Chapter 3 - Social Cognition Flashcards
Social Cognition
How people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember and use social information to make judgments and decisions
What is automatic thinking
Unconscious thinking that is unintentional, involuntary and effortless
Schema?
Mental structures people use to organise knowledge of social world into categories which influence the way people notice think about and remember information.
(how we relate information to previous experiences)
What is controlled thinking?
Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful.
What affects which schema’s are used? (the accessibility)
Accessibility is the extent to which schema’s are at the forefront of the mind and therefore likely to be used when making judgements about the world. Can be affected by:
- Past experience – some schema’s are chronically accessible and constantly active and ready to use (eg. If family members is alcoholic, most likely explanation for behaviour of man on bus)
- Relation to current goal – eg. Attributing behaviour on bus to mental health because studying abnormal psych.
- Recent experiences – people primed by something they have been doing before encountering an event.
Self-fulfilling prophecy?
A situation where a person might have an expectation of how another person will behave which causes them to act a certain way which in turn results in the person to behave in a way that is consistent with original expectations.
Describe Rosenthal & Jacobson (1958/2003) experiments on self-fulfilling prophecy
school teachers were told who were the ‘bloomers’ in the class (chosen at random). Bloomers showed significantly greater IQ when tested at end of year. Teachers expectation became a reality.
- An example of automatic thinking.
- A description of what teachers did differently also provided here on pg. 59.
Judgemental Heuristics
Mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently
Availability heuristic
A mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgment on the ease with which they can bring something to mind
Representativeness Heuristic
A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case. (categorising something according to representatives eg. A blonde/tan surfer dude coming from Byron bay)
Availability heuristic (a type of judgemental heuristic)
A mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgment on the ease with which they can bring something to mind
Representativeness Heuristic (a type of judgemental heuristic)
A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case. (categorising something according to representatives eg. A blonde/tan surfer dude coming from Byron bay)
What are some other types of automatic thinking? (other than schemas)
- Automatic Goal Pursuit -
Can depend on which goal has been recently primed. - Automatic thinking and metaphors about the body and the mind - Our bodies can influence our reactions. Physical sensations (e.g., holding a heavy clipboard) can prime a metaphor (e.g., that important thoughts “have weight”), which then influences people’s judgments (e.g., that student opinion should be given more weight on a campus issue).
- Mental strategies and shortcuts: judgemental heuristics -mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently.
Describe 2 different kinds of thinking styles and in which cultures they are more common?
Analytic thinking style
- A type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context; this type of thinking is common in western cultures.
Holistic thinking style – A type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which in which objects relate to each other; this type of thinking is common in East Asian cultures.
What influences the east v west in terms of social cognition?
Influenced by philosophical ideas such as greek philosophy (plato/aristotle) in the west and buddhism, Taoism, confucionism in east (which emphasize the connectedness and relativity of all things)
What has modern psych added to question of whether free will is an illusion?
In recent years social psych has developed a better understanding of how subconscious/automatic processes exert much more of an effect on behaviour than previously though. Meaning we may not have as much free will as we think.
But the more people believe in free will, the more willing they are to help others in need and the less likely they are to engage in im- moral actions such as cheating.
Counterfactual thinking
A form of controlled thinking - Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been. (eg. If only I hadn’t have changed my answer to q17 and circled the wrong one, I would’ve passed the test) (Almost equivalent to the subjunctive in Spanish).
- Emotional responses to counterfactual thinking are stronger when it is easier to mentally undo an outcome eg. Failing by 1 mark rather than 10)
Planning Fallacy
The tendency for people to be overly optimistic about how soon they will complete a project, even when they have failed to get similar projects done on time in the past
What is priming?
the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema.
Cultural Determinants of Schemas
Although everyone uses schemas to understand the world, the content of our schemas is influenced by the culture in which we live.
Barnum effect?
Think in terms of astrology and how relatable we find generalised info
Stroop effect (1935) and race
Stroop effect showed it’s easier to process information when we don’t have interference from other factors.
J. Karylowski, M. Motes, D. Curry & D. Van Liempd I (2002)“In What Font Color is Bill Cosby’s Name Written?” Automatic Racial Categorization in a Stroop Task .
- Faster to read ink colour when colour and racial category label match than when they mismatch.
- Racial categories come to mind automatically - so can’t ignore race
Dunning, D., & Sherman , D. A . (1997). Stereotypes and tacit inference.
forming impressions:
Nuns v rock musicians - amount of liquor served, impressions formed
Distinguishing automatic
from controlled processes
Logic: • If a task interferes with performance on the first task, performance on that task requires cognitive control. ie - controlled
• If no effect on performance of the task, is based on processes that are maximally efficient, ie - automatic
eg. hold a phone number in mind and try to- have a conversation or - drive a car.
Dijkersthuuis & Van Knippenberg,
1998. - automatic effects on behaviour
Priming with 2 stereotypes of professors OR soccer hooligans for different amount of time then tested on trivia quiz. Those primed with professors performed better on quiz.
Intentional operating process (IOP)
An effortful search for distractors (when trying not to think about something)
Ironic monitoring process
automatic and effortless, monitors whether IOP is
successful (automatic, effortless). Does this by
searching for target word popping up. (when trying not to think about something)
Wegner (2011) - studied what?
Escape from thought suppression - don’t think about a white bear.
strategies that helped in not thinking about the bear - focused distraction, stress and load avoidance, thought postponement, exposure and paradoxical approaches, acceptance and commitment, meditation, mindfulness, focused breathing, attention training, self affirmation, hypnosis, and disclosure and writing.
What is the problem with similarity?
how to define which features are important?
- Any two objects can be similar or dissimilar on an
infinite number of dimensions (e.g., plums and
lawnmowers, Murphy & Medin, 1985.)
Barsalou?
What are categories and how are they developed?
- Categories are theories about how features go
together and why. We apply these theories to
determine category membership ( Barsalou)
What are some beliefs we may have about categories?
- Statistical beliefs (containing specific numbers) eg. The majority of books are paperbacks.
- Generic beliefs (not related to numbers) eg. books are paperbacks
- Stereotypes - typically generic beliefs removed from statistcs. eg. elderly people are slow, yet maybe only a small proportion of elderly move slowly.
Ballcots & Dale (2003)
Priming interferes with ability to see the word liar in an experiment. Experiment primed participants with deceptive OR flirtatious sentences which impacted their ability to perceive the word ‘liar’.
Describe experiment illustrating the priming effect (Higgins, Rholes, Jones, 1977)
Description of ‘Donald’. Participants primed to remember a particular set of words either positive or negative, then asked to rate Donald. Those primed with positive words rated same description as more positive.
