Lecture 3 - Social Cognition Flashcards
Give a definition of Social Cognition.
How people attend to, perceive, store, and respond to social information
(Martin et al., 2019)
Describe Asch’s study in 1946.
Asch (1946). Forming impressions of personality.
CENTRAL TRAITS
Two experimental conditions:
intelligent + skilful + industrious + warm/cold + determined + practical + cautious
Participants seeing the list with ‘warm’ were more likely to rate this person as being generous, happy and humorous
NON-CENTRAL TRAITS
Two experimental conditions:
intelligent + skilful + industrious + polite/blunt + determined + practical + cautious
Less differences between groups when the words polite and blunt were used
PRIMACY EFFECT
Two experimental conditions:
intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious
envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, intelligent
Participants seeing the first list had a more favourable impression than participants seeing the second list
CONCLUSION
One word (not that prominent) can have a big effect on overall evaluation
Extends to the perception of other traits
What are central traits?
Central traits -
Characteristics that are disproportionately influential in impression formation.
Describe Asch’s configurational model.
Asch (1946)
Meaning of traits may depend on context or on different traits
Some perceptual features have more influence than others
- Central traits (e.g., warm-cold)
- First impressions: Primacy effect
Describe Kelley (1950) experiment.
Kelley (1950) -
PROCEDURE
A group of students received a guest lecture from an instructor they had not met before.
Before the lecture students received information about this instructor.
For half of students the notes described the instructor as “rather cold”
For the other half the notes described him as “very warm”
RESULTS
Students in the “cold” condition:
- Rated the lecturer as more self-centred, formal, unsociable, unpopular, irritable, humourless, ruthless
- Engaged less in the discussion
Define impression formation.
Impression formation -
- People form an overall evaluation through integrating values that are assigned to traits
- Some perceptual features have more influence than others
Define schema.
Schema -
Mental framework that organises and synthesises information.
- Specific people, groups of people, ourselves, events, roles, places, and objects
- Aids interpretation of the world
- Can lead to surprises, prone to biases
(Fiske and Tayler, 1991)
Define social categorisation.
Social categorisation -
We perceive the social world in categories.
Influences perception, expectation, and interaction.
e.g. Man in uniform -> police -> offers help if needed
Define stereotypes.
Stereotypes -
Schemas about groups that are shared by different people.
- Characterise large number of people in small number of properties
- Ignores within group variability
- Can be wrong
- Related to prejudice and discrimination.
Define representativeness heuristic.
Representativeness heuristic -
Objects are assigned to categories that share similar attributes.
Define availability heuristic.
Availability heuristic -
Importance and frequency of events is guided by the ease with which it comes to mind.
Suggest a study that supports the schema theory.
(Bransford and Johnson, 1972) -
Research has demonstrated that understanding is improved when people know the title of the passage before it is read.
What is a prototype?
Prototypes -
A prototype is an abstract fuzzy set of attributes that define the category, where no instance may actually embody the attributes.
(Cantor and Mischel, 1979) -
Schemata can be organised as prototypes.
What is an exemplar?
Exemplars -
An exemplar is a specific instance of the category.
(Smith and Zárate, 1992) -
Schemata can be organised as exemplars.
What did Tajfel suggest when talking about how stereotypes are learnt?
(Tajfel, 1981) -
Stereotypes are learned early in childhood through normal socialisation rather than direct experience.
