Psychology 110-04 Lecture 10 Social Psychology

1. Person Perception the process of forming impressions of others
1. Appearance - most obvious attributes, basis for judgement without other information
1. Good looking sociable, poised, warm, well adjusted (Eagly et al, 91; Wheeler & Kim, 97)
2. Baby-faced more honest, trustworthy (Zebrowitz et al, 96)
3. Non-verbal, move, talk gesture all reveal more Ambady & Rosenthal, 93)
4. Mimic in social settings, chameleon effect Chartrand & Bargh, 99
1. Sea Captain's advice
2. Cognitive Schemas, structures that guide and organize the world
1. Social schemas are organized clusters of ideas about categories and social events
2. People shift gears based on surroundings, expectations
3. Stereotypes are special schemas about categories of persons
1. Widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of group membership
2. Gender, Age, Ethnic, Occupational
3. Automatic, saves time and effort, basis for interactions; often sacrifices accuracy
4. Stereotypes used by judge and judged
3. Subjectivity in person perception
1. Confirmation bias, report conformity where none occurred
4. Evolutionary perspective on bias in person perception
1. Attractiveness in reproduction desirability
2. In/Out groups, trusting and affiliation
2. Attribution Processes - inferences people draw about causes of events, other's or their own behaviors
1. Internal vs. External Attribution
1. Internal Attribution- causes to personal dispositions, traits, abilities and feelings
2. External Attribution- causes to situational demands and environmental constraints
3. Covariation model (Kelley, 67,73)
1. Consider consistency, distinctiveness and consensus
1. Internal is high, low, low; External is high, high, high
2. Limited use because people are not as consistent as model expects
2. Success attribution
1. Combination of stability and internal-external (Weiner, 80,86,94)
1. Unstable Stable
2. Internal effort, mood, fatigue ability, intelligence
3. External luck, chance, opportunity task difficulty
3. Bias in Attribution
1. Fundamental attribution error - observers' bias in favor of internal attributions behavior
2. Two step, internal (automatic) then external (effort)
3. Actors favor external, observes favor internal, not under environmental influence
4. Defensive attribution
1. blame victims for misfortune, immunizes self against same
5. Self-Serving bias
1. Attribute one's successes to personal factors, failures to situational factors
2. Cultural and Attributional Tendencies
3. Individualism involves personal goals ahead of group
1. Western culture prone
4. Collectivism group before personal
1. Less fundamental attribution error
6. Self-effacing bias, Japan, attribute success to help of others
1. Close Relationships
4. Attraction
1. Physical attractiveness
2. Seek confirmation of relationship in physical appearance
1. Importance greater for women (r=.76) than men (r=.5)
3. Matching hypothesis, equal appearance tend match (Garcia & Kheronsky, 96)
1. Similarity effects
2. Married and dating tend to be similar (kalminjn, 98)
3. have greater marital happiness (Caspi & Herener, 1990)
4. similarity causes liking (Byrne, 97)
4. Reciprocity Effects - liking those who like you
1. Love
5. Different types of love
1. Passionate, Companionate, Intimacy, Commitment
2. ▼ ▲ ▲
3. Sternberg changes over time
4. Love as Attachment
1. Hazan and Shaver, 87 tie love style to parental, infant attachments
2. Secure, Avoidant, Anxious/ambivalent
5. Culture and close relationships
1. Collectivism plays down passion, think of others view of significant other
6. Evolutionary Perspective
1. Facial symmetry and beauty Cunningham, 95
2. Infancy ties underlies attraction
3. Men show material improvements (nest building), women self improvement