4:3 Social Cognition

Question 1

Social cognition is an intersection of what two pillars of psychology?

Answer 1

Social psychology and cognitive psychology.

Question 2

Give a definition for social cognition.

Answer 2

The processes that people use to make sense of, and navigate through, their social world.

Question 3

What three psychological assumptions did researchers make about the processes that people use to navigate their social worlds?

Answer 3

1. People are consistency seekers.
2. People are accuracy seekers or ‘naive scientists’.
3. People are cognitive misers.

Question 4

What is cognitive dissonance?

Answer 4

An inconsistency between one’s beliefs and one’s actions.

If people find inconsistencies, they simply change their belief to accommodate their inconsistency.

Question 5

What does ‘naive scientists’ mean?

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

What does it mean to be a cognitive miser?

Answer 6

People save their cognitive resources, such as effort or time, whenever possible.

Question 7

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?

Answer 7

Cognitive psychology.
Eg. THE CAT slide

Cognitive psychologists are interested in the processes that result in perceptions.

Question 8

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.

Answer 8

Theory of mind.

Eg. Car salesperson
Eg. Sally-Anne test

Question 9

At what age do children typically develop theory of mind?

Answer 9

9 years old

Question 10

True or false: Mirror neurons are the neuroscientific basis for bridging the self-other divide.

Answer 10

True

Question 11

What functions do mirror neurons have during social cognition and interaction?

Answer 11

Imitation
Action understanding
Empathy
Speech processing
Language
Theory of mind
Morality

Question 12

List some neurological and psychiatric disorders that involve mirror neurons.

Answer 12

ASD
ALS
Stroke
Parkinson's
Schizophrenia
Communication disorders (stuttering)

Question 13

Which two areas offer causal evidence that mirror neurons contribute to social cognition?

Answer 13

1. Action perception - mirror neurons help us process other people’s actions.
2. Imitation - copying observed actions.

Question 14

True or false: Mirroring actions and mirroring emotions involve the same mechanisms.

Answer 14

False.

Action mirroring involves mirror neurons in motor areas of the brain.

Mirroring emotions involves emotional areas of the brain.

Question 15

How long does it take to retrain motor mirror responses in adults?
What three things does this training change?

Answer 15

A few hours.

It changes:

1. Mirror neuron responses
2. Imitation
3. Action perception

Question 16

True or false: Matching mirror neuron responses evolved specially for social cognition.

Answer 16

Likely false.

Mirror neurons are very flexible and can be easily altered through experience.

Question 17

What are action mirror neurons?

Answer 17

Motor neurons which also respond to others’ actions.

Question 18

What other process, besides empathic mirroring, is required to explain empathy?

Answer 18

Self-other distinction.

Question 19

What type of theory comprises a set of psychological models that describe how people infer causal relations and the dispositional characteristics of others?

Answer 19

Attribution theory.

Question 20

Do people tend to have a strong tendency to attribute things toward people or toward situations?

Answer 20

Toward people.

Question 21

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?

Answer 21

The fundamental attribution error.

Eg. Essay on Fidel Castro

Question 22

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?

Answer 22

The actor-observer effect.

Question 23

How do stereotypes affect the way people make attributions?

Answer 23

People just dispositions, rather than environments.

Eg. Eccentricity = genius: great art

Question 24

What comprises the triad of impairments in ASD?

Answer 24

1. Social impairments
2. Communication impairments
3. Rigid, repetitive behavior

Question 25

Which other disorders are usually comorbid with ASD?

Answer 25

Epilepsy
Anxiety
Depression
ADHD
Sleep and eating problems

Question 26

List three deficits in social communication and interaction that are found in people with ASD (according to the DSM).

Answer 26

Deficits in:

• Social-emotional reciprocity
• Non-verbal communication
• Developing, maintaining and understanding relationships

Question 27

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.

Answer 27

Social motivation account.

Dawson and Chevallier.

Question 28

True or false: Adults and children with ASD show the usual preferential attention to face-like stimuli.

Answer 28

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.

Question 29

Children with autism can’t track the mental states of others. This is known as:

Answer 29

Mind-blindness.

Explained by Theory of mind.

Question 30

List three criticisms of the Theory of mind in relation to ASD

Answer 30

1. Theory of mind problems are not the primary origin of autism.
2. Mind tests are not specific to autism (other clinical groups also fail the Sally-Anne task).
3. The explanation may not be universal (eg. not all individuals with autism fails the Sally-Anne task).

Question 31

What is spontaneous mentalizing?

Answer 31

It’s anticipatory eye gazing or eye tracking. When someone automatically looks toward something.

Question 32

What are two kinds of mentalizing?

Answer 32

1. Unconscious, or implicit (from infants or in reactions)

2. Conscious, or deliberate (measured in verbal theory of mind tasks like Sally-Anne).

Question 33

What are two main aspects of social cognition in ASD that are outside Theory of mind?

Answer 33

1. Empathy

2. Stereotypes