Social Cognition

1. Social Cognition

2. Social Cognition • Definition • the study of how people form inferences and make judgments based on social information

3. History of Social Cognition • Brief and Very Oversimplified History • Wundt’s lab in Leipzig, Germany • introspection • Psychoanalytic Theories • drives and motives • Behaviorist Backlash • observable behavior Stimulus Response (Input) (Output)

4. History of Social Cognition • Cognitive Revolution • 1950s-1960s Stimulus “Mind” Response (Input) (Process) (Output)

5. History of Social Cognition • Most contemporary social psychological research is cognitive to some extent • e.g., physiological attitude measurement • Implicit Association Test (IAT) • https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ • galvanic skin response • neuroimaging with MRI, fMRI, EEG

6. Schemas • Schema • an organized, structured set of cognitions about a concept or stimulus which includes: • knowledge about the stimulus, • relations among those various cognitions, and • specific examples. • Can be about: • particular people, social roles, the self, attitudes, common events, stereotypes, etc.

7. Schemas • Scripts • schemas about extremely common events • e.g., ordering fast food • Scripts and schemas are organized hierarchically • e.g., we may have separate schemas for different types of birds, but they all fit within our “bird” schema

8. Schemas Script Hierarchy of “Going Out to Eat”

9. Schemas • Advantages • aids information processing • quick and efficient • information gaps filled • guides attention and memory • guides emotion • how to “feel” in a given situation • e.g., a funeral vs. football game

10. Schemas • Disadvantages • stereotypes • incorrect information often “filled in” • e.g., eye-witness testimony

11. Which Schemas Are Used? • Natural Contours • often, the environment determines which schema is used • certain behavior will be interpreted differently if it occurs in a mental institution vs. a classroom • Salience • what “sticks out”? • Primacy • the tendency for stimuli presented earlier to be more influential than stimuli presented later

12. Which Schemas Are Used? • Priming Effects • occur when recently activated schemas are used in unrelated subsequent situations • Importance of Circumstances • Trivial • More automatic inferences are made • Important • More controlled inferences are made • Individual Differences • e.g., hostile attribution bias; need for structure • Goals

13. Schemas in Action • Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing • gathering information that confirms an idea we have rather than even-handedly collecting information • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy • people’s expectations influence their attitudes and behavior • our expectations of others can influence their behavior • Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968) told teachers that random students were exceptional and others were average • “exceptional” students performed much better than those thought of as average

14. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

15. Heuristics • Definition • Mental shortcut used to make judgments quickly and efficiently

16. Representativeness Heuristic • How similar is A to B? • how similar to the “typical” case is it? • often ignore more important information like base rates

17. Representativeness Heuristic • In an introductory course on campus, about 70% of the students are psychology majors and the rest are math and science majors. One student in the class wears t-shirts displaying comic book characters, carries a calculator, and takes notes with a handheld computer. What do you think the students major most likely is? • Psychology b. Engineering c. Computer Science

18. Representativeness Heuristic The Conjunction Error/Fallacy (Tversky & Kahneman) • occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone

19. Conjunction Error • Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. • Which is more likely? 1. Linda is a bank teller. 2. Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement. • 85% chose option 2 even though mathematically it necessarily has a lower probability than option 1.

20. Availability Heuristic • using the ease of examples you can quickly remember as a guide

21. Availability HeuristicSchwarz et al. (1991)

22. Availability Heuristic • What is more common? • The number of words in the English language with • the letter “n” as the first letter, or • the number of words with “n” as the third letter? a. 1st b. 3rd c. no difference

23. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic • More or less than $400,000? • What is its market value? ____________

24. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic • More or less than $100,000? • What is its market value? ____________

25. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic • using a number or value as a starting point, then adjusting the answer away from the anchor • answers generally not adjusted sufficiently

26. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic • How many academic programs are there at UNC? a. Less than 40 b. More than 40 What is your exact estimate of the number of academic programs at UNC? __________

27. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic • How many academic programs are there at UNC? a. Less than 80 b. More than 80 What is your exact estimate of the number of academic programs at UNC? __________

28. Controlled vs. Automatic Thinking • Controlled Thinking • conscious, intentional, voluntary, effortful • Automatic Thinking • effortless, occurs without conscious control • the use of heuristics is often automatic

29. Automatic Believing Controlled Unbelieving • Gilbert (1991) • originally proposed by Spinoza

30. Thought Suppression • For the next 60 seconds, try NOT to think of a white bear • whenever the image of a white bear appears in your thoughts, raise your hand

31. Thought Suppression • now raise your hand if you were thinking of a white bear before this exercise … • Why was it so hard to keep it out of your thoughts????

32. Counterfactual Thinking • Mentally “undoing” the past to imagine what “might have been” • Medvec, Madey, & Gilovich (1995) • Olympic medallists outward behavior: • Happiest medalist? • Least happy medalist?

33. Medvec, Madey, & Gilovich (1995) • Gold: happiest • Bronze: second happiest • Silver: least happy

34. Counterfactual Thinking • Not always intentional or voluntary • can be hard to “turn off”

35. Counterfactual Thinking • Mark and Jason are registering for courses for the next term. They leave their dorm room together, stop and eat breakfast together, chat with a mutual friend, and arrive at the registrar’s office at the same time. They both line up to enroll in their art history classes. Mark is told that the class he wanted was filled to capacity at the end of the previous day. Jason is told that the class he wanted was filled to capacity 10 minutes before he arrived. Who is more upset? a. Mark b. Jason c. both are equally upset

36. Improving Human Cognition • Lord et al. (1984) • consider the opposite • combats the overconfidence barrier • Nisbett et al. (1987) • take more statistics courses!! Statistical Reasoning Improvements by Graduate Students