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COGNITIONPROCESS OF UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD AROUND

US

COGNITION

Cognition is the scientific term for "the process of thought."

Cognition as a single word that means a group of mental processes which include processes like attention, sensation or awareness, perception,

memory, remembering, reasoning, judgment, etc. for making decision.

COGNITION

Social cognition is the study of how people process social information, especially its encoding, storage,

retrieval, and application to social situations. In other words, it means how people make sense of themselves

and others.

COGNITION

It focuses on how people think about other people and how they think they think about others and

themselves.

It is higher mental processes that are engaged while social situations or dealing with social information.

COGNITION and Process of Understanding the World

The outside world and both physical and social objects are the result of subjective construction of reality that involve both the physiological/neurological process as well as psychological processes.

Social Cognition

Making social judgments is more difficult• Available information is incomplete,

ambiguous, or downright contradictory. • The core question of social cognition

research is “How people use all this information to arrive at a coherent judgment?

Social Cognition

• Do we see the world, the people, the group, accurately and form it unbiased?

• Is there error in social cognition”• Can we logically put the information in

organized way?There are logical and correct ways to put

information together to make wise decision but we depart in quite predictable ways.

FACTS on our understanding

People are not always accurate in understanding people, explain their action and predict the future behavior. Other times, there is accuracy. Like Sherlock Holmes, people, with bit of information, elaborate and construct the profile of other people. Many times they are correct and many times they are not.

Social Cognition

• Social cognition is often marked by apparent errors and biases

• People's social inferences often depart in quite predictable ways from logic and accuracy

• The information that is stored in the memory, the context, the situation and the people one come to contact helps to organize and make inferences about the social object

Social Cognition

PROCESS OF SOCIAL INFERENCESocial inference is composed of several steps

1. Gathering information2. Deciding what information to use (Biases)3. Integrating the information4. Making judgment of social stimulus

Social Cognition

GATHERING INFORMATION

Using Prior expectation

Deciding what information to use

Putting information together

Prior provide structure and meaning of behavior but also lead to collect inaccurate information.

Failing to notice biases in information and usually the mood guide the memory

Automatic evaluation, use short-cuts, self-serving process

Making judgement of social stimulus or event

Social Cognition

GATH

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Prior expectation1. Faulty expectation: 2. Failure to recognize how

prior expectations bias the collection of information

3. Overrule consideration of information altogether

4. Rejecting unsupporting (prior expectation) information

1. GATHERING INFORMATIONPrior Expectations• Everyone in the company are stiff and uptight• Selective collection of information consistent with

this prior expectation• Finding prospective coworkers a little rigid or

formal when meeting them • Formality with stranger is quite normal in the first

meeting however one may conclude with prior expectation as stiff and rigid

• Prior expectations are very helpful in interpreting the information, provide structure and meaning however sometimes it causes to draw inaccurate inferences.

Suppose: A college acquaintance of yours, a tense, serious, humorless fellow, works for the company you are considering and finds it very much to his liking.

According to Nisbett & Ross (1980):Four conditions are especially problematic1. Faulty expectations: Letting false belief and expectation guide

one’s collection of information will probably lead one to incorrect answers

2. Second condition under which prior expectations can be problematic occurs when the social perceiver fails to recognize how prior expectations bias the collection of information.

3. Overrule consideration of information altogether: Prior expectations can create problems when they overrule consideration of information altogether and consequently the decision.

4. Rejecting unsupporting (prior expectation) information: if information is inconsistent with what to believe, one will scrutinize it and collect only those that support the belief (Ditto, See pansky, Munro, Apanovitch, & Lockhart, 1998).

Social Cognition



Deciding what information to use (Bias)


1. Small sample2. Statistical Versus

Case History Information

3. Impact of negative information

2. BIASES IN THE INFORMATION

• Collection of information for decision is must• Judgments made on the basis of limited information can

distorted judgement – selected friendly sample and evalution• (Hamill, Wilson, & Nisbett, 1980), vidiotape viewing of an

interview with a prison guard. – (1) Typical prison guard, (2) Very different from most of the

guard, (3) no information was provided to the sample– Half the participants saw prison guard appeared a highly

compassionate, concerned individual. – other half saw a tape that portrayed him as in inhumane,

macho, cruel person. – Participants asked what kinds of people become prison guards.

participants' inferences about prison guards were unaffected by whether they had been told that the prison guard was typical.

Small sample (Bias)• Inferences based on very little information are also

problematic. A small sample of information can actually produce a very biased picture (Schaller, 1992).

– Collecting informaiton from 2 workers who seem pleasant enough, and working with 20 coworkers, there is the possibility that these 2 are not typical of the larger group.

– Sometimes people forget that they are dealing with very little information, and they make confident inferences nonetheless (Nisbett & Kunds, 1985).

Statistical Versus Case History Information (Bias)• Statistic information represent population while Case study

only represent a few, very specific people• Statistical information is dull while case history is colorful and it

often has more influence on their judgment (Tylor & Thompson, 1982).

• Statistical information is objectively more accurate. E.g, a dynamic employee may reach to high post within short period – the history (bias) can influence the impress and ignore more appropriate statistical information

• One generally rely on statistical information for persuasive argument and strong conclusion

• When more engaging anecdotal case history evidence is present, people often ignore relevant statistical evidence and are instead persuaded by case histories (Beckett & Par, 1995).

Impact of negative information• If encountered one or two negative pieces of information

during data collection – from disgruntled employee one would attach some significance to this observation, more than it was worth. This is a common finding in research on judgments and decisions.

• Negative information attracts more attention than does positive information (Pratto & John, 1991). Consequently, negative information is weighted more heavily than are positive aspects when judgments are made (Coovert & Reeder, 1990).

• In studies like forming impressions of others to evaluating positive and negative information to reach a decision/judgment, negative information figures more prominently (Taylor, 1991).

Social Cognition



Deciding what information to use (Bias)

1.Judgments of Covariation : All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy 2. Illusory correlationmembers of minority groups are often seen as having attributes stereotypically associated with their group because of their membership Impact of negative information


3. INTEGRATING INFORMATION

Process of bringing information together and combining it into a social judgement

• Standards for combining information into a judgment, computers typically outperform human decision makers (Dawes, Faust, & Meehl, 1989). Humans are swayed by stereotype that influence the information they collect

Judgments of CovariationMany of our beliefs involve statements about the relationship between things - "Blonds have more fun" - implies not being Blond is having less fun. Technically, such idea of association is called JoC.

3. INTEGRATING INFORMATION

Illusory correlationAccording to Klauer & Meiser (2000) several factors produce illusory correlation. • Meaning of two item is believed to go

together, thus, a member of minority group is stereotypically perceived as having attributes of group.

Social Cognition

Gathering information




1. Prior expectation helps to provide structure and meaning of behavior but also lead to collect inaccurate information.

2. Information gathering will be selective and consistent with the prior expectation

3. It leads to collect the information what you want to collect (e.g., rigid, formal coworkers)

4. One believes what one wants to believe5. It hinders the collection of neutral information

Social Cognition





1. Using mood to guide memory2. Drawing on prior expectations

and decide what is relevant3. Failing to notice biases in

information4. Letting personal goals or

motives influence information choice

5. Being swayed by case history information

1. Finding out what you want to find out (i.e., motivated inference)

2. Using too little information

3. Using the wrong information

4. Combining information erratically

Social Cognition




1. People tend to be bias in selecting information despite warned before.

2. Small sample: Based on few people’s version which does not represent the group.

3. Statistical information represents the larger view yet emotional, in-depth information draws our attention

1. Impact of negative information: It attracts more attention than positive information and weighted more heavily.

2. Happy mood leads to positive inferences. Bad mood lead to short term gain but long term lose.

3. Mood-congruency memory – remember material that fits with current mood state

4. Negative mood make pessimistic estimate

Social Cognition





1. Automatic evaluation - using shortcut

2. Self serving information –e..g, divorce rate and predictability

APPROACHES TO

STUDY SOCIAL COGNITION

Social Cognition

Three approaches to study social cognition

1. Person Perception Approaches2. Attribution Approaches3. Schema Approaches

Major approaches to Social Cognition

Approach Major question Major guidingaddressed by perceiver principle used by perceiver

_______________ __________________ ______________Person Perception How traits are combined Rational

to form an overall combining of impression? Trait inform..

Attribution What are the causes of Naïve behavior? Scientistmodel

Schema How is the meaning of Cognitivebehavior and traits miser or interpreted? Motivated model

PERSON PERCEPTION

Person Perception

Person perception approaches consider the ways we asses and combine the traits of other persons to form overall impression

An approach that consider the ways we assess and combine the traits of other persons to form overall impressions.

This perspective assumes:“People are thoughtful and fairly rational perceiver of others, they notice others traits and put them together to make a consistent framework by which we can understand others...”

People assess and integrate others' traits and characteristics to form an overall impression.

Person PerceptionFACTS

1. People form impressions of others quickly on the basis of minimal information and go on to impute (assign) general traits to them

2. People pay special attention to the most salient (prominent) features of a person, rather than pay attention to everything. We notice the qualities that make a person distinctive or unusual

3. We organize our perception by categorizing or grouping stimuli. Rather than see each person as a separate individual, we tend to see people as members of groups – the people wearing white lab coats are doctors, even though each may have features that make him or her quite different from other doctors.

Person Perception

1. We tend to look at 1. Roles: role helps to know the traits. Roles are informative,

rich, and well articulated, summarize the information2. Physical cues: Appearance, behavior, qualities gives detail

impression. Dressing shows characteristics of the person.3. Salience: cues that opposes with others. Figure and Ground.4. Traits: behavior is observe to find traits. Based on traits we

develop implicit personality theory.5. Central traits: a trait associated with person’s many other

characteristics. E.g., warm.6. Categorize: Social categorization e.g., gender, race, social

class, influences perception and tend to make a part of some group or category.

Person Perception: How we assess and combine the traits to form a impression of other people?

PERSON PERCEPTION

Nonverbal Behavior

Physical appearance

Cognitive math

Order effect

Physical attractiveness, face configuration, Judge by clothing, eyeglasses, jewelry, etc. (large eyes, small nose is veiwed as powerlessness

Facial expression, basic emotions (happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, etc. no mask and leakage process), display rules of social interaction, body language

Cognitive data and organization of it – central trait that serve to organize the other descriptive pieces of data (Ash, 1950). Negative data is weighted more heavily than positive data

PRIMARY EFFECT (early information has a stronger impact than later information) and RECENCY EFFECT

How we assess and

combine the traits to form a impression

of other people?

FIRST IMPRESSION

NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOR

COGNITIVE MATHCentral trait approachCognitive algebra approach

ORDER EFFECTSPrimacy or Recency effect

Appearance, Physical attributes, facial expression, etc

FIRST IMPRESSION (use of outward appearance and behavior to draw

inferences)

1. Physical appearance2. Non-verbal Behavior3. Body Language

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

PHYSICAL APPEARANCEOutside appearance/ dressing

Alley, 1988; Bull & Rumsey, 1988; Berry, 1990; Workman & Johnson, 1991; Marino et. Al.,1991)

Use of superficial clues e.g., clothing, eyeglasses, and jewelry to form the judgement what others like

No evidences to support those judgements yet people judge others with superficial clues.

Physical attributes

Hartfield & Sprecher, 1986; Feingold, 1992)

Physical attractiveness plays significant role in how much we like people

Configuration of face

Zebrowitz, Olson & Hoffman, 1993; Copley & Brownlow, 1995; and Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992

People with 'Baby face' characteristics are viewed as signs of powerlessness, sub-missiveness, and social incompletence)

NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOR

NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOR

An action that displays inner feelings. People can accurately identify the facial expressions of basic

emotions i.e., happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, fear (Feldman & Rime, 1991). Display is

universal and can be identify them across culture.

Variation of display is found to exist:

NON-VERBAL BEHAVIORFacts Reasons

In Asian countries people restrain in their facial display of emotion than people of Western culture

Members of various cultural, racial, and ethnic groups hold different display rules, guidelines that governs the appropriateness of nonverbal show of emotions

Caucasians show more restrain than African American in their facial display

Social learning from significant people, peers, media of display rules may minimize, exaggerate or mask emotional expression(Feldman, 1982; 1992; Halberstadt, 1991)

People living in Southern climate found facially more expressive than Northern climate(Hanna, 1984; Manstead, 1991; Pennebaker, Rime, & Blankenship, 1996)

NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOR

Display rules greatly facilitates social interaction though various factors may reduce the accuracy of interpretation of others non-verbal behavior

Despite a tendency to mask the true feeling, some indication is given called LEEKAGE. The voice, eye movement, smile, leave some marks of true feelings.

BODY LANGUAGE

BODY LANGUAGE

Gesture and accompanying speech provides data that helps to build inferences about others (Rime & Schiaratura, 1991; Ricci, Bitti, & Poggi, 1991).

Unlike facial expression gesture cannot be identified accurately. A – OK means everything's

great in North America, in many cultures it represents female sexual anatomy.In Greece, it is an indication of sexual proposition, if to male, it is

insult to recipant's masculinality.

COMBINING INFORMATION

COGNITIVE MATH (One and one does not always equal two)

Appearance and non-verbal behaviors provides clues

How do we form an overall impression of others

baed on the bits and pieces of cognitive data that we are able to collect?

Solomon Asch Certain personal attributes (central traits) play an unusual role in determining a general impression

(Asch, 1946; Asch & Zukier, 1984; Watkins & Peynircioglu, 1984)

Central traits are characteristics that serve to organize an impression of another person and

provide a framework for other interpreting other information about that person.

A PERSON WHO IS:

1. Warm, 2. Industrious, 3. Critical, 4. Practical, 5. Determined

A PERSON WHO IS :

1. Cold, 2. industrious, 3. critical, 4. practical, 5. determined

Central trait altered the meaning of additional descriptive traits. Manu words took different

meaning when it is preceded by 'warm' or 'cold'.

Challenge

COGNITIVE ALGEBRA approach disagreed with this notion.

Cognitive algebra approach is an explanation for impression formation that suggests that perceivers consider each individual trait; evaluate each trait individually, in isolation form the others; and then combine the evaluations into an overall judgment.

A person who appears adventurous and bold, but unintelligent. Positive traits adventurous and bold

add final impression and the negative trait unintelligent subtracts from it. The value does not change as a result of the presence or absence of

the others.

According to Kaplan (1975) impression of others are more accurate when we consider the importance of each piece of information.

Negative information is usually weighted more heavily than positive information. If equal

percent of + and – information is provided more negative impression tend to exist.

Neither approach provided a complete account of information formation. Yet considerable amount

of researches has been generated.

ORDER EFFECTS IN PERSON PERCEPTION: THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST?

PRIMACY EFFECTS (first impression)

Does Order effect?Logically it should not matter but reality is different. Asch (1946) found primacy effectIntelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious McKelvie (1990), Titus 1991 and so on also found that primacy

effect in the influence that information has on the recipient. Primacy effect occurs when early information has a stronger

impact than latter information.

PRIMACY EFFECTS

Jones & Goethals (1972) found primacy effect was also found that early information play dominant role in determining the ultimate evaluation.

School information – doing better initially in the class and declining or reverse?

Asch explanation: information received earlier influences our perception of the meaning of additional information.

Also conform that Cognitive algebra does not provide a

complete account of social cognition.

ATTRIBUTION

Social Cognition: Attribution

Attribution is the process by which people attempt to identify the causes of others’ and their own behavior

Attribution theory is the principles that determine how causal attributions are made and what effects they have on our judgment of others.

Social Cognition: Attribution

Over the course of semester, Kate has come to have great respect for her history professor (Dilton). Though Kate was not doing well in class she liked his outgoing, frank, and effective teaching style and thought it as provocative. At the end of the semester she met Prof. Dilton and told him she liked his class. Contrary to her expectation Prof. Dilton was cool and indifferent. She felt confused and wondered why she reacted the way he did.

Social Cognition

In seeking the explanation of one’s behavior people rely on two general categories of causes:

Situational causes: Reasons for behavior that rest on the demands or constraints of a given social setting. Most situation calls for certain kinds of behaviorDispositional causes: Reasons for behavior that rest on the personality traits and characteristics of the individual carrying out the behavior.

Social Cognition

Example:Situational causes: Social setting and classroom behavior – certain circumstances produces particular behavior.Dispositional causes: Reasons of behavior rest on personality traits and characteristics individual carries – habitually friendly or hostile or energetic regardless of situation and circumstances.Is Kate’s behavior a dispositional – no informatioor situational (poor in study) – does not say negatives of Prof.

Social Cognition

Causes of behavior are attributed:Situational: when external reasons are more likely or plausible than dispositional cause

Dispositional: When external causes are unlikely dispositional causes are attributed.

ExamplePolitics: Voting according to whip is situational. Voting against is described as dispositional attribution. S/He is behaving contrary to external pressures.

Biases in Attribution

Accurate account of a person behavior is very difficult to describe. Naive scientist is prone to biases.Fundamental Attribution error: A tendency to overattribute others’ behavior to dispositional causes and the corresponding failure to recognize the importance of situational cause.•Because behavior is dynamic and environment is static• Tendency to rapidly evaluate others in terms of disposition.

Two step model of attribution

Behavior --- Analysis of dispositional causes --- Distraction/No distraction (lead to dispositional attribution) --- Analysis of situational causes --- Situational or Dispositional attribution.

Behavior Analysis of dispositional causes

Lead to dispositional attribution

Distraction or no distraction

Analysis of situational causes

Situational or Dispositional Attribution

No distraction

Attribution Biases

Person positivity biases: Blind optimism about others can lead to PPB. A friendly person just made is susceptible to be PPB from us. Prominent historical political figure are positively evaluated.

Motivational bias: Sources of error that stem form a need to present oneslef well, either to impress others or to maintain one’s self-esteem (e.g., student’s good marks in exam – failure?)

SCHEMA perspectiveOrganizing impressions

Schemas are the organized bodies of information stored in memory. It is a organized system or structure of cognitions about a person, group, place, or things.

Schema include knowledge about the concept or stimulus, relations among the various cognitions about it, and specific examples (Fiske and Taylor, 1991). It includes, roles, script, stereotype pics of a group, etc.

Schema

The primary way we simplify and organize impressions of others is through schemas. The information in a schema provides us with a representation of the way the social world operates, and it enables us to categorize and interpret new information related to the schema (Fiske and Taylor, 1991); Smith, 1998).It helps to organize behavior into a meaningful whole.

Schema

All new information are perceived and organized into schema known as PROTOTYPE. Prototype is general not specific. It represents the typical or average example of a category.e.g. what is the prototype of committed people?

Prototype has several level of specificity – prototype – subordinate level – middle level (general class) etc.

PROTOTYPE example

Maoist CongressUML1. Prototype2. Subordinate level (Leaders)3. Middle level (Activists)4. Others (Sympathizers?)SCRIPT and ROLE of prototype and different

level.

Exerciseanalysis of

1. Process of social inferences between/among group/individual in relation to political parties

2. Role of Cognitive/attribution biases in conflict between any two political group/leader

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