Social Psychology: Social Cognition

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Social Psychology Social Cognition

• Person perception stereotyping
• Attributions
• Liking and attractiveness

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Person Perception Forming Impressions of Others

• Weve already seen the effect of first
  impressions merely using adjectives!
• What about physical appearance?
• Cognitive schemas
• Stereotypes
• Evolutionary perspective
• In-groups and out-groups

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WHAT IS A STEREOTYPE?

• Overgeneralized belief about a group of people
  (Ashmore DelBoca)
• Cognitive structures that contain our knowledge,
  beliefs, and expectations about social groups
  (Hamilton Sherman)
• Attitudes where do stereotypes fit?

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Attitudes
a relatively stable evaluation of a person,
object, situation or issue. Attitudes vary on a
continuum from positive to negative.
Attitudes have 3 components
Cognitive (beliefs, thoughts)
Attitude
Affective (like, dislike)
Behavioral (tendency to act)
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The ABCs of Stereotypes

• Affect (ex. Prejudice)
• Behavior (ex. Discrimination)
• Cognition (ex. Stereotypes)

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Examples of Stereotypes at Work

• Stereotype Activation
• Black stereotype activation led to increased
  interpretations of behavior as hostile (Devine)
  and actual hostility (Bargh et al.)
• Stereotypes and Multiple Identities
• Activation and inhibition of stereotypes (Macrae
  et al.) can have real consequences for
  interviewees (Steele Ambady)
• Targets of Stereotypes
• Stereotype salience can impact academic
  performance

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Perpetuation Self-fulfilling prophecy
Automatic activation of negative stereotype
Treat target poorly
Target behaves poorly in response
Negative stereotype confirmed
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What happens, though, when contact with
characteristics is contrary to the
stereotype??Subtyping

• When faced with a counter-stereotypical person
  (e.g., a boisterous Asian), we can maintain the
  group stereotype by categorizing the individual
  as atypical
• Bigots can still say Some of my best friends
  are (insert stereotyped group here) because
  these individuals are fenced off from the group

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Subtyping

• Example
• Consider the stereotype of women
• Now consider Jane
• independent
• assertive
• good at math
• Instead of revising our stereotype of women, can
  easily dismiss Jane as a tomboy or a feminist
  and not really a typical woman

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Subtyping

• We are less likely to change stereotypes in
  response to counter-stereotypic people when we
  can subtype them easily
• Stereotype change more likely if
• individual is otherwise typical of the group
  (e.g., independent, but is nurturing and wears
  makeup and feminine clothes)
• deviation from the stereotype is moderate

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Subtyping

• Subtyping more likely if
• those who disconfirm a stereotype on a particular
  dimension (e.g., assertive) also disconfirm it on
  another dimension (e.g., good at math)
• we have other information with which to dismiss
  the person as atypical (e.g., she had brothers)
• the deviation from the stereotype is extreme
  (e.g., she is extremely aggressive)

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Subtyping

• More inaccurate stereotypes may be harder to
  change
• More inaccurate stereotype, more extreme typical
  group member seems (because stereotype is so far
  off from reality)
• Luckily, moderate disconfirmations of stereotypes
  may be more frequent in daily life
• A form of cognitive dissonance reduction

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Social Psychology
The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Leon
Festinger)
Not only do our attitudes influence what we do,
what we do can sometimes influence our attitudes.
Dissonant means not harmonious, conflicting.
Cognitive Dissonance is an unpleasant state that
can occur when we hold two conflicting attitudes,
or when our attitudes conflict with our behavior.
Having psychologically inconsistent ideas in mind
at the same time causes an aversive drive state
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Reducing Dissonance

• The theory says that when we experience
  dissonance, we immediately (and unknowingly) take
  steps to reduce it. This often involves attitude
  change
• People distort one or more of their inconsistent
  ideas to alleviate the drive state

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Cognitions Producing (or not) Dissonance
(Examples) 1) I went through a severe initiation
to hear a discussion in my sorority 2) The
discussion was boring Outcome 1 and 2 are
psychologically inconsistent, so people distort 1
(and or) 2 1) I went through a mild initiation
to hear a discussion 2) The discussion was
boring Outcome 1 and 2 are psychologically
consistent, so people do not distort
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Classic Experiment on Cognitive
Dissonance(Festinger Carlsmith)

• Control Group
• Performs dull task
• Asked to lie to waiting participant and say the
  task was interesting and fun paid 1 to lie
• Goes for interview about the task
• Experimental Group
• Performs same dull task
• Asked to lie to waiting participant and say the
  task was interesting and fun paid 20 to lie
• Goes for interview about the task

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Question According to the Theory of Cognitive
Dissonance, which group should form a positive
attitude, and why?
Prediction The 1 group should form positive
attitude. They said something they didnt
believe with a minimum amount of justification
(high dissonance).
Prediction The 20 group should show little or
no change in attitude. They said something they
didnt believe with a maximum amount of
justification (low dissonance).
Both predictions were supported.
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Attributions

• Biases in attributions
• Internal versus external attributions

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Attributions

• Biases in attributions
• Internal versus external attributions
• Fundamental attribution error
• The Tendency To Attribute Behavior to Personality
  (Internal Factors, Dispositions) When It Should
  Be Attributed To The Situation (External
  Factors).
• Self-serving bias
• Culture and attributions

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The language of actionand emotion(Brown Fish,
1983)
Consider the following...
Ted helps Paul. How likely is this because A.
Ted is the kind of person that helps people. B.
Paul is the kind of person that people help. C.
Some other reason
Ted likes Paul. How likely is this because A.
Ted is the kind of person that likes people. B.
Paul is the kind of person that people like. C.
Some other reason
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Attraction Liking and Loving

• What affects attraction?
• Physical attractiveness
• Matching hypothesis
• Similarity
• Reciprocity
• The mystery of love
• Perspectives on love
• Hatfield Berscheid Passionate vs. Companionate
  love
• Sternberg Intimacy and commitment
• Hazen Shaver love as attachment
• Evolutionary perspective on attraction
• Mating priorities

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