C82SAD: Social Cognition and Social Thinking. Social cognition and Information Processing What is social cognition? Social Cognition is how... Attitudes

C82SAD: Social Cognition and Social Thinking

Social cognition and Information Processing

• What is social cognition? Social Cognition is how...

• Attitudes• Perceptions of ourselves and others (representations)• Judgements• Expectations

…influence our beliefs, intentions and behaviour Assumes a rational, reasoned decision maker Information processing perspective

What is Social Cognition?

• Comprises a set of cognitive structures and processes that affect and are affected by social context

• People are assumed to be ‘cognitive misers’

• Cognitive ‘short-cuts’ tend to be adopted

• Toward ‘cognitive economy’

• Stereotypes are good examples

Social Cognition: Key Points

• Cognitive processes for understanding how people construct own social world = social cognition (Bless et al, 2004; Fisk & Taylor, 1991).

• Applies theories and methods from cognitive psychology e.g. memory, attention, inference and concept formation for understanding perceptions of others

Experience and Categorisation

• World provides too much information• Parts of perception recorded from

environment - attention• People devise short-cut strategies to

simplify nature of the incoming information• Categorisation - way of simplifying

perceptions

Categorisation

• Grouping of objects - treated in similar way e.g. square is a square, lecturer is a lecturer– Promotes cognitive economy

• Object either belongs to a category or does not (Bruner et al, 1956)

• But: Categories not all or none• Prototypical approach (Barsalou, 1991)

– Members share something in common - not completely identical for membership

How are Categories Represented?

• Schemata - how categories are represented• Cognitive representation of the prototype• People generalise in time and in space about

objects characteristics and properties• Dependent on individual’s personal experiences

involving object – actual, imagined or implied• Generalisation process and outcome (i.e.

categorisation) called schema

Schema

• Organised sets of information about people, behaviours, groups of people, yourself etc.

• Once evoked or ‘activated’ schemas tend to bias all aspects of information processing and inference

• Schemas can be implicitly activated and affect judgement and behaviour very easily beyond our conscious awareness

• Similar schema will be activated at the same time• Guide how we encode (attend, interpret), remember and

respond (judge and interact)• For example, Bargh, Chen, & Burrows

Automaticity Example

• Subliminal priming of the old-age stereotype (Bargh, Chen & Burrows, 1996)– worried, Florida, old, lonely, gray

• Walked more slowly to hatchway at end of corridor compared to neutral primed participants

• Therefore people behave according to the primed schema = ‘old-age stereotype’

How Schemas Work: Sagar & Schofield’s (1980) Racial Bias Study

• Purpose: Demonstrate that stereotypes bias intepretation of ambiguous events

• Participants: 40 African American (AA), 40 White (W)• Method: Participants presented with ambiguous

drawings (e.g. bumps, asks for cake, pokes, takes pencil) with ‘actors’ depicted as W or AA, participants rated behaviour as mean, threatening, playful, friendly

• Results: Both AA and W participants rated behaviour as more threatening when the actor was AA

• Conclusion: Schemas influence the interpretation of ambiguous events

Remembering

• Schemas represented in memory as:– lists of linked features - associative memory

model• nodes for concepts and links to related nodes e.g.

doctorcaringnurse

– prototype or ideal instances model• central examples clustered around prototype• peripheral examples of the prototype further away

in mental space

The Naive Scientist

• How people think about other people (Heider, 1958)

• Inferring unobservable causes from observable behaviour or other perceived information

• Cause-effect processing of social information– dispositions (internal e.g. traits) & situations (external)

• Attribution of causes for behaviour from stimuli perceived (Kelley, 1972; Gilbert, 1998; Jones & Davis, 1965, etc)

• Impression formation – social perception (Asch, 1946)

Impression Formation

• Certain information more important in forming an impression– Central and peripheral traits (Asch, 1946; Kelley, 1950).

• First vs. more recent impressions count.– Accounting for the primacy-recency effect (Asch, 1946;

Luchins, 1957). • Earlier information is the ‘real’ person• Later information dismissed - it’s not viewed as typical /

representative (Luchins, 1957)• Attention at a maximum when making initial impressions

(Anderson, 1975)• Early information affects ‘meaning’ of later information (Asch,

1946) - consistency

The Cognitive Miser

• Social perception as a problem solving task

• Cognitive ‘laziness’ - cognitive miser (Fisk & Taylor, 1991)

• Rely on heuristics for decision making and interpersonal perception

• Process salient information - that which stands out

Heuristics

• Availability of information - judging frequency of event based on number of instances brought to ‘mind’ of that event

• Anchoring and adjustment - using information about a similar event to infer causes

• Simulation - ease of imagining alternatives through mental simulation

• Representativeness - whether person is an example of a particular stored schema (Stereotype).

Stereotypes

• “.....widely shared assumptions of the personalities, attitudes and behaviour of people based on group membership....” (Hogg & Vaughan, 1995, p. 56).

• “.....inclination to place a person in categories according to some..... characteristics.... and then to attribute... qualities believed to be typical to members of that category...” (Tagiuri, 1969)

Stereotypes

• Overall impressions (attitudes) of other people and their behaviour tends to be dominated by stereotypes

• Organised sets of information, characteristics, first impressions and idiosyncratic personal constructs (e.g.,

• People’s impressions are made through ‘averaging’ these components but they tend to be dominated by particular ones (e.g., potential threat)

Stereotyping Process

• Assign individual to a group - categorise– Based on accessible characteristic e.g.

gender, race, age.

• Activate belief that all members of this group behave etc. in same way

• Infer that individual must posses stereotypical characteristics

• Respond to individual on this basis

Stereotyping Process

• Automaticity in stereotyping (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000)– fast acting, difficult to change, no intentional control of

operations, no conscious awareness– Encountering stimulus in environment (or even

internally generated) categories are activated automatically (Lepore & Brown, 1997; Bargh, 1999; Banaji & Greenwald, 1995)

– Heightened accessibility of material following prime e.g. “hospital” primes “nurse”, “caring” etc.

Theories of Attribution

• Internal and external attributions (Rotter, 1966)• Naïve scientist model (Heider, 1958)• Correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis,

1965)• Attributional bias model (Kelley, 1967)• Attribution theory (Weiner, 1986)• Attribution of emotions (Schacter & Singer,

1962)

Attributional Bias

• Fundamental attribution error (Jones & Harris, 1967; Ross, 1977)

• Actor-observer effect (Jones & Nisbett, 1972)

• Attributional bias (Kelly, 1950)

• Self-serving bias (Miller & Ross, 1975)

Definition

Attribution is the process of assigning causes for our own behaviour to that of others

Hogg & Vaughan (2005)

Heider’s Naïve Scientist

• Suggests that people create ‘theories’ of other people based on observation of behavior

• Inferring unobservable causes from observable behaviour or other perceived information

Everyone is a Naïve Scientist

• Internal (dispositional) attributions– personality characteristics– beliefs

• External (situational) attributions– situational pressure/influence

• Example: Student turns in papers late– Internal:




• Example: Student turns in papers late– Internal:lazy, partying all the time




• Example: Student turns in papers late– Internal:lazy, partying all the time– External:




• Example: Student turns in papers late– Internal:lazy, partying all the time– External:family problems, working,

boy/girlfriend




• Example: Student turns in papers late– Internal:lazy, partying all the time– External:family problems, working,

boy/girlfriend

Self-Serving Bias

• Aim to protect our ‘self-esteem’

• Consistent with social cognitive theories on motivation for consistency

• Tendency to ‘serve ourselves’

• Take credit for success (attribute internally)

• But not for failure (attribute externally)

• Maintains control and consistency

Self-Serving Bias

• E.g. student will take credit for doing well in an exam

• Student will blame test difficulty or lecturer’s tough marking policy for failure

• Miller & Ross (1975) cognitive explanation due to restricted information NOT because they are motivated to protect or enhance the self

Actor-Observer Effect

• OBSERVER-->Internal attribution

• ACTOR-->External attribution

• What is salient in the perceptual field?

• i.e. what INFORMATION is available for the observer and the actor?

• For OBSERVER: The actor

• For ACTOR: Everything but the actor (i.e., the situation)

Actor-Observer Effect• Harré, Brandt & Houkamau (2004)• The attributions of young drivers for their

own and their friends' risky driving • Dispositional attributions e.g., "Showing

off, acting cool" used more for friends than self

• Situational attributions e.g., "In a hurry, late" used more for self than friends

• Participants also rated their friends as taking more risks than themselves

Correspondent Inference TheoryJones & Davis (1965):• People make attributions based on:• Underlying traits• Based on freely chosen behaviour• Observed behaviour is matched with traits

regardless of:– Situation– Consequences– Personal or public– Socially desirable

• Does not account for past experience, stereotypes• Does not look at non-intentional behaviour

The Fundamental Attribution ErrorRoss (1977) when observing behaviour

people tend to:• Overestimate the significance of DISPOSITIONAL

factors• Underestimate the significance of SITUATIONAL

factors• Also indicative of the actor-observer effect (Jones

& Nisbett, 1972) – we know we are different across situations– Perspective hypothesis– Information availability

• Jones and Harris’ (1967) classic experiment illustrated this bias

Jones and Harris (1967): Study Design

Pro-Castro Anti-Castro

ChosenChoice, Pro-Castro

Choice,

Anti-Castro

Not Chosen

No Choice,

Pro-Castro

No Choice,

Anti-Castro

IV2: Writer’s Position

IV1: Writer’s Abilityto Chose position

Hypothesised Summary of Results

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90


Choice

No Choice

Results


Chosen 59.6 17.4

Not Chosen

44.1 22.9

IV2: Writer’s Position

IV1: Writer’s Abilityto Chose position

Summary of Results

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70


ChoiceNo Choice

• Built on Heider’s (1958) ideas about attributions of cause of others behaviour

• Key point: Attribution of cause to the person or environment in situations is a major problem

• Heider (1958) suggested that if behaviour seems ’appropriate’ in a given situation, then people tend to make a situational attribution

• Kelley (1967) outlined WHEN a situational or dispositional attribution is made and WHY

Kelley’s (1967, 1973) Attributional Bias

• Three key questions in a given situation:– Does the person regularly behave this way in

this situation? (consistency)– Do other people regularly behave this way in

this situation? (consensus)– Does this person behave this way in other

situations? (distinctiveness)


Distinctiveness?Consistency?

Consensus?


Attributional problem: You are in a long queue in a shop with your friend. He/she is getting increasingly irritated with how long it’s taking. Does your friend’s frustration tell us something about their personality?

Key question

s

Attribution

Yes No

No Yes Yes No

Attribution

Attribution

Attribution

Attribution

No basis for attributing frustration to either situation or personality. May be a one-off.

Situational attribution: People DO tend to get frustrated in long queues

Personality attribution, general: Your friend does the tendency to get frustrated in these sorts of situations. (Stay out of his/her way!)

Personality attribution, particular: Your friend tends to get frustrated in queues. (Don’t go shopping with him/her on busy days!)

Q1: Does your friend usually get frustrated when standing in long queues?

Q2: Do other people generally get frustrated when standing in long queues?

Q3: Does your friend generally get frustrated in other situations involving long waits?

Emotional Lability Theory

• Schacter and Singer’s (1962) classic experiment• Subjects were:

– Injected with epinephrine (‘suproxin’), euphoric condition

– Injected with epinephrine (‘suproxin’), anger-evoking condition

– Injected with placebo, euphoric condition– Injected with placebo, anger-evoking condition

• Further condition added – information about injection consistent with side effects, inconsistent with side effects

Schachter and Singer’s Experimental Design

• Euphoria– Placebo– Epinephrine Informed– Epinephrine

Uninformed– Epinephrine

Misinformed

• Anger– Placebo– Epinephrine Informed– Epinephrine

Uninformed

Emotional Lability Theory

• Schacter and Singer’s (1962) classic experiment

• Expectation: Epinephrine subjects would experience more arousal than controls, unless they were told consistent side effects in which case they would correctly attribute their feelings to the drug and have no change in their emotions

Schacter and Singer’s Results

Euphoria Anger

Placebo 16 0.79

Epinephrine Informed

12.7 -0.18

Epinephrine Uninformed

18.3 2.28

Epinephrine Misinformed

22.6


0

5

10

15

20

25

Observed emotion

Euphoria

Induced emotion

Placebo

Epinephrine -InformedEpinephrine -UninformedEpinephrine -Misinformed


-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Observed emotion

Anger

Induced emotion

Placebo

Epinephrine -InformedEpinephrine -Uninformed

Attributions –inferences about causes Achievement behavior depends on how

previous successes and failures are interpreted People make causal attributions for their

behavioural outcomes Attributions affect thoughts, feelings, and

behaviour

Weiner’s (1972) Attribution Theory

• Draws from Rotter’s (1966) theory of internal and external attributions

• Rotter developed a questionnaire to measure ‘locus of control’

• People tended to attribute causes of events to internal (personal control over behaviour)

• Or external (occurrences due to environment or chance out of personal control)

• Weiner (1972) included further dimensions of attribution = stability and controllability


People tend to attribute successes or failures to any of four ‘typical’ causes:

Ability

Effort

Difficulty

Luck


Weiner (1972) Attributional Dimensions

Locus of causality Locus of controlStability

Basic Attribution Categories

Attribution Dimensions Attributions can be classified along three

dimensions:1) Locus of Causality-Is the cause internal or external?

2) Stability

-Is the cause stable or unstable?

3) Locus of control-Does the person have control over the

outcome?

Attribution Theory

Attribution Theory

Attributed causes according to Internal-External (Locus of Causality), Stability and Controllability continuums

AbilityInternal, stable, uncontrollable

EffortInternal, unstable, controllable

DifficultyExternal, stable, controllable/uncontrollable

LuckExternal, unstable, uncontrollable


Sta

bilit

y

Locus of Causality

StableExternal

StableInternal

UnstableInternal

UnstableExternal

Ability Difficulty

Effort Luck


StableInternalControllable

StableExternalControllable

UnstableInternalControllable

UnstableExternalControllable

Sta

bilit

y

Locus of Causality Contro

llabil

ity

StableExternalUncontrollable

UnstableExternalUncontrollable

StableInternalUncontrollable

UnstableInternalUncontrollable Stable

ExternalControllable

StableInternalControllable

UnstableInternalControllable

UnstableExternalControllable

Ability Difficulty

Effort Luck

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C82SAD: Social Cognition and Social Thinking. Social cognition and Information Processing What is social cognition? Social Cognition is how... Attitudes