Social Cognition

1
Social Cognition

• Thinking About our Self and Others
• How Accurate are We?

2
Social Cognition - Definitions

• Numerous ways to define the term
• How do we think about the world
• How do we process social information
• How do we organize the social targets in our
  lives
• Social judgment
• The intersection of cognitive and social
  psychology

3
Are We Rational Thinkers?

• Harold Kelley said yes. We attempt to act like
  naïve scientists.
• Argued that we use three pieces of information to
  make behavioral attributions
• Consensus Do others behave the same way in the
  same situation?
• Consistency Does the person always behave in the
  same way to the stimulus?
• Distinctiveness Does (s)he behave in this manner
  in all situations?
• What kind of awareness does it take to process
  information in this way?

4
Do We Take Shortcuts?

• The current direction of social cognition leads
  us to believe that people usually take (out of
  necessity) shortcuts when understanding the world
• Fiske and Taylor call us cognitive misers

5
Context and Social Judgment

• Much of our judgment is relative influenced by
  the context of the situation
• Reference points and contrast effects (Short
  basketball players are often over 6 ft. tall)
• Priming recently encountered thoughts used to
  interpret social events. Text offers quote
  Media may not tell us what to think, but
  certainly tells us what to think about

6
Context, Continued

• Framing the Decision How a question is asked
  influences our answer. We humans tend to avoid
  loss.
• 1/3 die or 2/3 saved Can influence decision
• Primacy effect and impression formation
• Emphasizes importance of making a good first
  impression
• Asch study Edward Jones (answering first
  questions leads to high ability ratings)
• Explanations attention decrement, interpretive
  set

7
Heuristics

• Mental shortcuts/Rules of thumb
• When do we use these shortcuts
• Lack of time for full processing
• Information overload
• When issues are not important
• When we have little solid information to use in
  decision making

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Heuristics

• Representative Heuristic (Kahneman and Tversky)
  focus on the similarity of one object to another
  to infer that the first object acts like the
  second.
• All expensive wines must be good
• Foods with goofy, childish labels cant be
  nutritious (Consumer Reports research)
• This heuristic is the basis of stereotyping

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Heuristics

• Availability Heuristic
• Judgments are based upon how easy it is for us to
  bring specific examples to mind (e.g., death by
  shark attack vs. falling airplane parts)
• Attitude Heuristic
• Determine what is true based upon your feelings
  for things (e.g., assuming that Presidents plan
  is bad because you dont like him
• Halo Effect general impression influences all of
  our ratings
• False Consensus Effect Assumption that others
  like what we like (we overestimate reality)

10
Categorization and Stereotypes

• Stereotypes are generalizations that often have a
  related set of expectations associated with them
• Not inherently bad we can control impact of
  stereotypic effects. But
• Darley and Gross judge girl as having less
  ability when she comes from low vs. high SES
  (even though performance is the same)

11
Illusory Correlation

• The (inaccurate) perception of a relationship
  between two entities that we think should be
  related
• Always rains after I wash car
• PMS?
• What causes this effect?
• Memory for vivid events

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In-group/Out-group Effects

• Us versus them
• In-group favoritism tendency to see ones own
  group as better
• Out-group homogeneity we view people in other
  groups as more similar to each other than people
  of our own group
• Park and Rothbart sorority study (and a million
  others)
• Minimum Group Paradigm (Tajfel) Create
  meaningless groups and still get these effects

13
Reconstructive Memory

• Memory is not veridical. It is pieced together
  based upon knowledge and expectations
• Elizabeth Loftus Research on eyewitness
  testimony and leading questions
• Hit versus smashed

14
Autobiographical Memory

• Hazel Markus argued that we organize our personal
  history in terms of self-schemas
• Coherent set of expectations and beliefs about
  self
• We filter memories through this schema
• Over time our memories become increasingly
  coherent (shift stuff that doesnt fit schema)
  and thus, less accurate

15
Recovered Memory Phenomenon

• Loftus research on reconstructive memory has
  revealed how easily false memories can be planted
  in our minds
• Leads to skepticism concerning the deluge of
  tales involving recovered memories of abuse (both
  sexual and satanic)
• Difficult dont want to discredit valid cases
• However, consider self-fulfilling prophecies and
  desire to find external explanations for our
  shortcomings

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Dissociative Identity Disorder

• Up until 1944 only 76 reported cases
• In 1973 Sybil was published
• Up until 1980 no separate listing in the DSM
• Between 1985 and 1995 almost 40,000 cases
  reported
• Uneasy link between D.I.D, recovered memories,
  and hypnosis
• People diagnosed with D.I.D. tend to be very easy
  to hypnotize, suggests that they are susceptible
  to suggestion

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How Conservative Are We?

• The answer is very
• We aim to make life predictable. Thus, we insist
  on a lot of information before we change our
  opinion
• Stereotypes and subtyping
• Problem often leads to inaccuracy
• Confirmation Bias
• Tendency to seek information that confirms our
  original hypotheses and beliefs
• Can we ever prove something through this
  approach?

18
Attitude-Behavior Consistency

• We have already discussed the LaPiere study
• Wickers (1969) exhaustive review underscores the
  lack of agreement of attitude and behavior in the
  scientific literature
• Jones and Davis (1965) despite this evidence
  people tend to look to attitudes
• Label this Correspondent Inference (we look for
  attitudes that correspond to their behaviors)
• Especially when the behaviors are socially
  undesirable
• Fazio points out, attitudes are good predictors
  when they are highly accessible

19
Biases in Social Explanation

• Fundamental Attribution Error
• Egocentric Thought we perceive our selves as
  more central to events than we are
• Illusion of control (Langer and choice of lottery
  ticket)
• Astrology and Barnum Statements
• Memory is better for events tied to us

20
Self Serving Biases

• Tend to make dispositional attributions for our
  success and situational for our failures
• Can help us to protect our self concepts and
  self-esteem. In essence, ego defensive behavior
• Seligman has found a link between optimism and
  better physical health
• Depressive realism and depression