Summary
Social Cognition Lectures 1-5 Summary
- Course
- Institution
This is an extensive and elaborated summary of all the topics covered in lectures 1 - 5.
[Show more]
Seller
Followlorannetassadogh
Content preview
Week 1● Introduction slides
Week 2
● Lecture 1: History and concepts
● Lecture 2: Memory
Lecture 1
● Topic: History and concepts
What is social cognition? ● It is about making sense of our world and constructing a social reality.
- I.e Every day we are faced with many people each with their own
thoughts and behaviors that we have to make sense of.
● Constructing a social reality also means there is no objectively true
( social) reality.
- The same stimulus can be interpreted in different ways.
Aim of social cognition ● Making sense of social reality by looking at
1. Situation: what is going on (context).
2. Person: who is processing the information.
3. Cognitive processes (unique feature): How does thinking and
feeling work.What are the mechanisms that underlie the
construction of social reality? → ( Example: elections: personality
( constant), context (the situation is changing), mechanisms of the
cognitive process (differ) inspire a new reality ).
,Social cognition combines ● Phenomenology
both ● Cognitive psychology
Phenomenology Systematic description of how people say they experience themselves in their
social environments.
→ Lay theories
→ Everyday psychology
→ Mental models
Cognitive psychology Studying how basic human cognition ( memory, attention, perception, etc) are
organized and different ways to use them. Uses more specific models.
→ Models of information processing
→ Models of information retention
In sum, social cognition ● How is information encoded, stored, and retrieved from memory?
studies ● How is social knowledge structured and represented?
● How are social judgements and decisions made ?
● For all: by different people and different situations.
→ For all of these questions, social cognition researchers always allow
for variance coming from the personal side and from the situational
, side.
How is social cognition ● It can be applied to many sectors.
research applied ● Kendall Jenner Pepsi advertisement (BLM rally). Whether the message
was perceived as being offensive depended on the person and also their
background- i.e they constructed different social realities.
→ Here an a priori focus on social cognitive principles might have
helped to avoid the situation.
Why is social cognition ● For a long time, people were not interested in the causes of behavior. Only
needed? A brief history study the behavior itself (behaviorism) especially in stimulus-response.
→ 1 cause - 1 outcome and no care for what happens in between “ the
black box approach”
● Radical behaviorism ( Burrhus Skinner)
● Methodological behaviorism (J. Watson)
● Over the years the methodological problems were overcome - Cognitive
revolution
Radical behaviorism ● Cognitive processes should not be studied. Because we have no evidence
( Burrhus Skinner) that there is a causal direction (that cognitions affect behavior.)
→ Cognitions could be post-hoc rationalizations of behavior. People see a
stimulus, behave in a specific way, and then after the fact they make up a
story (rationalize) their behavior. Not informative.
Methodological ● A slightly less radical view.
behaviorism (J. Watson)
, ● Idea: cognitions in principle could be useful but the issues are:...
→ We cannot observe or measure them ( well).
→ Until we can measure cognition we should focus on stimulus-response
relations.
● How to measure cognition:
→ cognitions cannot be observed (well)
→ Explaining behavior with stimulus-response.
→ Reinforcement learning
Cognitive revolution ● Overcoming the methodological problems: Here meaning rather than
behavior becomes the focus.
→ Improvements in how we conduct experiments
→ Experimental manipulation of the environment ( create situations
that make specific cognitive processes more or less likely)
→ Observe changes in behavior that cannot be explained using a simple
stimulus-response explanation. And from these changes, we can then
infer mental states.
→ The effort to establish meaning-making as a central concept of
psychology. - Bruner 1990 ( this is the beginning of social cognition,
even though it was not named that)
Cognitive revolution ● Cognitive dissonance experiment. Shows how we need cognitions to
- An example of an explain human behavior.
experiment that ● Festinger and carlsmith
demonstrates social
cognition
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller lorannetassadogh. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $6.26. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
48072 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 15 years now