The Social Cognition Approach to Media Effects Research

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The Social Cognition Approach to Media Effects
Research
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Two Approaches to Cognition

• One way of thinking about the cognition was to
  regard our brains as a physical organ subject to
  electrical and chemical impulses.
• Physiological changes as a result of media
  exposure become a key issue. For example,
  watching an exciting film may result in an
  increase in blood pressure, heart rate, or
  galvanic skin responses. This effect was
  interpreted by some researchers (e.g., Lang,
  1994) as a primary mechanism that explains the
  effects of media exposure on viewers mood,
  emotion, or degree of attention to the material
  (Giles, 2003). Subsequent changes in attitude
  and behavior can in turn be understood as changes
  in a persons mood and emotion.

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Two Approaches to Cognition
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Two Approaches to Cognition

• Another way of thinking about the black box
  involves the study of thought processes, mental
  representations, memory, and other forms of
  cognitions
• the brain is not just a biological organism with
  cortical matter and blood vessels. Rather,
  cognitive psychologists, influenced by advances
  in computer science, took a metaphorical
  approach, treating the brain as an information
  processing machine. The cognitive approach to
  media research, then, focuses on cognitive
  processes, memory structure, and comprehension.
  Cognition is the primary driving force underlying
  media effects.

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Two Approaches to Cognition
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Two Approaches to Cognition

• Modern cognitive science attempts to take a
  balanced approach that combines both of the two
  traditional views.
• Neurological approach
• Cognitive approach
• Social Cognition, especially in the area of media
  effects, focuses on the mind (how we think) more
  than the brain.

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Social Cognition

• Social cognition is not one single theory, rather
  it is a collection of theoretical perspectives
  based on the conviction that constructs relevant
  to cognitive representation and process are
  fundamental to understanding all human responses
  (Carlston and Smith, 1996).
• Social Cognition
• The study of how people interpret, analyze,
  remember, and use information.
• The study of social cognition concerns how people
  think about and how they think they think about
  the social world (Fiske Taylor, 1984).

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Social Cognition

• Foundations of social cognition
• Mental representation
• Schematic representation
• Associationistic representation
• Heuristic processing
• Major areas of social cognition
• Attribution
• Social perception
• Social influence
• Social judgment

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Mental Representations of the World

• We have a mental map of the world.
• The reality as we know it is distorted by our
  perceptions of the reality and our memories of
  it.
• Thus, to understand how people think about the
  social world (social reality), we must first
  understand how we represent reality in our mind.
• There are two separate approaches to mental
  representation.
• Schematic representation
• Associationistic representation

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Schematic Representations

• Ideas and concepts are organized in a logical and
  hierarchical (schematic) fashion.
• Schemata are cognitive structures of organized
  prior knowledge, abstracted from experience with
  specific instances schemata guide the processing
  of new information and the retrieving of stored
  information (Fiske Linville, 1980, p. 543).
• E.g., A car is an automobile, all automobiles
  have engines, all automobiles belong to a bigger
  category of machines, cars moves fast, they
  have wheels, etc.
• E.g., guns are weapons, guns kill people, guns
  are violent, there are lots of guns on TV, TV is
  thus very violent.

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Schematic Representations

• There are four types of schemata, including
• (a) person schemata (i.e., interpretations of
  individuals psychology),
• (b) self-schemata (i.e., information about ones
  psychology),
• (c) role schemata (i.e., perceptions about
  inter-group relations and broad social
  categories), and
• (d) event schemata (i.e., information about
  sequences of events in social situations) (Fiske
  Taylor, 1984 Wicks, 1992).
• In media research, especially in media violence
  studies, event schemata are most often studied,
  because media stories involve plots with various
  social events

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Associationistic Representations

• Our memory structure is not always schematic. We
  make associations between objects and events in
  the environment based on many other criteria.
• In other words, we dont organize our thoughts by
  the logical connections among concepts. Instead,
  we tend to link things together simply because
  they are stored closed to each other in our
  memory.

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Associationistic Representations

• The Neoassociationistic perspective
• The Neoassociationists regard memory as a
  collection of networks.
• The nodes in these network are linked through
  associative pathways.
• The strength of these associative connections is
  determined by a variety of factors, including
  contiguity, similarity, and semantic relatedness.
  
• Associations can be strengthened by rehearsal.
• Nodes can be activated by priming and spreading
  activation.

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Heuristic Processing

• We are cognitive misers, preferring to think as
  little as possible. Instead, we use judgmental
  heuristics mental shortcuts or strategies.
• Example The Xeroxing Experiment at Yale
• Can I xerox this page?
• 60 said yes
• Can I xerox this page because I have a class and
  I'm in a hurry?
• 85 said yes
• the person gave a reason
• heuristic they gave a reason so its probably a
  good one for them.
• Can I xerox this page because I have to make
  copies?
• 85 said yes
• the person gave a reason (same heuristic)

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Heuristic Processing

• Types of Heuristics
• Representational heuristics
• Judging a person or thing based on their
  relationship to a mental category.
• Its expensive expensive things are better.
• It looks natural natural things are healthier.
• Availability heuristics
• Making a judgment based on how easily consistent
  examples come to mind.
• Crimes are common because I see in the news
  everyday.
• Planes are more dangerous than cars its easy
  to think of plane crashes, theyre publicized.

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Mental Representations and Media

• Both schematic and associationistic approaches to
  mental representations are very important in
  media effects research. We will examine them in
  detail later in the quarter.
• Very briefly,
• Media can create new schemata, for example, give
  us a template of how to act when provoked, or how
  to use a gun, etc.
• Media can strengthen existing schemata, for
  example, reinforce stereotypes.
• Media can create new associations among unrelated
  concepts, for example, killing and pleasure.
• Media can strengthen existing associations among
  concepts, for example, guns, heroes and justified
  violence.

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Attribution

• We are all naïve scientists
• We always seek causality in nature. We ask Why
  does this happen? Why did she breakup with me?
  Why am I depressed? Why was my mom mad at me?
  Etc.
• This is the process of attribution.
• In order to make attributions, we will need to
  gather (collect) and understand (analyze)
  information around us. We seek causes (reasons)
  for everything in our environment.

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Attribution

• Kelly (1967) Covariation Theory (a theory about
  naïve science and attribution)
• A behavior can be caused
• Internally (by a persons personality)
• Externally (by the situation)
• Or by a combination of both causes.
• In order to attribute causes following
  Information is used
• Consistency does person always behave in this
  manner in other situations and at other times?
• Consensus Do others behave in the same way in
  the same situation
• Distinctiveness Is person the only one to
  behave in this manner?
•  

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Attribution

• For example,
• To understand why Sara kisses Scott, we ask
• Consistency
• Does Beth kiss everyone? 
• Consensus
• Does Everyone kiss Scott? 
• Distinctiveness
• Does Beth only kiss Scott, and no one else kisses
  Scott?

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Attribution

• But The Naïve Scientist is Biased! (We make
  attribution errors)
• Perceptual Biases
• Actor-Observer Biases
• Motivational Biases

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Attribution

• Perceptual Biases
• Fundamental Attribution Error
• People tend to make dispositional (person)
  attributions for others behaviors.

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Attribution

• For example, Jones Harris, 1967
• Subjects saw individual give pro-Castro speech. 
• Condition 1 Individual did it of free choice
  (probably low consensus, high distinctiveness
  nobody else would give a pro-Castro speech out of
  free choice)
• H1 person attribution they love Castro. 
• Condition 2 Individual had to do it as
  assignment (probably high consensus, low
  distinctiveness anybody would do it if it was
  an assignment)
• H2 situation attribution they dont love
  Castro, did it as assignment.
• Actual finding
• Anybody who said anything pro-Castro was seen as
  loving Castro.

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Attribution

• Actor-Observer Bias
• People see actors as the source of the actors
  actions, and see situations as the source of
  their own actions.
• Possibly caused by perceptual focus we see other
  actors, we dont see ourselves.

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Attribution

• Motivational Biases
• Self-serving bias
• Tendency to see oneself as the cause of ones
  successes, attribute failure to external sources.
• Motivation protection of self-esteem.
• Depressed individuals dont do it depressive
  realism
• For the depressed, failures are due to internal,
  stable causes that will have effects globally.

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Attribution

• Severity bias
• Walster (1966) Assignment of responsibility for
  an accident.
• Participants read this scenario
• Person parks on hill, sets brake, leaves. Brake
  cable snaps, car rolls down hill.
• Participants have to decide whether or not the
  cars owner was responsible.
• Researchers manipulated
• Low damage to car and others
• participants tend to say it was due to chance.
• High damage to car and others
• participants tend to say it was due to persons
  irresponsibility.
• Cant attribute disasters to chance its too
  threatening to perceptions of just world.
• Blaming the victim works the same way.

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Attribution

• Examples of attribution issues related to media
  effects
• Third person effect I am immune to the
  negative effects of media when others are not.
• Over attribution to media effects It must be
  medias fault, because how can we (humans) become
  so violent?
• Media can provide exemplars of possible a
  situation in which we need to make attributions
  I saw it in the movies that when this happens it
  is usually the polices fault.

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Social Perception

• social perception can be viewed as peoples
  mental representations of the social environment
  in which they live. Thus, the study of social
  perception involves examinations of how
  individuals form impressions of things, places,
  and other people
• Media is an important source from which people
  learn about and understand the social world.
• Media can influence peoples social perception!

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Social Perception

• Research on media effects of social perception
  usually relies on the notion of schema.
• Media builds new schemata for us.
• Media enhances and strengthens existing schemata.
  
• Media influence on social perception
• Cultivation The world is scary and full of
  crime because I saw that on TV.
• Stereotype LAPD is corrupted and racist.

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Social Influence

• Social influence is concerned with the cognitive
  process that establishes and changes people's
  attitudes, values, and behavior.
• A key question to ask in social influence
  research is When and whether individuals will
  choose to be influenced by persuasions such as
  contributing to a cause, obeying the rules of
  society, and reacting aggressively or
  cooperatively in conflicts.

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Social Influence

• Sources of social influence
• advertisers
• media producers
• political leaders
• family
• friends
• strangers.
• In addition, we can also be influenced by our own
  "inner voices" of conscience, self-concept, and
  deep-seated stereotypes.

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Social Judgment

• How do people develop impressions and ideas about
  the people around them?
• It explores how people make judgments about other
  people.
• Lets think about it, how do you decide whether
  you like someone or not? How do you know if you
  or your friend is pretty or not? How do you know
  if someone is dangerous or not?

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Social Judgment
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Social Judgment

• Again, the idea of schema is very important and
  central in this body of research.
• Recall that we use schemata to guide our
  impressions and actions. So impression formation
  and social judgment is about using a mental
  representation of something/someone and compare
  it with the real thing in order to make a
  decision.
• So where do media influences come in?