Social Cognition Midterm 2

Bounded Rationality

refers to the idea that human decision-making is limited by cognitive constraints, time, and available information, leading to "satisficing" rather than optimal, rational decisions

Availability Heuristic

describes that people make judgements about the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind.

Personal Experience Bias

describes people’s tendency to assume their personal, subjective experiences represent objective truth or universal norms.

Representativeness Heuristic

describes that people evaluate probabilities based on similarity (based on the degree to which A is representative of B).

Base Rate Neglect

refers to judgements that neglect the underlying probability of an event.

Conjuction Fallacy

describes people’s tendency to assume that a specific condition (both A and B) is more likely than a more general condition.

Law of Small Numbers

describes people’s biased belief that small samples should perfectly represent the population from which they are drawn.

Regression to the Mean

After an extreme, the most likely next trial/sample will be closer to the average (mean).

Anchoring

describes judgements based on an initial (sometimes arbitrary) value and insufficiently adjusting.

Gigerenzer’s critique

Additionally asks prescriptive question: When should people rely on a given heuristic rather than a complex strategy to make more accurate judgments?

“Less is more” Effects

???

Recognition Heuristic

describes the often accurate rule of thumb that if one of two objects is recognized and the other is not, the recognized object can be inferred to have a higher value regarding a specific criterion.

Ecological rationality for heuristics

Depending on the environment, a heuristic can be ecologically rational (best adapted to the situation at hand)

“More is less” effects

???

Dilution Effect

???

Verbal Overshadowing Effect

???

Excessive Introspection

???

ABC model of attitudes (affect, behavior, cognition)

• Attitude - an evaluation toward an object (person/ behavior/ group/ idea)

• “ABC” model

• Affective → i love coffee

• Behavioral → I have coffee every morning

• Cognitive → Coffee keeps me alert when I’m tired`

Mere Exposure

Repeated exposure → increased liking (even without awareness)

Mechanism:

fluency → feels good → misattributed as liking

Associative learning

Classical conditioning:

Pairing a neutral stimulus with an inherently positive or negative stimulus

leads to transfer of evaluation to the neutral stimulus.

Operant conditioning:

Rewarding or punishing a behavior increases the likelihood of that behavior.

Observational Learning

Attitudes are learned from

● Parents

● Peers

● Media

● …

Self-Perception Theory

we form attitudes to explain our behavior. This mainly applies with attitudes are unclear or weak.

Attitude

an evaluation toward an object (person/behavior/group/idea)

Discrepancy between attitude and behavior

???

Reasons for the discrepancy

???

Theory of planned behavior

Why do we behave the way we behave?

● Attitude toward the behavior

● Subjective norms

● Perceived behavioral control

Attitude toward the behavior

???

Subjective norms

???

Perceived behavioral control

???

Intention of behavior

???

Cognitive dissonance theory

refers to mental discomfort that is experienced due to inconsistency between beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors. People are motivated to reduce this discomfort (the dissonance) by changing behaviors, justifying actions, or ignoring conflicting information.

Explicit Attitudes

are attitudes that people can directly describe. They are conscious, deliberate, and

reportable.

Implicit Attitudes

are automatic evaluations that can influence perception, judgment, and behavior without deliberate conscious intention. They are fast, automatic, difficult to control continuously, and potentially inconsistent with explicit beliefs

MODE Model

a dual process model in the domain of attitudes and behavior. MODE = Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants of the attitude-behavior relation

The implicit associations test

???

Procedure and principle behind IAT

Core assumption:

People respond faster when two concepts are strongly associated in memory.

The IAT measures implicit evaluative associations.

→ The IAT reveals automatic or “hidden” biases that might not appear in

self-report measures.

Criticism of IAT

Methodologically:

● No strong test-retest-reliability

Performance often

context/mood-dependent

● Performance can easily be

deliberately influenced

● IAT scores don’t predict

discriminatory behavior

Interpretations:

● No clear definition of implicit bias

● IAT score more reflective of

familiarity (memory) rather than

liking*

● People who have a smaller IAT

don’t necessarily have less bias

● IAT training definitely doesn’t

reduce discriminatory behavior

Stereotype

a generalized belief, positive or negative, about the characteristics of members of a group that is applied to most members of the group. Stereotypes are schemas to categorize a group of people.

Prejudice

refers to attitudes towards a person or a group of people or a situation prior to evaluating the evidence. This attitude usually includes negative affect.

Discrimination

refers to negative behavior toward members of an out-group.

Outgroup

A group that we don’t belong to and/or that we view as fundamentally different from us.

Stereotype content model

According to the SCM, the content of stereotypes varies along two dimensions: competence and warmth.

Competence

Is this group capable, intelligent, skilled?

Warmth

Is this group friendly, trustworthy, well-intentioned?

BIAS Map

BIAS = Behavior from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes

Warmth predicts:

● Active behaviors

● Helping vs harming

Competence predicts:

● Passive behaviors

● Inclusion vs neglect

Stereotype threat theory

defined as “socially premised psychological threat that arises when one is in a situation or doing something for which a negative stereotype about one’s group applies” (Steele & Aronson, 1995)

Social identity theory

describes how people readily self-identify as belonging

part of a group (and others as not belonging to that group).

Minimal group paradigm

???

3 stages of social identity

1. Social categorization

Categorizing people (including oneself) are belonging to a group to

understand the social environment

2. Social identification

Adopting the identity of the group we have categorized ourselves as

belonging to, causing us to act in ways we believe is characteristic of that

group

3. Social comparison

Comparing our in-group with out-groups to enhance self-esteem.

Ingroup favoritism

describes the tendency to favor members of one's own group over out-group members in evaluations, resource allocation, and behavior.

Outgroup homogeneity effect

describes people’s tendency to perceive members of their own group as diverse and unique, while viewing members of other groups as more similar to each other (more homogenous).

Ultimate attribution error

describes people’s tendency to systematically attribute negative behaviors by out-group members to internal, dispositional flaws while attributing positive behaviors to external, situational factors.

Realistic conflict theory

states that intergroup hostility, prejudice, and discrimination arise from real or perceived competition between groups for limited resources, when groups compete in a "zero-sum" scenario.

Integrated threat theory

describes how real or perceived threats from an out-group generate prejudice and discriminatory behavior by an in-group.

Habit breaking model of prejudice

???

Stereotype replacement

This strategy involves replacing stereotypical responses for non-stereotypical

responses. It requires:

● recognizing that a response is based on stereotypes

● labeling the response as stereotypical, and

● reflecting on why the response occurred

counter-stereotype imaging

This strategy involves imagining in detail counter-stereotypic others (Blair et al.,

2001). These others can be

● abstract (e.g., smart Black people)

● famous (e.g., Barack Obama) or

● non-famous (e.g., a personal friend)

individuating

This strategy relies on preventing stereotypic inferences by obtaining specific

information about group members (Brewer, 1988, Fiske and Neuberg, 1990).

Using this strategy helps people evaluate members of the target group based on

personal, rather than group-based, attributes.

perspective taking

This strategy involves taking the perspective in the first person of a member of a

stereotyped group. It increases psychological closeness to the stigmatized group,

which improves automatic group-based evaluations (Galinsky & Moskowitz,

2000).

contact

This strategy involves seeking opportunities to encounter and engage in positive interactions with out-group members.

Intergroup contact theory

Contact between groups under optimal conditions could effectively reduce

intergroup prejudice

Allport’s “optimal conditions” for contact

○ equal status between the groups

○ common goals

○ intergroup cooperation

○ institutional support

Reduction of intergroup anxiety

Intergroup anxiety refers to feelings of threat and uncertainty that people

experience in intergroup contexts. These feelings grow out of concerns about

● how they should act

● how they might be perceived

● whether they will be accepted

“Parasocial contact hypothesis”

???

Affect

is often used as an umbrella term for various emotional experiences. In

psychology, it refers to a diffuse (not specific), immediate, observable

manifestation of emotion.

Emotion

refers to a more specific experience, typically in response to particular

events, situations, or thoughts. It involves both physiological responses (eg,

changes in heart rate) and psychological experiences (eg, the subjective

experience of joy or fear).

Mood

refers to a prolonged, relatively weak and undifferentiated feeling.

Theories of emotion: Darwin

“The expression of the emotions in man and

animals” (1872)

● Documented visible expressions of emotions, such as

facial and body expressions that characterize fear,

anger, or happiness

● Many expressions are conserved across species

● Expressions are innate (not learned)

● Provide signals to other animals

● (e.g. about to attack, ready for sexual advances)

Theories of emotion: Ekman

There are six (categorically distinct) basic emotions:

● Happiness

● Sadness

● Disgust

● Anger

● Fear

● Surprise

Criteria for basic emotions:

● Automatic, rapid onset, brief duration

● Distinctive universal signals, physiology

● Evolved for a distinct survival problem

Theories of emotion: Russell & Barrett

emotions reside on a space between two dimensions:

● Valence (positive – negative)

● Arousal (high – low)

Mood-congruent cognition

describes people’s tendency to notice, interpret, and remember details that match their

current emotional state.

Misattribution of arousal

is a psychological phenomenon where a person incorrectly identifies the source of their physiological arousal (e.g., elevated heart rate, adrenaline rush) and mislabels it as an emotion, such as romantic attraction, fear, or anxiety.