Chapter 4: Social Cognition

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Chapter 4Social Cognition
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Making sense of the world

• People are constantly trying to make sense of our
  social world
• Our brains are powerful and efficient, but
  imperfect
• We try to be rational, but we arent always

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Cognitive misers

• We try to conserve our cognitive energy
• We adopt strategies to simplify complex problems
• We ignore some information to reduce our
  cognitive load
• This leads to biases in our thinking

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Social context

• The way things are presented and described
• Four aspects
• Comparison of alternatives
• Thoughts primed by the situation
• How decisions are framed or posed
• The way information is presented

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Reference points

• Contrast effects
• An object can appear better or worse, depending
  on what it is compared to

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Priming

• Construct accessibility
• Priming is a procedure based on the notion that
  ideas that have been recently encountered are
  more likely to come to mind and therefore to be
  used in interpreting events

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Priming (continued)

• Cues too subtle for us to consciously notice can
  color our judgment about other peoples behavior

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Framing

• Whether a problem or decision is presented in
  such a way that it appears to represent the
  potential for a loss or a gain

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Ordering of information

• The manner in which information is arranged and
  distributed can influence the way we organize and
  interpret the social world
• What comes first
• How much information is given

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Primacy effect

• The things we learn first about a person have a
  decisive impact on our judgment of that person
• Two explanations
• Attention decrement
• Interpretive set

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Attention decrement

• Later items or information get less attention
  since minds tend to wander
• Therefore the later items or information have
  less impact on judgments

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Interpretive set

• The initial items or information serve to create
  an initial impression and are used to interpret
  subsequent information

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Amount of information

• More information tends to create a dilution
  effect
• Which is the tendency for neutral or irrelevant
  information to weaken a judgment or impression

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Judgmental heuristics(definition)

• A mental shortcut
• A simple, often approximate, rule or strategy for
  solving a problem

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Judgmental heuristics

• Representative heuristic
• Availability heuristic
• Attitude heuristic

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Representative heuristic

• We focus on the similarity of one object to
  another to infer that the first object acts like
  the second object
• Examples include racial stereotyping

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Availability heuristic

• We focus on specific examples that are brought
  easily to mind
• Sometimes that which is brought most easily to
  mind is not typical of the overall picture

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Attitude heuristic

• We use preexisting evaluations to assign
  information to a favorable or unfavorable
  category
• Sometimes these preexisting evaluations affect
  our logic and ability to reason

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Attitude heuristic (examples)

• Halo effect a bias in which favorable or
  unfavorable impressions of a person affect our
  inferences and future expectations about that
  person
• False-consensus effect our tendency to
  overestimate the percentage of people who agree
  with us

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When do we use heuristics?

• When we dont have time to think carefully
• When we are overloaded with information
• When the issues at stake arent very important
• When we have insufficient information to use in
  making a decision

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Categorization and stereotypes

• We categorize people and events hundreds of times
  a week
• Once we categorize a person or event, we base our
  future expectations on that categorization
• The consequences of these categorizations can be
  significant

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Self-fulfilling prophesy

• The process by which expectations and stereotypes
  lead people to treat others in a way that makes
  them conform to expectations
• This occurs when we act on our impressions of
  others

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The illusory correlation

• Seeing a relationship where there is none
• Often occurs in social judgments

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In-group and out-group effects

• The in-group is the group you belong to
• The outgroup is everyone else
• Homogeneity effect perceiving everyone
  belonging to the out-group as similar to each
  other
• In-group favoritism perceiving your own group
  as superior to others

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Minimum group paradigm

• Developed by Henri Tajfel
• Used in many research studies
• Takes complete strangers and creates a group
  using trivial criteria (such as flipping a coin)
• In-group favoritism develops almost immediately

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Re-constructive memory

• We cannot tap into a literal recreation of past
  events
• We recreate memories from bits of information
  filtered through what we think might have been,
  or should have been, or what we would have liked
  it to be, and by what others tell us about it

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Autobiographical memory

• We dont remember our past as accurately as we
  would like to believe
• Revisions and distortions occur over time
• These revisions are organized around self-schemas

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Self-schemas

• Coherent memories, feelings, and beliefs about
  ourselves that form an integrated whole
• Our memories are distorted to fit the general
  picture we have of ourselves

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Recovered memory

• Elizabeth Loftus and other researchers have
  conducted extensive, systematic research into the
  phenomenon of planting false childhood memories
• Most cognitive scientists do not believe that
  traumatic events are forgotten

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Human cognition is conservative

• We try to preserve that which is already
  established
• We maintain our existing knowledge, beliefs,
  attitudes and stereotypes

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Confirmation bias

• We tend to seek confirmation of initial
  impressions or existing beliefs
• We cling to these initial impressions and
  interpretations
• Sometimes this tendency results in an inaccurate
  picture or faulty understanding

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Hindsight bias

• Once we know the outcome of an event, we have a
  strong tendency to believe that we could have
  predicted it in advance

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Consequences ofcognitive conservatism

• Misuse of inappropriate categories can lead us
  to distort events or miss important information
• Misapplication of heuristics can lead to poor
  decision-making
• Failure to update our perception of the world can
  lead to a mistaken picture of reality

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Relationship between attitudes and behavior

• Perhaps there is no relationship
• Perhaps we succumb to the pressure of the
  immediate situation

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Correspondent inference

• Our tendency to attribute the cause of others
  behavior to a corresponding characteristic of
  that person

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Do attitudes predict behavior?

• Attitudes dont always predict behavior but
  sometimes they do
• Scientists try to determine exactly when
  attitudes predict behavior

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Attitude accessibility

• The strength of the association between an object
  and your evaluation of it
• Not all attitudes are equally accessible
• Highly accessible attitudes are more likely to
  guide behavior

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Acting on perceptions

• Beliefs can create our social world
• Subtle situational variables are often strong
  determinants of our behavior
• Context can influence attitudes and expectations
  which affects behavior which subsequently affects
  perceptions

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Biases in social explanation

• Fundamental attribution error
• Actor-observer bias
• Self-bias

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Fundamental attribution error

• The tendency to overestimate the importance of
  personality factors rather than situational
  factors when describing and explaining the causes
  of social behavior

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Actor-observer bias

• The tendency for actors to attribute their
  actions to situational factors while observers
  attribute the same actions to personality factors

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Self-biases

• Egocentric thought
• Self-serving bias

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Egocentric thought

• The tendency to perceive ourselves as more
  central to events than is actually the case
• We tend to think we influence events and people
  more than we do

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Self-serving bias

• The tendency make dispositional (personality)
  attributions for our successes and to make
  situational attributions for our failures

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The value of self biases

• Believing we cause good things leads to
  attempting to achieve and persisting toward goals
• Believing we can overcome obstacles helps us deal
  with stress

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The cost of self biases

• A distorted picture of ourselves and the world