1. Chapter 5 Social Cognition

2. What is Social Cognition? The processes by which information about people is processed and stored Thinking about people Humans think about people more than anything else.

3. Why Don’t We Think Some Times? Cognitive Miser –Reluctance to do much extra thinking –We conserve our thinking We use shortcuts –Conscious thinking requires a lot of effort –We have limited thinking capacity. –STM = 7+/-2 items

4. 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

5. Elements of Automatic Thinking Intention – not guided by intention Control – not subject to deliberate control Effort – no effort required Efficiency – highly efficient

6. The Stroop Test Online example

7. Automatic Processing Relies on Knowledge Structures –Organized pieces of information Example –Semantic Network Dog WalkAndy Old House LBI Panetta NC Cat Bird Max SteveFun Fest BCC Bark

8. Other Knowledge Structures Schemas are mental representations of objects or categories of objects –Aid in the categorization of events –Aid in the predictability of events –Influence our interpretation of events Scripts –Schemas about certain events

9. Functions of Schemas

10. Priming and Framing Priming - activating a concept in the mind –Influences subsequent thinking –May trigger automatic processes Framing – presentation as positive or negative

11. Framing If you had the choice, would you chose 1) A situation in which 200 people will be saved (a 1/3 chance 600 people will be saved and a 2/3 chance nobody will be saved). 2) A situation where 400 people will die (a 2/3 chance 600 people will die and a 1/3 chance nobody will die).

12. Framing Should advertisers say the ground beef is –90% lean or –10% fat

13. Thought Suppression Two processes to suppress thought –Automatic – checks for incoming information related to unwanted thought –Controlled – redirects attention away from unwanted thought Relax conscious control and mind is flooded with cues from the automatic system Trying to suppress thoughts tend to make those thought more prevalent.

14. Attributions Causal explanations; inferences we make about events or behaviors. “Intuitive scientists” seek explanations in a systematic, orderly way –much like a trained scientist, laypeople gather evidence, weigh possibilities, form hypotheses, to understand others

15. Attributions Three dimensions –Internal / External –Stable / Unstable –Global / Specific

16. Attributions: Explaining Success and Failure Two dimensions –Internal Stable - Ability –Internal Unstable – Effort –External Stable – Difficulty of task –External Unstable – Luck Self-serving bias

17. Actor/Observer Bias External – Internal Attribution –Actor (situation – external) –Observer (actor – internal) Fundamental Attribution Error Ultimate Attribution Error –Behavior freely chosen is more informative about a person (Jones & Harris, 1967)

18. Fundamental Attribution Error Four possible explanations –Behavior is more noticeable than situational factors –Insignificant weight is assigned to situational factors –People are cognitive misers –Richer trait-like language to explain behavior

19. Heuristics Representativeness Heuristic –Judge likelihood by the extent it resembles the typical case Availability Heuristic –Judge likelihood by ease with which relevant instances come to mind ESP beliefs

20. Heuristics Simulation Heuristic –Judge likelihood by ease with which you can imagine it Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic –Judge likelihood by using a starting point and adjusting from that point

21. Cognitive Errors and Biases Information Overload –Too much information, contradictions in information, irrelevant information Generally access two types of information –Statistical information –Case History Generally pay closer attention to case history

22. Cognitive Errors and Biases Confirmation Bias –Tendency to notice and search for information that confirms one’s beliefs and ignore information that disconfirms it Conjunction Fallacy –Tendency to see an event as more likely as it becomes more specific

23. Cognitive Errors and Biases Illusory Correlation –Tendency to overestimate link between variables that are related only slightly or not at all –Hamilton & Gifford (1976)

24. Cognitive Errors and Biases Base Rate Fallacy –Tendency to ignore base rate information and be influenced by distinctive features of the case Gambler’s Fallacy –Tendency to believe that a chance event is affected by previous events and will “even out”

25. Cognitive Errors and Biases False Consensus Effect –Tendency to overestimate the number of other people who share one’s opinions False Uniqueness Effect –Tendency to underestimate the number of other people who share one’s prized characteristics or abilities

26. Cognitive Errors and Biases Statistical Regression –Statistical tendency for extremes to be followed by less extreme or those closer to average Illusion of Control –A false belief that one can influence events

27. Cognitive Errors and Biases Magical Thinking –Assumptions that don’t hold up to logical scrutiny Touching objects pass on properties to each other (contamination) Resemblance to something shares basic properties (contamination) Thoughts can influence physical world

28. Counterfactual Thinking Imagining alternatives to past or present factual events or circumstances –First instinct fallacy Upward counterfactuals – positive outcome –Help make future situations better Downward counterfactuals – negative outcome –Comfort it could have been worse

29. Are People Really Idiots? We make predictable errors –Cognitive misers –Heuristics are short cuts How serious are the errors –On trivial events – use heuristics and automatic processing –On important events – use conscious processing and make better decisions

30. Reducing Cognitive Errors Debiasing –Consider multiple alternative –Rely less on memory –Use explicit decision rules –Search for disconfirmatory information –Use meta-cognition

31. What Makes Us Human? Human thought uses and combines symbols Language allows for exploration of linkages of meaning Conscious mind is uniquely human –Complex patterns of thought

32. What Makes Us Human? Only humans engage in counterfactual thinking Human thought creates unique errors and unique capabilities to find the truth