Social Perception Processes Social Perception - includes

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Social Perception Processes

• Social Perception - includes attribution, social
  cognition, and impression formation
• process of understanding social events and
  social objects,
• - give meaning to events
• processing information about these events and
  objects
• find organization
• choosing responses/reactions to them
• strategy for using information efficiently
• prediction about future behaviors/reactions
• anticipate and control
• Goals understand and react appropriately, and
  predict accurately
• -- to be a Successful Social Being

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Social Perception Processes

• Process Varies with Experience working toward
  increased efficiency/effectiveness
• want to be right, but often need to be
  fast/efficient
• Initially the naïve perceiver
• know nothing except what built in which is
  what?
• must identify variables, relationships, and
  learn strategies
• for extracting meaning
• use self, and how self is shaped by those
  around as initial guide
• must attend carefully to new experiences in
  order to learn
• (thoughtful processor)

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Social Perception Processes

• Imagine you are a naïve social perceiver I
  approach you and pat your head
• What do you want to know?
• what was it,
• what does it mean,
• why did I do it,
• how do you feel about it
• what should you do,
• what do you think of me,
• will I do it again,

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Social Perception Processes

• Over time you become the experienced/sophistic
  ated perceiver
• What if I approach you and pat you on the
  head?
• Experience provides understanding about,
• expectations
• strategies
• structure
• you develop into a skillful, efficient,
  inference maker
• process can become more automatic/unconsciou
  s
• (thoughtless processor)

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Social Perception Processes General Model
Distal Stimuli Reality
Elaboration perception with meaning and
motives, etc.
Mediation
Proximal Stimuli
Construction Process
Information Processed
Perception
Appearance Behavior Context
Decide on reaction/response based on understanding
Integration with prior experiences
Organize/Categorize Interpret in context of past
information Prepare to be more efficient next time
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Social Perception Processes

• Can Focus on
• Consistencies in the process
• Changes in process as we become more experienced
  
• Group/Individual Differences
• Biases or Errors
• Overall Experience

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Social Perception Processes

• To Fully Understand Others and Social Contexts,
  must process information
• Recognizing Transient States AND
  Identifying Stable Qualities
• Recognizing Transient States
• Facial Expressions as windows to emotions
• Do emotions lead to consistent facial
  expressions?
• Are facial expressions of emotions correctly
  recognized?
• Six universal facial expressions
• happiness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust,
  sadness
• Why are we not always accurate in everyday
  interactions?
• The emotion-expression loop

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Social Perception Processes

• Identifying Stable Qualities evaluating the
  individual behavior
• Heiders (1958) Model and
• Jones and Davis (1965) Correspondent Inference
  model
• Assumes a logical thoughtful perceiver trying to
  interpret a single event and decide what it
  reveals about the actor (like a legal judgment)
• To what degree does the behavior allow for a
  correspondent inference
• Level of Responsibility - learn more as PERCEIVED
  PERSONAL responsibility increases
• Association
• Causality
• Foreseeability
• Intentionality
• Justifiability
• Naïve perceiver may have more difficulty
  separating/appreciating these levels

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The Correspondent Inference Model (Jones Davis)
Context
Quality
Effect
Knowledge
Effect
Quality
Behavior
Can
Intention
Effect
Quality
Ability
Effect
Quality
Behaviors that are assumed to have been rejected
provide clues about effects intended
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Social Perception Processes

• Correspondent Inference Overview
• Basic Idea what information gain can I get from
  this behavior?
• Effects produced by Intentional acts will provide
  greatest potential gain,
• but less so if Justifiable (response to
  external factors)
• Behaviors reflect CHOICES among alternative
  forms (often assumed)
• Behavior produces multiple effects
• Which effects carry meaning
• Which was the intended effect, if any
• Label for intended effect applies to the person
• Discounting -

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Social Perception Processes

• Identifying Stable Qualities accumulating
  information across behaviors
• Causal Attribution Model - Kelley (1967)
• Covariation Model - naïve scientist approach
• accumulating information and finding the
  patterns
• Causes Lie within the Social Environment Low Hig
  h
• Persons (Actors) Consensus
• Entities (Objects) Distinctiveness
• Context (Time/Place) Consistency
• Main effects when/if the data are clear
• ACTOR - Low Low High
• OBJECT - High High High
• Interactions
• ACTOR x OBJECT Low High High
• When do you have enough evidence?

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Social Perception Processes

• Goal - to become so good at the process that it
  takes less time and effort
• but you make few mistakes!
• Process of improving efficiency should operate
  at
• Individual level, and evolutionary level
• examples
• Social Cognition Processes
• Create organized body of knowledge about
• people
• objects
• situations
• relationships among qualities
• Allows us to anticipate and skip thoughtful
  processing

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Social Perception Processes General Model
Distal Stimuli Reality
Elaboration perception with meaning and
motives, etc.
Mediation
Proximal Stimuli
Construction Process
Information Processed
Perception
Appearance Behavior Context
Bypass
Decide on reaction/response based on
understanding
Based on salient cues, activate schema to be able
to leap to the end understand OR respond
Integration with prior experiences Will each new
experience lead to further reorganization?
Organize/Categorize Interpret Prepare to be more
efficient next time
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Social Perception Processes

• Begin as DATA DRIVEN processors.....move to
  THEORY DRIVEN
• bottom up top down
• We become COGNITIVE MISERS - must be able to
  minimize effort in processing new
  experiences
• Rely on the patterns that appear to us
• (Schemas about objects, roles, events, etc.)
• - As we become experienced we must be
  motivated to engage in effortful processing
• when unexpected encountered -
• when unpleasant experience
• when important decision called for -

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Social Perception Processes

• How do Schemas operate?
• Conscious initiate intentionally, act
  serious, drive to X
• Unconscious element in environment activates
  schema automatically
• Representativeness, Availability
• Cognitive Processes Influenced
• Attention -
• Interpretation
• Judgment
• Memory
• Well Developed and Accessible Schemas influence
  each of the Core Processes

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Social Perception Processes

• Schemas and Emotional Reactions
• How you feel about an experience may depend on
  the schemas that are salient
• Counterfactual Thinking comparing an experience
  to an experience that might have been
• an available salient schema
• Research on reactions of Olympic athletes
• Upward comparison could have been better
  Silver Medalist
• Downward comparison could have been worse
  Bronze Medalist

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Social Perception Processes General Model
In the end, we will move between thoughtful
processing and thoughtless processing, depending
on the situation and circumstances. But, as
sophisticated perceivers, we do react quickly,
but we can then engage thoughtful reexamination.
Distal Stimuli Reality
Elaboration perception with meaning and
motives, etc.
Mediation
Proximal Stimuli
Construction Process
Information Processed
Perception
Appearance Behavior Context
Bypass
Decide on reaction/response based on understanding
Use the bypass but then go back to verify
interpretation
Integration with prior experiences Will each new
experience lead to further reorganization?
Organize/Categorize Interpret Prepare to be more
efficient next time
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Social Perception Processes

• Group and Individual Differences
• Individual differences in cognitive styles
• Cognitive Needs/Strategies
• Implicit Person Models
• Cultural differences in fundamental
  assumptions/processes
• East West Culture Differences
• Regional Differences in USA

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Social Perception Processes

• Group and Individual Differences
• Cultural differences in fundamental
  assumptions/processes (West vs. East)
• Nisbett, 2003
• Differences found EAST WEST
• Perception see things in context attend to
  salient objects
• Organize relationships object categories
• Explanations context modifies behavior dispositi
  ons guide behaviors
• Control collective action believe in personal
  control
• Individual goals merge with group stand out in
  group

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Social Perception Processes

• Biases or Errors - common misuses or
  misinterpretations of information
• Correspondence Bias - Fundamental Attribution
  Error
• Actor/Observer Bias
• False Consensus
• Self Serving Bias
• Planning Fallacy
• Self-centered Bias

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Social Perception Processes

• Overall Experience
• We do get data that works
• Expand our understanding over time (Welbourne,
  2001)
• impressions over time show more
  inconsistencies
• also, can explain the inconsistencies
• - greatest if contextual diversity
• Pragmatic accuracy (Gill Swann, 2004)
• consensus within relationship context
• better at knowing what is needed

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Social Perception Processes

• Self Perception (Bem) Observing your own
  behavior to understand yourself
• When internal cues are weak or ambiguous, we may
  perceive ourselves as if we were outside
  observers
• External cues can override internal information
• Others behaviors can alter our interpretations
  of our own behaviors
• Making your own behavior salient as a cue