• Definitions of Social Cognition and Social Perception
• SOCIAL COGNITION:
• The general process by which we make sense out of social situations and begin to interpret them
• Important mediator of social behavior
• SOCIAL PERCEPTION:
• The specific process we use to make sense out of individual behavior
• Involves inferring motives for behavior and attributing causes for behavior
• More focused and specific process than the more general social cognition process
• Social perception and cognition are central to how we interpret situations and affect our social behavior
• Social Perception: The Construction of Social Reality
• Each of us actively constructs a version of social reality based on the information we receive
• Often we must infer motives from overt behavior
• The inference process is complicated by the fact that we interact with a person while making inferences
• Social perception, unlike object perception, is a two way process
• Perception of an event is subjective
• Objective versus subjective reality
• Each person views the same situation differently based on his or her own prior experience, personality and expectations
• Social perception is an active process. We actively construct a version of social reality
• Problems in Social Cognition and Perception
• Humans are not always rational, objective processers of information. Bias enters into social perception and cognition
• In many cases construction of social reality is based on limited and/or inaccurate information
• Many different strategies are used to construct social reality
• We tend to choose the least effortful strategy
• We tend to be COGNITIVE MISERS
• TUNNEL VISION often occurs
• We block out much information and see social situations in a limited way
• Social reality can be altered easily by imposing a new set of rules or parameters
• Our version of social reality is constructed so that it fits with our perceptions of changing events
• Factors Contributing to Social Perception
• Preconceptions and expectations and the self-fulfilling prophecy
• Categorization
• Tendency to categorize objects and people into groups
• We may overcategorize (fit an object into a group where it doesn't belong)
• We may overgeneralize (respond to a person based on category membership and not individual traits
• Two types of expectancies are developed based on categorization
• Category-based expectancy: Expectancy that all members of a group will behave in similar and consistent ways
• Target-based expectancy: Expectancy that an individual member of a category will behave in a given way
• Prototypes and exemplars
• Automatic and Controlled Processing
• Automatic Processing
• Automatic processing occurs when we form impressions or construct a version of social reality without much thought or attention
• Certain actions are automatically interpreted as indicating a given internal state (e.g., a smile = happiness). We draw inferences based on these automatic interpretations
• Thoughts may enter our minds and we cannot get them out. Attempting to suppress them may lead to a rebound effect
• Automatic vigilance occurs when we automatically turn our attention to something threatening or important to us
• Negative information is weighed more heavily than positive information
• Automatic processing dominates much of our social cognition and social perception
• Automatic and Controlled Processing
• Controlled Processing
• Controlled processing involves forming impressions or constructing social reality based on effortful processing of information and conscious awareness to thought processes involved
• Controlled processing is likely to be used when
• We are thinking about something
• We are aware of our goals
• We are aware the choices we are making
• We have a specific goal in mind
• Information disconfirms expectations
• Our thoughts and actions are intended
• Impression Formation
• An impression is a judgment we make about the motives and behavior of others
• First impressions influence later perceptions and judgments of others
• They also bias how we process later information received about a person
• We often form impressions based on limited information
• Information that contradicts our impression of another causes discomfort, but we are able to form a unified impression blending the inconsistent information
• Social norms help us make sense out of contradictory information
• Impression formation involves the integration of several traits into a unified impression
• The Accuracy of Impressions
• When accuracy is important controlled processing is used
• Cognitive tuning is used to "tune" our cognitive processes to focus on certain information
• Most likely to occur when we have to pass our impressions on to another person
• Also used when we must work with others
• There are two types of accuracy
• Circumscribed accuracy: Restricted to social knowledge about a person in a specific situation
• Allows you to predict how another person will behave in the situation
• Often "good enough" accuracy for us
• Global accuracy: Accuracy relating to the stability of a person's personality across situations
• Biases in Social Cognition and Perception I
• The base rate fallacy: Tendency to ignore base-rate information and be influenced by the distinct features of a situation
• The vividness effect: Occurs when vivid information overrides statistical base-rate information
• Illusion of causation: Assumption that if two things occur together that one caused the other
• Illusion of correlation: Seeing significant relationships between unrelated events; seeing order in random events
• Illusion of control: Tendency to believe that one can control uncontrollable events
• Biases in Social Cognition and Perception II
• The egocentric bias: Tendency to see oneself as the center of the universe and assume that others see the world as you do
• Belief perseverence: Tendency to hold on to beliefs even in the face of disconfirming evidence (e.g., crop circles and cereology)
• The confirmation bias: Tendency to look for evidence to confirm one's beliefs and expectations rather than to disconfirm them
• Biases in Social Cognition and Perception III
• A heuristic is a simple "rule of thumb" that we apply when assessing situations
• Heuristics are part of automatic processing and are used when we are in the cognitive miser mode
• Examples of heuristics are:
• The availability heuristic: Estimating the frequency of events based on how quickly examples can be called to mind
• The representativeness heuristic: Estimating the probability that a person is a member of a group based on how representative he or she is of that group
• The simulation heuristic: Mentally undoing the course of events and playing out alternatives. Takes the for of "what if" or "if only"
• Counterfactual thinking: Tendency to create positive alternatives to actual negative outcomes