This document discusses social cognition and how people interpret social information. It describes how schemas organize social knowledge into categories like people, roles, and events. Schemas can bias how we process new information. Mental shortcuts called heuristics also influence judgments. Common errors in social thinking result from intuitive processing. Moods shape how we think about and remember social information, while our thoughts also influence our feelings.
This document discusses social cognition and how people interpret social information. It describes how schemas organize social knowledge into categories like people, roles, and events. Schemas can bias how we process new information. Mental shortcuts called heuristics also influence judgments. Common errors in social thinking result from intuitive processing. Moods shape how we think about and remember social information, while our thoughts also influence our feelings.
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slides about social cognition in social psychology
This document discusses social cognition and how people interpret social information. It describes how schemas organize social knowledge into categories like people, roles, and events. Schemas can bias how we process new information. Mental shortcuts called heuristics also influence judgments. Common errors in social thinking result from intuitive processing. Moods shape how we think about and remember social information, while our thoughts also influence our feelings.
This document discusses social cognition and how people interpret social information. It describes how schemas organize social knowledge into categories like people, roles, and events. Schemas can bias how we process new information. Mental shortcuts called heuristics also influence judgments. Common errors in social thinking result from intuitive processing. Moods shape how we think about and remember social information, while our thoughts also influence our feelings.
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Chapter 3: Social Cognition
Social 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? Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.4
Schemas Schema- mental framework built around a specific theme (organizes social information) Types of Schemas person
nerd, athlete, librarian
role
schemas relating to specific roles
professor, student, physician
event
schemas about people
(script)- indicates typical sequence of events
restaurant, exam, first date
Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.5
Schemas (cont)
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) Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.6
Heuristics Heuristics- 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) Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.7
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
Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.8
Dealing with Inconsistent
Information
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 Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.9
Planning 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
Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.10
Counterfactual 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
Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.11
Magical 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
Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.12
Thought 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 effect Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.13
Affect-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 Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
3.14
Cognition-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 emotionprovoking 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
Baron & Byrne- Social Psychology 9/e, Allyn and Bacon
