Unit 3: Social Cognition

Social Cognition

Social Psychology has always been cognitive, Psychology fully embraced cognitive approaches in the 1970s-1980s

Cognitive Misers

__________: Kahneman & Tversky proposed the idea that humans are irrational, mentally lazy and relying on shortcuts and heuristics. We ignore base rates and statistics.

• The traditional view was humans are rational—follow the rules of probability and logic

• Kahneman: When people think fast, they make many errors, slow thinking is possible but rarely used. So, people are often irrational.

Regression to the average

 __________: Extreme performances are usually followed by more average ones

Kahneman was teaching Israeli air force pilots

• Based on behaviorism: reinforcing a behavior should increase its likelihood (generally true)

• An instructor disagreed based on their experience

• A  good pilot performs a difficult maneuver extremely well -> praised

• Next attempt is much worse, They concluded praise doesn’t work

• Kahneman was stunned because the instructor didn’t understand one of the basic rules of probability

• He’s a good pilot, not great, on average, he will do good

Ex. 70% student gets a 90% on one exam; on the next exam, will you do better or worse? You will get less because you’re a 70s student

• This led them to question the assumption that humans are completely rational

Irrationality

1. Hindsight Bias

2. Expectations Bias Perceptions

3. The Belief-Perseverance Phenomenon

4. Under/Overutilize Consensus Information

5. Illusion of Correlation/Causation

6. Representative Thinking

7. Availability Heuristic

8. Sunk Costs

(1) Hindsight Bias

__________:Once we know the outcome, it feels inevitable, even when told to ignore the answer we cant

• Ex. Given the question: Rocky Marciano was the only heavyweight champion ever to retire without losing a professional fight

  • False -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 True

  • Your original answer is a 1, but once you know the answer is true, your judgment changes and you change your answer to 3

• Ex. Taking an exam with asterisk showing all the correct answers, you can’t ignore it

• The Curse of Knowledge

The Curse of Knowledge

__________: Once you know something, it’s hard to imagine not knowing it

• Ex. Tapper & Listener: You’re tapping a song that you know the answer to and cannot understand how the other person cant guess it right

• Ex. Poker: People attribute wins/losses to skill rather than luck, the resulting fallacy: judging the quality of a decision solely by its outcome. Professional players understand that it’s a lot of luck, and won’t use the same strategy over and over again

(2) Expectations Bias Perceptions

________:Expectations shape what we see

• Ex. FOLK, CROAK, SOAK, the white of the egg? -> people say “yolk”

• Ex. Allport Study

  • Slides of a subway argument between a Black man and a White man

  • White man pulls a knife, after 7-8 retellings, the knife switches hands

  • The story shifts to match social expectations of the time

• Ex. Little Albert—his unknown fate

  • Classical conditioning created a phobia

  • Textbooks often claim the phobia was reversed, it was not, Albert was pulled from the study by his mother

  • Our expectation is that researchers would fix it

(3) Contradictory Evidence is Ignored or Devalued (The Belief-Perseverance Phenomenon)

• Ex. Death penalty attitudes

  • The participants read different papers that offer mixed evidence

  • Each side found support for their existing belief and picked the papers that supported their belief

  • Beliefs became more extreme

• Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias

________: Seeking information that supports our view. People usually cite supportive studies in their work and use opposing studies only to criticize them

• Ex. Lilienfeld:

  • Exposure to opposing evidence leads people to become more polarized

  • Failure to engage with alternative viewpoints

(4) Under/Overutilize Consensus Information

_____________: what most other people think or do

• People overuse and overuse this information

  • False Uniqueness Effect

  • False Consensus Effect

False Uniqueness Effect

Under/Overutilize Consensus Information

__________:People believe they are better, smarter, or more moral than average. Leads to underestimating how common one’s abilities or opinions are (underuse)

• Ex. 90% of business managers think they’re best than their peers

• Ex. Half of our class has to be below average grades

  

False Consensus Effect

Under/Overutilize Consensus Information

___________:People overestimate how much others agree with them, assuming their beliefs are widely shared (overuse)

• Ex. “I think I speak for everyone…” “All my classmates would agree the test was too hard”

(5) Illusion of Correlation/Causation

___________:Believing two events are related when they are not, often based on vivid or memorable experiences

• Ex.

  • Arthritis pain predicting weather

  • Full moon causing strange or bad behavior

  • Sugar intake causing short-term increases in child misbehavior

  • The Hot Hand

The Hot Hand Fallacy

Illusion of Correlation/Causation

________: Belief that a basketball player who is “on a streak” is more likely to keep scoring, evidence is weak or mixed, (complication players take harder hits when “hot”)

(6) Representative Thinking (Representative Heuristic)

___________:Judging likelihood based on how much something fits a stereotype, ignoring statistical realities

• Ex. Short, slim person who reads poetry

  • More likely a truck driver than a classics professor

  • There are far more truck drivers

• Ex. Admissions spelling mistake -> assumed dyslexia

  • Many people make spelling errors

  • Dyslexia is relatively rare

• Base Rate Neglect

Base Rate Neglect

Representative Thinking

_________: Failure to consider how common something actually is, background probabilities are often ignored or unclear.

(7) Availability Heuristic

_________:Events that are easier to recall are judged as more frequent or likely

• Ex. Words starting with “K” vs words with “K” as the third letter

  • There are ~3x more words with K in the 3^rd position

  • They are harder to recall, so underestimated

• Ex. Fear of terrorism vs. car accidents when visiting Israel

  • Car accidents are far more likely

• British National Lottery

  • Higher odds of dying during the draw than winning

• Repetition Induced Truth Effect

Repetition Induced Truth Effect:

Availability Heuristic

_________: Repeated statements feel more true, familiarity increases perceived accuracy (ex. Being lied to over and over again begins to feel true)

(8) Sunk Costs

__________:Continuing a decision because of past investments (time, money, effort). Future outcomes should matter, bust past costs dominate decisions.

• Ex. Staying in unhappy relationships

• Ex. Vietnam War

  • Continued involvement due to lives lost and money spent. Costs already incurred influenced future decisions

Motivated Tacticians

Gigernezer challenges the “cognitive miser” view

• Argues we are _________; we can think carefully when it matters

Motivated Tacticians Examples

• Buying a car:

  • Consumer reports say Volvo is more reliable

  • Neighbour’s Volvo broke down

  • Rational choice: trust base rates (Volvo)

• Jungle survival

  • Tree climbing kills more children than crocodiles

  • Neighbors child eaten by crocodile is vivid but rate

  • Rational choice avoid trees, not the river

Key Questions Gigerenzer Raises

1. Do heuristics replicate?

2. How irrational are humans really? Maybe irrational mainly in lab settings

3. Do violations of rationality cause real-world harm?

4. How much is due to citation bias and one-off studies?