1. Social Cognition: Thinking About People
Chapter Three
Social Cognition: Thinking About People

2. Social Cognition
Social cognition refers to the processes by which information about people is processed and stored
topics include schematic processing, reconstructive memory, reasoning, problem-solving, counterfactual thinking, stereotyping, among others

3. Schemas
Schemas are mental representations of objects or categories of objects
schemas aid in the categorization of events
schemas aid in the predictability of events
schemas influence our interpretation of events

4. Concept Review

5. Memory: The Storage System of the Mind
Memory is an associative network of interconnected schemas
schemas are activated when an schema-relevant object is encountered
related schemas become active through the process of spreading activation
Encoding and retrieval refer to the processes of getting information into and out of memory

6. Accessibility: What’s On Your Mind?
Accessibility refers to the ease with which a schema becomes activated
priming produces greater accessibility
chronic accessibility describes schemas that are habitually activated for some people more than others
a basketball coach has greater accessibility to a “basketball schema” than does a casual fan

7. Figure 3.2 Percent of accessible and non-accessible traits recalled or included in the description.

8. Cultural Differences in Accessibility
Cultural differences exist in the accessibility of schemas
individualism vs. collectivism is one dimension that predicts differences in chronic accessibility

9. Stereotypes
Stereotypes are schemas about members of a group
although they have the same properties as any schema, of greatest interest are negative stereotypes
advantages of schematic processing, such as speed and efficiency, can be corrupted in negative stereotypes

10. Ingroups and Outgroups
Ingroups are groups to which a social perceiver belongs; outgroups are not
stereotypes about the ingroup are generally positive
we often exaggerate the similarities among members of an outgroup
this is the outgroup homogeneity effect
stereotypes influence our perception of ambiguous actions by outgroup members

11. Automatic versus Controlled Processes
Automatic processes occur outside of conscious awareness and with little effort
categorization of objects and people is an example
Controlled processes are deliberate, intentional, and effortful
mindfully determining the causes of a person’s behavior is an example

12. Reconstructive Memory
Memory is fallible and susceptible to influence
Reconstructive memory involves rebuilding the mental past based on cues, estimates, and likelihoods
retrieval cues contribute to this process
autobiographical memory is often reconstructive
eyewitness testimony can be colored by this process

13. Heuristics & Biases in Everyday Judgments
Heuristics are mental shortcuts that speed information processing
the “cognitive miser” model suggests that social perceivers conserve resources by following simple rules when making judgments
heuristic processing represents this

14. The Availability Heuristic
The tendency to base a judgment on how quickly or easily examples come to mind
events that are more available in memory are judged as being more likely to occur

15. The Representativeness Heuristic
The likelihood of an object’s belonging to a certain category is based on how representative that object is of the larger category
Learning of a person’s qualities that sound like an engineer lead us to believe the person is an engineer, despite more diagnostic evidence to the contrary

16. Concept Review

17. Illusory Correlation
Believing that two variables are related to one another when in fact they are not
twitchy thumbs and cold weather are an example
We often see what we want to see, and therefore overestimate the correspondence between events
the “hot hand” in basketball is an example

18. The Hindsight Bias
After learning of an event’s outcome, people may believe that they “knew it all along”
we overestimate the extent to which we could have predicted an event’s occurrence

19. Figure 3.7 Hindsight bias.

20. The Perseverance Effect
People persist in holding self-evaluative beliefs even in the face of disconfirming evidence
we might learn that an expert judged us to be high in sociability
we then learn the expert is completely fictitious
we still cling to our belief in our sociability

21. Counterfactual Thinking
Entertaining thoughts of how past events might have turned out otherwise
“if only I had done X instead…”
Upward counterfactual thoughts focus on how things might have turned out better
Downward counterfactual thoughts focus on how things could have been worse
counterfactual thinking accounts for the unanticipated reactions of Olympic medalists

22. Concept Review

23. Hot Cognition
Hot cognition mixes feeling with thinking
Many such thoughts are related to the self in a social context
Self-serving judgments paint the self in a positive light
Self-serving perceptions of others lead us to improve our evaluation of others
Self-serving activation of stereotypes strategically make us look good

24. Mood and Social Cognition
Mood states can heat up cognition
mood can activate stereotypes
mood-congruent recall suggests a correspondence between mood states and the valence of information to be recalled
mood can influence a variety of information processing
mood can serve as information itself