Social cognition Flashcards
Social Cognition:
How we interpret, analyse, remember and use information to make judgements about others in different social situations.
eg: of Social Cognition
What factors may enable you to talk to a stranger on the bus?
Person Perception
the mental process we use to form impressions and draw conclusions about the personal characteristics of other people.
Impressions from Non-Verbal Communication
Eye Contact: If maintained most of the time, it will tend to be perceived that a person is honest, straightforward, friendly and likeable. Too much eye contact, such as when staring, can be perceived as uncomfortable or unpleasant.
Facial Expressions: seem to be communicated and perceived in similar ways across many different cultures throughout the world, particularly facial expressions of emotion.
Salience Detection.
The term salience is used to describe characteristics that stand out in a specific situation and are therefore more easily detected. Information will most likely grab our attention and have the greatest influence on our perception of people and the world.
Attribution
the process by which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behaviour.
Two categories
. Internal External
Internal attribution
explaining behaviour in terms of characteristics of the person involved, such as personality, ability, attitude, motivation, mood or effort.
External attribution
explaining behavior due to factors of the situation, such as the actions of others, environment, the task, luck or fate.
Internal eg:I didn’t understand the material or put in the effort to understand it.
External eg:The teacher did not explain the material properly.
Fundamental attribution error
the tendency to overestimate the influence of personal factors and underestimate the impact of situational factors on other people’s behaviour.
Actor-observer bias
Tendency to attribute our own behaviour to external causes, yet attribute the behaviour of others to internal factors.
Self-serving bias
When judging ourselves, we tend to take credit for our successes and attribute failures to situational factors.
Culture and attribution
Researchers have found differences in the way people from different countries and cultures attribute behaviour.
What is an attitude?
In general, an attitude is the ideas we hold about ourselves, others, objects and experiences. Psychologists define an attitude as an evaluation a person makes about an object, person, group, event or issue.
