4:3 Social Cognition Flashcards
Social cognition is an intersection of what two pillars of psychology?
Social psychology and cognitive psychology.
Give a definition for social cognition.
The processes that people use to make sense of, and navigate through, their social world.
What three psychological assumptions did researchers make about the processes that people use to navigate their social worlds?
- People are consistency seekers.
- People are accuracy seekers or ‘naive scientists’.
- People are cognitive misers.
What is cognitive dissonance?
An inconsistency between one’s beliefs and one’s actions.
If people find inconsistencies, they simply change their belief to accommodate their inconsistency.
What does ‘naive scientists’ mean?
People actively try to make sense of the world.
They try to form accurate perceptions of what’s going on.
They may not be accurate, as people often use heuristics.
What does it mean to be a cognitive miser?
People save their cognitive resources, such as effort or time, whenever possible.
People often go beyond the available information in their environment when perceiving the world around them. Which pillar of psychology does this idea come from?
Cognitive psychology.
Eg. THE CAT slide
Cognitive psychologists are interested in the processes that result in perceptions.
What’s the name of cognitive process that involves the ability to understand what goes on in another person’s mind and the ability to make accurate social inferences.
Theory of mind.
Eg. Car salesperson
Eg. Sally-Anne test
At what age do children typically develop theory of mind?
9 years old
True or false: Mirror neurons are the neuroscientific basis for bridging the self-other divide.
True
What functions do mirror neurons have during social cognition and interaction?
Imitation Action understanding Empathy Speech processing Language Theory of mind Morality
List some neurological and psychiatric disorders that involve mirror neurons.
ASD ALS Stroke Parkinson's Schizophrenia Communication disorders (stuttering)
Which two areas offer causal evidence that mirror neurons contribute to social cognition?
- Action perception - mirror neurons help us process other people’s actions.
- Imitation - copying observed actions.
True or false: Mirroring actions and mirroring emotions involve the same mechanisms.
False.
Action mirroring involves mirror neurons in motor areas of the brain.
Mirroring emotions involves emotional areas of the brain.
How long does it take to retrain motor mirror responses in adults?
What three things does this training change?
A few hours.
It changes:
- Mirror neuron responses
- Imitation
- Action perception
True or false: Matching mirror neuron responses evolved specially for social cognition.
Likely false.
Mirror neurons are very flexible and can be easily altered through experience.
What are action mirror neurons?
Motor neurons which also respond to others’ actions.
What other process, besides empathic mirroring, is required to explain empathy?
Self-other distinction.
What type of theory comprises a set of psychological models that describe how people infer causal relations and the dispositional characteristics of others?
Attribution theory.
Do people tend to have a strong tendency to attribute things toward people or toward situations?
Toward people.
What is the term for people’s tendency to over-attribute another person’s behavior to personality or dispositions rather than taking the situation into account?
The fundamental attribution error.
Eg. Essay on Fidel Castro
People tend to explain other people’s behaviors as due to dispositional factors, but their own behaviors as due to situation factors. What is this phenomenon called?
The actor-observer effect.
How do stereotypes affect the way people make attributions?
People just dispositions, rather than environments.
Eg. Eccentricity = genius: great art
What comprises the triad of impairments in ASD?
- Social impairments
- Communication impairments
- Rigid, repetitive behavior
Which other disorders are usually comorbid with ASD?
Epilepsy Anxiety Depression ADHD Sleep and eating problems
List three deficits in social communication and interaction that are found in people with ASD (according to the DSM).
Deficits in:
- Social-emotional reciprocity
- Non-verbal communication
- Developing, maintaining and understanding relationships
Which ASD theory proposes that infants with autism don’t find social stimuli (faces and voices) intrinsically rewarding, so they don’t pay attention tot hem and fail to learn about the social world.
Social motivation account.
Dawson and Chevallier.
True or false: Adults and children with ASD show the usual preferential attention to face-like stimuli.
True.
When three dots were arranged to look like the eyes and mouth of a face, people, they drew the attention of people with autism just like control participants.
Children with autism can’t track the mental states of others. This is known as:
Mind-blindness.
Explained by Theory of mind.
List three criticisms of the Theory of mind in relation to ASD
- Theory of mind problems are not the primary origin of autism.
- Mind tests are not specific to autism (other clinical groups also fail the Sally-Anne task).
- The explanation may not be universal (eg. not all individuals with autism fails the Sally-Anne task).
What is spontaneous mentalizing?
It’s anticipatory eye gazing or eye tracking. When someone automatically looks toward something.
What are two kinds of mentalizing?
- Unconscious, or implicit (from infants or in reactions)
2. Conscious, or deliberate (measured in verbal theory of mind tasks like Sally-Anne).
What are two main aspects of social cognition in ASD that are outside Theory of mind?
- Empathy
2. Stereotypes
