lecure 1 social cognition Flashcards
what is social psychology
study of thoughts, feelings and behaviors influenced by the real, imagined or implied presence of others/a social situation
what is personality psychology
looks specifically at how a persons personality can influence their behaviour
what is social cognition
application of social and cog psych to interpret how people think about themselves and others in the social world
processing and storage of social info and how we perceive and interact with others
how our mental processes can be inferred through what we say and do and therefore how we are perceived by others
what is social categorisation
tendency to automatically assign people into basic categories upon perception of them - discrete groups of people based on shared characteristics ie race, gender, age, occupation etc
entirely automatic process
two kinds - automatic and controlled thinking
define automatic thinking
social views often rely on automatic judgement of people whereby simply perceiving leads to unintentional categorization
can be overridden but first impressions often acts as an anchor for subsequent behavior towards that person
define controlled thinking
spending time and exerting effort over forming own opinion about as person - intentional
what is out group homogeneity
tendency to perceive and cognitively represent those of different groups or ‘out groups’ as very similar to one another (often generalization of stereotypes and lack of experience with members of the out group)
what is a schema
a pocket of information about a specific topic of knowledge ie about the way the world works - they often affect the way people behave in social situations
brain learn to differentiate based on who we are surrounded by/experience
what are illusionary correlations
tendency to place stereotype on specific group due to ias repeated exposure to a situation even though it does not reflect the beaviour of the population
ie negative stereotype in UK towards muslims as ‘terrorists’ due to the attention extremests get - statistically infrequent but significantly reported in media
(tendency to focus/recall the unusual over typical everyday) - greater recall of terrorist experiences than everyday normal muslim experience
what are stereotypes
generalisation about a group of people in which certain traits are assigned to all members of a group despite variation within the group
how can schemas lead to stereotypes
schemas help to understand the world - reduce ambiguity/increase understanding
generalisations in schemas applied to whole outgroup
even positive ones can be discrimiating ie women in workplace “pretty face” > smart
describe consequences of stereotyping (correll et al 2002) police officers dilemma
40 undergrads asked to ‘shoot’ or ‘not shoot’ white or black holding or not holding a weapon in game simulation - recreation of payoff matrix by police:
deducted max points if not shoot person with gun - more fatal to self
describe the lexical decision task as a social cognitive method
prime to stimuli i,e. white/black person (activate schema)
ask to indicate if word or non word (schema/stereotype congruent or not)
pps faster to respond to schema congruent words
- activate neg schemas about diff outgroups
benefit of lexical decision task as a social cognitive method
allows researchers to test when social information cant be processed in depth
allows research to test uncontrollable decisions/unintentionsby activating negative schemas people have but often try to hide
what is thought to activate schemas
what is most salient in a situation causing schemas to become either chronically or temporarily accessable
what are chronically accessible schemas
very strong stereotypical schema ie racist/sexist opinions
what are temporarily accessible schemas
available due to motivations/goals/expectations at the time, often become accessible because of priming - dependent on the situation
what is priming
exposure to stimuli that not aware is activating a schema - activates idea in mind ie sterotype about someone
prime can be anything real or imaginary that influences the accessibility of a concept and leads to influence in the way a task is performed
how does a priming experiment work?
control where neutral and then placed in situation ie exposed to neutral words then asked to help someone
experimental condition where exposed to priming stimuli and then placed in situation ie exposed to words relating to helpfulness then asked to help someone
what are the limitation of priming studies
dependent on the context and the observer themselves - has to fit with their specific schema related to the prime etc
one prime can have many influences and there can be may primes in the environment (how do you know which is most salient in a situation?)
irwin, tripodi and bien 1967 outgroup homogeniety
perception of the outgroup as homogonours makes the outgroup more predictable and less anxiety provoking
outgroup homogeniety and prejudice
ackerman et al 2006
homogeniety bias where inrease recog of own group and decress outgroup appears to be eliminated when the outgroup shows anger
recog accuracy greater for angry black than angry white faces
define a schema
mental structures that organise info about people situations and events
provide greater understanding and prediciton of future situations and behaviours
not static but tend to be resilient to change
use to resuce ambiguity
types of schema
person specific, role speciifc, ,script (?event) specific, and self specific (ie self concept)
ross lepper and hubbard 1975
even when told that the good or bad impression that was made of someone was false, they continued to be percieved in such a way
are stereotypes learnt? serbin et al 2001
boys and girls aged 12, 18 and 24 months tested for preference of vehicle or doll toys
12m - both prefer dolls over vehicles (face preference?)
18m - girls prefer dolls and boys prefer vehicles
under 18m do not show gender sterotypes - cultural
mike brown shooting, furguson, USA and sterotypes in western culture
unarmed black teen fatally shot by armed police
believe that police in USA hold a racial bias against black individuals
tendency to shoot more black than white under the immediate assumption they are armed even though they are not
duncan 1976 racial stereotype and threat perception
mildly agg behaviour percieved as more threatening when performed by an afircan american than when performed by a white person
BUT not just personal perception
reflects the internalisation of ani african american attitudes that is applied throughout american culture
results describe consequences of stereotyping (correll et al 2002) police officers dilemma
fater to shoot armed AA than armed W
fater to not shoot unarmed W than unarmed AA
when paradigm made faster:
increase in failure to shoot armed W
increase in shoot of unarmed AA
have lower decision criterion for AA argets than white - require less certainty that holding gun before deciding to shoot
correll et al 2007 police officers dilemma
recreaste shoot not shoot paradigm with real police officers compared to civilians
faster to make correct response
better at detecting weapon presence
higher decision criterion to shoot
BUT lower for AA > W
racial bias in speed of decision - faster to decide not to shoot W and to shoot AA
macrae and johnstone 1998 priming and stereotypes
priming helpfulness via sentencing task - experimenter drop pens either normal or leaking
helping increase when prime but not if leaking
+ in a hurry - eliminate helping
priming works to an extend but depends on multiple environmental factros and adaptive control can prevent ilicitation
what can a prime influence
judgement
behaviour
motivation
