Social Beliefs and Judgments

what is the behavioural theory for perceiving out social world?

a learner is essentially passive, responding to environmental stimuli

classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning

what is social constructivism?

individuals plays a large role in their own socialism

assumptions and prejudgments guide our perceptions, interruptions and recall

have own lens that alter experiences and understanding

what are some agents of socialisation?

family, peers, media, school, clubs, religion

what does social learning theory suggest?

emphasises the importance of observing, modelling and imitating the behaviours of others

attention → retention → motor reproduction → motivation

what did they find about counter-stereotypical information?

found children showed counter-stereotypical information often mistook the gender to the stereotypical idea

construction worker = man, nurse = woman

what is subliminal messaging?

sensory stimuli below an individuals threshold for conscious perception

what are the 2 processes for judging our social world?

1. automatic processing

2. controlled processing

what is automatic processing?

mental processes that occur quickly, effortlessly and without conscious awareness or intention

(fast, unconscious, requires little cognitive effort)

what is controlled processing?

mental processes that are deliberate, conscious and require attention and cognitive effort

(slower, conscious, effortful, requires attention)

definition of schemas

mental structures that organise knowledge and expectations about people, objects and situations

what is priming?

occurs when exposure to one stimulus automatically influences how we think about, interpret or reposed to a subsequent stimulus

what is categorical thinking?

using social cues to categorise

how do these link to perceive and interpret events?

priming → categorical thinking → perceiving and interpreting events

what did Seiter and Hatch study and find?

tested how visible tattoos influence perception of credibility and attractiveness

attractiveness = no significant affect

credibility = tattoos received lower credibility

likely due to norm violation/deviance cues and stereotype activation

what were the limitations of Seiter and Hatch’s limitations?

1. sample and generalisability - limited demographic

2. extent of tattoo visibility - doesn’t vary tattoo size or placement

3. single cultural context

what are 3 processes that influence out judgments of our social world?

1. belief perseverance - we become prisoners of our own thought patterns and need strong evidence to correct our belief

2. reconstructing memories - we reconstruct out past by using our current feelings to combine memory fragments

3. contracting memories - we are highly susceptible to influence

how can we explain our social world?

self → person → role → event (all linked)

how do schemas change?

1. cognitive dissonance - receiving information that

how does a social stimulus become a schema?

stimulus → pre-attentive analysis → focussing attention → comprehension → elaborative reasoning → schema

(social encoding black box)

what is another mechanism for learning?

heuristics - mental shortcuts used to make quick decisions

definition of representativeness heuristic

using our schema to make decisions about someone

potential outcome = discounting other information

definition of availability heuristic

assuming something is likely to happen because when it has happened in the past, it is hard to forget

potential outcome = over-weighting vivid examples

what is attribution theory?

how people explain others’ behaviours by attributing it to internal dispositions or external situations

what are the 3 theories which create attribution theory?

1. theory of naive psychology

2. theory of correspondent inference

3. covariation model

what is theory of naive psychology?

assumes people behaviour is motivated and intentional not random

what is the theory of correspondent inference?

assumes people actions are the result of their intentions and dispositions

what is the covariation model?

assumes internal and external causes based on consistency, distinctiveness and consensus

what are 3 things to know about attribution theory?

1. misattribution

2. can be supportive is viewed as external

3. gender differences - women more likely to think their success is external but men internal

what is the fundamental attribution error?

tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others behaviour

why do we make the fundamental attribution error?

actor-observer difference - when we are an actor we have access to the internal and external motivations whereas when the observer only have assess to the snapshot of the external motivations

the self-serving bias - more prone to give ourselves a break and look at external factors

the just world hypothesis - assume the world is just and people get what they deserve

what is our just world hypothesis affects by?

proximity - closer we are to someone, less likely to assume negative things about them

empathy

personal characteristics (conscientiousness and value security)

locus of control

what one can do to deepen attributional complexity

1. learning why people are the way they are

2. preference for complex rather than simple explanations

3. interested in underlying mechanisms and processes

4. understand the impact of social influence

5. physical closeness drive attributional complexity

6. recent drives

overconfidence phenomenon

the tendency to be more confident than correct

incompetence feeds overconfidence

can’t predict own behaviour

ignorance sustains our self-confidence

how can we decrease overconfidence phenomenon?

1. seek immediate feedback - heuristics can easily lead us to faulty conclusions

2. plays devils advocate - listen to opinions we may initially consider wrong

how can our beliefs influence expectations of our social world?

self-fulfilling prophecy

what is the self-fulfilling prophecy?

a psychological and sociological phenomenon where an initial expectation or belief, whether true or false, influences a person’s behaviour in a way that causes the prediction to come true