Social Psychology - Social Cognition Notes

COGNITION EMOTION BEHAVIOR

  • Social psychologists study human cognition, emotion, and behavior.
  • All three of these components influence each other.

SOCIAL COGNITION

Social cognition is the way individuals…

  • think about others.

  • attend to social information.

  • and how they use this info in their lives.

  • For example, when someone speeds through a red light, do you think…

    • This person is an idiot.
    • Their brakes aren’t working.

SOCIAL COGNITION FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR:

Falsely attributing someone’s behavior to their internal disposition when it could just as easily be an external situation outside of their control.

  • INTERNAL (DISPOSITIONAL) ATTRIBUTION
    • Attribute the event to the person’s internal disposition:
      • “This person is an idiot!”
  • EXTERNAL (SITUATIONAL) ATTRIBUTION
    • Attribute the event to external situations:
      • “Their brakes aren’t working!”

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

Cognition neuroscience studies the biological processes that underlie human cognition.
Especially the relation between:

  • Brain structures.
  • Brain activity.
  • Cognitive functions.

EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN - Neurons

  • Neuroplasticity: The brains ability to rewire by growing new connections.
  • Neurons that “fire together, wire together”.
  • The more you do something, the stronger that connection becomes.
  • The less you do that thing, the more that connection weakens.

EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN - Schemas

  • Neuroplasticity helps explain how schemas form.
  • Connections between individual concepts wire together to create a whole schema.
  • E.g., textbooks, dorms, professors, partying, and classrooms combine to form the schema called college.

EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN

As the brain evolved, newer parts were built on the foundation of older parts.

EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN

  • The first part to evolve was the most ancient Brain Stem.
    • Also known as the “lizard brain”.
    • Brain Stem:
      • Pons
        • Regulates sleep/wake cycles
      • Cerebellum
        • Responsible for muscle coordination and balance.
      • Medulla
        • Oversees breathing, digestion, and heart rate.

EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN

  • The next part to evolve was the more advanced limbic system.
    • Also known as the “emotional center”.
    • The Limbic System:
      • Hippocampus
        • Processes and creates new memories
      • Amygdala
        • Processes aggression and fear.
      • Hypothalamus
        • Regulates sexual arousal and “fight or flight” responses.

EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN

  • The final part to evolve was the most advanced cerebrum.
  • The Cerebrum
    • The largest part of the brain containing many structures unique to humans.
    • Has two distinct hemispheres.
    • The outermost layer is the cerebral cortex.

EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN

  • The Cerebral Cortex
    • The outermost layer of the cerebrum.
    • Responsible for the most complex functions including:
      • social perception
      • thinking about others’ thoughts
      • language
      • consciousness
      • self-control
  • Motor cortex
    • Band of tissue that plans and executes voluntary movement.
  • Somatosensory cortex
    • Receives and integrates sensory information from the body.

EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN

  • Phineas Gage
    • An explosion sent an iron rod through his skull.
    • His frontal lobe was destroyed, yet he survived.
    • Once a respectable citizen, now “fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity”.
    • Shows that the frontal lobe is needed for self-control and executive function.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • KIN SELECTION – Humans, like many animals, instinctively help our close relatives because it promotes the survival of our genes.
    • This cat shares 50% of its genes with each of its kittens.
    • Walking through fire 5 times is not in the best interest of the mother.
    • But it IS in the best interest of the genes that coded that behavior.
    • In this case, helping ensured those “helping” genes would persist into future generations.

KIN SELECTION

  • The further away in genetic relatedness, the less likely you will help that person.

    • Parents, Siblings, Children
      • 50% Genes Shared
    • Grandchildren, Nephews, Nieces
      • 25% Genes Shared
    • Cousins
      • 12.5% Genes Shared

  • Helping family paved the way for helping social groups:

    • For most of our evolutionary history, humans existed in groups of 20 – 100.
      • As groups got larger and larger, it became harder to keep track of who you were related to.
      • It became safer for our genes to be empathetic towards our entire in-group.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • Once we started helping non-kin, a new phenomenon arose:
    • Reciprocal Altruism – we help non-kin whom we believe can return the favor in the future.
      • This allows for skill specializations.
      • A hunter can reap the rewards of a gatherer and vice versa.
    • Cooperating in groups now increases survival and reproductive success.
    • The genes that promote working together in groups (empathy, compassion, a moral sense) just became a huge evolutionary advantage.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • Understanding the Origins of Cooperation using Game Theory
    • Evolution is a game of competing for resources where those with the most “gains” successfully survive and reproduce.
    • Prosocial behavior and antisocial behavior are two different strategies that can lead to evolutionary success:
      • https://ncase.me/trust/
    • In situations with repeated interactions, Tit-for-Tat (Copycat) is the most effective strategy for evolutionary success.
      • Tit-for-Tat (Copycat) most resembles the behavior of modern humans.
      • Explains our innate desire to help others, our moral outrage when someone harms others, and our desire to punish those who harm others.
      • Explains why we are more likely to cooperate with in-group members but less likely to cooperate with strangers and out-group members.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • However, this has come with some bad side effects:
    • Fostering in-group empathy increased out-group hostility in an experimental study.
    • Data collected from 186 different cultures showed a significant correlation between in-group loyalty and the tendency to value outgroup violence.
    • People’s neural activity mirrors the distress response of in-group members, but not out-group members.
    • Competition between groups of ancient humans may have blunted empathy towards out-groups!
  • Empathy – Feeling what another feels.
    • Empathy exists because its evolutionarily advantageous to keep members of your in-group alive and healthy.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • Empathy and Group Bias:
    • Watching the hand of an in-group member being pierced shows activity in the sensorimotor cortex similar to as if you were getting pierced yourself.
    • Less so when watching the hand of a known out-group member being pierced.
    • Less empathy opens the doors for increased aggression, prejudice, and discrimination.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • However, people DID show an empathic neural response when watching a purple hand being pierced.
  • This shows that out-group categories are NOT defined by skin color.
  • Our tendency to devalue outgroups may have evolutionary origins, but how we categorize those out-groups is learned.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • Group categories can be defined in any number of arbitrary ways:
    • Sports team
    • Hometown
    • Skin color
    • Country
    • University
  • People can learn stereotypes about any invented group category.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • Explicit Bias – a negative belief or attitude against a specific social group that is consciously held.
    • For example, a self-proclaimed Nazi is explicitly biased against Jewish people and is aware of this fact.
  • Implicit Bias – the attitudes or stereotypes that unconsciously affect our understanding, decisions, and behavior towards out-groups.
    • For example, a democrat consciously despises racism, but she sits further away from Black people than she does for White people without even realizing it.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • Implicit Association Test – The IAT is the most widely used measure of implicit bias.
    • It works by having you quickly lump words and faces into “good” or “bad” categories.
    • This does not give you time to think, so unconscious biases are revealed.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

  • Implicit Association Test
    • https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html
  • Class activity – go to the above link and take the Race IAT:
    • This activity is completely optional, and you do NOT have to share your results with anyone.

TYPES OF SOCIAL COGNITION

  • Automatic
    • Heuristic
    • Nonconscious
    • Unintentional
    • Involuntary
    • Effortless
    • Often based on past experiences & general knowledge (schemas)
  • Controlled
    • Algorithmic
    • Deliberate
    • Conscious
    • Voluntary
    • Takes effort
    • Sometimes our heuristics influence our deliberate cognition!!!

SOCIAL PERCEPTION

  • Our automatic heuristics make up our mind for us.
  • Our automatic judgements are based on schemas we learned throughout our lives.
  • These judgements persist due to belief perseverance.

SOCIAL PERCEPTION

  • Belief Perseverance
    • The tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited or after receiving new information.