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On the first year anniversary of the Septemember 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centers in New York City, the New York Lottery drew its three digit number. What was it? You guessed it! 911. The Lottery made headlines nationwide in 2002.

A few months after "911," Flight 587 experienced mechanical difficulties and crashed in the Queens borough of New York City in November 12 of 2001. The New York Lottery's pick that day? 587.

Significant numbers of Americans believe that they have been abducted by aliens and then returned (nearly half the U.S. public in 2001 agrees or isn't sure that Unidentified Flying Objects--UFOs--are alien spacecraft) or that they have had "out of body experiences" (astral projection). Lest you think this is some peculiarity of Western civilizations, consider the tape of Osama Bin Laden, released in late 2001: in this tape, Bin Laden and his associates called upon dreams of soccer players and pilots, and omens, to explain why Jihad would triumph. There is both an Eastern Zodiac (based on year) and a Western Zodiac (based on date).When it comes to "why people believe wierd things," it is clear that the playing field is ecumenical.

Enough people appear to cite the "alien abduction" stories and believe in out of body experiences that cognitive scientists doubt that these are deliberate hoaxes. Rather the belief is that common human proclivities for social cognition, combined with neurological anomalies, are responsible. In author Michael Shermer's online "E-Skeptic" column, Paul M. Amore writes

"The human mind has a remarkable capacity for pattern recognition. In his book Why People Believe Weird Things, arch-skeptic Michael Shermer speculates very reasonably--that pattern recognition improved our evolutionary ancestors' survivability. A Homo Erectus, for example, who associated sudden loud noises with imminent danger was more likely to add his pattern recognition genes to subsequent Homo Erectus generations. Of course, not every sudden loud noise is accompanied by a charging mastodon or a falling boulder. But in an environment where false negatives may be deadly and false positives are usually costless, the evolutionary pressure on the human mind to overcompensate is unavoidable. As a result, humanity is hardwired to spot images of Jesus in burnt tortillas and messages from God in lottery drawings."

Welcome to the area of social cognition! Where paranormal beliefs are "normal" and misperceptions abound! We are the "original reconstructionists," if you like (although most of us DO believe an objective reality exists out there--somewhere).

A BRIEF HISTORY

The field of social cogniton is enormous. To render it more manageable, let's divide these topics into more cognitive (beliefs and impression formation); affective (feelings, emotions, evaluation--the universal core of attitude) and conative (action oriented). That way, we can address perception separate from affect (although the two intertwine), and both separately from what has been called the "attitude-action" dilemma.

For example, cognitive components would include your estimates (how risky is playing the Florida Lottery?) and reasoning (what makes for a better scientific study?) Affective dimensions would address attitudes (how do you really feel about jury duty?). And conative components address what you should or will do about the topic (throw the jury summons in the basket, buy a Lottery ticket).

Cognitive and affective dimensions intertwine. For example, the more accurate the information that people hold about elementary science phenomena (does the earth go around the sun--or vice versa?), the more favorable they are toward science and scientists. And, as we will see later, people attempt to make attitudes and actions consistent, when the situations allow.

The cognitive approach has become preeminent in the social and behavioral sciences. It surpassed the earlier strict behaviorist or reinforcement oriented approaches that dominated the early twentieth century to about the mid-1950s. Strict behaviorists sidestepped the cognitive, partly because they felt it was unobservable and unmeasurable, and partly because they felt it was unnecessary, i.e., given that rewards and punishments primarily governed behavior, the "ghosts in the machine" of affect and cognition might be "interesting" but were unnecessary to study.

Three psychologists working in the 1940s and 1950s significantly influenced behavioral science to change these perspectives. Psychologist Edward Tolman saw people (and animals) operating through "mental maps." He saw cognitive plans for actionas explaining the initiative and originality that strict reinforcement theorists had difficulty explaining. (I will add that Tolman was vilified by more reinforcement-oriented psychologists for years.) Gestalt phenomonologistFritz Heider was fascinated by how people attribute causality for events and the importance of causal attributions for people's plans for social action.Kurt Lewin, working in the fledgling field of group dynamics, saw people "navigating" in a planned way from one "field of forces" to another. His perspective of "person-in-situation" is one that dominates the field of social psychology to this day.

Meanwhile, in sociology, the school of symbolic interactionism had been industriously working since the early part of the twentieth century. Although he considered himself a "social behaviorist," philosopher George Herbert Mead felt that humans were creatures of symbol, communication and meaning. Charles Horton Cooley emphasized social cognition in forming the self-concept. Thomas and Znaniecki, in their classic The Polish Peasant in Europe and America introduced the idea that things that "appeared real" were real in their consequences.

By the 1950s, the strict reinforcement approach was "running out of steam." One of its most famous practitioners, Clark Hull, had originally created a formula that behavior was a multiplicative product of "drive" and "habit strength." As newer and more cognitive models arose, Hull kept trying to graft constructs from these models into his simple formula. This resulted in a piecemeal patchwork of imprecisely measured mathematical terms and no increased rigor in explanation. Newer learning theorists, such as Albert Bandura's work in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s integrated cognitive aspects (plans, imitation, reasoning) into their behavioral models.
 

The information processing model or "naive scientist"approach has dominated this research for over 40 years, replacing earlier, less useful attempts to characterize "accurate perceivers". The few remnants of research related to the “accurate perceiver” approach include detecting lies, eyewitness identification, “flashbulb memories”, and “false memory syndrome”. Unfortunately study results from all of these areas indicate that most of us are inaccurate perceivers! (However, we do a better job over the telephone where there are fewer distracting clues than we do in-person. Trying to ascertain the honesty of your favorite politician? Try closing your eyes and listening to voice pitch, inflection, flatness, vocal strength, etc.)

The "naive scientist" approach portrays people as somewhat curious yet also cognitively lazy, using short-cuts in information processing (heuristics) to categorize others and social events. One example is Susan Fiske's model of impression formation. Laypeople are less systematic than 'scientists'. For example, perceivers are "agenda scholars" who typically gather selective information to "prove" or confirm our prior beliefs (just like journalists or lawyers).  We rely more heavily than scientists do on primacy effects(first impressions), schemaandprototypes, implicit personality theories, consistency, social scripts, or second-hand informationfrom others to draw conclusions. Implicit in all of these terms is the assumption that certain characteristics cluster or "hang together." For example, we typically believe that those who are intelligent are also logical and objective or that people who are physically attractive are also more successful. This idea is related to cognitive consistency theories which I explore below.

Stereotypes are a special rigid prototype applied to large social groups which rank the group in a social hierarchy or stratification system. It is this stratification or ranking of an entire group that makes stereotypes more suspect than other kinds of social categorizing systems. Cognitive consistency approaches are prominent in this area. Cognitive consistency is culturally specific, i.e., it refers to what members of a culture or subculture consider logically related, not what may truly be the case. Affect plays a large role in cognitive consistency, because entities that have the same affective valence (both strongly positive, for example) tend to cluster together. Thus, we are addressing a "psychologic" when we examine cognitive consistency.

Issues in cognitive consistency are a recurring theme in social psychology and collectively are one of the large "mid-range" theories we have. For example, it appears in "exchange theories," largely reinforcement driven, to determine when people are satisfied with a social situation and when they seek to change it.

One example of a cognitive consistency subfield that has generated several thousand studies is the impact of physical appearance on impression formation. Findings reflect cognitive consistency ("what is beautiful is good") and sampling information (physical appearance provides a primacy effect anchor to interpret and assimilatelater information). We probably combine information using some kind of weighted averaging process to form impressions. Worse yet, physically attractive people may, in fact, be more successful and even nicer too because life has generally been kinder to them. This means the creation of a self-fulfilling prophecy. By treating individuals better, who conform more closely to a society's norms of beauty, we create more successful and nicer individuals, therefore confirming the original stereotype.

Of course, self-fulfilling prophecies occur in plenty of other situations. Picture the child who is the younger sibling of the town dunce. Teachers expect little of this child, assuming that he or she is "stupid in the family tradition." They don't call upon the child or offer any extra help. As a result--guess what? The child ends up performing poorly and confirming the original stereotypes. Conversely, consider the "office wunderkind," who because of his or her alleged superior ability, receives released time, special favors, extra travel money, etc. To no one's surprise, this individual will often perform better than her or his peers.
 

Distal or "veridical" reality is the objective world that no one perceives directly. An easy example is our physical limitations. Variations in eyesight, hearing, touch or smell influence what we perceive. But social forces have an impact too. By the time we "see" or "hear" (proximal reality), social encoding has occurred. Eyewitness identification research demonstrates the many inaccuracies that occur at this stage.  We also impute meaning and interpretation to reality (this is called the percept).

Because we are so sure of what we "have seen" or "heard," it is hard to convince people that "the evidence of their senses" has a strong construction component.

For example, our family now suspects that my mother has had hearing problems for several decades. She received hearing aids last summer but is uncomfortable wearing them. Why? Ironically, not because they do not work, but because they work too well! For example, there is a very slight delay after we speak when the sound of our own voice strikes our ears. Virtually all of us "have learned" to adjust for this delay, but when one's hearing is restored after a relatively silent period of time, we hear this delay as a distracting echo. We learn to "block out" background noise (e.g., conversation from a nearby table at a restaurant or our own chewing) so that we literally "do not hear it." When learning to hear again, we must learn which sounds to accentuate and which to ignore.

Attribution is a very special percept about assigning cause to people or events. As observers, we tend to locate the causes of behavior in actors (as actors, however, we attribute cause to the environment)--this is the fundamental attribution error. A special attribution is the correspondent inferencein which we link behaviors directly to personal traits in an actor (e.g., "Gary gossips because he is cruel").

Intention (motive), ability,luck, and task difficulty are important dimensions in assigning causes of success and failure. These dimensions are formed by combinations of (1) stability versus volitility and(2) internal or external control.

People with high self-efficacy make strong, stable attributions about internal control. Think "I think I can" (or even: "I KNOW I can.")

Another set of attributions finds causality for success or failure in social factors, such as "greedy people" or "who you know" or divine intervention. Society may provide attributions about social groups to us by ideologies or stereotypes.

Consistency is important in assigning cause.We often examine consistency across situations, time, or others' opinions when forming impressions of people or events (the Kelley covariation, cube, or ANOVA model).

Attributions are critical for social events. How would your view of the World Trade Center 911 airplane crashes have differed if you believed they had been an accident rather than deliberate (even though the carnage would have been the same)? Motive distinguishes among "murder," "manslaughter" or even "culpable negligence." We do not view the event as the same if it is committed by someone "incapable" (e.g., mentally handicapped) versus someone supposedly proficient.
 

Social perception is a fascinating field, because, just as we form impressions of others, so, too, they form impressions of us. Further, we are aware when our person is under scrutiny and heightened awareness may cause us to self-monitor our own behavior. If our identity is threatened or otherwise made salient, we may become anxious and alter our behavior in many different ways. Thus, it is pertinent to include self-presentation strategies under social knowledge.

One of my personal favorite examples is a study now over 20 years old that was set on Halloween night. A sign on the door invited "trick or treating children" to:
 

(Of course, I would never allow my kid to do this!) Anyway, after entering the apparently empty front vestibule (an experimenter was hidden around the corner), the child found a table holding a bowl of wrapped candy. Another sign invited the children to:
 

Half the time, a mirror was over the bowl of candy. The other half of the time, the mirror was missing. Children who were able to self-monitor their own behavior by seeing themselves in the mirror were significantly more likely to take only one candy than the greedy children who had no such mirror in front of them.

At some point, most of us try to influence the impressions others hold of us. We use self-presentation and impression management tactics [IMPORTANT NOTE: these are not always 'phony'! Most of us use these on an on-going basis, for example, taking a shower before a date or job interview, SEE BELOW.] Usually we try to create a favorable impression.

What happens when you see photos of yourself? Are you recognizable? How about when you listen to a tape recording of your own voice?

You will recall the literature on "reactivity," "social desirability," and "evaluation apprehension" in the methods section. Who ever said that these were only artifacts of experimental and other sitations in which people knew their behavior was being studied? This type of self-conscious self-awareness occurs in many everyday situations, particularly in introductory situations, such as "first dates," job interviews, parties where you don't know anyone, etc.

Social occasions frame our presentations. We have scripts to use for our situated identities such as "job interview participant". Smooth interaction depends on all participants sharing similar meanings and definitions of the same event. [When you hold out your hand, I shake it, I don't lick it.] People who fail to follow social scripts in common situations (introductions, for example) either invite attributions about their competence (we don't expect children to be tactful) or about their underlying motives and characteristics (mean, vain, etc.). The failure to follow social scripts may increase correspondent inferences.

Some self-presentation tactics include self-disclosure (reciprocal, just enough but not too much, and more to women than to men), using props, and ingratiation. Ingratiation tactics are almost endless. Perhaps you appear to agree with others on important issues but disagree on trivia (opinion conformity). Careful flattery works (but do use a kernel of truth so that your flattery is believable). Selective self-enhancement (bragging) orself-deprecation (modesty) are also tactics. Goffman distinguishes front and back-stage regions (have you ever rehearsed facial expressions in your bathroom mirror?) in terms of which and how much information we disclose.

We may offer accounts that explain our behavior (usually to place ourselves in a better light). These are constructed histories of events from the viewpoint of participants. For example, in describing the break-up of a relationship, there are usually two distinct accounts, one from each participant. We may use justifications or disclaimers ("I just wasn't myself"). If we try to pressure others into roles, the tactic is called altercasting(the "group flunky" or "the smart one" in a family).

When self-presentation fails, people can become embarrassed. Under most "normal conditions," everyone in the social interaction cooperates to "save face" (we may make excuses for friends or even lie ["that's O.K., I always hated that vase"]).A spoiled identity may create stigma, or a permanent label of being socially incompetent, untrustworthy or even dangerous.

I place impression management with social perception in our readings because impression management tactics directly influence our perception of others. We may inaccurately detect lies or ingratiation. People often try to control facial expressions but forget body movements and voice pitch so we often detect lies better by telephone or audio-tape. Since most of us are often aware that others are perceiving us, this self-awareness may stimulate impression management efforts.

NOTE:  anxiety can produce some of the same physical and vocal cues as lying, so an actor may just be nervous. And, alas, some people are just good liars!
 

One school in social psychology believes that we learn to perceive ourselves the way we learn to perceive others. We don't even necessarily have any "special inside information" about the self.  We take our labels about the self from "reflected appraisals" or the feedback we receive from others, sometimes called "the looking glass self." For example, recall that people tend to treat attractive members of their culture better than unattractive ones. Probably as a result, the physically attractive do, in fact, tend to do well.

Symbolic interactionists, in fact, often argue that we must learn empathy towards others prior to self-knowledge. Vygotsky's work on language development and private speech supports such an "outside-in" perspective.

Certainly some research about pain tolerance, "hunger", or identifying our feelings supports the "outside--in" perspective and demonstrates the pervasiveness of encoding even on self-perception. For example, if I make your ethnic identity or gender salient, you can better withstand pain.

Note, however, that people do have private information which they may not publicly express (attitudes toward your boss, a chronic illness, unrequited love). In those cases, people do, indeed, have "private knowledge." Also recall that actors see the environment as the primary cause of their behavior while observers see the actors as the primary cause of their own behavior.

Feedback from others probably contributes to self-esteem, or the overall affective valence attached to the self as "good" or "bad." People who emerge from abusive families or who are in abusive marriages often suffer from problems with low self-esteem because these individuals receive relatively consistent negative feedback about themselves from significant others.

On the other hand, self-efficacy is more cognitive than affective,an internal assessment of one's abilities in relatively specific situations ("I know I can do well in math."). Individuals may have relatively high self-efficacy but at the same time, a low assessment of their social power, i.e., they feel they can accomplish a task but believe that social factors may prevent them from doing so. And, although people with high self-esteem may have generally higher levels of self-efficacy, recall that self-esteem is more general and self-efficacy is highly domain specific. Both are probably heavily influenced by feedback from others but also social comparison of others.

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Susan Carol Losh September 8 2002

Manhattan burning, September 11, 2001.