Notes on Social Beliefs and Judgments
System 1 and System 2 Thinking
Based on Kahneman's framework for human judgment and decision making.
System 1 (Intuitive):
Quick, automatic, little to no effort
Largely unconscious and cannot be easily stopped
Often relies on schemas, emotional reactions, expertise, and snap judgments
System 2 (Slow Thinking):
Slower, conscious, more deliberative
Requires effort and attention
Involves logical reasoning and planning
Relationship between systems:
System 1 generates quick impressions; System 2 can monitor, override, or correct those impressions when engaged
The Gut Feeling:
Emotions play a significant role in quick judgments; not purely logical
Visual cue from slides: Systems contrasted as INSTINCTIVE/QUICK vs SLOW CONSCIOUS THINKING; EMOTIONAL vs LOGICAL; AUTOMATIC/EFFORTLESS vs EFFORTFUL/DELIBERATIVE
Priming and Embodied Cognition
Priming effects influence subsequent judgments and behavior without conscious intention
Example: Horror movies increase likelihood of jumping at noises in the house
Embodied cognition:
Our bodily states and sensory-motor systems influence cognitive processes
Reference: Muraki, Speed, & Pexman (2023) on embodied cognition and mental imagery in aphantasia
Implication: Cognitive judgments are shaped by prior exposure and bodily states, not just abstract thoughts
Intuitive Judgments and Intuitive Management
Automatic processing (System 1): implicit, fast, without conscious control
Controlled processing (System 2): explicit, deliberate, conscious
Automatic thinking often involves:
Schemas
Emotional reactions
Effects of expertise
Snap judgments
Key takeaway: Intuition can be useful but is fallible; awareness of its bases is crucial
The Limits of Intuition
Automatic thinking may not be as smart as believed; risks include perceptual misinterpretations, fantasies, and constructed beliefs
Not all beliefs derived from intuition are false, but falsification requires understanding how errors occur
Lesson: Develop strategies to test intuitive judgments and seek correction when warranted
Overconfidence
Overconfidence effect: people overestimate the accuracy of their judgments, abilities, and performance
Example: A student with a high MCAT score might feel certain about Harvard Medical School admission and skip backup applications
Visual cue: A high MCAT score (e.g., ) can lead to overconfidence and under-preparation for contingencies
Consequences: Reduced willingness to seek alternatives or feedback; increased risk of poor decisions when certainty outpaces evidence
Confirmation Bias
System 1 snap judgments can be accompanied by a tendency to favor information that confirms preconceptions
System 1 quick judgments are nonconscious, emotional, present-focused; System 2 can deliberate and rationalize
Confirmation bias reinforces initial beliefs unless counter-evidence is actively sought
Remedies for Overconfidence
Be wary of others' dogmatic statements; confidence does not always equal competence
Techniques to reduce overconfidence:
Obtain prompt feedback
Consider at least one good reason a judgment might be wrong
Caution: Do not undermine reasonable self-confidence and decisiveness; overreaction can suppress valuable input or discourage challenging views
Heuristics: Mental Shortcuts
Representativeness Heuristic:
Tendency to judge likelihood or category membership based on similarity to a prototype or existing category
Example: Judging Marie as a librarian rather than a trucker because she fits the stereotype of a librarian
Pitfall: Discounting other important information; ignoring base rates
Availability Heuristic:
Estimating the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind
Example: Estimating the prevalence of teen violence after sensational stories; overweighing vivid instances
Practical note: Heuristics aid quick judgments but can propagate stereotypes and biased risk assessments
Tip on cognitive errors: Understanding these errors helps avoid harmful stereotypes and biased conclusions
Quick Examples Illustrating Heuristics
Representativeness example: “I’d like to talk to the doctor. I’m the doctor. You don’t LOOK like a doctor!”
Availability example: Hearing about a shark attack leads to the belief that swimming is dangerous; vivid events bias risk judgments
Table 1: Fast and Frugal Heuristics (Summary in Notes Form)
Representativeness
Definition: Snap judgments of whether someone or something fits a category
Example: Judging Marie as a librarian rather than a trucker because she matches the librarian prototype
May Lead To: Discounting other important information; ignoring base rates
Availability
Definition: Quick judgments about likelihood of events based on how easily they come to mind
Example: Overestimating teen violence after many news reports
May Lead To: Overweighting vivid or memorable instances; exaggerating danger or likelihood
Counterfactual Thinking
Definition: "If X had not occurred, Y would not have occurred" (counterfactuals influence judgments and emotions)
Common forms: imagining alternatives or missed opportunities that did not happen but could have changed outcomes
Illusory Thinking
Illusory Correlation:
Perceived association between two events that are actually unrelated (e.g., stereotypes or coincidences)
Example (common misbelief pattern): Link between autism and vaccines based on coincidental observations
Regression Toward the Mean (Illusory means):
The perception that extreme events are followed by extreme outcomes that revert toward the average
Observed in daily judgments and interpretations of success/failure streaks
Moods and Judgments
Mood states influence judgments, risk assessments, and perceptual interpretations
Positive moods can broaden attention and influence optimistic judgments; negative moods can narrow focus and increase caution
Perceiving Our Social Worlds
Perceiving and interpreting social information is shaped by context, personal biases, and selective attention
Political perceptions, sports refereeing, and media bias judgments are highly subjective and influenced by the observer
Belief Perseverance
Belief perseverance: persistence of initial beliefs even in the face of disconfirming evidence
Classic finding: when false beliefs were exposed and discredited, about of participants maintained the belief intact
Implication: people cling to initial concepts despite contradictory information
Constructing Memories of Ourselves and Our Worlds
Misinformation Effect: memory distortion due to exposure to misleading information after an event
Attitude changes and rosy retrospection: people recall past attitudes as more aligned with current beliefs than they actually were
Memory construction allows revision of past behavior and histories; example: job interview accounts often underreport bad behavior and overreport good behavior
Memory is reconstructive, not a perfect record of events
How Do We Explain Our Social Worlds?
Social psychologists analyze why people explain others’ behavior the way they do
Attribution Theory: explains how we infer the causes of behavior
Core question: What causes certain behavior? Internal dispositions or external situations
Attribution Theory: To the Person or the Situation
Attribution: the perceived cause of behavior
Internal (Dispositional) Attribution: behavior due to internal traits or dispositions
External (Situational) Attribution: behavior due to external factors or context
Spontaneous Trait Inference
Definition: automatic inference of traits after observing someone’s behavior
Example: Observing a librarian helping an elderly person across the street may lead to the trait inference of being kind and helpful
The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
Definition: overestimating the influence of internal factors and underestimating external factors when explaining others’ behavior
Classic intuition: “He cut me off in traffic because he’s a jerk.”
Actor-Observer Bias
Tendency to explain our own behavior differently than others’ behavior
We blame situational factors for our own missteps and internal traits for others’ actions
Leads to a double standard in judgment
Fundamental Attribution Error vs. Actor-Observer Bias
FAE (for others): emphasize internal traits; overlook situational factors
Actor-Observer: for ourselves, blame the situation; for others, blame their dispositions
Bottom line: FAE is a one-sided error; Actor-Observer Bias is a double standard in interpreting self vs others
Why Do We Make Attribution Errors?
Example: camera perspective bias (how the frame or angle influences interpretation)
Cultural Differences in Attribution
Western cultures (e.g., the U.S.) tend to emphasize individualism; higher likelihood of FAE due to trait-focused explanations
Eastern cultures (e.g., Japan, China) emphasize collectivism and context; more situational attribution
Cultural context shapes likelihood of attributing behavior to personality vs. circumstances
Attributions and Reactions (Illustrative Figure)
Negative behavior: dispositional attribution (hostile person) → unfavorable reaction
Situational attribution (the person was trolled online) → sympathetic reaction
Demonstrates how explanations influence emotional and behavioral responses
Why Attribution Errors Matter
Reasons to study attribution errors:
Reveals how we think about ourselves and others
Highlights environmental causes as roots of failures and misfortune
Reveals we are often unaware of biases; awareness can improve judgments
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and Experimenter Bias
Self-fulfilling prophecy: belief leads to actions that produce the expected outcome
Experimenter bias: participants sometimes live up to experimenters' expectations
Classroom, workplace, legal contexts, policing simulations, and parent–teen interactions show these effects
Getting from Others What We Expect
Behavioral confirmation: people’s social expectations elicit behaviors from others that confirm those expectations
A common finding across social interactions: our expectations can shape the responses we receive
Summary Takeaways
Our judgments are a mix of intuitive shortcuts and deliberate reasoning, biased by mood, context, culture, and expectations
Awareness and active correction can mitigate errors like overconfidence, confirmation bias, FAE, and actor-observer bias
Memory and attribution are malleable; beliefs and memories can be revised, yet people often cling to initial interpretations
Self-fulfilling prophecies and behavioral confirmation demonstrate the social power of expectations in everyday life