Lecture 03 Social Cognition Flashcards
Social Cognition
How people THINK about themselves and the SOCIAL WORLD; specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use SOCIAL INFORMATION to make judgments and decision
Automatic / Top-down processes
“Theory-driven” filters and interprets new information in light of PREEXISTING KNOWLEDGE and EXPECTATIONS
Controlled / Bottom-up processes
“Data-driven” takes in and forms conclusions on the basis of the STIMULI ENCOUNTERED in one’s EXPERIENCE
Schemas
The mental STRUCTURES people use to organize their KNOWLEDGE about the social world around themes or subjects.
Person Schemas
Expectations for specific individuals
Self Schemas
Use it to determine what people want to involve themselves with or to choose a political party
Role Schemas / Stereotype
Beliefs about certain social groups helps navigate world
Event Schemas / Scripts
Helps navigate what are going to happen in specific situations based on prior experience
3 Characteristics of Schemas that Humans use?
- Available
- Accessible
- Applicable
Accessibility
- Chronic
- Constantly active schemas due to past experience - Temporary
- Related to current goal
- Recent experience (Priming)
Applicable
When the priming can be applied to the subject or situation
- “Neat” or “disrespectful” isn’t applicable to Donald’s behaviors
Priming
Recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema
How Schemas Influence humans’ Thinking
- Selective Attention: Stereotype
- Selective Inference / Construal
- Selective Encoding & Retrieval
Abstract Construal
- People describe actions that are consistent with a stereotype/schemas in abstract terms/traits
- Thus reinforcing stereotype
Concrete Construal
- People describe actions that are inconsistent with a stereotype in concrete terms
- Thus avoid changing stereotype content
A Case Study of Stereotype and Construal
Stereotype of black people to be aggressive
- Abstract construal: He is being aggressive
- Concrete Construal: He give money to a homeless man
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- Having an expectation about someone
- The expectation influences action
- Making the expectation comes true
Heuristics
Intuitive mental operations that allow us to make a variety of judgments quickly and efficiently
Availability Heuristics
Judgments of frequency or probability are based on the EASE with which pertinent instances are brought to mind
- e.g. Are people more likely to die by accident or cancer?
Illusory Correlation
- When two memorable events co occur, their co-occurrence is HIGHLY SALIENT and thus more available in our mind
- Leading to the belief that the two events are correlated when in fact they are not.
Examples of Illusory Correlation
- Gay couples + murder
- Immigrant workers + violence
- Movie stars + divorce
Representativeness Heuristics
Judgments of likelihood are based on assessments of similarity between individuals and GROUP STEREOTYPE or between cause and effect.
Base Rate Neglect
Assessments of similarity substitute for the assessment of likelihood
- e.g. Is this person likely to be Jewish?” becomes “Does this person seem Jewish?
Processing Social Information
- Human as Information Processor
- Source of Information
- How Information is Presented
- How Information is Sought Out
Steps of Information Processing
- Exposure
- Attention
- Construal
- Encoding
- Retrieval
Human as (Imperfect) Information Processor
- Consistency Seeker (Motivation)
- Naïve Scientist (Cognition/Reason)
- Cognitive Miser (Efficiency)
- Motivated Tactician (Switching between the above)
Consistency Seeker
MOTIVATION
- People are more likely to put time and effort not to be accurate but to serve their thought
Naïve Scientist
REASON
- Rationally and logically TESTING our hypotheses about the behavior of others
- Need to ATTRIBUTE causes to effects (for example, observed behaviors and events)
- Create a MEANINGFUL, stable world where things make sense
Cognitive Miser
EFFICIENCY
- Reluctant to expend cognitive resources
- Look for any opportunity to AVOID engaging in the sort of EFFORTFUL thought
Motivated Tactician
SWITCHING between the above
- ALLOCATE cognitive resources and as such can decide to be a cognitive miser or a naïve scientist
- Depends on times and contexts
Direct experience with social stimuli can be deceptive
because of…
- Inattention
- Misconstrual
- Unrepresentativeness
- Impression management
Pluralistic Ignorance
- Think that EVERYONE ELSE is interpreting a situation in a CERTAIN way
- When in fact they are NOT
Individual-focused discussion
People act on what they want other people to think about them
Norm-focused discussion
Reduce pluralistic ignorance by having a discussion among others
Memory Biases
- Memory is RECONSTRUCT, not retained and retrieved
- Try to remember what’s in the past to confirm what is happening at the present
Flashbulb memories
The memory of important life incidents is not always accurate or vivid
False memories
Recovered memories might be made up & significantly altered
Secondhand Impressions of Other People
Sharpening and Leveling
Sharpening
Emphasizing important or more interesting elements in telling a story to someone else
Leveling
Eliminating or deemphasizing seemingly less important details when telling a story to someone else
Primacy Effect
The disproportionate influence on judgment of information presented first in a body of evidence
- Attention span
- More salience information influence
Framing Effect
The influence on judgment resulting from the way information is presented
Spin Framing
Frame a buying decision in terms favorable to the product being advertised
Positive & Negative Framing
People feel better about positive side rather than negative side
Gain & Loss Framing
People are more willing to invest their time, money, effort, and take more risk to PREVENT LOSSES or to RESTORE what they’ve lost
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to test a proposition by searching for evidence that would support it
Counterfactual Thinking
Thoughts of what might have, could have, or should have happened “if only” something had been done differently
Emotional Amplification
A degree of emotion amplified in proportion to how easy to think of the event that is no happening
- e.g. Silver vs. bronze medal
