Exam 2 Social Psych - slides

Social Cognition

Attention to, encoding, interpretation, storage, retrieval, and use of information about the social environment

Effortful and Effortless

Social Cognition consists of two types of information processing:

• These function as a dual-process model of cognition

Effortful cognition

deliberate, conscious and intentional decisions, uses rules and logic, influences deliberate behavior

• Requires and expends cognitive resources

Effortless cognition

automatic, non-conscious associations, unintentional, uses associative networks, influences nonverbal/low-consciousness behavior

• Doesn’t require or expend cognitive resources

cognitive “strategy”

Motivation and cognition — Our goals, emotions, and needs help determine our _________________

both

In general, you can be fast or accurate, but not ______

• Some exceptions, but they are very specific

Categorization, Schemas, Heuristics

Cognitive Shortcuts/Factors related to information processing

Categorization

Grouping of objects, ideas, or events that share common properties; it’s a basic human need

Social categorization

Forming categories of people based on common attributes

Schemas

Organized knowledge structures about something in the environment

• Built up from experience

• Give us sets of guidelines for processing information

• Serve as a “filter” through which information passes

attention

Because schemas work like a filter they influence what gets our ____________

• Interpret information to be consistent with our schema

remember things

Because schemas work like a filter they also influence we ____________

• Recall information in a way that is consistent with our schema

Heuristics

Time-saving mental shortcuts - Representatives and Availability

• We tend to use them when we don’t have the motivation and/or capacity to think more effortfully

• Not always accurate, but better than nothing; they are useful!

Representativeness

Judging category membership by matching to a prototype

• “If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck...”

Availability

Judging probability of event/trait by how easy it is to retrieve examples of that event or trait

• Assertiveness study - 6 examples vs. 12

Cognitive bias

False consensus & false uniqueness

• Attentional Blindness - if you focus on one specific thing, you’ll ignore other crazy things happening in the scenario

• Change Blindness - If something changes quickly in an unfamiliar situation, you are more likely to not notice anything

False consensus

Overestimating how common our attitudes and beliefs are

• (Availability heuristic again)

False uniqueness

Underestimating how common our most desirable qualities and traits are

• (Self-serving bias)

Affect

General term for the presence or absence of mood or emotional states

Mood

Diffuse, nonspecific, persistent affective state

Emotion

Targeted, specific, brief affective state

Early theories of emotion

James-Lange Theory, Cannon-Bard Theory

James-Lange Theory

Emotional stimulus produces physical reactions, brain interprets reactions as emotions

• (Emotions are strictly a product of physical sensation)

Cannon’s criticisms of James and Lange

• Similar physiological reactions for many emotions

• Visceral organs respond too slowly to stress

• Artificial stimulation of visceral organs produces no emotions

• People with severed spinal columns have emotions

Cannon-Bard Theory

Emotional stimulus processed simultaneously by brain and autonomic nervous system

• (Emotions are a product of cognition and physical sensation)

Interpretation of an emotional stimulus and physiological arousal are two independent events

Interpretation of stimulus

Cognition that assigns a positive/negative appraisal

• (I like this/I don’t like this)

Physiological arousal

Heart and respiratory rate, sweating, empty feeling in the stomach, etc.

appraisal, arousal

Emotions are a product of cognition and physical sensation

• Step 1 - interpret incoming stimuli (_________)

• Step 2 - interpret physiological state (_______)

Dutton and Aron, 1974

The “Capilano Bridge Study”

• Examined the relationship between appraisal and arousal in the production of emotion

• Participants misattributed their arousal to attraction, rather than fear

  • Scary bridge, normal bridge

  • Male or female assistant at far end of bridge

  • Ask men if they’ll take a survey

  • Write an imaginative story about a picture

  • Asked if they want the assistant’s phone number

  • Measured sexual content of stories and tracked calls to each assistant

affect-as-information theory

a psychological model stating that people use their moods, emotions, and bodily feelings as a source of feedback to guide judgment, decision-making, and cognitive processing

• Affect provides quick, basic information about our environment

• Influences cognitive processes

• Mood-congruent recall and perception

• Schwarz & Clore, 1983

Positive affect, negative affect

Affect provides quick, basic information about our environment:

_____________: makes you think everything’s okay, it’s safe

______________: makes you think there’s a problem or threat

cognitive

Influences ________ processes

• Recall and perception

• Differences in effortful and effortless cognition

Mood-congruent recall

Tendency to retrieve information from memory that matches our current mood

• Easier to remember good things when you’re in a good mood than in a bad mood

Positive, bad

More likely to make judgments congruent with current mood

• __________ outcomes seem more likely in a good mood, negative outcomes seem more likely in a ____ mood

• (The Availability Heuristic strikes again!)

Mood-congruent perception

Tendency to interpret information in a way that matches our current mood

• Most apparent in the interpretation of ambiguous information

• Information that isn’t ambiguous more subject to differences in attention and mood-congruent recall

Schwarz & Clore’s “weather study” - weather can affect someones mood

Schwarz & Clore, 1983, Study 2 Experiment

• Participants contacted by telephone

  • Researchers noted whether the weather was rainy or sunny)

• Asked to rate how happy they are right now

• Asked to rate their life satisfaction

• General level of happiness

  • “How happy are you with your life as a whole?”

• Desire to change

  • “How much would you like to change your life from what it is now?”

• Life satisfaction

  • “How satisfied/dissatisfied are you with your life as a whole?”

Schwarz & Clore, 1983, Study 2 Conclusions

• Weather affects mood

  • Participants contacted on rainy days reported lower happiness right now than participants contacted on sunny days

• Mood affects judgments of life satisfaction

  • Participants contacted on rainy days reported lower general happiness, lower life satisfaction, and greater desire to change than participants contacted on sunny days

• This effect is not a conscious one

  • Asking participants what the weather was like where they were before they answered the questions cancelled the effect

negative = effortful and accuracy, positive = effortless and heuristics/stereotypes

Affect-as-information theory — Affect and cognition

Differences in effortful and effortless cognition

• Negative affect – there’s a problem or threat

  • More likely to use effortful cognition

  • Increases accuracy of judgments

• Positive affect – everything’s fine

  • More likely to use effortless cognition

  • Increases the likelihood of relying on heuristics and stereotypes

attitude

A positive or negative evaluation of an object

• They are formed from 3 sources of information:

  • Cognitive information

  • Affective information

  • Behavioral information

  • Don’t need all three

• They influence behavior and there are two types:

  • Explicit and Implicit

Explicit attitude

Reportable, consciously held attitude; Formed through rules and logic

Implicit attitude

Automatic, nonconscious attitude; Formed through associative networks

Dual attitudes

Implicit & explicit attitudes are independent and predict different behaviors

• its easy to tell explicit attitudes by asking but it’s harder with implicit

its easy to tell explicit attitudes by asking but it’s harder with implicit

How can we tell what our attitude is?

Measurement of implicit attitudes

Nonverbal behavior & physiology

• Implicit associations

  • Connections between object and different attributes in memory

  • Measured by the Implicit Associations Test (IAT)

IAT Effect

If people are significantly faster on one combination block than the other, it shows an implicit association

• e.g., male/sport < male/non-sport • Implicit link between male and sport

sometimes attitudes affect behavior and sometimes they dont

Depends on:

• Level of specificity: General attitudes and specific attitude objects

• Time factors: Distance between measurement of attitude and the related behavior

• Private versus public self-awareness: Are you focused on yourself or others?

Attitude strength

Information about the object; Personal investment

Attitude accessibility

• More strongly held = more accessible

• More accessible = more influential

Cognitive dissonance

A feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action inconsistent with important, strongly-held attitudes

reduce

We are motivated to _______ discomfort by reducing dissonance through changing attitudes and behaviors

Persuasion

The process of consciously attempting to change attitudes through the transmission of a message

• Many ways to transmit a message

• Not just what’s being said: Who’s saying it • What you’re actually saying • How it’s being transmitted/communicated • Who the audience is

Elaboration Likelihood Model

A model of persuasion that maintains that there are two routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route.

Central route

Persuaded by the strength of the argument

Peripheral route

Persuaded by aspects irrelevant to argument or argument quality

Four important factors in persuasion

source, channel, message, target

source

What kind of person/group is doing the persuading; Who delivers the message; credibility and attractiveness

message

The content of the persuasive message; Evidence-based appeals, Framing effects, fear appeals, humor appeals

medium (or channel)

How the persuasive message is communicated; rapid speech, powerful speech

target

What kind of person/group is being persuaded; involvement

credibility

Based primarily on two factors:

• Expertise: The amount of knowledge the source possesses

• Trustworthiness: Perceived intent of the source

• Source variable

Attractiveness

Factors in it:

• Physical attractiveness

• Likability

• Similarity

  • Works as peripheral-route persuasion

  • Less effective when motivation present

• Source Variable

Evidence-based appeals

_______________ are persuasive...but not all evidence is

• Make sure the message you send is the right one

• message variables

Framing effects

The influence on judgment resulting from the way information is presented, including the words used to describe the information or the order in which it is presented. (message variables)

• lottery example: present reward or consequence first even though they offer the same thing

fear appeals

Using threatening information to get attention (message variables)

• Persuasive when:

  • Danger perceived to be serious and probable

  • Recommendations perceived to be effective

  • Target feels they can take action

  • Sometimes works too well

Humor appeals

Attracts attention compared to non-humorous messages; makes communicator appear more likable (message variables)

• On the other hand:

  • Interferes with message processing

  • (Too busy laughing to pay attention to message)

  • Helps if humor is relevant to situation

Rapid speech

suggests credibility; works best when target is opposed to message (channel/medium variables)

• it discourages effortful processing

Powerful speech

Clear, unhesitant, few questions; Conveys competence & credibility (channel/medium variables)

Involvement, issue, impression

• _______ involvement: Issue is important for the self

• ____________ involvement: Response to the issue is socially important

• High issue + low impression = hard to persuade