Social Cognition

Social Cognition

The study of how individuals make sense of other people and themselves.

Information Overload

When too much information makes it difficult to make decisions effectively.

Working Memory

The small amount of information that can be held in mind and used in the execution of cognitive tasks such as decision making. It is limited.

Automatic Thinking

Thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, effortless, and uses few cognitive resources (e.g., reflexes, opening a door for someone).

Controlled Thinking

Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, requires effort, and uses cognitive resources (e.g., parallel parking, approaching someone for help).

What are the three different models for how humans manage cognitive resources?

Cognitive Miser, Motivated Tactician, and Activated Actor.

Cognitive Load

A state that occurs when the sheer volume of social information we are exposed to each day exceeds our limited bandwidth.

Cognitive Miser

The model proposing that we are motivated to take shortcuts in thinking whenever possible to preserve precious cognitive resources, where taking mental shortcuts via automatic thinking often comes at the cost of making a poor decision.

Motivated Tactician

A thinker who shifts back and forth between quick, cognitively economical, yet prone-to-error thinking, and slower, thorough, and effortful thinking, depending on their goals, implying an ability to switch between controlled and automatic thinking at will.

Activated Actor

A model that considers the influence of cues in the social context, where cues prime goals that may not reach conscious awareness but nonetheless affect our social decisions.

Cognitive Biases

Systematic errors in thinking or systematic deviations from rationality in decision-making.

Hyperbolic Discounting

The tendency to place much greater value on rewards available now than rewards available later (e.g., preferring to reheat leftovers in 5 minutes vs. cooking fresh for 1 hour).

Hindsight Bias

The belief that an event is more predictable after it becomes known than it was before it became known; also known as the 'knew-it-all-along' bias.

What are some of the social consequences of hindsight bias?

Victim blaming, increased confidence leading to overconfidence and bad self-perception, and lack of empathy from others.

First Impressions

Judgments made in $33\text{ milliseconds}$ that are very similar to judgements made after a minute's more careful inspection of someone's face.

Primacy Effect

Occurs when the first information we obtain about others carries special weight, influencing our interpretations of the later information we encounter.

Confirmation Bias

Occurs when a person gives extra emphasis to or intentionally seeks evidence that will validate their existing beliefs and, in addition, excuse, downplay, or completely ignore evidence that could refute their beliefs.

How does confirmation bias explain the enduring influence of first impressions?

We require cognitive energy to change our minds.

Disconfirmation Bias

The tendency for individuals to denigrate or downplay arguments that challenge their prior beliefs.

Anchoring

The assimilation of a numerical estimate to a previously considered standard; a process whereby people are influenced by specific information given before a judgement.

What are the mechanisms that underlie the anchoring effect?

Priming, insufficient adjustment processes, and confirmatory hypothesis testing / selective accessibility.

Framing

A decision that is deliberately influenced by changing the way information is presented.

Availability Heuristic

Judging the likelihood or frequency of an event based on how easily an example is brought to mind.

Representativeness Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of an event based on how similar it is to a prototype; judging the probability that object or person A belongs to category B by the degree to which A is representative of B.

Conjunction Fallacy

Occurs when we assume multiple things are more likely to co-occur than a single thing on its own, even though a conjunction (A and B) can statistically never be more likely than A or B alone.

Gambler’s Fallacy

Thinking that an outcome is due to occur when it hasn’t shown up in a while

• E.g. random coin flip