Chapter #8: Social Cognition Flashcards
Stereotypes
a special type of social knowledge strucutre, or social belief; represent socially shared beliefs about charactersitics and behaviors of a particular social group
Age-Based Double Standard
operating when an individual attributes an older person’s failure in memory as more serious than a memory failure observed in young adults
Implicit Stereotyping
stereotype beliefs that affect your judgements of individuals without you being aware of it
* overlearned and spontaneously activated
* Influence our behavior with/without awareness
Implicit Assocation Test (IAT)
a measure of implicit bias that asks individuals to categorize images as fast as they can based on indicators
* if you have a negativie stereotyp = slower response time
Imagined Intergroup Contact
a strategy that involves imagining yourself having a positive interaction with a member of stereotypes group
Focusees on 4 indicators
1. Attitudes
2. Emotions
3. Intentions
4. Behaviors
Stereotype Threat
an evoked fear of being judged in accordance with a negative stereotype about a group to which an individual belongs
* anyone is vulnerable to cues in your environment
* beleifs of threats influence performance ability
* What do you believe is ture about aging has very important consequences of what you actually experience
3 Concepts to Understanding Age Differences in Social Beliefs
- Examine the specific context of social beliefs
- Strenght of these beliefs to know under what conditions that may influence behavior
- The likelihood of these beliefs are automatically activated when a person is confronted when beliefs are being violated/questioned
Labeling Theory
Perception of aging theory that argues we confront age-related stereotypes, older adults are more likely to integrate it into their self-perception
Self-Perception of Aging
refers to a person’s perception of their own age and aging process
Resilience Theory
theory of perception that argues confronting negative stereotypes results in a rejection of that view in favor of a more positive self-percetpion
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
A person’s ability:
* to recognize their own and other people’s emotions
* correctly identify and appropriately tell the difference between them
* Use the info to help guide our thinking and behavior
What 2 Aspects does Emotional Intelligence consist of?
- Traits that reflect a person’s self-perceived dispoitions and abilities
- The ability that reflects the person’s success at processing emotional information and using it in social interactions
Impression Formation
the way we form and revise first impression about others
In a vigenette study on Impression Formation, what did the results say about older adults?
- Older adults were more likely to change their impression of a target from positive to negative
- Young adults revised both
Negativity Bias
weighing negative information more heavily than positive information in social judgement
* Older adults pay attention and seek out emotional information
* Older adults take more time to make a social judgement
* process information and consider all aspects
Social Knowledge
a cognitive structure that represents one’s general knowledge about a given social concept or domain
What impacts Social Knowledge?
- Having available stored representations
- How to apply those memories in various situations
- Easy access to memory
Source Judgement
process of accessing knowledge where in one attempts to determine when one obtained a particular piece of information
Causal Attributions
explanations people construct to explain behavior
Dispositional Attributions
an explanation for someone’s behavior that resides within the actor
Situational Attributions
an explanation that the cause resides outside the actor
Correspondence Bias
the tendecy to draw interferences about older people’s dispositions from behavior that can be fully explained through situational factors
* Also known as Fundamental Attribution Error
Blanchard-Fields presented pariticipants with different situations with positive and negative outcomes, and asked them to explain the behavior.
What were the results?
Age Differences
* Older adults blamed the protagonist (dispositional)
* Younger adults blamed the situation (situational)
Explanations people create depend on
* Type of situation e.g. relationship or acheivement
* Age of person
* Whether strong social beleifs have been violated
* Context information must be salient
Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC) Model
model that suggests development occurs as we udpate our personal goals to match available resources to obtain those goals
* choose goals based on interests, goals, strengths
* With age; focus shifts towards physical health and socio-emotional domains
According to the SOC model, what kind of goals do Older Adults have?
- Preference for physical safety
- Prefer to maintain steady performance by optimizing current resources
Positivty Affect
the tendency to attend to and process positive information over negative information
* Older adults allocate less attention to negativity
* Recall more positive autobiographical events
Strength & Vulnerability Integration (SAVI) Model
Based on the normative aging process in which physiological vulnerabilities that occur w/increasing age make regulating high levels of emotional arousal harder
* Older adults who experience high arousing distress, regulating is interferred with
Cognitive Style
a traitlike pattern of behavior one uses when approaching a problem-solving situation
* Situations that require substantial cognitive resources results in an increase in inaccuracies and biases in how we represent social situations
Personal Control
the degree one believes one’s performance in a situation depends on something that one personality does
* High Personal Control = performance is up to you
* Low Personal Control = perfrmance is under influences of other forces
* For Older adults; declines with age 70s - 80s
Assimilative Activities
memory aids to alleviate losses in domains that are personally relevant for self-esteem and identity
Accomodations
readjustment of goals and aspirations as a way to lessen or neutralize the effects of negative self-evaluations in key domains
Immunizing Mechanisms
alter the effects of self-discrepant evidence
* can look for alternative explanations or to simply deny evidence of changes
Primary Control Strategies
involves bringin the environment in line with one’s desires and goals
Secondary Control Strategies
involves bringing oneself in line with the environment
For Older Adults the maintenance of primary control strategies depends on what?
Secondary Control Strategies
Collaborative Cognition
occurs when 2 or more people work together to solve a cognitive tasks
* enhances adults’ performances on a variety of memory and problem solving tasks
Transactive Memory Systems
when a person’s valid and reliable expertise is recognized, makes them a better member of the group
Collective or Communicative Memory
personal and autobiographical memories of the group over the recent past (3-4 generations)
Cultural Memory
created through symbolic heritage, media, books, stories serve as a perceptual filter
* Lived Wisdom
* Integrated into personality and everyday life
Stereotype Embodiment Theory
Interventions are needed to overcome stereotypes, or else we direct them at ourselves as self-perceptions
* assimilate them from the culture to define us
* becomes self relevant with age
Theory of Mind Approach
i. are there age differences in the context of social/knowledge/beliefs?
ii. is there a strength difference across cohorts?
iii. will they automtatically be activated when the belief is being violated?
iv. do social beliefs affect social judgements, memory, and problem solving?
Carstensen’s SEST
- Information Seeking
- Emotional Regulation
* We prioritize emotions with limited time remaining
* Prefer meaningful friendships
* Positive Effect
How is Cognitive Style in Older Adults?
- Higher in Older adults
- Need for closure creates bias in attributions, stereotypes judgements, and spontaneous trait inferences
- Priming Effect gets higher in need for closure
Primary Control Striving
- Stays consistent with us thorughout our entire life
How does the West prioritize Primary Control?
- Both Primary and Secondary control work together to promote Primary Control Striving
- Primary control increases, plataeus, and decreases over the lifespan
How does the East Prioritize Secondary Control?
- Emphasizes self-control
- Interdependence
- Adjustment from early years
According to the SOC Model, what is the difference in motivations between Older Adults & Younger Adults?
Younger Adults - motivated to improve cognitive performance, achievement based
Older Adults - maintaining autonomy, abilities, health, and socio-emotional based
Heckhausen & Schultz Comprehensive Motivational Theory of Lifespan Development
Higher goal resources are needed if it is to start later in life
When you adopt the personal goal when it is presented, can achieve goal with much less stress
