Social Cognition Flashcards
Causal attributions
Explanations people construct to explain their behaviour, which can be situational, dispositional, or interactive
Age based double standard
Considering an older person’s failure in memory to be more serious than a memory failure observed in a young adult
Cognitive style
A pattern of behaviour one uses when solving a problem
Collaborative cognition
Performance that occurs when 2+ people work together to solve a cognitive task
Communication predicament
A negative feedback loop produced by patronizing talk wherein the target of such communication may begin to enact the stereotyped behaviours ascribed to him or her
Control strategies
Behaviour patterns used to obtain a sense of control over how an outcome or desired goal will be achieved. These can include assimilation activities, accommodations, and immunizing mechanisms
Correspondence bias
Relying more on dispositional information in explaining behaviour and ignoring competing situational information, such as extenuating circumstances
Dispositional attribution
An explanation for someone’s behaviour that resides within the actor
Framing effect
The influence of information just processed on subsequent social judgments
Generative commitment
Investment in the growth and nurturing of future generations
Implicit stereotyping
Stereotyping beliefs that affect one’s judgments of others without one’s knowledge
Impression formation
The way in which people form and revise first impressions of a person
Negativity bias
Bias that occurs when negative information outweighs positive information in a social judgment
Patronizing talk
Includes superficial conversation, slow speech, simple vocabulary, careful enunciation and a demeaning emotional tone
Personal control
The degree to which one believes that one’s performance in a situation depends on something that one personally does. The belief that what one does influences the outcome of an event
Processing capacity
The degree to which processing resources are available to a person during a cognitive task
Situational attribution
An explanation for someone’s behaviour that is external to the actor
Social knowledge
A cognitive structure that represents one’a general knowledge about a given social concept or domain. When we are faced with new situations, we draw on previous experiences, stored in memory.
Stereotype lift
Increased motivation to perform by a privileged group after exposure to an unflattering stereotype of a less advantaged group
Stereotypes
A special type of social knowledge structure or social belief that represents organized prior knowledge about characteristics, attributes, and behaviours of members of certain groups and that affects how we interpret new information
Stereotype threat
An evoked fear of being judged in accordance with a negative stereotype about a group to which one belongs
How do processing capacity limitations influence social judgments in older adults
Ability to make non biased social judgments depends on the cognitive demand accompanying these judgments - have to evaluate all the possible circumstances. This takes processing resources which old have fewer of and use less efficiently
How does negativity bias influence older adults’ thinking
When old first presented with + info and then presented with new - info, they modified their impression of the target from positive to negative. But they were less willing to modify their first impression when the - portrayal was followed by + info.
Young don’t so this. They are more concerned with making sure the new info was consistent with their impressions, regardless of whether it was + or -
Why does the negativity bias occur in older adults
Old ry more on life experiences and social rules of behaviour when making their interpretations, whereas going more concerned with situational consistency of the new info presented. So old don’t correct initial impressions bc - info more striking to them and this affects them more strongly
2 age related differences in the accessibility of social info
- Old rely on easily accessible social knowledge structures, like their initial impression. Limited cognitive resources.
- Framing effect - info just processed influences subsequent social judgments (eg. Sunny day)
8 consistent stereotypes about old
- Impotent male
- Unattractive female
- Vain/virile make
- Disinterested female
- Innocence of second childhood
- Insatiable female
- Forgetful old person
7 stereotypes that both young and old hold
- Golden ager
- John Wayne conservative
- Perfect grandparent
- Shrew or curmudgeon
- Recluse
- Despondent
- Severely impaired
Cultural differences in stereotypes about old
Asians showed both less + and - stereotyping
How the content of stereotypes differs across age groups
Old identified greater number of desirable and undesirable traits
Old perceive greater potential for change in these characteristics in older age.
Old identify more categories that fit under the subordinate category of “older adult” than do young and middle aged
How do people of varying ages perceive the competence of older adults
People of all ages believe that memory decreases with age and that we have less and less control over current and future memory functioning as we grow older.
Most evident when young judging the memory failure.
When old observe memory failure, judge both young and old more equally. Most of the time, old more lenient toward memory failures I’m s.
When assessing cause of memory failure, both young and old felt it was caused by greater mental difficulty in older adults, whereas it was attributed to a lack of effort and attention in young.
Despite age based double standard, people both young and old had more confidence in and would assign tasks to non-forgetful people irrespective of their age
General conclusion from trait studies of stereotypes and the attributions of stereotypes
When more individualized info is provided (audio taped interview) and the person is placed in a social setting (volunteer position interview) we consider more than just negative trait-based stereotypes in making out social judgement. Also consider positive
3 important considerations in understanding age differences in social belief systems
- We must examine the specific content of social beliefs
- We must consider the strength of those beliefs to know under what conditions they may influence behaviour
- We need to know the likelihood that these beliefs will be activated automatically when they are violated and questioned
Individual differences in the strength of social representations of rules, beliefs, and attitudes are linked to specific situations. These situations can be one of what 2 things?
- Cognitive - how we conceptualize the situation
2. Emotional - how we react to the situation
What happened to the belief “marriage is more important than career” with age
Increased in importance. Especial evident from 24-65
What happened to the belief “the marriage was already in trouble” with age
Produced inverted u shaped relationship
What happened to the belief “parents should have talked, not provoked the young couple” with age
Inverted u shaped relationship
What happened to the belief “you can’t stop true love” with age
U shaped relationship
2 types of casual attributions
- Dispositional attributions
2. Situational attributions
The correspondence bias is most often exhibited by whom?
College students
How do casual attributions change with age?
Youth more likely to show correspondence bias. Correspondence bias in old occurred only in negative relationship situations
When the target events were ambiguous as to the specific cause of the outcome, all adults tend to make interactive attributions, but older adults did so at a higher rate.
Older adults paradoxically blamed the main character more (dispositional attributions) than younger groups, especial in negative relationship situations.
Middle aged scored higher on dialectical attribution reasoning than adolescents, young, and old.
What are some alternative explanations for the dispositional bias in some old?
Possible that attributional biases in old causes by activated belief systems that strongly affect their judgments or by deficiencies in conducting causal analyses. The deficiency could take the form of limited cognitive resources that prevent them from processing all the details of the situation. Explanations people create vary depending on the type of situation, the age of the person, and whether strong social beliefs have been violated
Theory of socio emotional selectivity
Emotional goals become increasingly important and salient as we grow older bc older person construed time as limited.
Old more likely to talk about positive or negative? What theory explains this
Positive
Theory of socio emotional selectivity
Describe people with a high need for closure
Prefer order and predictability, uncomfortable with ambiguity, are closed minded, and prefer quick and decisive answers
4 consequences of needing closure
- Attributional biases
- Tendency to make stereotyped judgements
- Formation of spontaneous trait inferences
- Tendency to assimilate judgments to primed constructs
Consider the multi directionality of personal control
Perceived control over one’a development shows an overall age-related decrease.
Perceived marital support shows an age related increase.
The degree to which self perceptions of control within a particular goal domain affect a general sense of control depends on the personal importance of that domain.
Increase of perceived personal control for social and personal issues up to middle age. After, general decline into old age.
On the other hand, perceived personal control over societal issues was low across the adult life span with slight increase in older adulthood
Brandstadter proposes that the preservation and stabilization of a positive view of the self and personal development in later life involves what 3 interdependent processes?
- People engage in assimilation activities that prevent or alleviate losses in domains that are personally relevant for self esteem and identity (eg. Using memory aids if memory important aspect of self esteem)
- People make accommodative changes and readjust goals and aspirations to lessen effects of negative self evaluations in key domains (eg. Increasing target time to walk a mile)
- People use immunizing mechanisms to alter the effects of self-discrepant evidence (eg. looking for alternative explanations for the decline or denying it)
Primary control
Bringing the environment into line with one’a desires and goals. Action directed toward changing the external world. Like Brandstadter’s assimilative activities
Eg. Lost job. Search actively for another job
Secondary control
Bringing oneself in line with the environment. Much like Brandstadter’s accommodative activities.
Eg. Lost job. Assert that you didn’t really enjoy that job
How does primary control have primacy over secondary control
More adaptive. Let’s you shape environment t to fit your goals and potential. Major function of secondary control to minimize losses or expand levels of primary control
Age related differences in terms of primary and secondary control
In childhood, much of development directed at expanding primary control. But through most of adult life, there will be a stability in primary control striving. During old age, maintaining primary control increasingly depends on secondary control processes bc threats to primary control increase as a function of bio decline that occurs when we grow older. Thus, secondary control increases with age
Cultural differences in terms of primary and secondary control
Western cultures value primary control, while collectivist cultures value secondary control in order to establish interdependence with others and be bound to a larger social institution
How does social facilitation affect cognitive functioning
Social context can compensate memory loss and facilitate memory performance. Eg. Relying on wife. The particular types of social settings in which we communicate with others influences our cognitive processing
Collaborative cognition is an aspect of…
Social competence
Collaborative cognition
Occurs when 2+ people work together to solve a cognitive task
Does collaborative cognition facilitate memory in old
For old, memory improves in a collaborative context. But collaboration can be a mixed blessing when old try to help each other with everyday cognitive tasks. Spouses who worked independently remembered more of the shopping list items than those who worked with partners. Instead, collaborative inhibition takes place
Collaborative inhibition
Partner’s faulty recollection may interfere with their own accurate memory or prevent them from recalling the correct info on their own
On the one hand, collaboration leads to collaborative inhibition. On the other hand..?
Collaboration prevents false positives. Working with their partners made old more conservative in their judgments and consequently they had fewer false memories
How could potential for wisdom be activated in a collaborative context
Wisdom could be activated when the discussion of a “wisdom task” occurred with a partner like a spouse. One could also engage in virtual dialogues with an imagined partner to promote wisdom related performance
Consider how social context influences memory
Memory performance influenced when task approximates a real world learning and social memory experience. A typical and relevant task is storytelling, which is a way for old to transmit sociocultural I do to going. When old asked to learn and retell story to young child, retellings contained more detail and were more fluent than those of going adults.
Also, social factors influence how and when a person will attend to specific info and when this info will influence social cognitive functioning
What does generative commitment have to do with memory in old
Those with greater generative commitment told stories that were judged by teens to be more wagging and of higher quality. Perhaps motivation of generative participants was greater in social context where their concerns were directed at producing an interesting and coherent account of the story for a child
