Chapter 3 Social Cognition

Chapter 3: Social Cognition  Social Cognition- How people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions Two Kinds of Social Cognition  Automatic Thinking- Quick, effortless, non-conscious, unintentional, and involuntary o Ex. Schemas- use prior expectations to fill in gaps  Controlled Thinking- Effortful and deliberate, carefully selecting the right course of action Automatic Thinking  We often size up a new situation very quickly (and even correctly!) o Ex. is this a college classroom or a frat party, no careful deliberation required  Sifted out of gene pool if bad at it, has SURVIVAL VALUE  Imagine a different approach- slow and deliberate thinking o e.g. driving down a new road and stopping to analyze every stop o e.g. meeting a new person and excusing yourself to analyze what you learned from them o Obviously most of us don’t do this!  We form impressions of people and navigate new roads quickly and effortlesslyHOW? o By relating new situations to past experiences and our knowledge of the world  Use schemaso Mental structures that organize our knowledge of the social world o Schemas influence the information people notice, think about, and remember o Schemas encompass our knowledge and impressions of:  Other people  Ourselves  Social Roles- e.g. what a librarian is like, what it means to be masculine  Specific events- e.g. what usually happens at a bachelor/bachelorette party Schemas and Stereotypes o When applied to members of a social groups (e.g. frat, gender, race), schemas are referred to as stereotypes o Can be applied rapidly and automatically when we encounter other people o Are schemas/stereotypes necessarily “bad”? Function of Schemas o Interpret new situations (i.e. fill in the gaps) o Especially useful in ambiguous or confusing situations o Organize and make sense of the world How Schemas Affect Perception o 2 groups of students observe the same exact lecture o Prior to the lecture, students are given different descriptions of the guest lecturer (warm vs. cold). o Schemas manipulated by different bio. Sketches (pg. 54) o DV: after 20 min, how did they rate arrogance and sense of humor? o Arrogance- rated the same for both conditions, unambiguous trait o Sense of Humor- rated as funnier because it’s an ambiguous trait o Ambiguous Information- use schemas to fill in the blanks Which Schemas do We Use? o Accessibility- the extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people’s minds and are therefore more likely to be used when making social judgements o Priming- The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept o 3 Reasons1. Chronically accessible due to past experience (e.g. history of family alcoholism, therefore, traits describing an alcoholic are more likely to come to mind. 2. Accessible because it is related to a current goal (e.g. abnormal class covering alcoholism) 3. Primed by our recent experience o Suppose you read about a man named Donald with ambiguous actions o People primed with words like adventurous, independent- formed positive impressions o People primed with reckless, aloof, stubborn- formed negative impressions o Priming occurs quickly, unintentionally, unconsciously Making our Schemas Come True: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy o The case whereby people have an expectation about what another person is like, which o Influences how they act towards that person, which o Causes that person to behave consistently with people’s original expectations, making them come true o Elementary school example, teachers led to believe students will “bloom”, more attention given, greater IQ scores o WHY: Treated bloomers differently in four critical ways: o Gave more personal attention, encouragement o More challenging material o Gave more and better feedback o Gave more opportunities and time to respond in class Types of Automatic Thinking (besides schemas) o Automatic Goal Pursuit (nonconscious)- prime goals to see effect on behaviors o Ex. Task 1: Primed goals via sentence unscrambling task  1: god related words 2. Neutral 3. nonreligious o Task 2: Economics game- given $1 coins ($10 total) to divide between themselves and next participant  Gave more in God and fairness than in neutral o Which goal was automatically primed in those: acting altruistically and/or fairly to others o Goals can be activated and influence people’s behavior without their knowing it  People did not realize tasks 1 and 2 were related Automatic Thinking and Metaphors about the Body and the Mind  Physical (bodily) sensations can automatically prime metaphors  We think about someone or something in part based on how our bodies are reacting (smells, weight, temperature) o Scent of cleanliness increases degree to which people trust strangers and help others  Cleanliness associated with morality, dirtiness with immortality o Automatically primed metaphors can influence decisions (from bodily sensations)  Holding hot coffee or iced coffee  Encounter a stranger  Hot: primes “warm and friendly” metaphor, rated as friendly  Iced: primes “unfriendly people are cold”, rated as cold o Weight of clipboard influences how important you think a questionnaire is  Feeling weight primed metaphor of (heavier weight of importance) Mental Strategies and Shortcuts  We don’t have a schema for every judgement or decision- what do we do? o Use other mental shortcuts (whatever comes to mind most easily) ->  Judgmental Heuristics- Mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently (not always accurate)  Availability Heuristic (AH)- Mental rule of thumb where people base a judgement on the ease with which they can bring something to mind o Deciding if someone is assertive based on whether you mainly have memories of them being assertive or not o Problems- What is easiest to recall may not be typical of the overall picture, leading to faulty conclusions o Influences self-judgement more when we lack well-developed schemas about our traits  Representativeness Heuristic (RH)- Mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case o i.e. how closely It fits our stereotype Cultural Differences in Social Cognition- Cultural Determinants of Schemas  Content of our schemas are influences by the culture we live in, differs across cultures  Analytic Thinking Style- Focusing on the properties of objects without considering the surrounding context Chapter 4: Social Perception- How We Come to Understand Other People Social Perception  The study of how we form impressions and make inferences about other people  Explaining why others behave as they do Nonverbal Communication  They way people communicate intentionally or not, without words o Facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position, movement, use of touch, gaze  Help us to express our emotions, attitudes and personality Evolution and Facial Expressions  Communicativeness of the human face has been a topic of research interest for almost 150 years o Darwin’s (1872) The Expression of The Emotions in Man and Animals  Darwin believed facial expressions were vestiges of adaptive physiological reactions  Susskind studied facial expressions of fear and disgust o Found that muscle movements of each emotion were completely opposite of the other o Fear- Enhanced perception- facial and eye movement increase sensory input (widening visual field, increasing volume of air in nose, speeding up eye movements) o Disgust- Decreased perception- facial and eye movement decrease sensory input (eyes narrow, less air breathed)  Darwin also believed that the ability to communicate and interpret facial expressions had survival value o Such ability is a species-typical (i.e. universal) psychological adaptation o Are facial expressions of emotion universal? YES for the six major: anger, happiness, surprise, fear, o What about other emotion states?: contempt, anxiety, shame, envy  Less, more influenced by cultural