Social Reasoning (10.20 Lecture) Flashcards
what is social reasoning?
how do we analyze and reason about the social situations we encounter
what are the factors that social reasoning depends on?
environmental context (time, place, situation).
other people’s characteristics (group characteristics, appearance, behavior).
bias/ expectations (memories, expectations)
Heider and Simmel study
two objects fighting, shows how we assign human emotions even if they’re not there
how are we able to “read minds?”
use our own experiences to understand someone else
mental state reasoning
the ability to explicitly reason about what others are feeling (automatic infer the mental state of others)
theory of mind
ability to attribute mental states - beliefs, intents, desires - to oneself and others (develops intuitively throughout childhood)
sharing
tendency to mirror what others are feeling in order to help us understand others
emotion mimicry
(2-3 week infants) are able to mimic adult facial expressions and behaviors
for people who can’t move their small facial muscles, can they still understand facial expressions?
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
attribution
assignment of a causal explanation for an event, action, or outcome
dispositional attributes (internal, checking with Jasmine)
explaining behavior in terms of personal character (Seth was caught looking at his notes during the exam, Seth is a cheater)
situational attributes (external, checking with Jasmine)
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)
fundamental attribution error (FAE)
tendency to believe that a behavior is due to a person’s disposition rather than the situation.
why do we make FAE’s?
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
self-serving bias
(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)
cognitive dissonance
mental stress/ discomfort someone experiences when hold two contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time (actions inconsistent with values)
cognitive dissonance theory
seek consistence, feel tension (“dissonance” when inconsistent), motivated to decrease dissonance
super boring task study (cognitive dissonance study)
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
system 1 vs. 2 in relation to attributes
system 1 (dispositional attributes), system 2 (attributional attributes)
attitudes
orientation towards, or an evaluation of a target stimulus w affective feelings (composed of your feelings, your beliefs, your behaviors)
system 1 vs. 2 in relation to attitudes
system 1 (implicit attitudes), system 2 (explicit attitudes)
implicit attitudes test (IAT)
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
shooter task study
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
attitudes
are a social phenomena, so maleable
how to change attitudes?
be aware of bias and try to override the default, think of counter-examples, rethink traditional groups (intergroup contact)
how can implicit biases change
they change as the context changes (Obama effect, after he was elected black/ white IAT scores dropped)
