Chapter 2: Social Cognition

Thursday, December 10, 2015

10:43 PM

Definition
o
The manner in

which we interpret, analyze, remember, and use

the information about the social world
o
In order to process social information more quickly, we create
cognitive shortcuts that work well enough most of the time, but
leave us to predictable errors in judgment

Preconceived notions in our head save us time, but might

be wrong most of the time
Schemas (Mental Frameworks)
o
Mental frameworks that help us organize social information that
we get from our social surroundings
o
These frameworks form from past experience and tell us how we
should act under certain conditions

Because we have already experienced something and

know how it goes, it saves us mental time and power to just
expect how to handle a situation

Example:

At a doctor's office, we already know that we usually

have to fill out a document, sit and wait for the doctor, and
pay some sort of bill
o
Many people within the same culture share the same
experiences, so many basic schemas are shared within cultures
o
Selective Attention

People tend to notice information that follows the schema

that is already in place

This helps when we experience cognitive load: too much

information at once

Saves brain power

o
Selective Encoding

People tend to store memories that go along with schemas

However, if a certain situation is extremely inconsistent

with the schema that is set in place, then it will be tagged and
encoded into memory
o
Selective Recall

Memories consistent AND inconsistent with schemas are

both able to be recalled

Differences in measuring each have to do with how

the participants are asked to remember
o
Priming

Temporary increase in the availability of a certain scheme

that is caused by outside stimuli
Example:

Watching a violent movie, and then having someone

take your parking spot

You are more likely to perceive this act as aggressive,

because you are primed to think about what aggression
looks like and associate it with the world around you
Umpriming

Once schemas are expressed, and a person is

allowed to act based on the schema they have created,
they are more likely to disregard the schema a second time
around

Sparrow and Wagner (2006)

Two conditional groups

One group was asked to answer simple

yes/no questions RANDOMLY

Other group was first asked to answer

the questions correctly, and THEN randomly

The people who answered the question

correctly the first time were much more likely to
give a random answer the second time because
their schema for "answering a question correctly"
was already used up and they could more easily
disregard it
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Because schemas help us process information, they can
distort our understanding of what is actually going on, and
make our information FOLLOW the schema
This may force us to create the world we expect
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)

Groups of students were given IQ tests and teachers

were told that some students had a very high IQ and were
about to bloom academically (experimental group) while
no IQ information was given about other students (control
group)

The students who the teachers were told would

bloom academically ended up having much higher IQ
scores after 8 months

This is because the teachers expected the students

who they thought had higher IQ s to be able to handle
more pressure and more learning

They treated the students differently because

they assumed something about their behavior based
on their traits

Mental shortcuts (Heuristics) and Potential Sources of Error (Fallacies

and Biases)
o
Representativeness Heuristic

The more somebody shares attributes with a certain group,

the more likely someone is to belong to that group

Example:

A nice woman dressed in conservative clothes,

is neat, gentle, and has a large collection of books
shares qualities with someone who is a librarian, so
someone who meets her and sees these attributes will
likely think she's a librarian

Although this heuristic can be correct sometimes because

people who share attributes with those of a certain group might
belong to that group, it can also be wrong because it ignores
base rates

It makes judgements based only on prototypes, and

doesnt take into consideration the odds that someone has
of belonging to a certain group

Example:

Although the woman might share

attributes with a librarian, it is much more likely
that she is a business professional because there
are many more business professionals out there
o
Availability Heuristic

Frequency of events is attributed to the "ease of retrieval"

from our memory

The greater the ability to bring something to mind, the

more impact it has on our decisions because we believe it is
more important or relevant

May cause us to overestimate the frequency of events that

are rare, but easily come to mind

Example:

When people are asked to determine whether a small

car or an SUV is more likely to be involved in a fatal car
accident, most people would say that a small car is more
likely

This is because people can more readily recall scenes

of a small car being crushed by a huge truck

However, this is a false association

o
False Consensus Effect

Thinking that others think as we do

We believe that our opinions and beliefs are normal, and

that therefore, other people have them as well

Related to our self esteem

We feel a need to be normal and fit in with other

people, so believing that our opinions line up with
everyone else's increases self esteem
Can be explained by the availability heuristic because
perceptions of similarity are more easily available than
perceptions of difference between other people, which causes
us to believe that our thoughts and beliefs are similar with
everyone else's
Vividness Effect
Events that are presented vividly can be recalled more
easily, giving a false sense of frequency that might not agree
with general statistics
Illusory Correlation
False belief in a correlation between variable when a
relationship doesnt actually exist
Example:

Association between race and stereotypically

negative behavior
Theory Perseverance
Once the mind has a theory, it is reluctant to give it up
It actively seeks information that supports this theory, and
rejects any information that discredits it
Reason the scientific method was invented
Regression Fallacy
Whenever there is an exceptional event that happens,
people tend to believe that the exceptional behavior will
continue, even though it will typically fall or "regress" towards
the mean
Something that happens after the exceptional behavior
subsides back to the average is believed to have caused the
regression back to the mean, but that is not usually what
happens

Example:

Someone who goes to the doctor because of a

headache might think that the headache going away
was caused by the doctor's visit

However, headaches are a part of life and

naturally come and go on their own

It is fallacious to think that the doctor's visit

causes the removal of the headache
Magical Thinking
Thoughts that dont hold up to rational scrutiny but are
compelling nonetheless
Our thoughts have the ability to control the real world
Example:

Thinking about something happening/not happening

will increase/decrease its chances of happening

Sticking pins and needles in a doll that looks like our

enemy will actually cause the person harm
Law of Contagion

Hari and clothing contain the essence of a person

Law of similarity

Doll/photo likeness contains the essence of a person

Negativity Bias (Automatic Vigilance)
Powerful tendency to pay attention to undesirable info or
stimuli
Optimistic Bias
Tendency to believe that things will turn out well overall

Example:

People believe they are much more likely to be

happily married, find a good job, and be happy than
other people

Construction projects are typically started out

with the workers and planners being very optimistic,
but it generally takes twice as long and costs twice as
much as predicted
Motivated Skepticism
We are skeptical about information that is inconsistent with
our initial preferences but are quite open to info that supports
these views
We require very little supporting information to continue
believingwhat we believe, but we require a LOT of disproving
information to change what we believe

Example

Cable New Problem in America

The Hostile Media Phenomenon

People who are strongly opinionated

about something believe that unbiased media is
actually biased
Counterfactual Thinking
Bringing alternate events and outcomes to mind
It's easier to be less sympathetic towards something if it
happened because of an alternate or unusual behavior
Example:

Someone who got into a car accident on their way

home from work vs. someone who got into a car accident
after leaving work an our earlier than before

"If only they hadn't left work early"

Need for Cognition

The desire to think about and increase one's understanding

of various events

People who are high in NFC tend to have a higher

verbal IQ and higher self esteem

People who are low in NFC are more likely to depend

on heuristic and stereotypes to process information

Want as many cognitive shortcuts as possible

o
Total rationality is much rarer than we think and is highly fallible
Affect and Cognition (Theories)
o
Nature of Emotion

James-Lange

Stimuli causes a physiological arousal, which in turn

causes an emotional response

Example:

Seeing a bear leads to running, which leads to

the experience of fear

Cannon-Bard

Stimuli causes a simultaneous physiological response

and experience of emotion

Example:

Seeing a bear leads to running and the

experience of emotion

Schacter & Singer

Stimuli causes a physiological arousal, but a

cognitive label that is determined from context is also
added to determine the experience of emotion

Seeing a bear elads to arousal AND a cognitive

appraisal which leads to the perception of emotion
o
Does Affect Influence Cognition?

When we are happy, everything looks rosy

Easier to remember information is consistent with current

mood

When we are in a good mood, we are more likley to be

creative

Mood affects the strategies used to process information

o
Does Cognition Influence Affect?

Schacter & Singer Theory

The cognitive label that is given to the stimulus is

what determines the emotion that experienced

This activates our schemas

Our attributions influence our emotional reaction

Expectation shape perceptions and feelings about

these events

Ruder & Bless (2003)

People's attitude towards change in the German

educational system was determined after coming up with
either two or six arguments
Two independent variables

Mood

Number of arguments
The better mood people are in, the less amount of
arguments they need to be in favor of change
Sadder people need more arguments to be in favor
of something

People who are sad are more careful about

their thinking