Social Cognition and Attribution Flashcards
What is Social Cognition?
Cognition processes and structures that influence and are influenced by social behaviour
How do we understand what people are like?
Impression formation, mental representation and social schemas
What is attribution
how we explain other people’s behaviours
What is thought?
The internal symbols and language that we use which is (or potentially can be) conscious (i.e. controllable)
What is cognition?
‘conscious’ thinking plus underlying nonconscious processes that are automatic (e.g memory, executive functions)
What is the order of social cognition?
Perceptions Mental representations Cognitions, emotions and behaviours (goes back to perceptions)
What is impression formation?
- What we notice about a person
- What we take in subconsciously about a person
- What aspects of these are most influential
Social Schema
- Organise and categorise information about people
- Direct future cognition, emotions and behaviours about and towards other people
- Influence future perceptions about people
Classical and Operant Conditioning
Cause and effect associations
Rewards (e.g. group affiliation)
Punishment (e.g. isolation)
What influences impression formation?
- Physical Features
- Non-verbal communication
- Observation of behaviours
What does it mean to form an impression based on physical features? Give one example.
- Individual and cultural associations between physical features and psychological, personality and social characteristics
e. g. asian students are good at maths?
What is the configurable model
Asch - central traits play a disproportional role in configuring the final impression
Central traits
traits that have a disproportionate influence on the configuration of final impressions
Peripheral traits
traits that have an insignificant influence on the configuration of final impressions
What are the consequences of judging by appearance?
Think that what is beautiful is good
People prefer to meet attractive strangers more than intelligent strangers (Walster, Aronson, Abrahams & Rottman, 1966)
People are more likely to help attractive strangers (Benson, Karabenick & Lerner, 1976)
How can physical features work with competing associations?
“Baby-faced” people are often seen as:
Honest, kind and warm
BUT ALSO
Less competent, childlike, or submissive
What other things do people look for in physical features other than biological appearance?
Clothing - individuals have a great amount of control
Why do people place emphasis on clothing in impression formation?
Cultural and historically bounded connotations
Status, wealth or power
Authority
Credibility
Enhance/attenuate other factors in impression formation
What is important in non-verbal communication?
- Eye contact
- Facial expression
- Body language
Why is eye contact important?
Provides a lot of useful social information (e.g. gaze direction and duration, fixation length, fixation frequency, fixation direction)
Why are facial expressions important?
Smiling or frowning - emotions
Why is body language important?
Analyse for body angle, body movements, personal space ect
What is an example of non-verbal communication?
Mindblindness’ theory of Autism*
Those with Autism experience significant deficiencies in social-communication alongside extremely narrow interests and high levels or resistance to change
Deficiencies in ‘theory of mind’ (or ‘mentalizing’ or ‘cognitive empathy’) – they are ‘mindblind’
What is involved in eye tracking studies?
Individuals with autism are significantly less likely to look at the eyes of other people than healthy controls and as we have noted, eye contact is a particularly informative type of non-verbal communication
Why is behaviour important in impression formation?
- Direct observation
- Information about behaviour form other sources
- -> Friends, family, news media, social media
Some assumptions for direct observation
Someone sitting quietly in the corner at a loud party = ‘shy’
Someone pushing in ahead of you at the supermarket = ‘rude’
Example of impression formation from other sources
Roma telling me that the old pharmacist stole - I have not met her and yet that would easily tarnish my impression
What are first impressions?
Generally automatic and intuitive
Are first impressions accurate
often yes, but depends on a range of factors
How can we form more considered impressions?
- With greater effort and motivation - seek out more detailed info about the person
What may considered impressions be?
More accurate: e.g., when we think being correct is important
Less accurate: e.g., when we have a desired judgement, we seek out information that supports this
What are stereotypes
Impressions of people are strongly influenced by widely shared assumptions based on personalities, attitudes and behaviour of people within a group