The social animal, cognition and prejudice

human traits that make us the social animal - perspective taking

increases ‘self-other overlap’

decreases negative responses to others

fosters social bonds and facilitates social coordination

Galinsky et al., 2000

• narrative essay task (imagine you are …)

• whether our identity links/connects to others

human traits that make us the social animal - empathy

empathic response = people engage more in altruistic behaviours (helping others without expecting anything in return)

• women have more empathetic traits

human traits that make us the social animal - ToM/iterative perspective taking

levels of intentionality an individual maintains correlates with social network size

eg. i think she thinks he did this

social facilitation and inhibition

the presence of others affects our own behaviour

• competition improves performance (Triplett)

social facilitation due to the mere presence of others/co-action (Allport)

drive theory - Zajonc (1965)

arousal impacts on performance, but only if you’re skilled at the task

factors for facilitation/inhibition

evaluation apprehension model (Cottrell, 1972)

self-efficacy beliefs (Sanna, 1990)

distraction-conflict theory (Baron, 1986)

attentional overload (Belletier et al., 2019)

evaluation apprehension model (Cottrell, 1972)

factors for facilitation/inhibition

audience not blindfolded + paying attention = social facilitation

audience not blindfolded + not paying attention = nothing

audience blindfolded = nothing

distraction-conflict theory (Baron, 1986)

people are a source of distraction from the task

attentional overload (Belletier et al., 2019)

people need to narrow their focus of attention down to a limited set of cues

audience effects

occur in a range of species (human effects are not as straight forward)

• audience can fail to produce effects

• even attentive audiences can fail to produce effects

• complex tasks can be facilitated

models differ in the degree to which they can account for these phenomena

social psychology aims to actively bring some order to this seemingly chaotic research landscape

audience → awareness → distraction → attention → effect

social influence

people may not be passive, but actively stating opinions and judgements

Asch (1951) - majority influence

Sherif (1935) - the autokinetic effect/norm formation in groups

Moscovici (1976) - minority influence

• judging colour transitions in groups of 6 (4 actual participants)

  • average conformity rate of 8.5% vs 0.5% baseline

• should display:

  • consistent argument - committed over time and within group

  • investment - confidence in idea

  • autonomy - unbiased

  • neither too much rigidity or flexibility

• minorities and majorities - dual-process model (Moscovici, 1980)

  • minority → shoft in internal views = deeper

dual process model - Moscovici (1980)

minority and majority influence

minority:

• shift in internal views = deeper processing = conversion

majority:

• superficial, public acceptance = compliance

social cognition

the study of how people make sense of other people and themselves

focuses on how ordinary people think and feel about others, and how they think others feel/think

long tradition in psychology from the 80s

• attributions, attitudes, prejudice, impression formation

type of ‘social thinker’ to assume

naive scientist (elaboration high)

cognitive miser (elaboration low) - heuristic shortcuts

motivated tactician (elaboration selective)

activated actor (adds implicit and fast processing to above)

people differ from inanimate objects/stimuli because they are:

intentional causal agents

perceiving back (inherently interactive)

similar to self

self-conscious targets

characterised by lots of unobservable traits

changeable/potentially of use

very complex

asking for explanations

social categories

we make sense of others by applying labels to them

category-based processing occurs immediately upon perceiving the character

• category confirmation = initial confirmatory categorisation

• if this processing is unsuccessful:

  • category/attribute based impression

  • inconsistency resolution

    • use of initial discrepant information

    • disregard of discrepant information

    • integration into category

dual process models

easy solution to the problem

• switch between the 2 when you have a good reason

  • eg. inconsistencies, importance, threats, rewards

impression formation

continuum model - Fiske and Neuberg (1990)

dual-process model - Brewer (1988)

persuasion

elaboration likelihood model (ELM) - Petty and Cacioppo (1986)

heuristic-systematic model - Chaiken (1987)

the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion example

assumption - people differ in how detailed they process content

need for cognition (NC)

• eg. i find satisfaction in deliberating hard and for long hours

if people have high need for cognition, they should pay more attention to what they get told

how to apply social influence

marketed as the ‘science of persuasion’

• diligently studied by fundraisers

• goal: one-off compliance - maybe leading to longer-lasting attitude and behaviour change

• end point: design successful funding campaigns

eg. Allison et al. (2017)

• studied crowdfunding of business ventures, using the ELM as framework

• turned 300+ real ventures into a funding experiment

• factual information matters

  • for more experienced funders when more money is at stake

• emotional cues matter

  • for less experienced funders with small sums at stake

prejudice

leads away from mere presence of others (facilitation/inhibition) or neutral disagreement (social influence) to active discrimination

a lot to do with categoricial processing

a ‘pre-judgement’

causes include developmental, cognitive, social explanations and social identity theory

a ‘pre-judgement’

any attitude, emotion or behaviour towards members of a group

• directly/indirectly implies some negativity/antipathy towards this group

a subject evaluation/attitude, either positive or negative, towards someone

• based on their group membership and hierarchical status relations between members

• not based on the individual themselves, just what groups they associate with

consequences of prejudice - at level of perceiver

readiness to respond to target according to stereotype content

BIAS model - behaviour from intergroup affect and stereotypes

consequences of prejudice - at level of victim

stereotypes overshadow social interactions and turn into self-fulfilling prophecies

behavioural confirmation

• you treat people according to a stereotype, then act accordingly

stereotype threat

• you act in anticipation of being stereotyped

causes of prejudice - development explanations

interplay of education, upbringing and personality

prejudice levels stabilised by adolescence

causes of prejudice - cognitive explanations

schemata for objects

scripts for standard, common situations

stereotypes for groups

causes of prejudice - social explanations

powerful instrument to cement inequalities in a society

eg. social dominance theory

escaping prejudice

language perpetuates stereotypes, but only to an extent

• so cleaning our language cannot be the full solution

stereotype

set of beliefs surrounding members of a social group

• the content that gets evaluated and can lead to prejudice

  • or simply a justification for prejudice that’s already in place

akin to caricatures

• we recognise something in the stereotypes, even though they may be absurd

stereotypes are a cultural phenomena, but stereotyping itself is an individual/psychological process

stereotypes contain the stuff that complements prejudice

morality and competence related traits

agency

• individualism

• masculinity

• competence

communion

• collectivism

• femininity

• morality

warmth and competence - Cuddy et al. (2008)

2 broad underlying dimensions for stereotype attributes

warmth and competence

the stereotype content model - Fiske et al. (2002)

unfairness and problematic things about prejudice and stereotypes

wrong inference of individual attributes

denial of individual attributes

social sharedness increases social impact

• less impact if from just 1 individual

discrimination

making a difference between people, based on their group membership

actual behavioural outcome of prejudice and stereotypes

• real target variable

social dominance theory - Sidanius and Pratto (1995)

group-based inequalities are maintained through 3 types of intergroup behaviours:

• aggregated individual discrimination

  • those higher up bully the ones below

• behaviour asymmetry

  • strength is at the top of hierarchy

• institutional discrimination

  • laws in favour of advantaged

these types of behaviour are fed and feed back to legitimising myths

• hierarchy-enhancing eg. racist ideologies

• hierarchy-attenuating eg. social, multiculturalism, universalism

the individual will endorse legitimising myths, depending on their social dominance and orientation (SDO)

measures of prejudice

self-report measures

overt and covert measurement of attitudes

explicit measures

implicit measures (open questions)

implicit association test (IAT)

self-report measures of prejudice

have issues of social desirability

random answers do not generate systematic effects

biased answers do not generate differences between experimental conditions

overt and covert measures of prejudice/attitudes

aka explicit and implicit measures

purpose is hidden or response is not easy to control eg. reaction time

sometimes low correlation between these measures

explicit measures of prejudice

classics in survey-based research

social distance

• eg. i wouldn’t mind having X in my course, neighbourhood or as a relative

F-scale - Adorno et al. (1950)

• eg. homosecuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished

modern racism scale - McConahay et al. (1981)

• eg. blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights

symbolic racism 200 scale - Henry and Sears (2002)

• eg. over the years, blacks have gotten more economically than they deserve

implicit measures of prejudice

they measure unconscious, automatic thoughts and beliefs

responses are not free from influence by other factors

• white experimenters bring about stronger biases than black ones

• thinking about counter-stereotypic group members as a mental imagery task before, reduces bias

means implicit bias can be influenced

implicit association test (IAT)

Greenwald et al. (1989)

related to priming procedures

makes use of semantic associations in memory

• participants respond to 2 different social categories and to positive/negative attributions in a reaction time task

• if implicit association exists, then they should respond faster when category and attribute share the same response key