LAW 039

INTRO TO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 2:
UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES
& OTHERS

BY: NORSYAZRAH ZULKIFLI

CHAPTER 2: UNDERSTANDING
OURSELVES & OTHERS

DEFINITION AND DIFFERENCES OF SELF &

PERSONALITY
SOCIAL INFERENCES AND ATTRIBUTION
NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION

DEFINITION
SELF
An image or schema of our
persona,

an on-going
life-long
largely subjective
construction
heavily influenced by
feedback from others and
role and situational
familiarity and/or changes.

PERSONALITY
Sets of personal
characteristics, traits, or
predispositions to respond,
such as being honest,
confident, adventurous,
sensitive, or funny.

an internal property
a collection of stable
predispositions to respond
a product of largely one's
personal history, and
it is considered to be an
objective entity.

CONCEPT OF THE SELF

This is about to answer the question : WHO AM

I?
Related to self schema (beliefs about self that
organize and guide the processing of self
relevant information) and using the self
reference (the tendency to process efficiently
and remember well information related to one
self)
Q1: How can you describe yourself?
Q2:What makes you different from other
people?

1. SELF SCHEMA

We have the self esteem : a persons overall self

evaluation or sense of self worth
Why? To monitor and react to how others appraise us
We can see the possible selves : images of what we
dreaming or becoming in the future.
Why? (the influences that develop the self concept)
i. Roles that we play
ii. The social identity
iii. The social comparison
iv. Success and failure
v. Others people judgement

ISSUE ON SELF AND CULTURE

(INDIVIDUALISM V
COLLECTIVISM)

For Western culture, they are more towards

individualism while for Asian culture, they are
more towards collectivism.
Individualism refers to the concept of giving
priority to ones own goals over the group
goals and defining ones identity in terms of
personal attributes rather than group
identification
Collectivism refers to giving priority to the
goals of ones group and defining ones
identity accordingly

COMPARISON

COLLECTIVISM

INDIVIDUALISM

Identity is based in the social system

and given by ones group

Identity is based in the individual and

achieved by ones own striving

People are socialized to be emotionally

dependent on organizations and
institutions

People are socialized to be emotionally

independent of organizations and
institutions.

Personal and group goals are generally

consistent; and when consistent, group
goals get priority

Personal and group are often

inconsistent, personal goals get priority.

People explain others social behaviour

as being more determined by social
norms and roles than by personal
attitudes

People explain others social behaviour

as being more determined by personal
attitudes than by social norms and roles,

Emphasis is on belonging to
organizations and membership is ideal.

Emphasis is on individual initiative,

individual achievement and leadership is
ideal

Trust is placed in group decisions.

Trust is placed in individual decisions.

2. SELF KNOWLEDGE

As a human being, we have the predictive feeling and

predicting behaviour.
Q1:What you will do if you see the victim of road accident
still lying on the road and others are not helping
Q2:What do you expect from your relationship with your
boyfriend or girlfriend right now?
When we know ourselves better, we have the self efficacy(a
sense that oneself is competent and effective).Why? To set
the challenging goals and to face the difficulties.
Then we set the locus of control either internal (by own
efforts and actions) or external (by chance / outside factors)

3. SELF SERVING BIAS

This refers to the tendency to perceive oneself

favorably
Q1: Why does winners win in the competition?
Q2:Why you did not get a good result?
Normally we tend to believe that success will
come from ourselves and we always blame
others factor for the failure.

4.SELF PRESENTATION

This refers to the act of expressing oneself, and behaving in

ways designed or create a favorable impression that
correspond to ones ideals.
This is because we want to present a desired image both to
external and internal audience.
It relates to the false modesty (disparage ourselves and
praises others) and self handicapping ( protecting ones self
image with behaviours that create a handy excuse for later
failure)
Self handicap is a self defeating behaviour
(deliberate/intentional behaviour that has negative effect on
self or project)
Q: How does the fearing people react?

Impression Management

The self serving bias, false modesty and self

handicapped is a concern for the self image
which lead to self monitoring.
Self monitoring; being attuned to the way one
presents oneself in social situations and
adjusting ones performance to create a
desired impression
If you have low self monitoring, you will care
less about what others think of you

ATTRIBUTION
we seek to identify the
Def: the process which

causes of others behaviour and so gain

knowledge of their stable traits and disposition
Def: the process by which people use
information to make inferences about the
causes of behaviour or events. (Stephen L.
Franzoi)

COMPARISON

INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION

EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION

Internal (inward) factors of a

person
Examples:
Personality traits, moods,
attitudes, abilities or effort

The external
(situation/environment) factors
Examples:
Luck, other people, situation

ATTRIBUTION THEORY

Def: the theory of how people explain others behaviour,

either by internal dispositions or external situation.
CORRESPONDENT
INFERENCE THEORY

KELLEYS
MODEL

COVARIATION

Jones & Davis (1965) thought

that pay particular attention to
intentional behaviour. We tend
to see the correspondence
between motive and behaviour

Kelley use the logical judging

whether a particular action
should be attributed to some
characteristic (internal) of the
person or the environment
(external).
The term covariation means
that a person has information
from multiple observations, at
different times and situations,
and
can
perceive
the
covariation of an observed
effect and its causes.

CORRESPONDENT INFERENCE
THEORY

EXAMPLE

FACTORS THAT LEAD TO THE

INFERENCES?

Q; Why the nurse in the clinic

smiling at you?
A1: She is friendly
A2: She is doing the job

1. CHOICE (Is it freely or

voluntarily choosen?)
2. NON COMMON EFFECTS
(unexpected about the
behaviour)
3. SOCIAL
DESIRABILITY(conformity)
4. HEDONISTIC (impacts of the
behaviour about the
persons)
5. PERSONALISM (is it
accidental or intentional to
affect the inferred persons)

COVARIATION MODEL

When explaining other peoples behaviors, we look for

similarities (covariation) across a range of situations
to help us narrow down specific attributions. There are
three particular types of information we look for to
help us decide, each of which can be high or low:
1. Consensus: how similarly other people act, given the
same stimulus, as the person in question.
2. Distinctiveness: how similarly the person acts in
different situations, towards other stimuli.
3. Consistency: how often the same stimulus and
response in the same situation are perceived.

Example

What is your opinion

regarding this picture?

Prediction Of Covariation Theory

INTERNAL
ATTRIBUTION

Consensus
Consistency
Distinctiveness

CIRCUMSTANCE
ATTRIBUTION

ENTITY
ATTRIBUTION

Direction/ objective
of the actor towards
person /thing

Conditions in which
action/event
occurred

Consensus
Consistency
Distinctiveness

Consensus
Consistency
Distinctiveness

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION
ERROR(CORRESPONDENCE
BIAS)

We tend to believe what we see (act/behaviour) rather

to think why they do as what they do.
The tendency to perceive the action of others due to
the internal factor rather than the external factor
happens because we will focus on the action itself and
assume that will be the characteristic of the individual.
YOUR TASK: INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT (5%)
There are some factors that lead to the fundamental
attribution error. Give your own opinion regarding this
issue.

Dual- Process Models

Of Attribution

This is a proposed theory that people initially

engage in a relatively automatic and simple
attribution assessment but then later consciously
correct this attribution with more deliberate and
effortful thinking
Based on the social perception; is it individualistic
or collectivistic. For individualistic cultures, they
will presume the actor has a dispositional cause
but later correct it with situational information. For
culturalistic cultures, they will form attributions
based on situational information.

STAGE 1
SPONTANTENOUS
BEHAVIORAL
CATEGORIZATION
(What is the actor
doing)

STAGE 2
SPONTANTENOUS
DISPOSITIONAL
CHARACTERIZATIO
N
(What dispositions
does the behaviour
imply?)

STAGE 3
DELIBERATE
ATTRIBUTIONAL
INFERENCE
(What situational
factors might have
caused the
behaviour?)

DUAL PROCESS
MODELS OF
ATTRIBUTION

NON VERBAL
COMMUNICATION

The social perception refers to the process through which we

seek to know and understand other people. This is related to
the impression given by ourselves to other people.
Sometimes it comes from non verbal communication. The
non verbal communication is a communication between
individuals that does not involve the content of spoken
language which can infers from the facial expression, eye
contact and body language.
The way we think and behave had being influenced by some
factors such as changing mood, shifting emotions, fatigue or
illness. But people tend not to share their emotions or lie
about it if we ask them directly. Why?

CHANNELS OF NON VERBAL

COMMUNICATION

1.FACIAL EXPRESSION
2.EYE CONTACT
3.BODY LANGUAGE

1. Facial expression

Is it universal?
Basically, there are five basic facial
expressions found by the research which are:
Anger
Fear
Happines
Sadness
Disgust

What is about surprise?

2. Eye contact

This involves two components:

a. Gaze (look)
b. Stare

Q: Is there is any difference between gaze

and stare? How do you react?

3. Body Language

Def: cues provided by the position, posture and

movement of other bodies or body parts.
The characteristics of body language are to reveal
others emotional states and some movements will be
informative.
It includes:
i) Gesture an act/remark as a formality / as sign of
attitude
ii) Posture the way a person holds/ position their body
iii) Movement physical motion between points in space

Examples of other body

language

Touching
Depends:
i)Who did it
ii)Nature of physical context
iii)Where is the place
Handshake
The more stronger or firm is
tend to openness

Deception

Why does the people lie?

What are the nonverbal cues?
1. Microexpression (quick changes of
impression)
2. Interchannel discrepancies (facial expression
an movement
3. Eye contact
4. Exaggerated facial expression
What is the effect of deception?

THE END.