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Why Accuracy Dominates Bias and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

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Why Accuracy Dominates Bias and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2017), Page 1 of 65 doi:10.1017/S0140525X1500062X,e1 Précis of Social Perception and Social Reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy Lee Jussim Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08544. [email protected] http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/∼jussim Abstract: Social Perception and Social Reality (Jussim 2012) reviews the evidence in social psychology and related fields and reaches three conclusions: (1) Although errors, biases, and self-fulfilling prophecies in person perception are real, reliable, and occasionally quite powerful, on average, they tend to be weak, fragile, and fleeting. (2) Perceptions of individuals and groups tend to be at least moderately, and often highly accurate. (3) Conclusions based on the research on error, bias, and self-fulfilling prophecies routinely greatly overstate their power and pervasiveness, and consistently ignore evidence of accuracy, agreement, and rationality in social perception. The weight of the evidence – including some of the most classic research widely interpreted as testifying to the power of biased and self-fulfilling processes – is that interpersonal expectations relate to social reality primarily because they reflect rather than cause social reality. This is the case not only for teacher expectations, but also for social stereotypes, both as perceptions of groups, and as the bases of expectations regarding individuals. The time is long overdue to replace cherry-picked and unjustified stories emphasizing error, bias, the power of self-fulfilling prophecies, and the inaccuracy of stereotypes, with conclusions that more closely correspond to the full range of empirical findings, which includes multiple failed replications of classic expectancy studies, meta- analyses consistently demonstrating small or at best moderate expectancy effects, and high accuracy in social perception. Keywords: Accuracy; bias; expectancies; person perception; self-fulfilling prophecies; social perception; social psychology, stereotypes 1. Introduction and Clark-Polner’s(2012) review of Social Perception and Social Reality (Jussim 2012): – Is social perception how people go about understanding ’ – Without relying on Jussim s examples (though he presents other people, both individuals and groups routinely com- many), we opened a social psychology textbook that was, promised by a slew of flawed and biased processes, so that it “ ” ’ simply, the one most accessible to us (Gilovich, et al. 2006). becomes primarily a reign of error (Merton s[1948] oft- It included references to “striking” demonstrations of stereo- repeated phrase)? Much social psychological scholarship types influencing interpretations of events, to research in would seem to converge on the conclusion that the which self-fulfilling prophecies has been “powerfully” illus- answer is “yes.” And for many good reasons. Social and cog- trated (p. 455), and to self-fulfilling prophecies perpetuating a nitive psychologists have clearly and successfully identified “reign of error” (quoting Merton, 1957, in the last case, pp. – and documented a vast array of errors and biases that can 455 456). The same chapter did not include a discussion of and do sometimes undermine the validity, rationality, and accuracy in perceptions or of accuracy captured in stereotypes reasonableness of lay judgment and social perception. themselves. (Clark & Clark-Polner 2012) Thus, for over half a century now, leading scholars of Thus, social psychology has a longstanding consensus social perception have emphasized error and bias: that social perception is dominated by error and bias. Social perception is a process dominated far more by what the judge brings to it than by what he takes in during it. (Gage & Cronbach 1955, p. 420) LEE JUSSIM is Professor of Psychology at Rutgers Uni- – . the literature has stressed the power of expectancies to versity, where he was Chair from 2010 2013. He has shape perceptions and interpretations in their own image. authored more than 100 publications, focusing primarily (E. E. Jones 1986, p. 42) on social perception. This Précis was completed while he was a Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced It does seem, in fact, that several decades of experimental Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 2013–2014. Social research in social psychology have been devoted to demonstrat- Perception and Social Reality: Why Accuracy Domi- ing the depths and patterns of inaccuracy in social perception nates Bias and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (2012, Oxford … This applies … to most empirical work in social cognition. University Press), the book on which this Précis is (Jost & Kruglanski 2002, pp. 172) based, received the 2013 Publisher’s Prose Award for Such conclusions are the norm, not the exception, in best book in Psychology. social psychology. Consider next this passage from Clark © Cambridge University Press 2017 0140-525X/17 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. New York University, on 27 Mar 2017 at 16:43:02, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms1 . https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X15002307 Jussim: Précis of Social Perception and Social Reality Social Perception and Social Reality, however, reviews stereotypes, both as perceptions of groups (Section 8: almost 100 years of research and reaches a very different “The unbearable accuracy of stereotypes”), and their role conclusion: People’s social perceptions (perceptions in increasing or reducing the accuracy of person perception regarding individuals and groups) are often reasonable, (Section 9: “Stereotypes and person perception”). accurate, and arrived at through approximately rational processes. How can anyone make such a claim, given the fi overwhelming evidence of error, bias, and self-fulfilling 2. The scienti c roots of emphasis on the biasing fi prophecy, and the overwhelming consensus that such and self-ful lling power of social expectations effects are powerful and pervasive? Although answering 2.1. The early research on stereotypes that question required an entire book, this article summa- rizes some of those arguments. One of the first arguments that our perceptions are not nec- This Précis is organized around reviewing and critically essarily strongly linked to objective reality came from a evaluating the empirical literature in social psychology journalist. In a broad-ranging book called Public Opinion, and related fields, on the roles of error, bias, self-fulfilling Walter Lippmann (1922/1991) touched on stereotypes – prophecy, and accuracy in social perception. Very broad and defined them in such a way as to color generations of and seemingly unrelated literatures converge on three social scientists’ views of stereotypes. Lippmann suggested conclusions: that to understand the world in its full complexity is an (1) Errors, biases, and self-fulfilling prophecies in impossible task. So people simplify and reduce the over- person perception are real and occasionally powerful, but whelming amount of information they receive. Stereotypes, generally are weak, fragile and fleeting. for Lippmann, arose out of this need for simplicity. He (2) Perceptions of individuals and groups tend to be at believed that people’s beliefs about groups were essentially least moderately accurate. “pictures in the head.” (3) scholarly conclusions tend to overstate the power A “picture in the head” is a static, two-dimensional rep- and pervasiveness of expectancy effects, and often ignore resentation of a four-dimensional stimulus (most real- evidence of accuracy, agreement, and rationality. world stimuli have width, length, and depth, and also This pattern occurs over and over again across a wide change over time). A picture is rigid, fixed, and unchanging. variety of research areas within social perception. For It is over-simplified and can never capture the full complex- short, therefore, I simply refer to it in this précis as “the tri- ity of life for even one member of any group. This should partite pattern.” sound familiar – it constitutes the working definition of ste- Although chronology per se was not the main organizing reotypes that many people, including many social scientists, principle, Social Perception and Social Reality reviews the still hold today. Thus, it constitutes one of the earliest per- literatures that bear on these questions in approximately spectives suggesting that people’s social beliefs may not be chronological order. This is because it was important to fully in touch with social reality. first identify the scientific and scholarly foundations on Social psychologists ran with these ideas. Katz and Braly which the dominant emphasis on error and basis were (1933) concluded that the high levels of agreement they based. Thus, in this Précis target article I begin with observed regarding national, racial, and ethnic groups some of the earliest evidence on stereotypes, and on the could not possibly reflect personal experience and instead “New Look in Perception”, both of which emphasized most likely reflected the shared expectations and biases of error and distortion in social perception (Section 2: “The the perceiver. This analysis was flawed because agreement scientific roots of emphasis on the biasing and self-fulfilling per se is not evidence of inaccuracy (often, though not power of social expectations”). This emphasis received an always, it reflects accuracy – e.g., Funder 1987). In a intellectual “booster shot” with the publication of several similarly flawed manner, LaPiere (1936)
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