Psychology 2100: Introduction to Social Psychology

Warren Thorngate, Professor
Psychology Department, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6
Canada
e-mail = warren_thorngate@carleton.ca

copyright 1999-2006 by Warren Thorngate, all rights reserved

Lecture 5: The consequences of inaccuracy

Review:

Four reasons for inaccuracy:

• ignorance
• naïveté
• stupidity
• motivation

Motivation is often manifested in preferences for errors.

• errors of commission, inclusion, alpha errors, false positives = deciding someone is "good", "qualified", "merited" when they are not.
• errors of omission, exclusion, beta errors, false negatives = deciding  someone is "not good", "not qualified", or unmerited for reward" when they are.

Classic political conservatives are most concerned about errors of commission

• Extreme conservatives guard against commission errors by never including people as good, worthy, etc. -- thus maximizing errors of exclusion

Classic political liberals are most concerned about errors of omission

• Extreme liberals guard against omission errors by never excluding people as good, worthy, etc. -- thus maximizing errors of inclusion

Consider 100 people, 70 of whom are bad and 30 of whom are good. If judgments were infallible this would occur:

But judgements are fallible, so this can occur (one of many possibilities):

We can reduce our inclusion errors by judging more people bad, but doing so increases our exclusion errors:

Or we can reduce our exclusion errors by judging more people good, but doing so increases our inclusion errors

People who believe they are suffering an exclusion errors are people who start revolutions, but they are joined by many of those who are genuinely bad.  This may be why so many revolutions fail.

Impression formation in action: the structure and dynamics of adjudicated contests

What is an adjudicated contest?

• one of many means for distributing scarce resources
• different than an adjudicated test
• relies on applicants making a case for their merit or deservingness
• requires adjudicators to assess merit or deservingness
• adjudicators are fallible

What is the relationship between fallibility of judgement and chances that best person wins? Thorngate & Carroll, 1988

How do adjudicated contests evolve? Thorngate, 1990

Does inaccuracy always matter? Paradoxically, sometimes, it can help!

Example 1: Accuracy and marital satisfaction

George Levinger and James Breedlove, "Interpersonal attraction and agreement: A study of marriage partners." (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1966, 367-372).

• 60 couples, 24 in counseling and 36 "normals", married between 4 and 22 years participated in the study 
• Husband and wife each separately completed a questionnaire twice: (1) according to his/her own beliefs, (2) according to what he/she thought his/her spouse believed. The questionnaire contained items about the importance of 9 different marriage goals and the importance of 11 different marital communication topics, items from the Traditional Family Ideology Scale, and items related to marital satisfaction. 
• Results: (remember that a correlation coefficient ranges from -1.00 (the correlation between time spent studying and the time spent sleeping; as one goes up, the other goes down) through 0.00 (no relationship) to +1.00 (the correlation between the length of people's left arm and the length of their right arm; as one goes up the other goes up) 
• correlation between marital satisfaction of husband and wife averaged +0.45: Only moderate agreement between husbands and wives about how satisfied they were in their marriage. 
• average correlation between husbands and wives in their actual opinions about marriage topics = about +0.42 
• average correlation between actual opinions of husband and his assumed opinions of wife = about +0.61 
• average correlation between actual opinions of wife and her assumed opinions of husband = about +0.57 
• average correlation between husband's assumed agreement with his wife and husband's marital satisfaction = about + 0.42 
• average correlation between wife's assumed agreement with her husband and wife's' marital satisfaction = about +0.24 
• Conclusions 
• The generally low-to-moderate positive correlations between spouses married several years indicates that even they do not yet know each other "like the back of my hand." 
• Their inaccurate judgements or misperceptions of their spouses have real consequences: Assumed agreement (read agreement between personal opinions and "impressions" of spouse) was consistently higher than actual agreement: spouses tended to think they agree more than they really do (Sociologists sometimes refer to such findings as pluralistic ignorance) 
• Husbands' assumed agreement/disagreement was significantly correlated with their ratings of marriage satisfaction: When a husband thought his wife agreed with him, he tended to be happy with his marriage; when a husband thought his wife disagreed with him, he tended to be unhappy. This relation was much lower for wives (for reasons unknown; I will let you speculate) 

Example 2: Gullibility

Ulrich, R., Stachnik, T., & Stainton, N.R. (1963). Student acceptance of generalized personality interpretations.

• In Experiment 1, instructor gave Bell Adjustment Inventory and the House-Tree-Person Test to 57 students, then gave each student a "personalized interpretation" of his/her personality one week later. In Experiment 2, 79 students were administered the same two questionnaires by fellow students.  Following reading the interpretation, all students were asked to rate how accurate the interpretation was.
• Results
• No difference in professor versus student administration of tests.
• Excellent = 41%
• Good = 41%
• Average = 13%
• Poor = 5%
• Very poor = 0%
• Some comments;
• "I feel that you have done a fine job with the material you had to work with. I agree with almost all you statement and think they answer the problems I may have."
• "I believe this interpretation applies to me individually, as there are too many facets which fit me too well to be a generalization."
• The interpretation is surprisingly accurate and specific in description. I shall take note of many of the things said."
• On the nose!  Very good. I wish you had said more, but what you did mention was true without a doubt."
• But all people received exactly the same interpretation!
  You have a strong need for other people to like you and for them to admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Your sexual adjustment has presented some problems for you. Disciplined and controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts about whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as being an independent thinker and do not accept other's opinions without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.

Example 3: The Pygmalion Effect

Stumpf & Pfungst (1911) & Clever Hans.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. Hold, Rinehart, Winston.

• The Oak School Experiments: teachers told that a few of their students were exceptionally talented as measured by psychological tests, then told the names of these students. In fact, the students were selected at random. By the end of the school year, these students were receiving higher grades than their peers.  The prophecy had been fulfilled!
• Why? Further research revealed that teachers developed double standards, treating the behaviour of these students as more positive than the same behaviour in others. For example: rewarding any hand raising talk from a chosen student with more encouragement and attention than the same talk in others. Thus, the teachers behaved in ways to make the prophecy come true. see www.ntlf.com/html/pi/9902/pygm_1.htm