Lecture 15

Lecture Overview

• Course: PSYC 1023/1123

• Winter 2025

• Lecture 15: Social Cognition

• Text: Chapter 12 OpenStax

• Instructor: Dr. Ken Raj Leslie

• Department of Psychology, Acadia University

Learning Objectives

Understanding key concepts and terminology is crucial in the realm of social cognition. Key objectives for this lecture include:

• Learning the terminology associated with social cognition.

• Gaining insight into how first impressions are formed and their effects on perception.

• Applying concepts of attributions and biases to personal self-perception and perception of others.

• Analyzing the implications of discriminatory acts and whether they are inherently linked to prejudice.

What is Social Psychology?

Social psychology investigates how an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by social contexts. Key topics include:

• Intrapersonal Topics: Understanding emotions, attitudes, the self, and social cognition.

• Interpersonal Topics: Evaluating behavior patterns such as helping, aggression, prejudice, attraction, and various group dynamics.

Types of Cognitive Processes

Understanding cognitive processes is essential for grasping social cognition:

• Explicit Processes: These are conscious, deliberative, and effortful thoughts, typically slower and under our intentional control. Measurement tools include surveys and direct questioning.

• Implicit Processes: These represent unconscious thoughts that are automatic and intuitive, operating outside our intentional control. They can be measured using reaction times and emotional responses, such as eye tracking.

• Dual-Process Models: These models encompass both implicit and explicit processes to explain behaviors more comprehensively.

Person Perception

Person perception refers to how individuals categorize and form judgments regarding others based on limited information.

• Schemas: Organized clusters of knowledge and beliefs that automatically activate upon encountering someone’s gender, race, or dress style. Schemas help to fill in gaps when we have little information about a person.

• Thin Slices of Behavior: These are extremely brief samples of behavior that allow individuals to make quick and often accurate judgments endorsed through implicit processes. Research indicates that judgments regarding trustworthiness or likeability can occur in mere seconds of visual exposure. However, such judgments can also be prone to inaccuracies.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

• Definition: Snap judgments can shape our treatment of others. This treatment can, in turn, influence their actions, validating our initial perceptions. An example is teachers' expectations of students resulting in confirmation of those expectations.

The Self in the Social World

Two key cognitive biases that impact how we view ourselves in relation to society include:

• False Consensus Effect: This bias leads individuals to project their beliefs onto others, believing that their own experiences are shared universally. For instance, believing others also enjoy the same music one does.

• Naïve Realism: The assumption that one's perception of reality is accurate, leading to the belief that those who disagree are misguided.

Influences on Behavior

Behavior can be influenced by both internal and external factors.

• Dispositionism: The belief referring to the internal factors (traits and temperaments) shaping behavior. It is more common in individualistic cultures.

• Situationism: Focuses on the immediate environment's influence on behavior, more favored by social psychologists.

• Modern perspectives consider a balance of both internal and situational influences when analyzing behavior.

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

• Definition: The tendency to over-prioritize internal characteristics (dispositional factors) while minimizing situational influences when explaining others’ behaviors. This tendency is prevalent in individualistic cultures.

• Example: A person may view others as poor drivers despite acknowledging their distractions when reflecting on their driving decisions.

Actor-Observer Bias

This concept highlights the disparity in attribution processes between observers and actors.

• As Observers: People are likely to make fundamental attribution errors due to limited situational understanding.

• As Actors: Individuals have more insight into the context affecting their behavior, allowing for situational explanations.

Self-Serving Bias

• Definition: This bias enables individuals to attribute positive outcomes to their traits while attributing negative outcomes to situational factors, thus preserving self-esteem. For example, believing students approached them for inspiration rather than due to confusion in teaching.

Just World Hypothesis

This belief involves the perception that individuals receive outcomes purely based on their behaviors—good people receive good outcomes while bad people face negative consequences.

• Implications of this concept include victim-blaming and a denial of the situational complexities influencing behaviors, such as poverty.

In-group vs. Out-group Attributions

• In-Groups: These are groups individuals identify with positively.

• Out-Groups: Groups which individuals do not identify with.

• In-group Bias: The inclination to favor those within one’s group, which has been evidenced through experiments indicating implicit biases can arise from arbitrary group assignments.

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

• Stereotype: A mental structure consisting of beliefs about the characteristics of social groups, acting as schemas in social information processing.

• Prejudice: Affective responses that manifest as negative attitudes toward out-groups.

• Discrimination: Actions or behaviors that disadvantage members of specific social groups, often derived from prejudices.

Consequences of Stereotypes

• Well-Intended Stereotypes: Even seemingly positive stereotypes can foster harmful expectations. For example, racist stereotypes correlated with career advantages and negatively impact perceived capabilities in challenging situations.

Implicit vs. Explicit Processes in Prejudice

Measuring Prejudice:

• Explicit Prejudice: Direct expressions of racist or sexist attitudes.

• Implicit Prejudice: More subtle, often assessed through tests like the Implicit Associations Test (IAT), which evaluates automatic reactions and biases.

IAT (Implicit Association Test)

The IAT measures implicit biases through response times in associating different races with positive or negative words. This test highlights discrepancies in reactions, suggesting hidden prejudices that might not be explicitly acknowledged.

Influence of Norm Change on Prejudice

The 2016 U.S. presidential election, termed the “Trump Effect,” demonstrated an escalation in the public acceptance of prejudice, especially towards groups targeted in the rhetoric of the campaign.

Addressing Implicit Bias

To mitigate implicit biases, it is essential to engage in practices that foster genuine contact among diverse groups, challenging historical narratives and biases.

Community Examples

Daryl Davis serves as a powerful example of fighting prejudice through personal connections, having successfully influenced individuals in the KKK to leave the organization through understanding and friendship.

Class Discussion Questions

• Differentiate between implicit and explicit processes.

• Define schemas and their influence on perception.

• Discuss the timeframe for forming lasting judgments about others.

• Explain self-fulfilling prophecy with examples.

• Analyze how self-concepts affect perceptions of others (false consensus effect).

• Assess the implications of naive realism.

• Explore fundamental attribution error in the context of social behavior.

• Compare in-groups and out-groups, providing real-life examples.

• Evaluate the impact of positive stereotypes.

• Clarify what the IAT measures and its significance in understanding prejudice.

• Debate whether anti-racism training should be implemented in law enforcement.

• Discuss the contact hypothesis and its potential to reduce racism.

• Preview the next class topic: Persuasion & Cognitive Dissonance.