Social Cognition and Social Influence – Part 1 Notes

Swati Mutumdar introduces the course on social psychology, outlining that the first part will cover social cognition and the second part social influence. She notes prescribed readings: for social cognition, sections 3.1 and 3.2 (custom edition pages 53–72), and for conformity, sections 8.2–8.5 (custom edition pages 90–129, 51–7, 232 of the textbook). She acknowledges Monash University’s recognition of the unceded lands of the Kulin nations and asks students to pay respects to elders on their lands as well.

Learning objectives are to understand the importance of social psychology and to refresh prior knowledge students may have from first year. The lecture aims to revisit processes related to social cognition (schemas, social schemas), heuristics, and norms, and then move to social influence (conformity, compliance, obedience) with a focus on techniques such as foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, and lowball. Milgram’s obedience experiment is introduced as a centerpiece for discussion about obedience and ethics.

The lecturer argues that social psychology studies how people’s thoughts and feelings are influenced by the real or imagined presence of others. Social influence is active even when people imagine others are present, not only when they are physically present. The course situates social psychology relative to sociology (studying groups and societies) and personality psychology (studying enduring traits). Sociology emphasizes organizations and societies; social psychology studies the processes that shape individuals; personality psychology studies individual traits. The three fields are interrelated, with social psychology sharing connections to anthropology.

The speaker emphasizes that social psychology is everywhere and invites students to reflect on everyday behavior. Examples include helping someone who has fallen in a public place, and whether one acts independently or follows the crowd. The Kitty Genovese case is invoked to illustrate the bystander effect and the question of when individuals will intervene. The discussion also invites reflection on responsiveness to social media influences, such as body image concerns linked to Facebook or Instagram. A student’s honor’s thesis is cited, noting greater body image concerns among women than men when exposed to social media images; results may have shifted with time.

A key point is that social psychology is empirical and scientific, with both qualitative and quantitative research depending on the question. For questions about culture and social variables, qualitative methods may be common; for cognition-related questions (e.g., effects of Facebook on thinking), quantitative surveys and statistical analysis are appropriate. The concept of imagined presence of others is introduced, leading to a broader discussion about how thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors are shaped by social stimuli.

The lecturer distinguishes social psychology from sociology and personality psychology with concrete examples, and notes that these fields are interconnected with other disciplines, including anthropology. The role of social influence across contexts is introduced, including questions about how individuals interpret others’ behavior in unfamiliar or ambiguous social situations. The question of whether AI can match human social cognition is posed and answered in the negative for now: AI lacks lived experience and the capacity for empathy, emotions, and nuanced judgments that characterize humans. This leads into the definition of social cognition as how people think about themselves and the social world, select and interpret information, and make judgments about others.

Two broad types of thinking in social cognition are identified: automatic thinking (unintentional, effortless) and controlled thinking (deliberate). The lecture emphasizes that the focus in this chapter will be on automatic thinking, though it also covers controlled thinking to provide context. An example of automatic thinking is braking automatically when the car ahead stops suddenly; this is low-effort thinking akin to autopilot. Controlled thinking requires conscious effort, planning, and deliberation.

A classic demonstration of automatic versus controlled processing is the Stroop task. In the first condition, participants read color names written in the corresponding ink color (automatic processing). In the second condition, participants must name the ink color while ignoring the word itself (controlled processing). The Stroop effect demonstrates interference between automatic reading and color naming and is a standard tool for illustrating automatic versus controlled processing.

Schemas are introduced as structured bodies of prior knowledge that help organize the ambiguous world, enabling quicker interpretation of current experiences and guiding memory and perception. They are formed from past experiences (e.g., a child’s schema of a dog with four legs and a tail) and are updated as new information comes in. Schemas facilitate understanding but can bias perception when misapplied. They also influence development and change, memory, and cognitive processing, including in organizational contexts. Even when information is unambiguous, schemas remain active as mental frameworks that improve efficiency and processing ease.

Accessibility of schemas depends on several factors. Accessibility means a schema comes to mind quickly and is usable in a given moment. Three drivers of accessibility are: (1) past experience, (2) recent experiences, and (3) goals that make certain information more salient because it is relevant to what one is trying to achieve. A vivid example is how a history of alcoholism in a family can make erratic behavior by others more likely to be interpreted as drunkenness, while recognizing that there may be other explanations. Goals can keep a schema active until the related task is completed (e.g., studying addiction might keep alcoholism schemas active for a period of time).

Priming is defined as a process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept. Priming is rapid, unintentional, and unconscious. Classic priming examples include the bread–soup pairing: when asked what goes with bread, many people choose soup, whereas the other set (towel, shower, shampoo) primes soap instead of soup. Meyer and Schwannberdt coined the term priming, and they showed that related concepts are activated when a cue is presented (e.g., the word nurse is recognized more rapidly after the cue doctor). Shan Vanwell is cited as another researcher associated with priming work. Priming can occur in laboratory settings where extraneous variables can be controlled, and it can be mood-dependent: negative moods tend to bias toward negative associations, while positive moods bias toward positive associations.

Priming has three practical implications for social cognition. First, priming can influence automatic goal pursuit: environmental cues (e.g., posters encouraging green behavior) can lead to automatic adoption of a goal (e.g., bringing a reusable bottle and avoiding disposable cups). Second, priming can influence automatic decision making, such as deferring big decisions (e.g., buying a house or a car) to allow for cooling-off and distraction. Third, priming interacts with metaphors about mental states: metaphorical language (e.g., warm vs cold) can shape social perception and behavior even without explicit judgment.

The real-world use of schemas includes the fire drill example, where hearing a warning sound triggers automatic evacuation behavior. The fall example asks what one would do when someone falls in the room; generally, people will intervene, especially if the person is old or disabled, though social norms can affect action in other contexts as well.

Schemas can also lead to biases and stereotypes through confirmation bias, where people seek information that confirms existing beliefs and resist contradictory evidence. This challenges the notion that AI could fully replicate human social cognition, since AI lacks lived experience and the nuanced, context-sensitive interpretation that humans bring to social situations. Self-fulfilling prophecy is discussed via the Rosenthal (Pygmalion) effect: high expectations can lead to higher performance, partly because more attention and resources are directed toward those predicted to succeed. Conversely, low expectations can dampen performance. The evidence for self-fulfilling prophecy is not uniformly conclusive, but the principle remains important in education and organizational settings.

Three aspects of automatic thinking are highlighted. (1) Automatic goal pursuit: priming can shape goals without conscious intention, such as campus banners encouraging environmental actions leading to actual behavior change. (2) Automatic decision making: high-stakes decisions like housing or vehicle purchases may require deliberate, conscious analysis, but distraction or sleep can improve decision quality by reducing overload; in practice, people may postpone major decisions to regain clarity. (3) Metaphors and embodied cognition: language linking mental states to bodily states (e.g., warmth and friendliness) can influence social judgments; experiments show that holding a warm cup can lead to perceiving a stranger as warmer, while a cold drink can lead to perceiving them as colder. This illustrates the mind–body connection in social perception.

The section closes with a transition to heuristics, mental shortcuts used when time is limited. Heuristics include the availability heuristic (relying on information that comes readily to mind), representativeness (describing people or events by how closely they match a prototypical example), and base rate information (information about the frequency of features in the population). An iconic study by Tavskey and Kannerman (as named in the lecture) asked participants whether there are more words starting with the letter K or with K in the middle; people tended to overestimate starting-letter frequency due to the availability heuristic (e.g., words like king, kite, kinship come to mind). In another classic study, participants were given a vignette about Linda (a 31-year-old single woman who is outspoken and socially concerned with justice) and were asked to judge what her profession was; many guessed bank teller with feminist leanings, a judgment guided by the representativeness heuristic rather than base rate information (in reality Linda was a bank teller, with no necessary feminist involvement).

Base rate information emphasizes understanding the actual distribution of categories in the population. For example, if 90% of students at a university are doing business and 10% are doing psychology, one should revise judgments about individuals’ majors in light of these base rates; however, people often overlook base rates when their intuition is influenced by stereotypes or anecdotal information such as a discussion about Freudian psychoanalysis.

A crucial caveat offered is that heuristics do not always lead to optimal decisions; in fast-moving, real-world situations, they provide quick, usable judgments, which may be imperfect. The interplay between schemas and heuristics means people often rely on mental shortcuts or pre-existing frameworks to navigate the complex social world; however, this can reinforce biases. The lecturer emphasizes the need to exercise tolerance for ambiguity in general, and acknowledges that practical decisions often require a balance between quick, intuitive processing and more deliberate, analytical reasoning.

In closing, the lecturer previews the next part of the course, which will examine social influence, including conformity, compliance, and obedience, and will discuss Milgram’s obedience experiments and their ethical implications. Students are encouraged to email questions if they have any, as the lecture is being delivered in a recorded format rather than in a live classroom.

Key concepts to remember from this part include:

Social psychology as the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by the presence of others (real or imagined).
The distinction between automatic thinking (low-effort, involuntary) and controlled thinking (deliberate, conscious).
Schemas as organized mental structures built from past experiences; how they facilitate processing but can bias interpretation.
Accessibility and priming as mechanisms by which schemas become activated and influence perception and behavior.
The Anderson and Pitcher story-interpretation experiment illustrating how role expectations shape memory recall and interpretation.
Metaphors and embodied cognition (e.g., warmth influencing social judgments).
Heuristics (availability, representativeness, base rate) and their role in rapid judgments; the risk of bias and error when base rates or statistics are neglected.
Self-fulfilling prophecies (Rosenthal/Pygmalion effect) and the caution that evidence for the phenomenon is not universally conclusive.
The practical importance of balancing automatic and controlled processing in everyday decisions, and the value of deliberate reflection in high-stakes judgments.

If you have questions after watching this lecture, please email the instructor for clarification or discussion. The second part of the lecture will cover social influence in more depth, including conformity, compliance, obedience, and Milgram’s famous obedience study.