Social Perception

Question 1

What are some determinants of warmth judgments:

Answer 1

Typically made before competence judgments
- Determine approach-avoidance tendencies
- Predict the valence of interpersonal judgments
(positive or negative)
- When judging faces after an exposure of 100ms,
social perceivers judge warmth (trustworthiness)
most reliably, followed by competence (Willis &
Todorov, 2006)
- Warmth judgments dare sensitive to information that
disconfirms, rather than confirms, the others’

Question 2

What are some determinants of competence judgments

Answer 2

Determine the intensity of approach-avoidance
tendencies
 Competence judgments are sensitive to
information that confirms, rather than disconfirms,
competence
 Together with warmth, determine affective and
behavioural reactions to people or groups

Question 3

Who came up with the Warmth-Competence Model?

Answer 3

Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007

Question 4

How does warmth and competence affect sentencing decisions and electoral success?

Answer 4

 Sentencing decisions (Blair et al., 2004; Eberhardt
et al., 2006; Zebrowitz & McDonald, 1991)
 Electoral success
 inferences of competence based solely on
facial appearance predicted the outcomes of
U.S. congressional elections better than chance
(Todorov et al., 2007)
 judgments of Swiss children predicted the
outcomes of French parliamentary elections
(Antonakis & Delgas, 2009)

Question 5

How does one detect warmth/competence?

Answer 5

Oosterhof and Todorov (2008)
Competence = Features signalling physical
strength
High masculinity, low femininity/baby-facedness

Question 6

How accurate are first impressions?

Answer 6

Surprisingly accurate (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992)

 Overall (mean) correlation between strangers’ first
impressions and target reports = .39.
 Accuracy of judgments made after 30 seconds of
exposure did not differ from the accuracy of
judgments made after 4-5 minutes.
 Ambady & Rosenthal (1992) argue that personality
is detected through the expressive behaviour
(facial, verbal, nonverbal) of others

Question 7

what is selective perception?

Answer 7

 Selective perception is the process by which we
see what we a) expect to see and b) want to see
 Information we receive will be processed in a
manner that harmonises with and supports our
current beliefs and goals
 Bruno & Postman (1949)

Question 8

what is perception projection?

Answer 8

• projecting one’s own expectations, goals, emotions and stuff on someone else.
  Over-perceiving emotions and goals in others that
  are related to those currently active in oneself
  (Kawada, Oettingen, Gollwitzer, & Bargh, 2004)
  Perceiving emotions and goals in others that are
  functionally related to one’s own emotions and
  goals (Maner et al., 2005)

Question 9

Projection can be functional- there might be a specific function . give two examples:

Answer 9

 Men with chronic or temporarily activated mate-search goals perceive greater sexual
arousal/interest from women
 Men and women with chronic or temporarily
activated self-protection goals perceive greater
anger in African American and Arab faces

Question 10

Who conducted the research on “how long do first impressions last”?

Answer 10

Asch 1946

Question 11

Why do First impressions last?

Answer 11

Primacy effect
 The tendency for information presented early
in a sequence to have more impact on
impressions than information presented later.
 What accounts for this primacy effect?
 Once we think we have formed an accurate
impression of someone, we pay less attention to
subsequent information.
 Once we have formed an impression, we start to
interpret inconsistent information in light of that
impression.
Expectancy- or hypothesis-confirmation bias
 Once we make up our mind about something,
we are unlikely to change it, even when
confronted with new evidence
 tendency to seek, interpret, and create
information that verifies existing beliefs.

Question 12

Darley & Gross, 1983 studied “Does economic background affect first impressions? “first impressions on actor-observer situations. The result was:

Answer 12

P’s shown videos of a little girl “Hannah” reading or doing maths
Either told she was rich or poor
Perceived performance was higher when she was seen as rich
This effect was not seen if they didn’t see the video
Fundamental attribution error
- We tend to attribute others’ behaviour to their
(stable) dispositions rather than to the
(unstable) situation

Question 13

Gawronski et al. proposed a reason for the lasting first impressions relating to generalisation and contextualisation:

Answer 13

Generalization vs. Contextualization

• Attention to attentional cues when encoding evaluative information depends on whether this information is stored in a context free or contextualised representation
• Initial experiences are stored in a context free representation whilst counter-attitudinal ones are stored in contextualised ones
• We make excuses for behaviour that violates the image we have of people

Question 14

Why are dispositional attributions

automatic and persistent?

Answer 14

Some people perceive dispositions that are particularly salient or conspicuous.
Dispositions give us a sense of control and predictability
Actor is conspicuous subject and the situation fades in the background.
We underestimate the capacity of situation that influences behaviour
behaviour can be interpreted as a manner that confirms disposition attributions

Question 15

When does counter-stereotypical situations influence judgments?

Answer 15

Processes:
 Initial categorization
 Personal relevance
 Attention allocation
 Confirmatory categorization
 Recategorization
 Piecemeal integration (individuation)

Question 16

Does order have an effect on first impressions?

Answer 16

Yes- Asch (1946)
P’s shown lists of character traits either beginning with envious or having it appear later in the list
Asked to make evaluations on the person described
The list without envious first was rated as more positive
This suggests that the primacy effect is occurring: the information you see first has the most effect on evaluation and we then interpret further information differently to fit the idea of the person we already have in our head using confirmation bias

Question 17

How does fundamental attribution error affect the impressions we make about others?

Answer 17

We tend to attribute the behaviours of others with their stable personality rather than their unstable and ever changing situation (Jones & Harris 1967)

• P’s saw others read out essays they had written and evaluated how pro Castro they were
• Even when they were explicitly told the other person had been directed to write a pro-Castro speech they still rated them as having more pro Castro beliefs
• This has not been found to extend to eastern cultures, however -Miller (1984)
• Indian and American P’s asked to narrate 2 prosocial and 2 deviant behaviours and give the reasoning behind them
• Americans were much more likely to focus on personal factors whereas Indians focussed on social factors

Ross, Amabile & Steinmetz (1977)

• Assigned as wither quiz masters or quiz contestants
• Watchers and contestants rated the quiz masters as having more general knowledge

Question 18

What is the three stage model of attribution?

Weiner (1935)

Answer 18

Behaviour is first observed
It is then determined to be intentional or not
Finally it is attributed to internal or external causes
The most important factors affecting this are ability, effort, task difficulty and luck
P’s watched a nervous looking woman talking about either mundane things or sordid secrets
Rated the first as being more nervous
Suggests that higher cognitive load reduces our ability to attribute properly- Gilbert, Pelham & Krull (1988)

Question 19

What is the continuum model of impression formation?

Answer 19

Fiske & Neuberg (1990)

• Our model of impression formation occurs on a continuum
• First we categorise people based on salient features such as gender, ethnicity and age
• This categorisation can be altered if the person shows relevance to the rater. If the person is interesting they spend more time looking at their other individuating factors and if they’re boring they stop evaluating there
• If relevant and interesting, and if the rater has the time and attentional resources, additional information about the target is analysed
• This information is then incorporated into the category this person is in, and if it is inconsistent the category is re-evaluated and a more suitable attitude is formed