Ch 6 - Social Cognition

Social cognition

how we perceive, think about, and use information to understand and make judgements about ourselves and others in different social situations

Person Perception

The mental processes we use to think about and form judgments about other people

Factors used to form person perception

- Physical appearance

- Body Language

- Eye contact

- Facial expressions

Attitudes

An evaluation a person makes about an object, person, group, event or issue.

Tri-component model of attitudes

proposes that any attitude has three related components

- affective, behavioural and cognitive.

Affective component

the emotional component of attitudes, involving how you feel about people, objects, places, events or ideas

Behavioural component

refers to the way in which an attitude is expressed through our actions

Cognitive component

The beliefs we have about an object, person, group, event or issue.

Inconsistency between the components of an attitude

the possibility that the three components of an attitude don't align (for example, the behaviour component of an attitude is inconsistent with the affective and cognitive component)

Attributions

the process by which we explain the cause of our own or another person's behaviour

Internal attributions

An explanation of behaviour that attributes it to the person rather than the situation.

External attributions

An explanation of behaviour that attributes the behaviour to the situation rather than the person.

Biases affecting attributions

- Fundamental attribution error

- Actor-observer bias

- Self-serving bias

fundamental attribution error

the tendency for observers, when analysing another's behavior, to overestimate the impact of personal factors and underestimate the impact of the situation

Actor-observer bias

The tendency to attribute our own behavior to external, situational characteristics, and others behaviours to internal, personal factors.

Self-serving bias

tendency to take credit for success and deny responsibility for failure

Cognitive biases

- False consensus bias

- Halo effect

- Conformational bias

False consensus bias

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people hold similar views to our own

Halo effect

The tendency to allow our overall positive impression of a person to influence our beliefs and expectations about the person in other qualities

Conformational bias

The tendency to seek or interpret information in a way that confirms existing beliefs or expectations, while dismissing contradictory evidence.

Cognitive Dissonance

an unpleasant psychological state that arises when a person recognises an inconsistency n their actions, attitudes, or beliefs

Stereotype

a generalisation about the personal characteristics of the members of a social group

Prejudice

negative attitude held by a person about the members of a particular social group, formed in advance of any experience with that person or group

Discrimination

Behaving differently, usually unfairly, toward the members of a group.

Indirect discrimination

Occurs when treating everybody the same way or an unreasonable requirement, condition or practice disadvantages a person, or a group of people because of a personal characteristic

Direct discrimination

when someone is treated unfavourably because of a personal characteristic protected by the law

Heuristic

a strategy for solving a problem or making a decision that is based on experience with similar types of problems but cannot guarantee a correct outcome

Availability heuristic

involves making a judgement based on how easy or difficult it is to bring specific examples to mind.

Representativeness heuristic

Involves categorising a person, object or event by judging how closely it matches our idea of a typical member of that category.

Affect heuristic

making a judgement that is influenced by the emotion being experienced at that same time.

Anchoring heuristic

the process of making decisions based on the first piece of information received.