SOCIAL PERCEPTION

• Social Cognition
• Social Perception
• Attribution
• Communication
• Autonomy, temperament
and personality
 SOCIAL COGNITION
The way in which we interpret, analyze,
remember and use information about
social world to make judgments and
decisions

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 CATEGORIZATION CREATURES
• Social categorization
– The process of forming categories of people
based on their common attributes
• Prototype
– The most representative member of category
• Stereotype
– Assume a correlations between a person’s
group membership and their characteristics

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THE GOALS OF SOCIAL COGNITION
• People want to find the right answer to
some problems or question.
– e.g. what the best thing to do
• To confirm the desired answer to a
problem
– e.g. they are not responsible for some
particular disaster
• To reach a pretty good answer or
decision quickly
– e.g. choose the best book
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 CONSERVING MENTAL EFFORT
The Complex, The Limited
Information- Rich Human Attentional
Social World Capacity

Goal of Conserving
Mental Effort

Simplification Strategies
Expectations
Dispositional Inferences
Other Cognitive Shortcut:
Representative Heuristic
Availability Heuristic
Anchoring & Adjustment Heuristic

Figure 2.1: Keeping it simple

The information-rich social environment, together with our limited attentional
resources, creates the need for simplifying, low effort cognitive strategies that
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nonetheless let us form impressions and make decision that are good enough
 EXPECTATION
• What we may expect from the people and
situations around us may help us to
understand the people and events around
us.

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 DISPOSITIONAL INFERENCE

• The judgment that a person’s

behavior has been caused by an
aspect of that person’s personality

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 REPRESENTATIVENESS
HEURISTIC

• A mental shortcut through which people

classify something as belonging to a
certain category to the extent that it is
similar to a typical case from that category

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 Availability Heuristic
• A mental shortcut through which one
estimates the likelihood of an event by
the ease with which instances of that
event come to mind

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 Anchoring and adjustment
heuristics
• A mental shortcut through which people
begin with a rough estimation as starting
point and then adjust this estimate to take
into account unique characteristics of the
present situation.

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 SCHEMAS
• Knowledge structures that represent
substantial information about concept,
its attributes, and its relationships to
other concepts
e.g. Professor: role, research process,
attributes
• It affect what information we notice
and later remember

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 SCHEMAS
• Gender schema
- A cognitive structure for processing
information based on its perceived female or
male qualities
• Script
- A schema that describe how a series of
events is likely to occur in a well known
situation, and that is used as a guide for
behavior and problem solving
- e.g. attending class, eating dinner at
restaurant
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 1. Hostess greet 2. Hostess 3. Person pays 4. Person orders
person seats person for food food from waiter

5. A person enters 6. Person looks at 7. Person leaves 8. Person eats

a restaurant menu restaurant food

One example of a script is a restaurant script.

Try putting the frames above in the correct order
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 SCHEMAS

2 types of schemas
applied to people

IMPLICIT PERSONALITY
THEORY STEREOTYPES
Assumptions or naive belief -Influence how we process
systems people make about and interpret information
which personality traits and
behaviors go together

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 SCHEMAS

• Priming
-The process by which recent
experiences increase the accessibility of
a scheme, trait or concept
• Framing
-whether messages stress potential gains
(positively framed) or potential losses
(negatively framed)

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 Social Perception

• The study of how we form

impressions of and make
inferences about other people
• Impression formation is a process
of organizing diverse information
into a unified impression of other
person
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 Social Perception

• Information about other people

comes from various sources:
e.g. reading, third party,
witness from afar, interact
directly

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ATTRIBUTIONS

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 ATTRIBUTION
The process by which people use information to
make inferences about the causes of behavior or
events

INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION

An attribution that locates the
cause of event to factors
internal to the person, such as
personality traits, moods,
attitudes, abilities, or effort
An attribution that locates the
cause of an event to factors
external to the person, such
as luck, or other people,
or the situation

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 ATTRIBUTES
• Bernard Weiner (1971) proposed a two
dimensional theory of attributions for success and
failure.
Internal External
Ability Task
Stable

Difficulty
Unstable

Effort Luck

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 THE COVARIATION MODEL
• Covariation principle
- for something to be the cause of a behavior,
it must be present when the behavior occurs
and absent when the behavior does not occur
• Consencus information
- Information about the extent to which other
people behave the same way toward the
same stimulus as the actor does

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 THE COVARIATION MODEL
• Distinctivesness information
- Information about the extents to which one
particular actor behaves in the same way to
different stimuli
• Consistency Information
- Information about the extent to which the
behavior between one actor and one stimulus
is the same across time and circumtances

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Table 2.1: Kelley’s attribution cube, in which attributions are based on three
dimensions (hence the term cube): consensus, consistency and distinctiveness

Consensus Consistency Distinctiveness Attribution

High High High External

(Everyone kicks (Joe always kicks (Joe doesn't kick (Fido is a vicious
Fido) Fido) any other dogs, dog)
only Fido)
Low High Low Internal
(Only Joe (Joe always (Joe kicks all (Joe is a
kicksFido) kicksFido) dogs) viciousperson
who kicksdogs)
Low Low(Joes High(Joe doesn't Ambiguous
(Only Joe sometimeskicks kick anyother (Not sure whether
kicksFido) Fido) dogs, only Fido) it is something
about Joe or
somithing about
Fido)
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 BIASESS IN THE
ATTRIBUTION PROCESS

• Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate the extent
to which people’s behavior is due to
internal, dispositional factors and to
underestimate the role of situational
factors

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• Perceptual Salience
The seeming importance of
information that is the focus of
people’s attention

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Figure 2.2: This is the setting arrangement for two actors and the six
research participants in the Taylor and Fiske study. Participants rated
each actor’s impact on the conversation. Researches found that
people rated the actor they could see most clearly as having the
largest role in the conversation
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• The two-Step process of Making
Attributions
Analyzing another person’s behavior
first by making an automatic internal
attribution and only then thinking
about possible situational reasons
for the behavior, after which one
may adjust the original internal
contribution

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Figure 2.3 : The two-steps process of attribution
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• Actor-Observer Difference
Is the qualification of the
fundamental error
The tendency to see other people’s
behavior as dispositionally caused
but focusing more on the role of
situational factors when explaining
one’s own behavior

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 COMMUNICATION
• that communication consists of
transmitting information from one person
to another

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 COMMUNICATION

There are three major parts in human

face to face communication which are
body language, voice tonality, and
words.
According to the research:
– 55% of impact is determined by body
language—postures, gestures, and eye
contact,
– 38% by the tone of voice, and
– 7% by the content or the words
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 VERBAL COMMUNICATION

• A dialogue is a reciprocal conversation

between two or more entities.

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 Nonverbal
Communication

• The way in which people communicate

intentionally or unintentionally, without
words
• Nonverbal cues include facial expression,
tone of voice, gesture, body position and
movement, the use of touch and gaze

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• The primary use of nonverbal
behavior
– Expressing emotion (I’m angry-eyes narrow,
eyebrows lower, stare intently)
– Conveying attitudes (I like you- smiles,
extended eye contact)
– Communicating one’s personality (I’m going –
broad gesture, an energetic tone of voice)
– Facilitating verbal communication (lower voice
and look away as you finish your sentence)

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 Anger Fear Disgusting

Happiness Surprise sadness

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AUTONOMY

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 AUTONOMY
• In Greek, the word nomos meaning “law”,
i.e. one who gives oneself his/her own
law is the right to self-government.
– Self-government with respect to local or
internal affairs: granted autonomy to a
national minority
• Autonomy is a concept found in moral,
political and bioethical philosophy

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 AUTONOMY
• A person who is independence is said
to have the quality of being
autonomous
• An autonomous person is also said to
have self-determination or the right of
the self-government

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 WHAT IS AUTONOMY?
AUTONOMY REFERS TO THE
CAPACITY OF A RATIONAL
INDIVIDUAL TO MAKE AN
INFORMED, UNCOERCED
DECISION

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 AUTONOMY

• Autonomy means that each

person should be given the
respect, time and opportunity
necessary to make his or her
own decision

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• The word autonomy has several
usages in philosophical contexts

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• In ethics, autonomy refers to a person’s
capacity for self-determination in the
context of moral choices
- Kant argued that autonomy is demonstrated
by a person who decides on a course of
action out of respect for moral duty
- That is, an autonomous person acts morally
solely for the sake of doing “good”,
independently of other incentives
- In metaphysical philosophy, the concept of
autonomy is referenced in discussions about
free will, fatalism, determinism and agency
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 Restrictions on autonomy
• Autonomy can be, and usually is to one
extent or another, waived to another
authority, such as by agreeing to follow
governing laws
• The action available to an autonomous
unit can be restricted by a more powerful
authority, such as when a cattlemen sets a
fence around his herd, or court sentences
a criminal to prison

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 Restrictions on autonomy

• The decisions of an autonomous unit

can be coerced, and its action forced
• Autonomy can be restricted through
the aspect of the ability to act, as in
the case of a newborn or through the
aspect of the ability to decide as in
the case of person in a coma

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What is the principle of autonomy?
• The principle of autonomy has come to
occupy a preeminent position in healthcare in
only the last two generations.
• This principle may be formulated in the
following way:
- A person should be free to perform whatever
action he/she wishes, regardless of risks or
foolishness as perceived by others, provided
it does not impinge on the autonomy of others
This principle gives ultimate control (self-governance)
for a moral action to the agent who is making the
decision to perform the action

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How does the principle of autonomy
relate the notion of patient dignity?
• Autonomy is a principle of moral
empowerment and places the
responsibility for the consequences of
an action on moral agents themselves
• Someone acting on the principle of
autonomy cannot legitimately blame
another for adverse consequences

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How does the principle of autonomy relate the notion
of patient dignity?

• Taking responsibility for one’s

actions is a central feature of
personal dignity
• The perceptions of others are not
sufficient warrant to stop an
autonomous action

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 ISSUES OF AUTONOMY
SOCIAL EVOLUTION QUESTION

Can social psychology help humanity to

understand and adjust to the current
human and environmental challenges?

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 WHAT IS TEMPERAMENT?

TEMPERAMANT is the patterns of

arousal and emotionality that are
consistent and enduring
characteristics of an individual

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 WHAT IS TEMPERAMENT
• Individual differences in human
motivation and emotion that appear
early in life, usually thought to be
biological in origin.
• Temperament is sometimes considered
the biological or physiological
component of personality, which refers
to the sum total of the physical,
emotional, mental, spiritual, and social
dimensions of an individual. 50
 TEMPERAMENT

• Temperament refers to how

children behave
• Temperamental differences
among infants appear from the
time of birth
• Temperament shows stability
from infancy through
adolescence
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GENETICS AND ENVIRONMENT IN
TEMPERAMENT
Genetic Influences •Responsible for about half
of individual differences
•Ethnicity, gender

Environmental Influences •Cultural caregiving

•Boys & girls treated
differently
•Parents emphasize sibling
differences
Goodness of Fit •Combines genetic and
environements

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 Thomas and Chess found that
children could be rated on each of
nine dimensions even in infancy:
• Activity level: The child's general level of
energy and movement—whether he or she
is quiet, always "on the go," or somewhere
in-between.
• Rhythmicity: The child's regular biological
patterns of appetite and sleep—whether
the child gets hungry or tired at predictable
times.
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• Approach/withdrawal: The child's usual
response to new people or situations—
whether the child is eager for new
experiences or shy and hesitant.

• Adaptability: The child's ability and

pace in adjusting to changes in
schedules or transitions from one
activity to another.

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• Threshold of responsiveness: The child's
level of sensitivity to such physical stimuli as
sounds, smells, and lights. For example,
some children are easily startled by sudden
noises while others are less sensitive to
them. Some children are pickier about food
than others.
• Intensity: The child's responses to people or
events. Some children react strongly and
loudly to even minor events while others are
less demonstrative or openly emotional.

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• Quality of mood: The child's overall
worldview, whether positive or
negative. Some children tend to focus
on the negative aspects of a situation
while others are more positive or
hopeful. Some children tend to
approach life in a serious or analytical
fashion while others respond to their
immediate impressions of situations.

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• Distractibility: The child's ability to pay
attention to tasks or instructions even
when the child is not particularly
interested in them. Some children
have shorter attention spans than
others.
• Persistence: The child's ability to
continue with an activity in the face of
obstacles or problems. Some children
are more easily discouraged by
difficulties than others.
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 THREE TEMPERAMENT
PATTERNS
• Easy children: About 40 percent of the
NYLS sample displayed a
temperamental profile marked by
regularity, ease of approach to new
stimuli, adaptability to change, mild to
moderate mood intensity, and a
generally positive mood. This profile
characterizes what Thomas and Chess
call the easy child.
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• Difficult children: About 10 percent of
children showed a very different profile
and were called difficult children. They
had irregular patterns of eating and
sleeping, withdrew from new stimuli,
did not adapt easily to change, and
reacted intensely to changes. Their
overall mood was often negative.

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• Slow-to-adapt children: Children who
were slow to warm up comprised the
third temperamental group, about 15
percent of Thomas and Chess's
sample. These children tended to
withdraw from new stimuli and had
difficulty adapting to change, but their
reactions were of mild intensity and
gradually became either neutral or
positive with repeated exposures to
the new event or person
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PERSONALITY

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DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY
Patterns of behavior, thoughts
and emotions unique to an
individual and the way they
interact to help or hinder the
adjustment of a person to other
people and situation

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 DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY

• Personality refers to
- Your likes
- Your dislikes
- Your fears and virtues
- Your strengths and weakness

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 DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY

• Personality usually refers to the

distinctive patterns of behavior
(including thoughts & emotions)
that characterize each
individual’s adaptation to the
situations of his or her life
(Mischel, 1976)
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 DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY

• PERSONALITY is a dynamic
organization, inside the person
of psychophysical systems that
create a person’s characteristics
pattern of behavior, thoughts
and feelings
(Carver & Scheier, 2000)

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Carver & Scheier’s Definition on
Personality
• Dynamic Organization
Suggest on going readjustment,
adaptations to experience, continual
upgrading and maintaining of self
Personality doesn’t just lie there –but
has process and it’s organized

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• Inside the person
Suggest internal storage of patterns,
supporting the notion that
personality influences behaviors,
etc.
• Psychophysical
The pyhsical is “who we are”

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• Characteristics Patterns
Implies that consistency/continuity which
are unique to each individual
• Behavior, Thoughts & Feeling
Indicate that personality includes a wide
range of psychological
experience/manifestation, i.e, personality
is displayed MANY ways

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