Sociale cognitie
Week 17................................................................................................................. 2
Hoofdstuk 1 GB&F: Introduction: What is social cognition research about?.........2
Hoofdstuk 2 GB&F: General framework of social cognitive processing................4
Hoofdstuk 3: Perceiving and encoding................................................................7
Kennisclip 1......................................................................................................... 9
Kennisclip 2....................................................................................................... 10
Kennisclip 3....................................................................................................... 11
Artikelen............................................................................................................ 11
Hoorcollege 1: Introductie................................................................................. 13
Week 18............................................................................................................... 13
Hoofdstuk 4 GB&F: Storing and retrieving information......................................13
Hoofdstuk 6 GB&F: Using information...............................................................16
Kennisclip kennis structureren...........................................................................17
Kennisclip omgaan met beperkingen................................................................19
Artikelen............................................................................................................ 20
Hoorcollege 2.................................................................................................... 21
Week 19............................................................................................................... 22
Hoofdstuk 5 GB&F: Using information: controlled and automatic processing of
information........................................................................................................ 22
Hoofdstuk 10 GB&F: How the environment constrains social cognitive
processing......................................................................................................... 26
Kennisclip Het gebruik van geactiveerde informatie.........................................27
Kennisclip Selectie en reconstructie van informatie..........................................28
Artikel................................................................................................................ 29
Hoorcollege 3.................................................................................................... 29
Week 20............................................................................................................... 30
Hoofdstuk 9 GB&F: Communicating information...............................................30
Hoorcollege 4/Kennisclip Communiceren van informatie: Taalabstractie...........32
Kennisclip Communiceren van informatie: Conversationele normen.................33
Week 22............................................................................................................... 33
Hoofdstuk 7 GB&F: The interplay of cognition and feelings: mood states.........33
Artikel................................................................................................................ 35
Kennisclip Attitudes........................................................................................... 36
Kennisclip Indirecte maten................................................................................ 37
Hoorcollege 5.................................................................................................... 38
Week 23............................................................................................................... 39
, Hoofdstuk 8 GB&F: The interplay of cognition and feelings: fluency.................39
Kennisclip Motivatie en zelfregulatie.................................................................39
Kennisclip Pro-sociaal gedrag............................................................................ 40
Artikelen............................................................................................................ 41
Hoorcollege 6: Motivatie, zelfregulatie en prosociaal gedrag............................42
Week 17
Hoofdstuk 1 GB&F: Introduction: What is social cognition
research about?
The same stimulus input may result in different interpretations of a given
situation. Individuals construct their own subjective social reality based on their
perception of the input. It is this construction of social reality, rather than
the objective input, that determines how individuals think, feel, and behave in a
complex social world. Social cognition research is thus concerned with the study
of social knowledge and the psychological processes that are involved when
individuals construct their subjective reality.
Different perspectives on the social thinker
One perspective maintains that individuals try to perceive the world just as they
believe it is. In more general terms, individuals act as consistency seekers
who strive for consistency between their prior beliefs about the world and
their interpretation of a specific new situation. Research has shown that
the need for consistency is a major influence on the way individuals
construct social reality. The basic assumption in Festinger’s dissonance theory
(as in many other consistency theories) is that inconsistencies in social
thinking can create a negative, aversive feeling. This aversive state motivates
individuals to reduce the inconsist-ency, for example, by changing one
element of it. Individuals who strive only for consistency and therefore, for
instance, alter inconsistent elements are prone to inaccurate constructions of
social reality. To act successfully in a complex social world, however, accurate
perceptions of the world are needed, and inaccurate constructions may turn
out to be quite maladaptive.
Different perspectives on information processing in humans:
- Naive scientists: This perspective holds that individuals gather all relevant
information unselectively and construct social reality in an unbiased
manner. It maintains that the interpretation of the world is barely
influenced by any form of wishful thinking, and conclusions are drawn in an
almost logical, scientific manner. This is articulated especially in attribution
theories. Attribution theories address how people explain behavior and
events.
, - Cognitive misers: The cognitive miser is aiming for high accuracy – but
now under the constraint of strategies that are faster and require less
effort.
- Motivated tacticians: This perspective holds that individuals may have
multiple strategies, which can be applied depending on the
situational constraints.
- Activated actors: This perspective holds that cues in the environment
automatically bring to mind relevant knowledge about adequate
interpretations and behaviors.
The cognitive component of social cognition
Behaviorists proposed that (social) behavior can be explained better in terms of
reinforcement contingencies or in terms of contiguity rather than in terms of
mediating cognitive processes. Since the time of Watson and Skinner, the focus
of investigation has dramatically shifted toward a systematic investigation of
internal mental processes. Research on context dependency is deeply grounded
in the work of Gestalt theorists.
What is social about social cognition?
On the most obvious level, social cognition research is specific because of the
social nature of the stimulus and its relation to the perceiver. There are quite a
number of aspects in which the target of social perception is different from the
target of non-social perception. Presumably, the most pronounced difference
between social and non-social perception rests on how directly individuals can
observe target attributes. Because attributes of social targets cannot be directly
observed, their assessment often requires more constructive processing than
does the assessment of non-social targets. This constructive processing—this
inferring—requires individuals to go beyond the information given. First,
because many attributes of social targets have to be inferred from distal cues,
the accuracy of social judgment is often difficult to check. The attributes
themselves are often ill-defined. The targets of social perception may change
rapidly, and individuals therefore need to adapt their judgments. Unlike
inanimate objects, people change when they are aware that they are being
observed. Persons as judgmental targets often try to influence the perceiver, that
is, they want to influence the impression the perceiver is forming.
The processing of social information is a genuinely social process. Constructing
social reality is a highly mutual process. An individual’s construction of social
reality is strongly influenced by the constructions of others. There is a strong
link between the way most individuals think about their social world and the
way they think about themselves. When a person’s self is involved and the
situation is highly important, individuals are more likely to process incoming
information extensively. Under certain conditions, self-involvement additionally
influences the direction of processing. The specific nature of social cognition is
reflected in strong time constraints. In most social situations individuals have a
fairly limited time to respond. Time constraints demand that the amount of
processing is reduced to a sufficient level—yet, even under these constraints,
, individuals’ constructions of social reality need to be reasonably adequate for
them to act successfully in social situations. As a result, social cognition needs to
be highly adaptive and sensitive to the requirements of a situation.
Wason selection task: individuals must find out which information is needed to
test an if-then rule. Individuals are quite poor at solving this kind of task. This
task shows that social context has a pronounced impact on individuals’
processing.
Hoofdstuk 2 GB&F: General framework of social
cognitive processing
Three main ingredients
- Input from the given situation
- Input in the form of prior knowledge
- Processes that operate on the input
General themes underlying the construction of social reality
- The limitation of human processing capacity and the allocation of
processing resources
One key assumption of social cognition holds that a person’s processing capacity
is limited. This limitation implies that individuals cannot process all information
that is potentially relevant for the interpretation of a specific situation, especially
if time is an issue. And time is almost always an issue, since responding
successfully to the needs of a situation often demands quick processing. We thus
face two important limitations: that of processing capacity, and that of time. One
way to respond to this challenge is to simplify processing. First, instead of
considering all relevant information, individuals may rely on less information. The
context of the setting influences the selection of information. Second, instead of
relying on elaborative processes, individuals often rely on less taxing processes,
which are referred to as cognitive rules of thumb, mental short-cuts, or heuristics.
What variables influence whether individuals tend to simplify their task or not?
First, the amount of processing allocated to a particular task depends on
the amount of free resources. In addition to processing capacity, it is
processing motivation that determines the amount of processing that takes
place.
- Top down and bottom-up processing
Sometimes human information processing is guided primarily by prior
knowledge and the expectations individuals bring to a situation. In this case
the processing is called concept-driven or top-down processing. At other times
human information processing is influenced primarily by the stimuli from a
given situation. In this case the processing is called data-driven or bottom-up
processing.
- Autonomic and controlled processes
