Lectures
Lecture 1: What is social about cognition and affect?
Basic assumption of research and theorising in the area of social cognition:
Social thinking is not passive perception, but active interpretation.
People have naïve theories about themselves and others.
Social thinking can be subject to biases and it is very much linked to the specific situation.
The Guardian’s blind data series the same situation can lead to very different perceptions. As an
external perceiver, one can often have quite an accurate guess on how the evening went.
Primacy effect: first piece of information someone gets about another person influences the rest.
Algebraic model – one piece of information might have a bigger effect than the other pieces, though
still summation. This adjusts the evaluation of each individual trait all equally up or down.
Configural model – shows the traits being integrated to form a unified impression of the person, in
which the meaning of individual traits changes in the context of all other traits.
Lewin: field theory – behaviour is a function of the person and the situation “… and the meaning of
every event depends directly upon the nature of its background… the background itself is not often
perceived, but only the ‘figure’”. Individual behaviour can be studied by examining the different
forces in a given situation (motivational influences). The study of an individual isolated from its
context is likely to lead to an inaccurate picture of the person.
The figure the theory representing an individual’s pressures to study or not, based on subjectively
perceived driving forces and restraining forces that together motivate behaviour.
Asch – study with lines, the role of context.
Messages from these examples:
People do not passively perceive the environment, they are ACTIVE perceivers.
SUBJECTIVE interpretations can alter individual responses to situations.
Not all aspects of a situation receive equal attention, a SELECTIVE subset of information is
used.
Goal of research on social cognition identification of mechanisms and factors that influence these
active, subjective and selective interpretations of the social environment.
The cognitive miser has had most consequences for areas outside psychology, especially in
economics.
,Sarah Palin in SNL – the pre-existing impression of a person determines the “recall” of certain info.
There is also the possibility that falsehoods that fit a certain attitude are less condemned because
“they could have been true”.
Halo effect – good looking nice, intelligent etc. The overgeneralisation from the impression that
someone looks good, can also lead to wrong judgements.
Culture/group are important reference points. “We do not face stimulus situations involving other
people or even the world of nature around us in an indifferent way; we are charged with certain
modes of readiness, certain established norms, which enter to modify our reactions”.
Social cognition: S – O (organism) – R framework each step is viewed as cognitive mediated.
Behaviourism: S – R framework.
Social knowledge is mentally organised in schemas/categories/concepts (representations of objects,
people, behaviours that we believe ‘belong’ together), we have categories/concepts for social
groups, personality traits, events (scripts).
Functions of social knowledge:
Categorisation
Inferring additional attributes (going beyond the given information)
Understanding
Make predictions
Respond appropriately
Media images often speak to social knowledge/stereotypes.
Four horsemen of automaticity:
Lack of conscious intent
e.g. Stroop effect reading the meaning (unintentional) of the word interferes with the
task.
Efficiency: costs little mental effort.
If a distraction task influences performance cognitive control needed for the task. If not
performance based on efficiency, automatic processes.
When not under load correction for the situation.
When under load no correction of the situation (study Gilbert et al.)
thus, categorisation and inferences are automatic, situational correction is not!
Lack of awareness
We are not aware that a process takes place, how it takes place and what the result of this
process is beautiful is good.
Lack of control: process cannot be controlled, it starts and runs. Even if you consciously don’t
want to do it.
Automatic vigilance – people more quickly see the negative face on the right than the positive one
on the left.
,Automatic behaviour doesn’t always respond to your feelings, it is not (always) irrational, it is not by
definition inflexible and it is not (always) superficial or shallow.
Controlled processing and behaviour:
People have the ability to direct and regulate cognition and behaviour.
Needs, motives and goals induce controlled processing.
People can select, implement, and regulate goals.
Controlled processes can also occur subconsciously.
If individuals detect cues that make them distrust a person, people often diverge from routines.
Mayo default processes can be altered by subtle social cues. The extent to which certain
processes are actually the default for a person varies between individuals.
Automatic and controlled processes can occur simultaneous and can interact with each other. The
difference between the two is gradual, not absolute.
, Influences on automatic vs. controlled processing:
available cognitive resources (however, does NOT always mean better judgments
personal interest in a topic/situation
cultural Norms
stereotypes
expectancies
time pressure
affective states:
e.g. fear might lead to very selective attention m
