Accuracy in Social Perception: Criticisms, Controversies, Criteria, Components, and Cognitive Processes

The straw man effect: Partisan misrepresentation in natural language

Political discourse often seems divided not just by different preferences, but by entirely different representations of the debate. Are partisans able to accurately describe their opponents’ position, or do they instead generate unrepresentative “straw man” arguments? In this research we examined an (incentivized) political imitation game by asking partisans on both sides of the U.S. health care debate to describe the most common arguments for and against ObamaCare. We used natural language-processing algorithms to benchmark the biases and blind spots of our participants. Overall, partisans showed a limited ability to simulate their opponents’ perspective, or to distinguish genuine from imitation arguments. In general, imitations were less extreme than their genuine counterparts. Individual difference analyses suggest that political sophistication only improves the representations of one’s own side but not of an opponent’s side, exacerbating the straw man effect. Our findings suggest that false beliefs about partisan opponents may be pervasive.

Toward a Research Agenda for the Study of Situation Perceptions: A Variance Componential Framework

Situation perception represents the fulcrum of a “psychology of situations” because situation ratings are ubiquitous. However, no systematic research program exists so far, particularly because two competing traditions have not been integrated: Objectivist views stress situations’ consensually shared meanings (social reality), and subjectivist views idiosyncratic meanings (personal reality). A componential framework can disentangle social from personal reality in situation perceptions: When multiple perceivers (P) rate multiple situations (S) on multiple situation characteristics (C), variance in those ratings can be decomposed according to S × C, P × S, and P × C breakdowns. Six grand questions of situation perception research are spawned from these decompositions: complexity, similarity, assimilation, consensus, uniqueness, and accuracy. Analyses of real data are provided to exemplify our ideas, along with customizable R codes for all methods. A componential framework allows novel and unique insights into different questions surrounding situation perceptions and provides a coherent research agenda.

Normative and Distinctive Accuracy in Situation Perceptions

To what extent do people achieve accuracy in judging others’ situations? Based on interpersonal perception models, we propose that ex situ raters may attain accuracy by judging the psychological characteristics of a situation that in situ raters have experienced according to a normative and distinctive characteristics profile. Biesanz’ social accuracy model (SAM) provides a flexible crossed-effects random coefficient modeling framework that can be applied to situation perception data. By targeting characteristics profiles with the analytical unit of the ex situ rater-situation dyad, the extent of and variation in normative and distinctive accuracy of ex situ raters can be estimated and explained by personality correlates to quantify “the good ex situ rater.” We demonstrate an SAM approach to situational accuracy with real in situ and ex situ data (402 ex situ raters judged 10 situations on 8 characteristics) and sketch future research.

Real Men Don’t Say “Cute”

People associate certain behaviors with certain social groups. These stereotypical beliefs consist of both accurate and inaccurate associations. Using large-scale, data-driven methods with social media as a context, we isolate stereotypes by using verbal expression. Across four social categories—gender, age, education level, and political orientation—we identify words and phrases that lead people to incorrectly guess the social category of the writer. Although raters often correctly categorize authors, they overestimate the importance of some stereotype-congruent signal. Findings suggest that data-driven approaches might be a valuable and ecologically valid tool for identifying even subtle aspects of stereotypes and highlighting the facets that are exaggerated or misapplied.

Principles of Situation Research: Towards a Better Understanding of Psychological Situations

There is currently no consensus on how to study psychological situations, and situation research is still riddled with problems of conceptualization (what is a situation and what is it not?) and measurement (how can situational information be assessed?). This target article formulates three core principles (with corollaries) to provide a foundation for psychological situation research: the Processing, Reality and Circularity Principles. These principles build upon each other, ranging from basic to more complex issues (e.g. how to study situations in both objective and subjective terms). They are intended to guide and spur more coherent research programs that produce cumulative knowledge on psychological situations. We conclude with a plea for real–life, multi–method, multi–situation, multi–time, multi–group designs that can illuminate the interwoven dynamics between persons (with their personalities and behaviour) and situations. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology

Prospects for direct social perception: a multi-theoretical integration to further the science of social cognition

In this paper we suggest that differing approaches to the science of social cognition mirror the arguments between radical embodied and traditional approaches to cognition. We contrast the use in social cognition of theoretical inference and mental simulation mechanisms with approaches emphasizing a direct perception of others’ mental states. We build from a recent integrative framework unifying these divergent perspectives through the use of dual-process theory and supporting social neuroscience research. Our elaboration considers two complementary notions of direct perception: one primarily stemming from ecological psychology and the other from enactive cognition theory. We use this as the foundation from which to offer an account of the informational basis for social information and assert a set of research propositions to further the science of social cognition. In doing so, we point out how perception of the minds of others can be supported in some cases by lawful information, supporting direct perception of social affordances and perhaps, mental states, and in other cases by cues that support indirect perceptual inference. Our goal is to extend accounts of social cognition by integrating advances across disciplines to provide a multi-level and multi-theoretic description that can advance this field and offer a means through which to reconcile radical embodied and traditional approaches to cognitive neuroscience.

You Say the Party is Dull, I Say It is Lively

A componential approach to situation perceptions is presented, disentangling Perceiver (how much people differ in perceiving situations), Situation (how much situations differ in how they are perceived), and Perceiver × Situation variance (how much perceivers idiosyncratically perceive specific situations) in a Situation Perception Components Model (SPCM). For frequency, valence, and activation ratings of 55 Big Five situations, the percentage of Perceiver, Situation, and Perceiver × Situation variance and relations between perceiver effects and perceivers' Big Five were investigated ( N = 126). Perceiver × Situation variance appeared high for all situation classes. Neuroticism, Openness, and Conscientiousness situation classes yielded more perceiver, and Extraversion and Agreeableness situation classes more situation variance. Situation–perceiver effects correlated strongest with the perceivers' Big Five trait they expressed. The viability of variance decomposition in situation perception and future research is discussed.

What Do Cross-National Comparisons of Personality Traits Tell Us?

Much research contrasts self-reported personality traits across cultures. We submit that this enterprise is weakened by significant methodological problems (in particular, the reference-group effect) that undermine the validity of national averages of personality scores. In this study, behavioral and demographic predictors of conscientiousness were correlated with different cross-national measures of conscientiousness based on self-reports, peer reports, and perceptions of national character. The predictors correlated strongly with perceptions of national character, but not with self-reports and peer reports. Country-level self- and peer-report measures of conscientiousness failed as markers of between-nation differences in personality.

SEXUAL SELECTION FOR MORAL VIRTUES

Moral evolution theories have emphasized kinship, reciprocity, group selection, and equilibrium selection. Yet, moral virtues are also sexually attractive. Darwin suggested that sexual attractiveness may explain many aspects of human morality. This paper updates his argument by integrating recent research on mate choice, person perception, individual differences, costly signaling, and virtue ethics. Many human virtues may have evolved in both sexes through mutual mate choice to advertise good genetic quality, parenting abilities, and/or partner traits. Such virtues may include kindness, fidelity, magnanimity, and heroism, as well as quasi-moral traits like conscientiousness, agreeableness, mental health, and intelligence. This theory leads to many testable predictions about the phenotypic features, genetic bases, and social-cognitive responses to human moral virtues.

Componential analysis of interpersonal perception data

We examine the advantages and disadvantages of 2 types of analyses used in interpersonal perception studies: componential and noncomponential. Componential analysis of interpersonal perception data (Kenny, 1994) partitions a judgment into components and then estimates the variances of and the correlations between these components. A noncomponential analysis uses raw scores to analyze interpersonal perception data. Three different research areas are investigated: consensus of perceptions across social contexts, reciprocity of attraction, and individual differences in self-enhancement. Finally, we consider criticisms of componential analysis. We conclude that interpersonal perception data necessarily have components (e.g., perceiver, target, measure, and their interactions), and that the researcher needs to develop a model that best captures the researcher's questions.