social cognition

Chapter 3: Social CognitionChapter 3: Social Cognition

Social CognitionSocial Cognition

Social Cognition- how we interpret, analyze, and remember information about our social world

What role do schemas play in social cognition? What types of mental shortcuts do we use? What errors bias our social thoughts? How do our feelings influence our thoughts

and vice-versa?

3.4Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon

SchemasSchemas

Schema- mental framework built around a specific theme (organizes social information)

Types of Schemas person- schemas about people

“nerd”, “athlete”, “librarian”

role- schemas relating to specific roles “professor”, “student”, “physician”

event (script)- indicates typical sequence of events “restaurant”, “exam”, “first date”


Schemas (con’t)Schemas (con’t)

Schemas impact social cognition by: providing frameworks for organizing and

interpreting new information saving us considerable mental effort (efficient)

acting us a cognitive filter during attention and encoding

persisting in the presence of disconfirming info. (perseverance effect)

exerting self-confirming effects (self-fulfilling prophecy- cause others to confirm our beliefs)


HeuristicsHeuristicsHeuristics- mental shortcuts for making decisions

(help to reduce information overload) Representativeness- judging by resemblance

Bob is a lawyer, because he looks like typical lawyer

Note: often population base rates are ignored Availability- judging by how quickly examples

come to mind k as first letter seems more common than k as third

priming- increased availability of information resulting from exposure (e.g., “medical student syndrome”)


Sources of Error (“Tilts”)Sources of Error (“Tilts”) To understand the social world we can use:

rational processing- follows basic rules of logic intuitive processing- relies on hunches (gut-level)

intuitive processing used more for processing social information

automobile safety devices (e.g., air bags) have not been proven to be safer, yet intuitively they should work


Dealing with Inconsistent Dealing with Inconsistent InformationInformation

Researchers have found that: we tend to pay more attention to information that is

inconsistent with our expectations inconsistent information often has greater impact on

judgments than consistent because we work harder to understand it

extremely bizarre information, however, is often discounted


Planning FallacyPlanning Fallacy

Planning Fallacy (Optimistic Bias)- tendency to: make optimistic predictions for completing a task assume we are more likely than others to experience

good outcomes, and less likely to experience bad It occurs because we tend to:

focus on future while ignoring related past events overlook important potential obstacles

as motivation to complete task increases, so does the planning fallacy


Counterfactual ThinkingCounterfactual Thinking

Counterfactual Thinking- imagining “what might have been” (mentally undoing events)

Counterfactual thinking can increase sympathy, regret over missed opportunities increase our understanding of why event happened affect our current moods

upward- imagining better outcomes (envy) silver medalist who imagines winning gold

downward- imagining worse outcomes (satisfaction) bronze medalist who imagines winning no medal at all


Magical ThinkingMagical Thinking

Magical Thinking- thinking based on irrational assumptions

law of contagion- two objects in contact pass properties to one another fear of wearing sweater worn by AIDS patient

law of similarity- things that resemble each other share basic properties fear of eating chocolate shaped like a spider


Thought SuppressionThought Suppression

Thought Suppression- preventing unwanted thoughts from entering consciousness

Thought suppression involves two processes: monitoring- automatically searches for unwanted

thoughts operating- conscious attempt to distract oneself

Rebound effect- suppressing unwanted thoughts may actually increase them people high in reactance- react negatively to threats

to freedom- more likely to show rebound effect3.13Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon

Affect-Cognition LinkAffect-Cognition Link

Affect- our current feelings and moods How do our moods shape our thoughts?

current moods strongly affect how we perceive new stimuli (e.g., people, foods)

bad moods cause us to think more systematically, while good moods leads us to think more superficially

mood-dependent memory- information learned in a certain mood is recalled easier in same mood

mood congruence effects- we notice and remember info. congruent with our current moods


Cognition-Affect LinkCognition-Affect Link

How do our thoughts shape our moods? person and role schemas (e.g., race) exert powerful

effects on our current feelings and moods our thoughts can shape our reactions to emotion-

provoking events (e.g., anger, arousal) Affect Infusion Model (AIM)

Affect influences analytic social thought by: priming mood-related thoughts serving as a heuristic cue to infer our reactions


social cognition

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