January 24th, 2000

Began class with an impression formation exercise:

Take 1-2 minutes to form an impression about somebody seated near you in this class (should be individual you do not already know)

After you form this impression, please rate this person on the following items using a 7 point scale:

Unintelligent-------Intelligent

Unfriendly----------Friendly

Dishonest-----------Honest

Unambitious--------Ambitious

Naïve----------------Wordly

Only one person in the class felt that they could learn nothing about someone else’s personality characteristics by looking only at their appearance (evidenced by rating all 4’s). In fact, a lot of people made fairly extreme ratings.

Social Psychologists:

Interested in how people make inferences about things they can’t see (personality characteristics) from things they can see (appearance).

All of us are “naïve psychologists.” That is, we use our naïve theories about the relationship between personality and appearance, for example, to make inferences about other people every day.

Problem with naïve theories:

For example, let’s say that you infer that someone is unfriendly. In reality, you don’t really test your inference. Instead, you might simply:

a) Ignore the person OR

b) Act unfriendly to them, and when they respond similarly, then you assume your theory is correct.

Historically, social psychologists were trying to demonstrate who was GOOD or BAD at person perception.

Cronbach: Wrote critique saying that being accurate in person perception is a function of many things not having to do with skill. For example, some people may be accurate at assessing the personality of another who is LIKE THEM, but is that a SKILL or just a function of thinking that others who are similar to you are like you?

Most likely, person perception is not just one skill!

More currently, social psychologists have decided to focus on cues and processes involved in person perception.

Cues

CLOTHING:

Various findings--

1) Have had various items of clothing showed to people and have asked them “what type of person would wear each article?” Find that people infer a lot about the person who would wear each type of clothing.

2) Candidates on job interviews are more likely to be hired if well dressed.

3) People have gotten significantly more signatures on a petition at a supermarket if they are dressed nicely as compared to in the “grunge” style. However, at an anti-government rally, you find that those dressed in the “grunge” look are able to get more people to sign their petition.

4) BIRGing--Basking in Reflected Glory--wanting to associate oneself with a successful group or individual:

eg. When Purdue has a major athletic victory over the weekend, people are more likely to associate themselves with the school by wearing Purdue attire on Monday

You hear people saying things like “They lost” but “WE won”

HEIGHT:

Various findings---

1) Taller people are accorded more status and positive attributes

72% of job recruiters said they would hire the taller of two equally qualified male candidates for a position

2) Taller people also get higher salaries

3) In the last century, the taller presidential candidate has won the presidential election every time but one

Not only are taller people seen as more virtuous, VIRTUOUS PEOPLE ARE SEEN AS TALLER!

PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS:

1) If one is better looking, he/she is also seen as having overall more positive traits (except seen as worse at parenting). “Halo effect”

2) Correlation between attractiveness of females as rated by judges and the number of dates the females report .61

3) Correlation between attractiveness of female and a male’s report of whether they intend to date the female again .89

4) Computer dance study:

People believe they are matched with people who are similar to them on many characteristics, but in reality, they are randomly paired with someone with whom they go to a dance.

The best predictor of whether a second date occurs between the couple is the female’s physical attractiveness as rated by an experimental assistant.

Guys report that “good looks” is only #12 on their list of important qualities.

GOING BEYOND WHAT IS KNOWN---see overhead

Simple Associations can follow from Systematic Judgments OR Systematic Judgments can follow from Simple Associations

Correction: Sometimes if you’re aware of a bias (as a simple association may provide), you can avoid using it if:

1) You’re aware of the bias

2) You’re motivated to overcome it

3) You’re able to correct for it (capacity)