Social Cognition Flashcards
How can social judgements have serious consequences on judging people’s behaviour?
1993 the police caught Joel Rifkin in his Mazda truck and discovered a dead 22 year old in his trunk.
Investigations led to the findings that he was included in 16 other murders, all women.
He is now the most prolific serial killer in New York State history
This was shocking to people who knew Joel because they claimed to have felt very safe when he was around and that he was a very gentle man
What are snap judgments?
Snap judgments are a form of positional thinking – right/wrong, good/bad, desirable/undesirable. Energetically, each time we make one of these judgments, we are either accepting or rejecting someone or something
Are snap judgments accurate?
When you engage in watching people (i.e.) at the park or airport, you don’t just watch, you judge.
Willis and Todorov Experiment proved that we only need a couple of seconds to form our judgements of other people
They predict rather well but they usually only provide a kernel of truth.
Why are snap judgments important?
Assessments whether a person is trustworthy or not, aggressive or not aggressive
People are predisposed to making quite important snap judgments about others; whether they should be approached or avoided (dimension 1)
The other dimension focuses on the assessments whether a person seems confident or bashful, dominant or submissive.
whether they are likely to be “top dog” or “under-dog” (dimension 2)
Ex. 1 – Hypermasculine features like a square jaw would lead one to assume that they are dominant
Ex. 2 – The shape of the eyebrows and eye socket as well as if the person is smiling or not would help one assume if they are trustworthy or not.
What is inferring the cause of behaviour?
In line with the construal principle, our judgements are based on the meaning we assign to the behavior we witness, whether someone else’s or our own.
Ex. When you get a grade back, you make an attribution
If you did well, you might decide that it is further evidence of how smart you are, or that the grading was easy
If you did bad, you might decide that you are not good at this subject or that the test was unfair
What is the process of causal attribution?
Does the car salesman honestly believe that this car is the best for me? Or is he just saying this because he wants to make the sale and get a bigger commission?
We try to figure out the cause of someone’s behavior by questioning if the trait is a product of something
Within the person (is it an internal or dispositional cause)
A reflection of something outside of the person (external or situational cause)
What is the difference between internal and external causes?
You might win the poker game because you are better than everyone else (internal cause)
You might win the poker game because you got lucky and got better cards (external cause)
What is the covariation principle?
Trying to determine what causes internal and external characteristics of the person.
What are the types of covariance?
Consensus
Distinctiveness
Situational attribute
Dispositional attribution
What is the consensus covariance?
Refers to what most people would do in a given situation
Does everyone behave the same in that situation?
(i.e.) does everyone in that Stats class like it or is it just my friend?
The more an individual’s reaction (high consensus) the less it tells you about the person and more about the situation
What is the distinctiveness covariance?
What an individual doe sin different situations
Is it a particular behavior unique to a specific situation or does the person react the same way in many situations?
Does your friend like all math classes or only her stats?
The more someone’s reaction is confined to a particular situation (when distinctiveness is high) the less it says about the individual and the more it says about the situation.
What is the situational covariance?
Called for when a consensus and distinctiveness are both high
What is the situational covariance?
Called for when consensus and distinctiveness are both low
What is Discounting and counterfactual thinking?
The judgements people make are not always based on what actually happened but sometimes what people imagine would happen under different situations or if someone else was involved.
Ex. If you participated in the Milgram experiment, you think it was the person’s fault that the shocks were delivered to the max, not the situation that was responsible for the behavior, and that it would have been a different outcome if you were the participant.
What is the discounting principle?
Our confidence that a particular cause is responsible for a given outcome will be reduced (discounted) if there are other plausible causes that might have produced the same outcome.
Ex. Someone acting personable at an interview, we question is he really like this or is he just acting like this to get the job?
By pure logic we can’t make a confident attribution but we supplement the pure logic for our knowledge of what people are like.
What is Counterfactual thinking?
Thoughts of what might have, could have or should have happened “if only” something had happened differently
What is the emotional amplification?
An increase in an emotional reaction to an event that is proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening.
Would you feel worse if someone you loved died in a plane crash that she switched her flight last minute? Or if someone you loved died in a plane crash after sticking to her assigned flight?
Most people say the last minute switch would make it worst
Ex. People at the Olympics seems more sad when they win the silver medal than when they win the bronze medal
This is because the silver medalists are more focused on what they did not receive (the gold) and the bronze medalists are glad they got a medal
Silver medalists think they should have done better “if only” a few things were different
Bronze medalists “at least” we received a medal.
What are errors and biases in attributions?
people’s causal attributions are occasionally subject to predictable errors and biases
What are self-serving attributional biases?
People are inclined to attribute their failures and other bad events to external circumstances but attribute the successful/good events to themselves
What is the fundamental attribution error?
The failure to recognize the importance of situational influences on behavior along with the corresponding tendency to overemphasize the importance of dispositions on behavior.
To what extent should we praise rich people
To what extent should we hold poor people accountable for their economic status
We should be more subject to the Fundamental attribution error when talking about someone else’s behavior than when talking about our own.
When talking about yourself you are more likely to focus on the situational causes
More likely to make situational attributions (see that their behavior is based on the situation)
What is the Actor-observer difference?
Participants had to declare why they decided to pursue their college degree in that subject or why their best-friend chose their subject
Participants referred more to characteristics of the person when explaining the other persons’ choice but less when explaining their own.
Westerners vs. Non-Westerners.
Westerners think about themselves more in the context of personal goals, attributions and preferences whereas non-westerners think about themselves more in terms of the social roles they occupy and their obligations to institutions.
Non-Westerners therefore have to pay more attention to others and to the details of the situations they find themselves into because effective action typically requires that they coordinate their actions with those of other people
What are the causal attribution for independent and interdependent peoples?
East Asians are more inclined than Westerners to attribute an actor’s behavior to the situation rather than to the person’s dispositions.
Ex. Attributions for the outcome of a sports match are not the same in interdependent countries than independent countries.
Western countries see more positive outcomes as the result of individual player’s abilities
Interdependent countries see more positive outcomes as the result of TEAM play
THIS MEANS THAT INTERDEPENDENT COUNTRIES ARE LESS PRONE TO FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR.
