Social Cognition

AP Psychology 8-10% of AP Exam

Quick Write:

• Describe when a stereotype has caused you to have a wrong impression about someone, or caused someone else to have a wrong impression about you.

• Has this wrong impression changed your behavior or the behavior of the other person?

• What advice would you give to others when forming impressions about people?

Social Psychology• The scientific study of how

people’s thoughts and feelings influence their behavior toward others, and how the behavior of others influences people’s own thoughts

• Social Cognition – mental processes associated with the ways people perceive and react to other individuals and groups

Social Influences on the Self

• Self-concept – the beliefs we hold about who we are and what characteristics we have

• Self-esteem – the evaluations we make about how worthy we are as human beings

Self ComparisonLeon Festinger – people make two types of comparisons:

Temporal Comparison

Considering your present condition in relation to

how you were in the past

Social Comparison

Evaluating yourself in comparison to others -

using others as a basis for evaluating

your attributes

Social Comparison• Reference Groups – categories of people to which you see

yourself as belonging and to which you compare yourself– Downward social comparison – strategy of choosing someone as

the target of comparison to oneself who is not as good on some dimension of importance

– Upward social comparison – comparing yourself to people who do much better

Social Identity• Our beliefs about the groups to which we belong, and

thus is a part of our self-concept

– A group identity helps people to feel part of a larger whole (may foster an “us versus them” mentality) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ_qXmxdgGM

Self-Schemas

• Mental representations of people’s beliefs and views about themselves– Unified self-schemas – regard their

attributes as stable across every situation and role

– Differentiated self-schemas – regard their attributes as changing in different roles or situations

Impressions

• First Impressions – quickly formed, difficult to change, long-lasting influence

• People are confident about their judgment

• Easier to remember• Forming Impressions – schemas

create a tendency to infer a great deal about a person on the basis of limited information

• Lasting Impressions – difficult to change, long-lasting influence

Self-Fulfilling PropheciesBasis = Without our awareness, schemas cause us to subtly lead people to behave

in line with our expectations4 steps: 1. Adopting an attitude concerning a person2. Behave as though your attitude is correct3. Others react to your attitude4. Your prophecy comes true, not because you were right, but because your

behavior/attitude caused the prophecy to come true

Attribution• The process people go through to explain causes of

behavior

• People tend to attribute behavior in a particular situation either to:

– Personal or Dispositional Attribution (primarily internal) causes

– Situational Attribution (primarily external) causes

Biases in Attribution

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkWTCXDCVvc

• Fundamental Attribution Error: a tendency to over-attribute others’ behaviors to internal factors, such as personality traits

• False Consensus Effect– tendency to overestimate the number of people who feel how you feel

• Self-serving bias – tendency to take credit for success (internal) but to blame failure on external causes

Sources of AttributionsHarold Kelley’s 3 Elements: 1. Consensus – the degree to which other people’s

behavior is similar to that of the individual. Ex: if it is similar, it has high consensus. If it is dissimilar, it has low consensus

2. Consistency – the degree to which the behavior occurs repeatedly in a situation. Ex: if it always occurs, it has high consistency. If it occurs intermittently, it has low consistency

3. Distinctiveness – the extent to which similar stimuli draw the same behaviors from the individual. Ex: if it is highly predictable, then it has low distinctiveness. If it is not predictable, it has high distinctiveness.

An internal attribution is most likely when there is low consensus, high consistency, and low distinctiveness.

Attributions

Attitudes• The tendency to think, feel, or act positively or

negatively towards objects in our environment• 3 Components:

– Cognitive – set of beliefs about attributes of the attitude object

– Affective – feeling about the object (emotional) – a like or dislike

– Behavioral – involves a way of acting toward the object

– http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/attitudes.html#lesson

3 Components of Attitude

Forming Attitudes• Modeling (Bandura, Skinner)–

children learn from their parents what one should believe and feel about certain objects

• Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)– people are more likely to form a positive attitude toward an object when it is paired with stimuli that elicit good feelings

• Mere-exposure effect – attitudes toward an object tend to become more positive as people are exposed to that object more often

Prejudice and Stereotypes• Stereotypes – Perceptions, beliefs, and expectations a person has about members of

some group – schemas about the entire groups of people• Prejudice – undeserved, usually negative attitude toward an individual based on his or

her membership in some group• Discrimination – action (based on prejudice attitude)• Out-group homogeneity – members of the “in group” see themselves as better than

the “out groups”• Contact Theory – bring hostile groups together and give them a common goal =

prejudice will be reduced

Being a Single Story

• http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#

• What is your SINGLE STORY?– Look at how you appear today – your clothes, your

hair, your shoes etc. What story might people tell about you based on the way you appear today.

– What rumors, stereotypes etc do people spread about you?

– What is the worst SINGLE STORY you have heard about yourself?