Chapter 4: Thinking about the people and situations

Joel Rifkin: 16 murders, most prolific serial killer in NY State. People felt
safe around him, describe him as gentle. Social judgements therefore can
have serious consequences, i.e. mistaking a serial killer as gentle can be
lethal
5 different aspects of social judgement
1) Judgements only as accurate as the quality of info on which they are
based, not always representative or complete
2) How info is presented, including the order and how info is framed can
affect the judgements we make
3) We actively seek out info with a biased information seeking strategy
which distort the conclusions we reach
4) Preexisting knowledge/expectations, and mental habits influence the
construal of new info = influence our judgement
5) 2 mental systems: reason and intuition
Social Cognition: study of how people think about the social world and arrive
at judgements that help them interpret the past, present, and predict future.
**construal principle is important
Social stimuli rarely influences peoples behavior directly, they do so through
our methods of interpreting and construal. Mistakes reveal a lot about how
we make judgements, like showing the limitations of perception and
judgement making.
Perceptual psychologists study illusions because they reveal principles of
perception.
Information Available for Social Cognition
All information is considered, understanding others depend on accurate
information, however we sometimes have little or no information to base our
assessments. Information may be misleading
Minimal information: inferring personality from physical appearance
Snap judgements
Willis & Todorov (2006) showed participants large number of faces,
they had to judge them as trustworthy, competent, likable, aggressive,
attractive
Some given as much time as they wanted, this was the gold standard
of comparison
Others were shown the face for only 1 second, half a second, a tenth of
a second
Found that: A great deal of what we conclude about people based on
their faces is determined almost instantaneously. Correlation between

both groups was almost as high as those given a tenth of a second as

for those given a full second
Perceiving Trust and Dominance: what do people see in brief glances of
peoples faces? Todorov et al (2008), participants look at a large # of faces
with neutral expressions. 2 dimensions stand out: one is positive-negative
dimension (trust/untrustworthy, aggressive or not), second is power related
(confident/bashful, dominant/submissive).
Hyper masculine features: pronounced jaw = dominant
Eye socket features and eyebrows = trustworthy
Trustworthy + non dominant = baby like (large forehead, large round
eyes, high eyebrows, small chin are presumed to have characteristics
associated with the young
o Weak, nave, submissive
Adults with small eyes, small forehead, angular prominent chin =
strong, competent and dominant
Baby faced individuals receive more favorable treatment as defendants in
court, but harder time to be seen as appropriate for adult jobs like banking
Accuracy of snap judgement: are facial features people associate with
different personality traits valid cues to those traits? A study showed that
participants who were shown pictures of US congressional election
candidates predicted their performance of competent vs not. Those judges
as competent by most of the participants won 69% of the races.
People can make reasonably accurate judgements from thin slices of
behavior. Evidence suggests there is often some validity to even extremely
brief exposure to other peoples behavior.
Misleading Firsthand Information: Pluralistic Ignorance
Mostly our firsthand information (our immediate impressions) is more
accurate because it is not filtered by someone else. Sesond hand
information, like gossip, media, biographies, textbooks.
First hand can also be deceptive however, because we fail to pay close
attention to info about events that occur, or we misconstrue. It can be
unrepresentative.
The gap between inner reality and outer behavior can lead to predictable
errors in judgment. Miller & McFarland, 1991: professor asks are there any
questions at the end of a hard lecture. Many did not understand but no one
raises their hand. The students that didnt understand concludes that
everyone else did and they are the only ones confused. This is called
pluralistic ignorance. This misperception occurs whenever people act in

ways that conflict with their private beliefs because of a concern for the
social consequences
Pluralistic ignorance is common in situations here toughness is valued,
people are afraid to show that they are kind, and gentle. Gang members
have confessed their objections to brutal initiations, but afraid to say so.
Nicole Shelton and Jennifer Richeson (2005) on pluralistic ignorance:
among different members of ethnic groups. Researchers predicted that
individuals might worry that someone from another ethnic group would not
be interested in talking to them
o Initiating convo = risky
o Avoid the fear of rejection
o Results in no opening gesture being established
o they found that although the students generally attributed their own
failure to initiate contact to their fear of rejection, they assumed the
other person didnt initiate contact because of a lack of interest in
establishing friendships across ethnic lines

Misleading Firsthand Information: Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

We can fail to notice that our own behavior has brought about what were
seeing. This phenomenon is called the self-fulfilling prophecy: our
expectations lead us to behave in ways that elicit the very behavior we
expect from others
o we think someone is unfriendly therefore give them the cold shoulder,
which elicits the very coldness anticipated
Most famous self-fulfilling prophecy study Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968.
o researchers told elementary schoolteachers that aptitude tests
indicated that several of their students could be expected to bloom
intellectually in the coming year
o in reality they were randomly chosen
o those who were chosen to have an intellectual growth spurt set in
motion a pattern of student-teacher interaction that led them to score
higher on IQ tests at the end of the year
o The mechanism that translates a given expectation into action that
tended to confirm the prophecy was the teachers behavior.
o They challenged those who were thought to bloom
**not all prophecies have this link
Self-prophecy that is self-negating: driver believes nothing bad can happen
to me, and therefore drives recklessly

Misleading secondhand information

Ideological distortions: people who transmit info often have an ideological
agenda, a desire to foster certain beliefs or behaviors that lead them to
accentuate some elements of a story and suppress others
Distortions in the Service of Entertainment: Overemphasis on Bad
News
Desire to entertain in stories people tell one another (small scale) we round
up generously.
On a large scale is through mass mediaover report negative, violent and
sensational events.
Media provides a distorted view of reality, media: 80% of crime is violent, in
actually only 20% of all crime is violent.
Effects of the bas-news bias: lead people to believe they are more at risk for
victimization
There is a positive correlation between how much TV you watch and the fear
of victimization. However this correlation is reduced when you account for
people living in low crime neighborhoods, but remains strong in high crime
areas. People in high crime areas that dont watch TV feel safer
How Information is presented
What and how information is presented, also when it is presented can have
profound effects on peoples judgements.
Order Effect:
Asking about how many people someone has dated in the last month and
then asking how happy they were had a much stronger correlation then
asking the other way around
Primacy effect: a type of order effect where the information presented first
exerts the most influence. The other way around where information is most
impact is last is known as a recency effect. Together they are called the
order effects
Primacy effect happens most often when information is ambiguous, so
what comes first influences how to later information is interpreted. Solomon
Asch (1946) study: ask people in GROUP 1 to evaluate a hypothetical
individual that was described as: intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical,
stubborn and envious. The person was rated favorably because the 2 first
were intelligent and industrious GROUP 2 read the same traits but in
opposing order = rated as less favorable. Primacy effect here was very high

Recency in contrast result when the last items come more readily to mind.
Later info sometimes exert more influence because it is remembered easily,
whereas the first traits can be forgotten
Framing Effects:
Order effects like above are a type of framing effect meaning the way in
which information is presented. The frame of reference is changed even
though the content of the information is exactly the same (asking 2 different
questions, but with different orders).
Spin framing: varies the content, not just the order, of what is presented.
Framing effects are not limited to the order in which info is presented. E.g.
frame a buyers decision in terms favorable to the product being advertised.
A company with the edge in price will feature information on saving
US soldiers either described as liberators or an occupying army,
the word used to describe them highlight different information which
affects how people react to them
Pro-choice versus the right to life
Positive and negative framing: emphasizing either the positive or
negative. This has a predictable effect on peoples judgements.
75% lean is more appealing than 25% fat
McNeil, Pauker, Sox, & Tversky, 1982 study: 400 physicians were
asked whether they would recommend surgery or radiation for patients
with certain type of cancer
o Some were told that of 100 previous patients who had the
surgery, 90 lived through the postoperative period, 68 were still
alive after a year, and 34 were still alive after 5 years.
82% of physicians recommended surgery
o Others were given exactly the same information, but it was
framed in different language: that 10 died during surgery or the
postoperative period, 32 had died by the end of the first year,
and 66 had died by the end of five years
56% recommended surgery
Negative attention attracts more attention and have greater
psychological impact that positive, info framed negatively elicits a
stronger response
Temporal framing: we think about actions and events within a particular
time perspective, distant past, present moment, and the immediate future
Construal level theory: a theory about the relationship between psychological
distance and abstract or concrete thinking. Psychologically distant=abstract
terms. Events close at hand=concrete terms

Low level of abstraction: rich in concrete detail (chewing food, carry a

friends chair, giving a dollar to panhandler)
High level of abstraction: rich meaning but stripped of detail (dining
out, helping a friend, being generous)
Distant events either past or future think about it abstract terms
It can also be near of far in space, or near or far socially.

How we Seek Information

Confirmation Bias: when evaluating a proposition, people more readily,
reliably and vigorously seek evidence that would support the proposition
rather than information that would contradict that proposition.
Study: asked group will working out the day befpre tennis match make you
more likely to win
Other group asked to determine whether working out the day before a match
,akes a player more likely to lose.
They could all have access of 4 types of information: 1) the number of
players in a sample whp worked out the day before and won their match vs
number of player who lost.. Number of players who did not work out the day
before and won, and the number of player who did not work out and lost.