Social Reasoning (10.20 Lecture)

Question 1

what is social reasoning?

Answer 1

how do we analyze and reason about the social situations we encounter

Question 2

what are the factors that social reasoning depends on?

Answer 2

environmental context (time, place, situation).
other people’s characteristics (group characteristics, appearance, behavior).
bias/ expectations (memories, expectations)

Question 3

Heider and Simmel study

Answer 3

two objects fighting, shows how we assign human emotions even if they’re not there

Question 4

how are we able to “read minds?”

Answer 4

use our own experiences to understand someone else

Question 5

mental state reasoning

Answer 5

the ability to explicitly reason about what others are feeling (automatic infer the mental state of others)

Question 6

theory of mind

Answer 6

ability to attribute mental states - beliefs, intents, desires - to oneself and others (develops intuitively throughout childhood)

Question 7

sharing

Answer 7

tendency to mirror what others are feeling in order to help us understand others

Question 8

emotion mimicry

Answer 8

(2-3 week infants) are able to mimic adult facial expressions and behaviors

Question 9

for people who can’t move their small facial muscles, can they still understand facial expressions?

Answer 9

botox freezies the muscles on the face, brain doesn’t get feedback from memory, but there’s only ~ 5% difference in ability o see motion
people with moebius syndrome (can’t contract muscles on face) can still read behavior too

Question 10

attribution

Answer 10

assignment of a causal explanation for an event, action, or outcome

Question 11

dispositional attributes (internal, checking with Jasmine)

Answer 11

explaining behavior in terms of personal character (Seth was caught looking at his notes during the exam, Seth is a cheater)

Question 12

situational attributes (external, checking with Jasmine)

Answer 12

explaining behavior in terms of situational factors (Seth was caught looking at his notes during the exam, Seth must have a lot going on at home)

Question 13

fundamental attribution error (FAE)

Answer 13

tendency to believe that a behavior is due to a person’s disposition rather than the situation.

Question 14

why do we make FAE’s?

Answer 14

the world is complex and people have little time, FAE’s allows for quick and easy perceptions, using schemes and assumes people have free will and control over their lives

Question 15

self-serving bias

Answer 15

(protects u) we want to think we’re good people, so we assume our bad behaviors have explanations and situational attributions. (ex. if you cut someone off, think they were going too slow)

Question 16

cognitive dissonance

Answer 16

mental stress/ discomfort someone experiences when hold two contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time (actions inconsistent with values)

Question 17

cognitive dissonance theory

Answer 17

seek consistence, feel tension (“dissonance” when inconsistent), motivated to decrease dissonance

Question 18

super boring task study (cognitive dissonance study)

Answer 18

given $1 vs. given $20 to lie about how much they enjoyed the task. $1 people were more likely to say the task was fun because $20 is enough to justify lying but $1 made people believe it was true

Question 19

system 1 vs. 2 in relation to attributes

Answer 19

system 1 (dispositional attributes), system 2 (attributional attributes)

Question 20

attitudes

Answer 20

orientation towards, or an evaluation of a target stimulus w affective feelings (composed of your feelings, your beliefs, your behaviors)

Question 21

system 1 vs. 2 in relation to attitudes

Answer 21

system 1 (implicit attitudes), system 2 (explicit attitudes)

Question 22

implicit attitudes test (IAT)

Answer 22

to test automatic associations people have
asked to categorize white/ black in good/ bad in all versions of categorization. Greater time to categorize white into bad and black into good, shows that it takes a greater time when must overcome implicit biases

Question 23

shooter task study

Answer 23

had to decide whether to shoot vs. not shoot. people were much more likely to shoot if black even if unarmed vs. armed or unarmed white person

Question 24

attitudes

Answer 24

are a social phenomena, so maleable

Question 25

how to change attitudes?

Answer 25

be aware of bias and try to override the default, think of counter-examples, rethink traditional groups (intergroup contact)

Question 26

how can implicit biases change

Answer 26

they change as the context changes (Obama effect, after he was elected black/ white IAT scores dropped)