Lecture 4 - Social Cognition and Attribution Flashcards
(36 cards)
Define social cognition
The study of “the cognitive processes and structures that influence and are influenced by social behaviour”.
Describe the computer analogy
The human mind is analogous to a computer, we process information in a similar way. The brain acts as the CPU, STM acts as RAM and LTM acts as the hard drive.
Describe gambler’s fallacy
Gambler’s fallacy - the mistaken belief that if something happens more frequently than normal during a given period, it will happen less frequently in the future (or vice versa).
E.g. H-T-H-T-T-H is more likely than H-H-H-T-T-T
What is the false consensus effect?
People see their own behaviour as typical and assume that under similar circumstances others would behave in the same way (Ross, Greene & House, 1977).
Describe the study which supports the false consensus effect
University students were asked if they would be willing to walk around their campus for 30 minutes wearing a sandwich board saying: “Eat at Joe’s”. (No information is available about the food quality at ‘Joe’s’, and consequently how foolish students would look.) The results of this study confirmed the previous study. Of those who agreed to wear the sandwich board, 62% thought others would also agree. Of those who refused, only 33% thought others would agree to wear the sandwich board.
What is cognitive consistency?
A model of social cognition in which people try to reduce inconsistency amongst among cognitions, because they find inconsistency unpleasant. Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort experienced by a person who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a person’s belief clashes with new evidence perceived by the person.
Who came up with the naive scientist model?
Heider, 1958
Describe the naive scientist model
A model of social cognition that characterizes people as using rationale, scientific-like , cause-effect analyses to understand their world. People need to find causes to behavior and events in order to render the world a meaningful place in which to act. Heider believed people are intuitive psychologists who construct casual theories of human behaviour, and because such theories have the same form as systematic scientific social psychology theories, people are intuitive psychologists or naïve scientists.
What is external attribution?
Causality is assigned to an outside factor, agent or force. Outside factors fall outside your control. You perceive you have no choice. So your behaviour is influenced, limited or even completely determined by influences outside your control. Therefore you feel not responsible. A generic example is the weather. Also called: Situational Attribution.
What is internal attribution?
Causality is assigned to an inside factor, agent or force. Inside factors fall inside your own control. You can choose to behave in a particular way or not. So your behaviour is not influenced, limited or even completely determined by influences outside your control. Therefore you feel responsible. A typical example is your own intelligence. Also called: Dispositional Attribution.
Describe cognitive miser
The human mind is considered to be a cognitive miser due to the tendency of people to think and solve problems in simpler and less effortful ways rather than in more sophisticated and more effortful ways, regardless of intelligence.
What is motivated tactician?
This refers to an individual who alternates between sloppy thinking and more careful analytical thinking depending on his level of motivation. The idea of the motivated tactician has been used as a model in social psychology to better understand common social behaviour. In some cases, it might make sense for an individual to use cognitive short-cuts to arrive at important decisions, in others they may choose short-cuts in the interest of time or self-esteem.
Describe Asch’s (1946) warm vs cold study
Asch presented ppts with a seven-trait description of a hypothetical person in which either the word warm or cold, or polite or blunt appeared. The percentage of ppts assigning other traits to tthe target was markedly affected when warm was replaced by cold, but not when polite was replaced by blunt.
Describe Kelly’s (1950) replication of Asch’s study
Kelley replicated Asch’s study in a naturalistic setting. Kelley ended his introduction of a guest lecturer by saying that “People who know him consider him to be a:
1. rather cold, industrious, critical, practical and determined person
2. very warm, industrious, critical, practical and determined person
Condition 1 = lecturer was rated as more unsocialable, self-centred, unpopular, formal, irritable, humourless and ruthless
They were also less likely to ask questions and interact
Influencing factors
• Personal constructs – our own idiosyncratic ways of categorising people (Kelly, 1955)
• Primacy effect – traits listed first have a disproportionate effect (Asch, 1946)
• Negativity – we are biased towards negative information and this is more difficult to change (Fiske, 1980)
• Physical appearance (Park, 1986)
• Physical attractiveness – Heilman and Stopeck (1985) found that attractive male executives were viewed as more able whilst attractive female executives were viewed as less able
Describe the eyewitness accounts of the Stockwell tube incident
22nd July, 2005 a man enters Stockwell tube and is asked to stop by the Police but he started to run – people saw:
- pursued by plain-clothes Police and shot 5 times
- 10 Policeman with machine guns and 6-8 shots
- Shots from a silencer gun
- 20 cops carrying big black guns
- Man had a bomb with wires and there were 2 shots
What are heuristics?
Heuristics play important roles in both problem-solving and decision-making. When we are trying to solve a problem or make a decision, we often turn to these mental shortcuts when we need a quick solution.
What are the 3 types of heuristics proposed by Tversky & Kahneman (1974)?
The availability heuristic, the representativeness heuristic and the affect heuristic
Describe the availability heuristic
The availability heuristic - involves making decisions based upon how easy it is to bring something to mind. When you are trying to make a decision, you might quickly remember a number of relevant examples. Since these are more readily available in your memory, you will likely judge these outcomes as being more common or frequently-occurring. For example, if you are thinking of flying and suddenly think of a number of recent airline accidents, you might feel like air travel is too dangerous and decide to travel by car instead. Because those examples of air disasters came to mind so easily, the availability heuristic leads you to think that plane crashes are more common than they really are.
Describe the representativeness heuristic
The representativeness heuristic - involves making a decision by comparing the present situation to the most representative mental prototype. When you are trying to decide if someone is trustworthy, you might compare aspects of the individual to other mental examples you hold. A sweet older woman might remind you of your grandmother, so you might immediately assume that she is kind, gentle and trustworthy. If you meet someone who is into yoga, spiritual healing and aromatherapy you might immediately assume that she works as a holistic healer rather than something like a school teacher or nurse. Because her traits match up to your mental prototype of a holistic healer, the representativeness heuristic causes you to classify her as more likely to work in that profession.
Describe the affect heuristic
The affect heuristic - involves making choices that are strongly influenced by the emotions that an individual is experiencing at that moment. For example, research has shown that people are more likely to see decisions as having higher benefits and lower risks when they are in a positive mood. Negative emotions, on the other hand, lead people to focus on the potential downsides of a decision rather than the possible benefits.
What is a social schema?
Social schema - “Cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus, including its attributes and the relations among those attributes” (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; p. 98)
• Inter-related cognitions that allows us to quickly make sense of a person, situation, event or location
• Cues activate a schema that then fills in missing details
• Person schema
• Role schema
• Event schema (script)
• Self schema
Describe the ways to change schema proposed by Rothdart (1981)
- Bookkeeping – gradual schema change through the accumulation of bits of schema-inconsistent information
- Conversion – sudden schema change as a consequence of gradual accumulation of schema-inconsistent information
- Subtyping – schema changes as a consequence of schema-inconsistent information , causing the formation of sub-categories
What is attribution?
Process of assigning a cause to our own behaviour and that of others.
Describe Bem’s (1967, 1972) – self-perception theory
Self-perception theory Describes the process in which people, lacking initial attitudes or emotional responses, develop them by observing their own behaviour and coming to conclusions as to what attitudes must have driven that behaviour.
• We gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-attributions
• We infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour
• We construct image of ourselves by being able to attribute our own behaviour internally
