bad Likable or unlikable Moral or immoral Attractive or repulsive

We have attitudes about objects, people, events, and ideas

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Attitudes & Behavior

Behavior is not always consistent with attitudes

LaPiere (1934) study Traveled with Chinese couple to 251

restaurants and hotels in US Later mailed questionnaire to same hotel and

restaurant proprietors asking them if they would accommodate non-White patrons

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LaPiere (1934)

128 establishments returned the questionnaire

92% of restaurants said they would NOT serve Chinese patrons

91% of hotels said they would NOT allow Chinese guests

Only 1 of 251 (0.4%) establishments refused service to the author and the Chinese couple

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Why the Inconsistency?

Chinese couple may not have matched the stereotype envisioned by proprietors when filling out questionnaires

Flawless English, congenial, well-dressed, charismatic

Presence of White man may have elevated couple’s status in proprietors’ eyes

Proprietors had vested interest in making money

Business may have been slow at the time

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When Attitudes Strongly Affect Actions

Attitudes have a strong impact on behavior when:

Outside influences on what we say and do are minimal

Attitude is specifically relevant to the behavior We are keenly aware of our attitudes

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Theory of Planned Behavior

Attitude—personal desire to behave in a particular way or not

Subjective norm—belief about what others who are important at the moment would think about the action

Perceived control—sense of one’s own ability or inability to carry out the action

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Theory of Planned Behavior

Subjective norm

Behavioral intention

Perceived behavioral

control

Attitude toward the behavior

Behavior

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Theory of Planned Behavior Example

Beliefs of parents, friends,

church

Intention to use birth control

Use of birth control

“Can I obtain birth control

pills?”

Attitude toward birth control

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Outline for 3/14/2003

Finish Up Social Perception & Attitude Attitude and Behavior

Social Influence Conformity Helping Compliance Obedience

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Actions Can Modify Attitudes

Brain-washing During Korean War, American prisoners asked

to carry out small requests initially E.g., write down trivial statements against the US

government and capitalism Gradually asked to carry out more serious

requests E.g., group discussions regarding US transgressions,

public confessions POWs who were brainwashed were less against

communism when returned

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How Could Brainwashing Work?

Cognitive Dissonance Theory—argues that people feel discomfort when their actions conflict with their feelings and beliefs

People reduce discomfort by bringing attitudes into line with their actions

Attitude can be changed, past actions cannot POWs may have experienced discomfort

having complied with captors

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Conformity: Asch’s Experiments

Participants brought into lab, ostensibly to perform a perceptual task

Standard Line

Comparison Lines

12 3

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Asch’s Experiments

Participant placed in group of other “participants”

Actually confederates Gave responses aloud Participant always second to last

On certain trials Confederates intentionally gave same wrong

answer Asch wondered whether participants would

conform by giving same wrong answer

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What did the participants do?

75% of participants conformed on at least 1 of the 12 trials

Some conformed on all trials Overall, participants conformed on 37% of

the trials

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Informational or Normative Influence?

Many participants said afterward that they began to doubt their perceptual abilities

Suggests informational influence Asch’s 2nd experiment

Same as 1st, but participants write down answers (confederates responded aloud)

Conformity dropped by two thirds Suggests normative influence

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Non-Conformists

Asch conducted a third experiment where 1 confederate gave a different answer than the others

Conformity among participants was ≠ that of the original experiment

Low conformity regardless of: Defector gave correct or incorrect answer Number of conforming confederates (2-14)

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What the Non-Conformist Does

Reduces pressure on participant Social pressure no longer focused solely on participant

Latané’s Social Impact Theory states that a given source of pressure has less influence on a particular person when the pressure is on more than one person

Reduction in normative pressure Shakes participant’s idea that the group knows

something that he/she doesn’t “Perhaps the non-conformist sees something that the

rest of the group is missing.”

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Helping Behavior

Kitty Genovese murder Stabbed and raped outside apartment building

at 3:30 AM 38 of her neighbors heard her screams, but

none helped Attacker fled, but later returned to stab and

rape her again No one called police until 3:50 AM

After attacker left for good

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Why Did This Happen?

Commentators and reporters initially attributed bystanders’ lack of action to apathy and indifference

John Darley & Bibb Latané suggested a different cause

Many bystanders present

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Bystander Effect

Seems counterintuitive More people present more likely to receive

help, Right? WRONG

Diffusion of responsibility—a given person has less responsibility to help when others are present

If everyone thinks that someone else can help, no one will

Informational and/or normative influences at work• See others fail to react must not be an emergency

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Studies on Bystander Intervention

Darley and Latané (1968) Students participated in a discussion via

intercom in separate rooms Led to believe that 1-4 other students present

Confederate participant pretended to have an epileptic seizure and called for other participants to help

What did the participants do?

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Darley & Latané (1968) Results

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

0 1 2 3 4

Number of Others Presumed Available to Help

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Deciding When We Need to Help

Notices incident?

Interprets incident as

emergency?

Assumes responsibility? Attempts

to help

Yes Yes Yes

No help No help No help

No No No

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When Are We More Likely to Help?

Just observed someone else being helpful Not in a hurry Victim appears to need and deserve help Victim is similar to us in some way In a small town or rural area Feeling guilty Focused on others—not preoccupied In a good mood

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Compliance

Accepting a request to do something We tend to comply automatically with

simple, direct requests Often, there is little conscious thinking involved

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Copy Machine Study

Langer, Blank & Chanowitz, 1978 “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the

Xerox machine…” “because I’m in a rush?”—94% complied Nothing added—60% complied “because I have to make some copies?”—93%

complied The word because is enough to elicit

compliance

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Getting You to Spend Your Money

Salespeople often take advantage of cognitive dissonance

Discomfort when actions conflict with attitudes Change attitude to align with behavior

Methods Four-walls technique Foot-in-the-door technique

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Four-Walls Technique

Questioning strategy Potential customer is led to make statements

consistent with the notion that owning the product would be good

Series of questions lead potential customer to agree to buy the product

Answering “yes” to previous questions makes it difficult to refuse offer

Refusing product would make behavior inconsistent with attitude

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Four-Walls Example

Door-to-door encyclopedia sales Do you feel that a good education is important

for your children? Do you think that children who do their

homework will get a better education? Do you believe that a good set of reference

books can help children do their homework? Well, then, it sounds like you’ll want to hear

about the fine set of encyclopedias I have to offer at an excellent price. May I tell you about it?

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Foot-in-the-Door Technique

Potential customer initially grants a small request

Psychologically prepares customer to grant subsequent larger request

Agreeing to buy the product

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Foot-in-the-Door Example

Door-to-door encyclopedia salesman asks for a glass of water and to sit down

Waits for glass of water before telling you that he’s a salesman

Makes sales pitch while drinking water Having complied with request, leads

potential customer to believe that salesperson must be trustworthy

Otherwise, would not have granted request

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Obedience

Nazi soldiers from death camps on trial for war crimes frequently testified that they were “following orders”

The world was stunned that people could carry out atrocities such as the Holocaust

Many believed that the German people were somehow evil

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Obedience

Stanley Milgram wanted to determine whether following orders to inflict harm against innocent people was inherent to all people or just to Germans

Milgram designed what is probably considered the most famous study in all of psychology

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Milgram Studies (1963, 1974)

Two people were brought into the lab at Yale University, ostensibly for a learning experiment

One person (the participant) was assigned to be the teacher

The other (actually a trained confederate) was assigned to be the learner

For every wrong answer, the teacher was to administer an electric shock to the learner

No actual electric shock was delivered Teacher and learner in separate rooms Milgram sat with teacher