Social Cognition

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Social Cognition

• Geir Overskeid
• http//on.to/geir

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Social cognition What are we talking about?

• Definition How we think about social relations
  and the things that influence those relations
• This definition comes in many variations
• The need for social cognition is often thought to
  have been a driving force behind the evolution of
  human cognitive abilities

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Two important concepts

• Intuition (System 1)
• Reasoning (System 2)

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• 
  From Kahneman (2003)

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Another important concept

• Accessibility, not to be confused with
  availability.
• All aspects of a situation, a thing, a person
  tend not to be equally accessible to an observer.
  What is easily accessible often becomes the basis
  for judgments and decisions that are mainly
  intuitive (Syst. 1)
• Most decisions are mainly intuitive

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Accessibility
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The fundamental error of attribution

• In explaining the behavior of others, we tend to
  overestimate the importance of the actors stable
  dispositions and underestimate the power of the
  situation
• The fundamental attribution error has been found
  wherever researchers have looked, but seems
  somewhat weaker in East Asia
• The exception Explaining ones own behavior. Her
  the pattern may be the other way around.

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Intuitive judgments

• Intuitive judgments leave little room for
  uncertainty People often feel strongly that
  this is the way it is.
• Normally, only one alternative is represented
• Heuristics form the basis of many intuitive
  judgments

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Heuristics

• Heuristics are often useful, but can cause bias
  and lead to irrational behavior
• Behavior is rational when it is efficient in
  reaching the actors goal
• We often overestimate the degree to which we
  engage in reasoning. To a great extent, choices
  are based on heuristics and intuition.

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An example Representativeness

• The heuristic known as representativeness may
  strongly influence our assumptions regarding a
  persons group membership, or as to whether she
  resembles a stereotype. Let us look at Linda
• Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and
  very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a
  student, she was deeply concerned with issues of
  discrimination and social justice, and also
  participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
• Is Linda a bank teller? Is she a feminist and a
  bank teller?

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Priming - two modern classics

• John Bargh et al. (1996)
• Old age is unconsciously primed by way of a
  scrambled sentence test. Result Participants
  walk more slowly.
• White participants who have subliminally seen the
  face of a young Black male become more hostile
  than those who have subliminally seen the face of
  a young White male.

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Compensation

• If people feel they should compensate for
  irrelevant influence, they often compensate too
  strongly. Some examples
• Priming (contrast)
• Mood
• Liking
• When theres nothing to compensate for

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Other aspects of intuition

• A photograph may be sufficient basis for a good
  appraisal of personality
• Other peoples facial expressions may affect us
  unconsciously
• Lacking this kind of intuition may increase a
  persons risk of having social problems

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Nosce te ipsum

• People often arent very good at understanding
  the causes behind their behavior
• The basis we have for understanding our own
  behavior may not be much better than our starting
  point for understanding others

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Consciousness as cause

• Simply thinking about an action before it takes
  place may make people feel they caused it
• Even willed processes may not be governed by
  conscious will

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What can be unconscious?

• Most things
• John Bargh assumes that more 99 per cent of human
  behavior is unconsciously controlled
• Consciousness probably exists primarily for
  planning and simulation

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What can be unconscious?

• Among other things
• Causes
• What affects my mood? Why did I fall in love? How
  did I get that idea?
• Processes
• How did I solve that problem? Why does a
  situation look the way it does to me?
• Social learning
• I thought I learnt A, but it was B instead, and
  also C.

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It takes one to know one

• We overestimate the extent to which other people
  understand or think the way we do
• Exception Self-serving bias. We tend to see our
  strengths as unique. Our weaknesses, on the other
  hand, we see as more common than they really are.