Lecture 2 - Categorization and Cognition Flashcards
what is gestalt
Organisation of the whole. Imagine a piece of music you could describe each note by pitch and volume and length but when you listen to the music you hear the melody - you don’t analyse it in that way. your listening to the piece as a whole
1950’s of social cognition
turings mind as computer theory
1970’s of social cognition
social cognition emerges when social psychologists apply the methods of cognitive scientists to their own field
Social cognition emerges when social psychologists apply the methods of cognitive scientists to their own field
1970
Category is
a group of objects that belong together
Concept is
the mental representation of this category
Categories are useful for (short)
determining what to do with an object depending what category it fits into (e.g. eat it/play with it)
Rosch 1978
categories of categorisation:
superordinate category - furniture
basic level - chair
subordinate category -dining room chair
Turings theory of mind a computer wheN
1950’s
Who developed hierarchical categorisation?
Rosch 1978
Explain a ‘classical’ or ‘defined features’ account of an object
Needs to answer a series of questions. If it can’t fulfil the criteria then it is not that object.
E.g. is it fruit shaped?
is it fruit sized?
is it metal? - if all yes the so far it is a fruit
Explain the ‘fuzzy’ or ‘probabilistic model’ or the theory of prototypes
Where the criteria are fuzzy - the thing to consider is there is no prototype game - there is no game that will satisfy every question/criteria.
What are the problems with the defined features account
Some things are impossible to provide a list for. e.g. games - could be that games need to be competitive or fun or have a winner. not all games will satisfy every the criteria.
What are the things that make up the probabilistic model
prototypes - abstract, never actually exists
exemplars - examples brought to mind from life
An objects belonging to a category is determined by how much it shares with the prototype
How do you determine an objects belonging to a category in terms of the fuzzy model
An objects belonging to a category is determined by how much it shares with the prototype
Do the same principles apply to social categorisation and object categorisation
- people perceive themselves as members of social groups
- this can skew your perception of people
- is it fair when we make judgements of groups we are not members of
- being a member of a categorised group affects your perception of others
Categories are useful because
they allow us to break the world into meaningful chunks that we are able to process. - we only have a certain PROCESSING CAPACITY. break it down for me fellas. they give meaning to things and allow us to make successful predictions (sometimes) and therefore take appropriate action.
Tafjel and Wilkes (1963)
Interested by whether judgement could be skewed by categorisation. Presented subjects with a series of lines varying in lengths but all A lines happened to be shorter than the B lines. This skewed peoples perception of line length when later on presented with a line labelled A or B
Line length - A or B
Tafjel and wilkes 1963
What was Tafjels principle
the accentuation principle
What was the line length perception thingy called
tafjels accentuation principle
Hogg and vaughn 2005
tafjels accentuation principle was later applied to a social situation…welsh men are better singers.
Welsh men are better singers
Hogg and Vaughn 2005
Sherif et al. (1961)
Well brought up middle class boys put into two groups at summer camp (rattlers vs eagles). They are put into competition against each other which causes rivalry between the group to escalate. can they bring them back together through co operation tasks? yes conflict decreased.
Boys at summer camp experiment
sherif et al 1961
Realistic conflict theory
When two groups are in competition for a resource or prize, conflict emerges and this is where prejudice and poor intergroup categories come from
Which theory: When two groups are in competition for a resource or prize, conflict emerges and this is where prejudice and poor intergroup categories come from
Realistic conflict theory
The minimal group paradigm
Tafjel et al. 1971
Tafjel et al. 1971
The minimal group paradigm
What is the minimal group paradigm?
Does group membership inevitably lead to prejudice even when the groups are meaningless?
How was the minimal group paradigm tested?
Primary school boys were split into two categories based on their preference for modern abstract art. Boys were then shown a series of numbers corresponding to the reward in pence that would be given to each if two boys. the only info they were given about the other boys was their group. They all tended to favour ingroup members. even if they had to sacrifice ingroup profit to ensure the outgroup boy got less than
Asch’s configural model:
peripheral and central traits -e.g. warm and cold are central traits and have more sway on a persons perception of someone else than others.
Name the 4 social thinking models:
cognitive consistency
naive scientist
cognitive miser
motivated tactician
motivated tactician
you’re goals are taken into account to decide when to minimise cognitive resources and when to put effort into processing information
cognitive miser
refers to taking shortcuts in cognition as humans cannot in fact process information like a computer. bias and errors be thought to be natural in this model
naive scientist
model where people are thought to make cause and effect analysis of events attributing any errors or biases as departures from normality due to limited/incorrect information or self interest
cognitive consistency
thought people strove for this because they couldn’t handle discrepancies between their cognitions. actually people are pretty tolerable if inconsistency.
Name 7 things that effect the opinions we form of people
Primacy/Recency effects
Asch’s configural model
Appearance
Stereotypes
Positivity or negativity - negative traits have more weight but people are positive until proven negative
Implicit personality theories - which traits go together (warm and generous)
Personal constructs - different traits carry different weightings to different people
