Social Cognition Flashcards
(16 cards)
What is social cognition?
How people process, store and apply information about other people and social situations
Social cognition also involves how individuals think about the social world and act based on those thoughts.
What is controlled thinking?
Deliberate, effortful, and conscious thought
Examples include weighing up decisions and discussing options with others.
What characteristics of automatic thinking?
*Fast, efficient, effortless, and unconscious thought
* Prone to systematic errors as it involves low level processing
*Cognitive misers explains that people rely shortcuts when making decisions and judgement
Automatic thinking is also prone to systematic errors.
What are the two forms of automatic thinking?
- Using schemata
- Cognitive biases
What is schemata? How are they built?
*Cognitive structures that represent: Knowledge, beliefs, attitudes about a concept or stimulus and attributes and relationships between them
*They are built from direct (personal experience) and indirect encounters (e.g. media)
*They develop over time and become more complex
What is the function of schemata?
*Helps organize our mental world and guide perception
*Enables quick interpretation with limited information
*Make the world predictable
*Assist in interpreting ambiguous or novel situations
What are the types of schemata?
*Person Schemata: About specific individuals
*Group Schemata: About social groups (stereotypes)
*Role Schemata- About social roles (e.g. sister, friends, mother)
*Event Schemata- Scripts (e.g. going to a lecture)
*Self-Schemata
What is the process of building and using schemata?
1) What we notice
2) How we encode and interpret information (schemas filter and bias perception)
3) What we remember or recall (later feedback can shape memories and schema can create false ideas)
How are schemas applied?
*Identifying what schema to apply depends on accessibility
*Chronic Accessibility: Frequently used schemas
*Priming: Recent activation by stimuli
What is the self fulfilling prophecy?
*Making schemata come true
*Rosenthal and Jacobson (1966) randomly labelled some students as bloomers
*Teacher unknowingly gave the more attention, harder tasks, better feedback
*After 8 months, bloomers improved in IQ
What are the 4 cognitive biases?
*Overconfidence Bias
*False Consensus Effect
*Illusion of Control
*Illusory correlation
What is overconfidence bias?
*People overestimate their: knowledge, accuracy of judgments, ability to complete tasks on time
*Buehler et al. (2002):
1) Students underestimated how long their thesis would take
2) Even in worst case predication, they were overly optimistic
What is the false consensus effect?
*We assume beliefs/behaviours are typical and others share them
*Ross, Greene and House (1977)
1) Asked if students would wear a sandwich board around campus
2) Those who said yes assumed others would too (vice versa)
What is illusion of control?
*Belief that we have more control over random events then we actually do
*Langer (1977):
1) Participants chose their lottery ticket vs being assigned one
2) Chosen tickets were valued 4x higher
3) Perception of control increased value
What is illusory correlation?
*Perceiving non-existent correlations or overestimating real ones
*Hamilton and Gifford (1976)
1) Participants read statements about Group A and B (minority)
2) More negative behaviours were falsely attributed to minority group
3) Also relevant to stereotyping and over policing of minority groups
Explain Parker et al. (1995) study on application of cognitive biases
1) Violation, not errors, linked to road accidents
2) Researchers found violators show
*Attribution Bias: Blame situation, not self
*False Consensus- Assume others also violate rues
*Illusory Thinking: Unrealistic optimism (e.g. I won’t crash), illusion of control (e.g. belief in superior skills), above average effect (young drivers think they are better than average and ignore safety messages)
