Lecture 2 - Social Cognition and Biases

Question 1

Social psychology

Answer 1

Perceptions and behaviour and how it is influenced by others

Question 2

Social cognition

Answer 2

How we process and store social information, and how this affects our perceptions and behaviour (give rise to new hypotheses and perspectives)

Dominant area in social psychology

Question 3

Attribution

Answer 3

Process of assigning a cause to our own and others’ behaviour (understanding why someone acts the way they do)

Question 4

Social schemas

Answer 4

Knowledge about concepts

Make sense of our world with limited information (fill in blanks and predict behaviour)

Facilitate top-down (theory-driven) processing

Can have self-schemas, schemas about other people (stereotypes), events, places e.g. restaurant

Question 5

Category

Answer 5

Organised hierarchically (associative network = connected stimuli activated in different circumstances)

Fuzzy sets of features organised around a prototype (boundaries around categories are fuzzy)

Categorise what we perceive

Question 6

Prototypes

Answer 6

Cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category (average category member)

Question 7

Casual attribution

Answer 7

An inference process through which perceivers attribute an effect to one or more causes

Metaphors for how lay people practice psychology/process social material:

Question 8

Naïve scientist

Answer 8

People are rational and scientific-like in making cause-effect attributions.

All want to understand what happens to us

Question 9

Biased/intuitionist

Answer 9

but information is limited and driven by motivations (leads to errors and biases)

Question 10

Cognitive miser

Answer 10

People use least complex and demanding info processing (cognitive short-cuts)

Question 11

Motivated tactician

Answer 11

Think deeply when required (only when we need to). Most common now

More efficient

Combination of previous metaphors

Think carefully and scientifically about certain things (when personally important or necessary)

Think quickly and use heuristics for others (when less important so that can do things quickly and get more done)

Question 12

Naïve psychologist (Heider, 1958)

Answer 12

Heider and Simmel (1994) = presented stimuli and asked participants to write down what they saw e.g. circles/triangles trying to get out of room – ascribe human feelings to abstract stimuli

Anthromorphising – ascribing human feelings to non-human objects

Question 13

Homo rationalis

Answer 13

Analytical, cogent, balanced, logical

Hypothesis testing

Attribute cause to effects to create a stable world that makes sense

Question 14

Three principles of need

Answer 14

(1) Need to form coherent view of the world (search for motives in others’ behaviour)

(2) Need to gain control over the environment (search for enduring properties that cause behaviour)

(3) Need to identify internal (personal) vs external (situational) factors

Question 15

Attributional theory (Weiner, 1979)

Answer 15

Causality of success or failure

Multi-dimensional approach:

Locus (internal/external)

Stability (e.g. natural ability/mood) – whether behaviour is always the same

Controllability (e.g. effort/luck) – whether things can be changed

Dynamic model:

Performance (success/failure) -> feelings (positive/negative) -> attributions -> specific emotions (e.g. pride) -> expectations ->…

Question 16

Attributional retraining

Answer 16

People are encouraged to make more optimistic attributions

Outcomes are controllable

Success attributed to internal causes

Question 17

Parker et al. (2018)

Answer 17

University athletes prone to difficult transition from school

RCT = attributional training or waitlist control

Attributional training = better grades explained by increased perceived academic control

When people believed outcomes were under their control (internal), increased motivation

Used in clinical practices e.g. CBT

Question 18

Correspondent interference theory (Jones & Davis, 1965)

Answer 18

Whether behaviour reflects an internally driven behaviour (intentional)

Non-common effect = effect of behaviour unusual compared to other behaviours

Socially desirable = more likely to be produced by situation

Personalism = whether behaviour designed to affect you e.g. positive consequences

But: overly focused on internal attribution

Question 19

Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)

Answer 19

Use multiple observations to try and identify factors that co-vary with behaviour (more scientific)

Assign causal role to the factor(s)

Whether behaviour is internal or external is key

Look for 3 bits of information:

Question 20

Consistency

Answer 20

Does this behaviour always co-occur with the cause?

Low (e.g. never failed before after nights out) -> discounting – look for different cause

High (always fail if go out night before) -> these are linked

Question 21

Distinctiveness

Answer 21

Is the behaviour exclusively linked to this cause or is it a common reaction?

High (e.g. I never failed other exams) -> attribute to external cause

Low (e.g. I generally fail exams) -> internal attribution

Question 22

Consensus

Answer 22

Do other people react in the same way to the cause/situation?

High - strengthens attribution to external cause (e.g. realise not to drink before exam)

Low - internal attribution (e.g. may just affect me in an adverse way)

Question 23

Mental health

Answer 23

People with depression attribute negative events to internal, global and stable causes (Abramson et al., 1989)

E.g. “I failed because I am stupid” = internal attribution

Key aspect Psychotherapy – stop explaining events in an overly pessimistic, self-defeating way (Ebeck et al., 1979)

Critiques

BUT: Covariation really used? Salience of prior info? – maybe focus on information that stands out/obvious

Empirical evidence suggests that we are actually quite poor at assessing covariation

Covariation = Correlation ≠ Causation!

Are we really all information seekers and rational scientists?

Question 24

Attribution biases

Answer 24

Systematic errors indicative of shortcuts, gut feeling, intuition

Question 25

False consensus

Answer 25

Use our opinions as representative of others How common is your opinion? Ross et al. (1977) – asked students would you walk around campus to advertise cafeteria and if other people would do it Yes = 62% think others will also say yes No = 67% think others will also say no Why = seek out similar others to hang out with which gives us a biased view of the world, salience of own opinion (our opinions stand out), self-esteem maintenance (like to validate our own behaviours) People with extreme views often overestimate others who have similar views e.g. vaccines cause autism (Rabinowitz et al., 2016)

Question 26

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 26

Tendency to attribute behaviour to enduring dispositions rather than situations (even when clear situational causes) Ross et al. (1977) – assigned some to knowledgeable quiz master role and some to contestant Other audience still watching Rated quiz master as more knowledgeable Clear situational cues but people still think behaviour is internal/dispositional Why = focus of attention/saliency effect Target most salient -> internal attribution most accessible More likely to forget situational causes -> dispositional shift Also known as correspondence bias (children don’t demonstrate this bias and we don’t find it in the same strength across cultures)

Question 27

Actor-observer bias

Answer 27

Extension of fundamental attribution error More likely to make situational attributions for our behaviour and dispositional to others Internal for others, external for yourself Jones and Nisbett (1972) A shop assistant it rude to you They are a rude person (internal) You are rude to a shop assistant You are simply stressed (external) Why = perceptual focus, informational difference (got more information about ourselves) Moderators – positive behaviour makes dispositional more likely, perspective taking reverses effect (put yourself in their position reduces dispositional attribution and increases understanding of the situation)

Question 28

Self-serving bias

Answer 28

Olson and Ross (1988) Success = internal Failure = external E.g. Kingdon (1976) – self-serving bias in American politicians Why = expectations and self-esteem Motivational: maintenance of self-esteem (split into self-enhancing and self-protecting bias) Cognitive: intend/expect to succeed -> attribute internal causes to expected events Operates at a group level too (e.g. football wins/losses)

Question 29

Attribution heuristics

Answer 29

Cognitive shortcut Avoid effort, resources expenditure Rule of thumb, not complex mental judgement Quick and easy E.g. which are deadlier – sharks or horses? – most people are more scared of sharks but it is horses (shark deaths are more salient)

Question 30

Availability heuristic

Answer 30

Judge frequency or probability of events by how easy it is to think of examples (memory accessibility)

Question 31

Representative heuristic

Answer 31

Categorise based on similarity between instance and prototypical category members Allocate a set of attributes E.g. may judge new outbreak of a disease compared to covid because its familiar and in that category

Question 32

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Answer 32

Make a judgement based on a starting point (or initial standard) influences subsequent judgements, even if its an arbitrary starting point