Social Cognition

AP Psychology

Social Psychology

• The scientific study of how people’s thoughts and feelings influence their behavior toward others, and how the behavior of others influences people’s own thoughts

• Social Cognition – mental processes associated with the ways people perceive and react to other individuals and groups

Social Influences on the Self

• Self-concept – the beliefs we hold about who we are and what characteristics we have

• Self-esteem – the evaluations we make about how worthy we are as human beings

Social ComparisonLeon Festinger – people make two types of comparisons:

Temporal Comparison

Considering your present condition in relation to

how you were in the past

Social Comparison

Evaluating yourself in comparison to others -

using others as a basis for evaluating

your attributes

Social Comparison• Reference Groups – categories of people to which you see

yourself as belonging and to which you compare yourself– Downward social comparison – strategy of choosing someone as

the target of comparison to oneself who is not as good on some dimension of importance

– Upward social comparison – comparing yourself to people who do much better

• Relative deprivation – the belief that no matter how much you are getting, it is less than you deserve

Social Identity• Our beliefs about the groups to which we belong, and

thus is a part of our self-concept

– A group identity helps people to feel part of a larger whole (may foster an “us versus them” mentality) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ_qXmxdgGM

Self-Schemas

• Mental representations of people’s beliefs and views about themselves– Unified self-schemas – regard their attributes

as stable across every situation and role– Differentiated self-schemas – regard their

attributes as changing in different roles or situations

Social Perception

• The processes through which people interpret information about others, form impressions of them, and draw conclusions about the reasons for their behavior

• Schemas – a coherent, organized set of beliefs and expectations – we use schemas we already have to perceive and interpret new information

Impressions

• First Impressions – quickly formed, difficult to change, long-lasting influence

• People are confident about their judgment

• Easier to remember• Behavior is often consistent

with impression• Forming Impressions – schemas

create a tendency to infer a great deal about a person on the basis of limited information

• Lasting Impressions – difficult to change, long-lasting influence

Self-Fulfilling PropheciesWithout our awareness, schemas cause us to subtly lead people to behave in line

with our expectations4 steps: 1. Adopting an attitude concerning a person2. Behave as though your attitude is correct3. Others react to your attitude4. Your prophecy comes true, not because you were right, but because your

behavior/attitude caused the prophecy to come true

Attribution

• The process people go through to explain causes of behavior

• People tend to attribute behavior in a particular situation either to primarily internal (characteristics of a person) or primarily external (situational) cases

Sources of AttributionsHarold Kelley’s 3 Elements: 1. Consensus – the degree to which other people’s behavior is

similar to that of the actor. Ex: if it is similar, it has high consensus. If it is dissimilar, it has low consensus

2. Consistency – the degree to which the behavior occurs repeatedly in a situation. Ex: if it always occurs, it has high consistency. If it occurs intermittently, it has low consistency

3. Distinctiveness – the extent to which similar stimuli draw the same behaviors from the actor. Ex: if it is highly predictable, then it has low distinctiveness. If it is not predictable, it has high distinctiveness.

An internal attribution is most likely when there is low consensus, high consistency, and low distinctiveness. External attributions are made in response to other information patterns.

Attributions

Biases in Attribution

• Fundamental Attribution Error: a tendency to over-attribute others’ behaviors to internal factors, such as personality traits

• Actor-observer bias – tendency to attribute others’ behavior to internal causes but attribute your own behavior to external causes

• Self-serving bias – tendency to take credit for success (internal) but to blame failure on external causes

Attitudes

• The tendency to think, feel, or act positively or negatively towards objects in our environment

• 3 Components:– Cognitive – set of beliefs about attributes of

the attitude object– Affective – feeling about the object

(emotional) – a like or dislike– Behavioral – involves a way of acting toward

the object

3 Components of Attitude

Forming Attitudes

• Modeling – children learn from their parents what one should believe and feel about certain objects

• Classical Conditioning – people are more likely to form a positive attitude toward an object when it is paired with stimuli that elicit good feelings

• Mere-exposure effect – attitudes toward an object tend to become more positive as people are exposed to that object more often

Changing Attitudes

• According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model, there are two routes to attitude change:

• Peripheral route – attitude changes respond to peripheral persuasion cues, rather than to central content (appearance, confidence, etc…)

• Central route – attitude changes respond to the message and validity of its claims. People rationally analyze the content of the persuasive message

Changing Attitudes

Changing Attitudes

• Cognitive Dissonance – people want their thoughts and beliefs to be consistent with one another. When their cognitions are inconsistent, people become anxious and are motivated to make them consistent

• Self-perception theory – people are not sure about their attitude so they look back to their behavior and then infer what their attitudes must have been

Cognitive Dissonance

Prejudice and Stereotypes• Prejudice – positive or negative attitude toward an

individual based on his or her membership in some group

• Stereotypes – Perceptions, beliefs, and expectations a person has about members of some group – schemas about the entire groups of people

Theories of Prejudice

• Roots of Prejudice– Social inequalities – the “haves” vs. the “have nots”

• Blame-the-victim dynamic – if the circumstances of poverty breed a high crime rate, someone can use the high crime rate to justify discrimination against those living in poverty

– Us vs. Them – Ingroup vs. Outgroup (ingroup bias)– Scapegoat Theory – finding someone to blame when

things go wrong can provide a target for one’s anger (9/11)

– Other-race effect (other-race bias) – to those in one ethnic group, members of another group often seem more alike than they really are in appearance, personality, and attitude

Just World Phenomenon

• Good is rewarded and evil is punished

• Hindsight bias (she should have known better….)