Lecture: Social Cognition Flashcards
Social cognition
Judgements about a person
Involves schemas which can be biased
Hastorf & Cantril (1954)
Aim: Bias in a Social Domain
Procedure: They saw a football game versus (Princeton vs Dartmouth)
When the fans saw the game, did they see the game the same way
The fans are construing the game differently
Biased Assimilation
Accept in face value the study that supports their perspective and criticized the other study not supporting their side
Lord, Ross & Lepper (1979):
Aim: Biased Assimilation
Procedures: Stronger in favor of the death penalty and strong against the death penalty
Showed mixed research evidence and how did the participants react
With mixed evidence, each side becomes more confident in initial position
Accept in face value the study that supports their perspective and criticized the other study not supporting their side (bias assimilation)
Logically does not make sense
Cohen, Steele, Ross 1999
Task students were asked to write a letter to their high school teacher and they were graded and told the best letter would be published
One group got positive feedback and the other group received more critical feedback (tell them they have high standards )
Best feedback to get the best performance out of people: I have high expectations, but I know you can meet them
High standards
Negative Acknowledgment
When starting with “this might sound crazy”, makes the thing you say after less crazy (not actually crazy)
Accentuate the negative
Ward & Brenner 2006
Give people a paragraph to read, some were told before the paragraph is going to be “rather confusing” and other nothing, those with “rather confusion” they rated the clarity higher
Under cognitive load, get assimilation of prime
Otherwise, get contrast with prime
Zanna & Pack 1975
Aim: Expectancy effects
Procedure: All female subjects think they are going to have a conversation with a male
In one case the male is desirable and the other is undesirable
Another factor, you read a survey before about his views on tradition (traditional) and the other is his views on (untraditional)
Survey ahead for the meeting and then asked if they would change their responds before they give it to the male person (after finding out information on the male they are meeting)
Women took an intelligence test
Results:
Undesirable + untraditional or traditional: no change in their response
Desirable + untraditional : change so it becomes more untraditional
Desirable + traditional : change so it becomes more traditional
Snyder, Tanke & Berschied (1977)
Aim: Expectancy effects, self-fulfilling prophecy
Procedures: Two real participants (man and woman) that aren’t in the same room communicate through a intercom
The man is giving a picture on a woman who he think he is talking to through the intercom but actually is a picture of attractive or unattractive female “partner’
Female subject unaware of (fake) picture
Attractive
If the man thinks he is talking to attractive female than the female actually fulfills the expectations
Diksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998)
Take a test, some were told to imagine the life of a professor or secretary (they had to prime the people) before the trivia test
If they thought of professor they did better on the test
Secretary schema led to faster performance
Effect didn’t decay (at least for 15 min)
9-minute prime more effective than 2 minute
Availability Heuristic
Frequency is based on how easily it is brought to mind
Representativeness Heuristic
Similarity to whole category
Anchoring bias
Based on the information given, then the person takes that information with weight and pulls the guess toward it
