Social Cognition Lecture + Textbook Content

Social cognition

• “People thinking about people”

Functions of social cognition (3)

• • To fulfil belongingness needs

  • Keeps us safe

  • Navigate complex world

Two types of processing + important note

• Controlled + automatic

• Both occur simultaneously and both are biased

Controlled processing characteristics (6)

• Deliberate

• Slow

• Serial

• Flexible

• Precise

• Conscious

Automatic processing characteristics (6)

• Automatic

  • Fast

  • Inflexible

  • Estimation

  • Parallel

  • Intuition

  • Unconscious

Evolutionary + biological basis of social cognition (3)

• Has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years

• Larger neocortex is correlated with living in larger, more complex social groups

• Social cognitive skills evolved in small groups but now must be applied in large, technologically connected societies

Dunbar’s number (1→1)

• Human can maintain approximately 150 meaningful contacts/relationships

  • People you wouldn’t be embarrassed to join for a drink

Cognitive miser hypothesis (1, 1→2)

• The brain is very calorifically demanding (~20% of energy)

• Thus, short cuts (e.g. heuristics + approximations) are used to conserve energy

  • However, these are prone to bias, e.g. when simplifying complex things

Automatic social judgements (3)

• Extremely rapid (~4ms) on traits like trustworthiness + dominance

• Evolutionarily allows us to identify whether we should approach or avoid

• Can create self-fulfilling outcomes

Correlations of trustworthy vs dominant faces

• “Baby face” (e.g. large eyes + forehead, small chin) → trustworthy (elicits nurturing response)

• Hyper-masculine face (small eyes + forehead, large jaw + chin)→ dominant

Self-fulfilling outcomes following first impression description (1) + example (1→2)

• If our first impression of someone is positive/negative, then we may act in ways that elicit positive/negative behaviour from them which confirm our initial impression

• Example: job interview

  • Positive first impression → interviewer sells job to you → you confidently assert your abilities

  • Negative first impression → interviewer scrutinises you → you become defensive

Subliminal priming study (Bargh & Pietromonaco, 1982) (1)

• Hostile world flashes (vigilance task), processed non-consciously → led to more negative evaluation of ambiguous person (Donald)

Behavioural priming example (3)

• French/German music played in wine aisle → more French/German wine bought

• Warm room → warmer interpersonal ratings

• Heavy clipboard → topic perceived as more important

• Smell of fish → increased suspicion (Western cultures)

Replication issues with behavioural priming (2)

• Difficulty replicating results, e.g. for experiment “thinking about the elderly makes you walk slow”

• Results able to be replicated when experimenters knew hypothesis, but not replicated when they didn’t know hypothesis (possibly some kind of priming involved?)

Social cognition biases (4)

• Order effects

• Framing effects

• Schema biases

• Heuristics

Primacy effect def, when it occurs, example + real-world implication

• Order effect whereby info presented first has disproportionate influence on a judgement

• When info is ambiguous (e.g. “industrious” may be interpreted more charitably following positive info, but interpreted as close-minded + rigid following negative info)

• E.g. presenting positive traits before negative traits when describing person led to overall more positive evaluation (Asch)

• Candidates whose names are first on ballot paper more likely to be elected

Recency effect def + real world implication

• Order effect whereby info presented last has disproportionate influence on a judgement

• Jurors more likely to settle on guilty verdict when critical info was presented last

Spin framing def + example

• Spin framing: framing info to emphasise certain aspects + elicit certain response

  • E.g. torture vs enhanced interrogation

Positive/negative framing def, example + note

• Positive/negative framing: emphasising either the positive or negative effects for connotations

  • E.g. 80% lean, 20% fat beef mince

• Negative framing tends to elicit stronger response

Temporal framing with example (2) + note

• Events distant in the future = abstract/high construal (e.g. going to uni → furthering education)

• Events in near future = concrete/low construal (e.g. going to uni → studying at library tomorrow)

• Sometimes decisions are more enticing at abstract level (planning a vacation, not considering concrete details of admin work), whereas sometimes they are more enticing on concrete level (e.g. going for 30 min jog is less overwhelming than abstract goal of “getting fit”)

Bottom-up vs top-down processing

• Bottom up: raw sensory input (colours, shapes, sounds), conclusions formed based on data

• Top-down: filtering info in light of existing knowledge, theory driven

Schemas def (1) + role (3)

Knowledge structures that:

• Help interpret + predict

• Are functional but biased

• Can mislead if wrong assumptions are made

Schemas + accessibility (1→4)

• Easy of activation influences which schema is used, not necessarily the most accurate one, with factors increasing ease of activation including:

  • Recent activation (priming)

  • Chronic activation (habitual use)

  • Correlated bodily states (e.g. increased heart rate → anxiety schema)

  • Expectation-driven (pre-existing beliefs about situation prime certain schemas)

Heuristic def

• Intuitive mental shortcuts, performed quickly and automatically that provide efficient answers with minimal cognitive effort

Availability heuristic def, why it’s biased, biased example, adaptive example

• Judging likelihood by ease of recall

• Memorable events are not necessarily more frequent

• E.g. tend to think more deaths caused by accidents than strokes

• Doctor who recently read about rare disease able to accurately diagnose patient

Broad real-world implication of availability heuristic (2)

• Tends to be bad news bias in media → people tend to think life is more dangerous than it actually is (events presented in media easily retrievable)

• Tend to overestimate our own contribution over others’ (more accessible)

Examples of impacts of fluency (2)

• People tend to think recipe is harder to make when in difficult-to-read font

• People more likely to slow down + think analytically when font is harder to read (less fluent)

Representativeness heuristic def + biased example

• Judging likelihood based on extent to which something resembles a typical case/stereotype, and ignoring base rates

  • E.g. guessing that individual who likes to read + watch documentaries is a psychology professor rather than truck driver, even though there are far more truck drivers in the world

How the representative heuristic influences perception of causality (1)

• We tend to think small causes have small effects + big causes have big effects; this is not always the case

Illusory correlations

• Belief that two variables are correlated when they are not

Representativeness + availability =?

• If something seems like it should go with something else (e.g. shy + likes books = librarian) → tends to be more memorable + we tend to forget or overlook times that they didn’t happen together = illusory correlation

Regression effect def + example

• Statistically tendency for extreme values of one variable to be associated with less extreme values of the other, when they are imperfectly correlated

• E.g. tall parents tend to have kids that are tall but not as tall as them

Regression fallacy def + example

• Failure to recognise the regression effect + instead infer a cause-effect relationship

• E.g. installing more speed cameras in place where there were recently lots of collisions → infer that speed cameras led to decrease in collisions shortly after, when it was simply the stats regressing to the mean

Why it’s common to commit regression fallacies

• Because it counters the representative heuristic: the most representative outcome for a successful athlete is more success, not regressing to the mean

3 outcomes for intuition (I) vs reason (R)

• Easy decision when in agreement = correct judgement

• When in conflict → careful thought will often lead to R overriding I = right decision

• Sometimes I happens so quickly that R is not activated = wrong decision

Advantage of intuition vs advantage of reason

• Intuition can be useful when used based on associations we have built for familiar contexts → less cognitively demanding (Miser hypothesis)

• Reason is more useful when stakes are high situation is unfamiliar

Confirmation bias def

The tendency to test a proposition by searching for evidence in support of it

Motivation + confirmation bias (1)

• Sometimes not motivated to confirm bias, sometimes will be