L6 Cognition P2

Introduction to Social Cognition

• Social cognition combines aspects of cognitive psychology and social psychology.

• Cognitive psychology focuses on how individuals process information, solve problems, and think.

• Social psychology examines how interactions with real or imagined others influence our understanding of social situations.

• Definition: Social cognition is the process of how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social contexts.

Attribution Theory by Harold Kelly

• Attribution Theory explains how individuals attribute causes to events, especially concerning others' behaviors.

• Key Questions: Why did something happen? Why did a person act a certain way?

• Types of Attributions:

  • Dispositional/Internal Attribution: Explaining someone's behavior based on internal factors (e.g., personality, skills).

  • Situational/External Attribution: Attributing behavior to external factors (e.g., environment, luck).

Example of Attribution

• Scenario: Someone bumps into you on the street.

  • Dispositional Attribution: You attribute the person's rudeness to their personality (e.g., "What a jerk!").

  • Situational Attribution: You consider external factors like the person tripping (e.g., "Oh, they must have stumbled.").

Fundamental Attribution Error

• Definition: Tendency to attribute our own behaviors to situational factors, while attributing others' behaviors to their dispositions.

• Self-Attribution: We recognize the role of situational factors in our own negative behaviors.

• Other-Attribution: We often overlook situational factors affecting others, leading to biased judgments about their character.

Explanation of Fundamental Attribution Error

• Actor-Observer Difference in Perceptual Salience:

  • Salience: Refers to what stands out in a given context.

  • For the actor (person engaging in a behavior), the situation is most salient.

  • For the observer, the actor themselves is most salient.

  • This difference leads to varying attributions: the actor attributes their behavior to the situation, while observers focus on the actor's characteristics.

Experiment by Taylor and Fisk (1975)

• Experiment Structure: Participants observed a conversation between two confederates who appeared to be subjects.

• Observer Positions: Seats were arranged to manipulate who was salient to the observer (Actor A or B).

• Findings:

  • Observers rated the actor they were closest to higher in terms of causal role in the conversation.

  • Showed that salience impacts perceptions and attributions significantly.

Application: Videotaped Interrogation

• Issue: Many falsely confess due to police coercion, with high incidences in younger populations.

• Previous Solution: Videotaping interrogations for objective records.

• Problem: Most cameras focused on the suspect, thus biasing perceptions towards suspect guilt.

• New Research: Investigated methods to achieve an unbiased record via camera positioning.

Lassiter's Research on Camera Perspective

• Proposed the question of how varying camera perspectives affects jury verdicts.

• Experiment Structure: Recreated a famous trial with three camera perspectives: suspect focus, detective focus, and equal focus.

• Findings: Jury perspective influenced their judgment on the suspect's guilt based on camera focus.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Leon Festinger)

• Definition: Cognitive dissonance occurs when contradictory cognitions create discomfort or tension within a person.

• Examples of Dissonance:

  • A person sees themselves as honest but engages in dishonest behavior (e.g., cheating on taxes).

• Ways to Resolve Dissonance:

  • Change perceptions of oneself (cognition about self).

  • Change the behavior to align with self-perception.

  • Rationalize behavior to alleviate discomfort (cognitive creativity).

Cognitive Dissonance Research Areas

• Decision Making: We tend to prefer the chosen item over rejected alternatives post-selection.

• Justification of Effort: Valuing effortfully obtained items more than those acquired easily.

• Insufficient Justification: When a behavior contradicts self-concept, dissonance occurs unless there is an external justification.

Conclusion

• The lecture covers important aspects of social cognition, attribution theory, and cognitive dissonance, emphasizing how framing and perceptions shape our social understanding and judgments. It includes insights from basic and applied research to clarify these concepts.