Social behaviour
Social cognition
False consensus effect
People see their own behaviour as typical and assume that, under similar circumstances,
others will behave the same way. Because we seek similar others and we want to validate
our opinions and build stable world for us where everything is predictable. This effect is
especially strong if we have important beliefs or certain beliefs. Definition- seeing or own
behaviour more typical than it actually is. It does not need conformation that is actually
true. We are not ignoring consensus; we are providing our own.
Availability of information – how does it affect us and our answers;
how do we get biased?
Configural model- when forming an impression, we attach to specific traits (central traits)
that usually determines our final impression. There are other pieces of information
(peripheral traits) that we do not take into account while making an impression. As central
trait could be words like warm and cold and as peripheral polite or blunt. There are things
that are going to seem minor and things that going to seem major (they have more
influence).
We are biased towards how information is presented. Primacy effect in which the
information presented first has more effect on final impression. Recency effect is the exact
opposite- the last information gives us the impression, but this rather happens when we are
tired or not focused. Also, negative information just naturally attracts attention and gives big
impact on our impressions – we are biased towards negativity. It is more difficult to change
negative impression. Negative information is just unusual or extreme (attracts attention)
and it indirectly signals danger, so it is more for survival purposes. Recency effect- that is
simply just the last thing you hear.
How external stimuli are actually represented in our mind depends on what captures our
attention. If they are salience stimuli (stand out of everything else); if they are vivid stimuli
(emotional, provoking images etc) ; Accessibility- what do we actually care about. It is
readily primed and used to interpret the social world. Some categories are there primed all
the time and they are used to make sense in many contexts.
Information that is already explainable and makes sense to us attracts our attention. We are
interested in this particular topic; we have memories of this. These are categories we often
use or are somehow related to our goals, needs. If a person is concerned about something,
he will see this problem everywhere.
Heuristics
Heuristics are short-cuts to avoid problem solving. Availability heuristic- we judge how
likely or frequently something can happen based on how quickly the associations come to
mind. This has a lot to do with media exposure.
Anchoring heuristic: you stuck to same information (or the first information that comes)
and don’t let it change afterwards.
Representative heuristic: you have an idea- this is how I think this is, if it fits – then it is it. If
not- it’s not in the category. Personal prototype. It is unconscious if you start thinking about
it – then you start judging.
Exampler- it has to look like my version of a dog (specific instance of a specific category).
Prototype- bigger version, ears etc. (the ideal or typical features of category).
Stereotypes are there to make sense of particular intergroup relations.
,Social behaviour
Schemas
Before making sense of something, people gather data and sample information from those
data. Here, people rely too heavily on schemas. This can cause them to overlook
information that is potentially useful or exaggerate what may not be so useful or even be
misleading. Media present extreme cases, which can be only a small sample in an extreme
manner. So people become biased how typical is this sample in a population. Schemas are
quick and unconscious. In schemas we tend to fill the gaps with prior knowledge and
preconceptions rather than actually seeking information. To apply schematic knowledge,
firstly you need to categorize the event or a person or a situation. These are prototypes that
have some familiarity to one another making a category. Categories are as associative
networks of attributes – traits, beliefs, behaviour that is linked emotionally. People also rely
on information that helps them make any sense if they are unable to judge.
We use scripts/schemas/heuristics to save resources, so we can use those for survival
purposes. When it is wrong- heuristic becomes a bias.
Self- serving biases (self-enhancing; self- protecting; self-handicapping). With low-self-
esteem they think they are always failure. Self-handicappers don’t look into solution – you
deny your own growth.
Attribution error/bias
Attribution is that we give a cause to our own and other behaviour. Correspondence bias
(Fundamental attribution error) is a tendency to reason others behaviour as personality
trait rather than situational cause. We have a tendency to attribute our behaviour externally
and others internally. This can also be in groups (called ethnocentrism) that people in
opposite group blame internal traits (good or bad) if something goes wrong. But if
something goes wrong within your group – it was just a situation. Ultimate attribution error-
make the difference what happens within groups with good or bad behaviour.
Correspondence bias is because people tend to focus on behaviour rather than background
(situation) – it just attracts more attention. People also forget more frequently situational
causes rather than distributional causes. Attribution causes the representation of causal
information from memory. This bias also differs in cultures, for example, western cultures
judge more by situation rather than distribution. Reasons We see what we want to see;
we have selective perception (at first you see only good things in people you like and when
you don’t like them you see all the wrong thing about them) ; wrong expectations; we
operate on automatic pilot.
Outcome bias- people think that person was intending to behave in a particular way to have
particular outcomes.
Actor-observer effect- people tend to judge other by personality, but themselves-
situationally. It is an extension of correspondence bias. One of the reasons are our
perceptual focus- we just have different perspective of situation and therefore we explain in
different ways. Also, the known information differs- people know why they are doing
something, and they have plenty of information about themselves, but not about others.
They only have limited information about what they see.
Essentialism- behaviour is seen as reflecting underlying properties or people or group.
Prevent/ treatment
Once primed certain stimuli are encoded to always interpret them in this category.
However, people can become aware that a category is primed and then they make special
effort to interpret behaviour in different category. For example, you judge by gender you
notice it you try to judge differently.
,Social behaviour
We can improve social inference becoming less reliant on intuitive inferential strategies.
This can be achieved through formal education in scientific and rational thinking, as well as
in statistical techniques.
We should go for substantive processing- deliberately and carefully construct a judgment
from a variety of informational sources. Actually, think about it!
Idiosyncratic (fancy way to say weird).
Fuzzy sets- not well defined (not clear where the line is, but it is somewhere (example- when
you stop calling someone a dog). It is just what you think.
Personal constructs people make their own way how to characterize other people. Each
has their own version what is the most important in another person.
Implicit personality theories we make these for ourselves for what kind of characteristics
go together to form a certain type of personality.
Social inference- the way we process information. Is it either relying on schemas or
stereotypes or actually thinking about the situation, its instances and rational judgment.
(careful information consideration).
Judgments of covariation are judgments about how strongly two things are related.
Essential for social inference and form the basis of schemas. People tend to look for
explanations which are in order with their schemas, not outside.
Feelings influencing social cognition
People process information about situation and their hopes, desires, abilities and based on
these cognitive appraisals (act of assessing something) there are different emotions
aroused. This process is automatic.
Primary appraisal
We determine whether something is good or bad (occurs in amygdala) – that’s it, that’s the
whole process. This process is from old brain with automatic fast responses, so mostly it
goes out of our consciousness. The brain already categorizes something as good or bad
before you even consciously see the target.
Secondary appraisal
This generates more complex emotions and in doing so is slower. For example, envy- it is a
complex emotion.
Consequences of affect
Of course, these emotions affect our thoughts, behaviour and judgment. Affect-infusion
model explains how mood and emotions influences your ability to process information.
People can judge their information based on schemas (direct access), heuristics (short-cuts),
motivated processing – forming a judgment based on motivation to achieve goal,
substantive processing – careful judgments based on information and variety of
informational sources.
The mood can affect heuristic processing and substantive processing (of course, if you are
looking for evidence and you are sad- it will affect you). The judgment can actually reflect
the current mood. And for heuristics – mood can be itself as heuristic looking for example
for negative short-cuts.
Emotions also affect social memory – they can recall informational aspects based on their
mood and see others in positive light if they see themselves in positive light.
The effect on self-perception, mood affects more peripheral traits than central – peripheral
are not that strongly established and require more work than central traits.
, Social behaviour
Stereotypes are also affected by mood- for example, being in negative mood increases
negative aspects of an outgroup. Emotions can actually help decision making by prioritizing
and focusing attention where needed.
Attribution and social explanations
People make causal explanations about other people and other events that happen to them.
These causal explanations make it easier to predict and control situation.
How people attribute causality?
Naïve psychologists
We are intuitive in our explanations and we construct a causal theory for human behaviour.
Therefore, we act as naïve psychologists. Because we know our behaviour is from
motivation rather than being random, we look at others behaviour the same way and look
for their motivation and motives. We tend to look at stable and enduring properties in the
world around us, because we make causal theories to predict and be in control with our
environment. We try to discover for example personality properties that explain why
someone acts this way. Furthermore, we distinguish between personal factors (internal or
dispositional attribution) and environmental factors in explaining the behaviour (external
or situational attribution). Because we can’t actually see internal causes, we tend to
attribute person for their personality if there is no external or situational cause. But, still,
people tend to bias for internal causes, even when there are clear external causes.
Theory of correspondence inference
We infer that person’s behaviour corresponds to underlying personality trait for
example, if someone is friendly, we tend to think they have a friendly personality. This way
of thinking is stable, make it easier to predict the world and increase our sense of control.
To actually make this inference, we depend on five cues:
The behaviour is freely chosen – it indicates more of personality trait than a behaviour that
is from external pressure.
Behaviour with non-common effects or behaviour that is relatively exclusive than common
tells us more about personality. Others think that this specific behaviour was made
intentionally (outcome bias).
Socially desirable behaviour doesn’t tell us much about the behaviour, because it is
expected as a norm from society. Socially undesirable behaviour in contrary can tell us more
about underlying behaviour.
Important consequences for ourselves (hedonic relevance) – we make more confident
conclusions if the behaviour has consequences on us.
Behaviour is intended to benefit or harm us (personalism) – we make more confident
conclusions if the behaviour was intended to harm or benefit us.
Have to keep in mind, this theory is judged and has been declined as important one for
attribution theories.
Covariation model
People find the factors that covary the most with the given behaviour and then make this
factor as causal one. People use this covariation principle to decide if the behaviour is from
personality or environment. In order to make this decision, people asses 3 types of
information: consistency information (does this action happens always (high consistency) or
only sometimes (low consistency) ; distinctiveness information (does this action happens at
everything (high) or only at this target (low) ; consensus information (does everyone does
this in this situation (high) or is it only this person that does that (low).
