Social Psychology - Social Judgement & Biases

Question:

Please talk about ways in which context can affect social judgment. Any examples?
Also, what are some biases in social explanation? How can these affect work within the mental health field?


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Answer:

Some biases in social explanation are:

a) The Fundamental Attribution Error -human tendency to overestimate the importance of personality or dispositional factors relative to situational or environmental influences when describing and explaining the causes of social behaviour. We frequently lose sight that individuals play many social roles and we are often only observing one of them.

b) The actor-observer bias -the tendency for actors to attribute their own actions to situational factors, whereas observers tend to attribute the same actions to stable personality dispositions of the actors. I give myself the benefit of the doubt and use situational causes to explain myself, but I don't give you the same benefit, when I try to explain your behaviour, I make the fundamental attribution error.

c) Self Biases -the includes egocentric thought and self serving biases. Most of us see the world through our own eyes and it is very difficult for us to see ourselves through the eyes of others -we imagine they see us the way we see ourselves.

How can these affect work within the mental health field?
Remember, when people are recounting their situation the reality may not always be as it seems to them. They are the center, they are impacted, however discerning truth and fact for an event is important and not always easy. (I am thinking of a couple working thru the issue of having a one night stand whilst on a business trip. Finding the 'truth' can be difficult as it is often a challenge seeing the situation from another's perspective) People rank themselves better and more positively than others do, believing that they are better than average. Therefore as clinicians it is vital keep this in mind.


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Another Answer :

#1 Ways in which context can affect social judgment & real world example

a. Comparison of alternatives – contrast effect: the tendency to perceive an object better or worse than it is, relative to what it is compared with. E.g. In order to sell a particular microwave model, GE manufactured an extremely pricy model with similar functionalities in parallel to the target model. The target model sells extremely well because it is relatively economical than the pricy version.


b. Priming effects – Prior exposure to an idea influences the judgment made in social contexts. E.g. Professional financial traders who are exposed to market risk on a daily basis (priming effect) are more risk adverse in managing personal finances than others who have less exposure.


c. Framing the option in a way that seems to represent the potential for a loss or for a gain. E.g. Gym membership is always pitched to you emphasizing how much one will benefit from the exercise/ gym facilities, but always delay as much as possible to tell you how much it costs during face-to-face session.


d. The way and order of information is presented – primacy effect (information that is presented first register more effectively in memory); diluting effect (neutral, irrelevant information tends to weaken a judgment of impression). E.g. Keynote speech is always presented at the beginning of any conferences to take advantage of the primacy effect. The more speeches are packed in a one-day conference, the less the audience remembers the keynote speech (diluting effect).



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Four key aspects
1) Comparable Alternatives
An object that is compared with another, either for better or worse.
Example: In Hong Kong, we always see the slimming centres that contrast obesed women with really slim and sexy women. I wonder whether the latter images are from the same source.

2) Situations that prime thoughts
Prior thinking, beliefs and ideas that are used most of the time (exposure) are used to interprete social events.

Example: In Hong Kong, the pace of life is very fast because many of the over-population. Hence, this shape the way how hong kong people live. They want things fast. Everything is fast, fast , fast.

3) Process of decision-framing
Decision making is based upon either a profit or a deficit. In general, people want profits.
Example: A supermarket in Hong Kong would sell itself in a way that customers (portrayed by a kid that has no buying power) can earn money even when they are shopping in the supermarket. Actually, it is more of "saving money", after all, the supermarket wouldn't give you money if you don't spend them. But the advertisement is successful in way that presents the situation that you are earning money while shopping.

4) Presentation of Information
How we interprete the social world is in the way the information is displayed in terms of what's revealed first as well as how much the information is shown.
Example: In the evening news, the major events will be broadcasted first by the reporter while the rest of them (less important), will be later. After watching the major news, I tend to change channels after that...

The gyms usually offer free passes as a way to lure you to their premise where we get slaughtered to sign up for membership.

However, some people might see "free" as in a bonus or gain. While others might thinkg "free" is cheap. (Lower Quality)

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Another Answer:
Four different aspects of the social context are discussed, which affects our social judgment.

a) When we do the evaluation of an object, we usually compare the appearance, the price, the quality and etc. The judgment depends on what we have recently been exposed to. It is called the contrast effect. It seems that the majority of outstanding salesmen knows this trick. When they observe a customer still in hesitation, they will present anther product which are inferior in order to increase the tendency to buy the previous one.


b) The priming effect is taken place when recent ideas and events on our minds become prominent and affect our interpretation of the situation. It is well applied to the election in a democratic society. All candidates try to get maximum exposure in the media and persuade civilians to vote for them.


c) People tend not to choose an option that represents the potential for a loss. Framing the question imposes an enormous difference in decision. It is called decision framing. It is the general publicity technique that Government usually adopt when introducing new policy. The officers will frame the policy in a way that represents the potential gain, rather than the potential loss.


d) The order of information also influences how we organize and interpret the social world. In a debate, both teams strike to appear first to have first decisive impact to the judges.


e) Due to the limitation of our cognitive effort, we may adopt a mental shortcut. It is called judgmental heuristics. When a gentleman wears a black suit, we think that he is rich and successful. You have to pay more for a product with good quality. (Representativeness heuristic)

Framing is a tactic that is used widely to mislead many people on a profound economic issue and lifetime decision, i.e. to buy an apartment or rent. Realtor equates the amount of money you spend on rent to the mortgage you pay for an apt. As they claim, instead of dumping the money into the sea (renting), you get an apartment that can USUALLY sell more than you pay. But the flip side is that you are actually borrowing a huge loan (with significant interest) that you will need to pay back in twenty-year time, while the potential loss is never mentioned (what if the housing price plummet?)


I have heard of tricks used by property agents in countries like Hong Kong. When they are going to introduce a flat, they will show you the worst one in first, in which you have to invest a lot for renovation before you can move in. Then they will lead you to a better one that make more sense, and finally they will show you the most appropriate one that fits your criteria. And most likely, people will compare the value of those offers and go for the last one. I think it both applies to the contrast effect and order of information that prone to decision making.

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Another Answer:

Some possible biases are:

The Fundamental Attribution Error - we tend to explain and view a particular behavior of an individual by dispositional factors, such as personality, attribution and abilities rather than situational factors. Therefore, we focus on the internal factor on a person more than his/her external situation.

The Actor-Observer Bias - the tendency of an individual to attribute actions of himself by external factors such as situational influence, and attribute actions by others as internal factors such as personality dispositions. For example, when someone yelled to you, will you think that he was a nice person facing hard time (external factors) occasionally? Or you will assume that he was a rude guy (internal factor). In a reversed situation you were rude to someone else, you would not say that this is your character (internal factor) but because of having a bad day with boss (external factor). When we are playing the role of observer, we tend to explain the behavior in terms of the actor's personality. When we are thinking about ourselves, we will put ourselves in the actor's position to explain behaviors in terms of situation. In a sense, we are trying to persuade ourselves that we are doing right.

The Self-Biases –

Egocentric Thought: The thought is subjective and perception-dominated. We believed that we are the center of universe that means we are responsible for everything happened around us. In a sense, we overestimated the effect of our action upon incidents.

Self-serving Bias: The tendency to take credit for success explained by dispositional attributions, and denies any failure explained by situational attributions. Obviously, we encounter this bias often, in order to protect our ego.

On the one hand, Michelle's explanation noticed the point that when we are doing clinical interruption, there will be a temptation that we will use our interpretation to judge the behavior of the client in terms of our moral standard or we will expect the outcome of a client's decision by our own experience. When we are not agree with the client's belief, we tend to ignore the social context and situational factors that lead the client to make such decision. For example, when a client mentioned that she was in an affair with a married man for many years and felt very frustrated, we may assume that it is not moral and hope that she can get rid of the situation. We may assign tasks to "help" her for making a so-called right decision. However, there will be situational factors for keeping her to stay with the relationship. As a clinican, we have to be neutral in handling sensitive cases. We are not the judge to determine what is the best choice for her.

On the other hand, self-biases can also apply to the mental health of chronic illness patient. If someone held an optimistic perception and believes that he will be cured, he will likely to get a better chance to recover from the illness. This has been documented by many research reports on cancer patients with positive mental outlook.

Just want to share a clip by Martin Seligman about positive psychology, see how we can shape a good life…


http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html