Social Cognition: ➢ Social cognition is a sub-topic of social psychology

The Way We Think About Others that focuses on how people process, store, and
apply information about others and social
Social Cognition situations.
➢ It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play
➢ Imagine you are walking toward your classroom in our social interactions.
and you see your teacher and a fellow student you ➢ How we think about others plays a major role in
know to be disruptive in class whispering together how we think, feel, and interact with the world
in the hallway. As you approach, both of them quit around us.
talking, nod to you, and then resume their urgent
whispers after you pass by. What would you make What Is Social Cognition?
of this scene? What story might you tell yourself to
help explain this interesting and unusual behavior? ➢ Social cognition encompasses a range of processes.
➢ People know intuitively that we can better Some common factors that many experts have
understand others’ behavior if we know the identified as being important include:
thoughts contributing to the behavior. In this ➢ The processes involved in perceiving other people
example, you might guess that your teacher harbors and how we learn about the people in the world
several concerns about the disruptive student, and around us.
therefore you believe their whispering is related to ➢ The study of the mental processes involved in
this. The area of social psychology that focuses on perceiving, remembering, thinking about, and
how people think about others and about the social attending to the other people in our social world.
world is called social cognition. ➢ The reasons we attend to certain information about
➢ Researchers of social cognition study how people the social world, how it is stored in memory, and
make sense of themselves and others to make how it is used to interact with other people.
judgments, form attitudes, and make predictions
about the future. Much of the research in social Development of Social Cognition
cognition has demonstrated that humans are adept
at distilling large amounts of information into ➢ Social cognition develops in childhood and
smaller, more usable chunks, and that we possess adolescence. As children grow, they become more
many cognitive tools that allow us to efficiently aware not only of their own feelings, thoughts, and
navigate our environments. motives but also of the emotions and mental states of
➢ This research has also illuminated many social others.
factors that can influence these judgments and ➢ Children become more adept at understanding how
predictions. Not only can our past experiences, others feel, learning how to respond in social
expectations, motivations, and moods impact our situations, engaging in prosocial behaviors, and
reasoning, but many of our decisions and behaviors taking the perspective of others.
are driven by unconscious processes and implicit ➢ While many different theories look at how social
attitudes we are unaware of having. cognition develops, one of the most popular focuses
➢ The goal of this discussion is to highlight the mental on the work of the psychologist Jean Piaget.
tools we use to navigate and make sense of our According to Piaget, a child's cognitive development
complex social world, and describe some of the goes through several stages.
emotional, motivational, and cognitive factors that ➢ During the earliest stages of development, children
affect our reasoning. are very egocentric. They see the world from their
➢ Social cognition refers to the different own perspective and struggle to think about how
psychological processes that influence how people other people may view the world.
process, interpret, and respond to social signals. ➢ As children grow older, children become
These processes allow people to understand social increasingly adept at perspective-taking and have
behavior and respond in ways that are appropriate an increased ability to think about how and why
and beneficial. people act the way they do in social situations.
➢ More recently, research has provided evidence that Because the majority of dining situations conform
children develop the ability to think about other to this general format, most diners just need to
people's perspectives at an earlier age than Piaget follow their mental scripts to know what to expect
believed. Even young preschoolers exhibit some and how they should behave, greatly reducing their
ability to think about how other people might view cognitive workload.
a situation. ➢ Another important way we simplify our social
➢ One of the most important developments in the world is by employing heuristics, which are mental
early emergence of social cognition is the growth of shortcuts that reduce complex problem-solving to
a theory of mind. A theory of mind refers to a more simple, rule-based decisions.
person's ability to understand and think about the ➢ For example, have you ever had a hard time trying
mental states of other people. to decide on a book to buy, then you see one ranked
highly on a book review website? Although
Simplifying Our Social World selecting a book to purchase can be a complicated
decision, you might rely on the “rule of thumb” that
➢ Consider how much information you come across a recommendation from a credible source is likely
on any given day; just looking around, there are a safe bet—so you buy it.
hundreds of objects, smells, and sounds. How do ➢ A common instance of using heuristics is when
we simplify all this information to attend to what is people are faced with judging whether an object
important and make decisions quickly and belongs to a particular category. For example, you
efficiently? would easily classify a pit bull into the category of
➢ In part, we do it by forming schemas of the various “dog.” But what about a coyote? Or a fox? A plastic
people, objects, situations, and events we toy dog?
encounter. ➢ In order to make this classification (and many
➢ A schema is a mental model, or representation, of others), people may rely on the representativeness
any of the various things we come across in our heuristic to arrive at a quick decision (Kahneman
daily lives. A schema (related to the word & Tversky, 1972, 1973). Rather than engaging in
schematic) is kind of like a mental blueprint for an in-depth consideration of the object’s attributes,
how we expect something to be or behave. It is an one can simply judge the likelihood of the object
organized body of general information or beliefs we belonging to a category, based on how similar it is
develop from direct encounters, as well as from to one’s mental representation of that category.
secondhand sources. Rather than spending copious ➢ For example, a perceiver may quickly judge a
amounts of time learning about each new individual female to be an athlete based on the fact that the
object (e.g., each new dog we see), we rely on our female is tall, muscular, and wearing sports
schemas to tell us that a newly encountered dog apparel—which fits the perceiver’s representation
probably barks, likes to fetch, and enjoys treats. In of an athlete’s characteristics.
this way, our schemas greatly reduce the amount of ➢ In many situations, an object’s similarity to a
cognitive work we need to do and allow us to “go category is a good indicator of its membership in
beyond the information given” (Bruner, 1957). that category, and an individual using the
➢ We can hold schemas about almost anything— representativeness heuristic will arrive at a correct
individual people (person schemas), ourselves judgment.
(self-schemas), and recurring events (event ➢ However, when base-rate information (e.g., the
schemas, or scripts). Each of these types of schemas actual percentage of athletes in the area and
is useful in its own way. therefore the probability that this person actually is
➢ For example, event schemas allow us to navigate an athlete) conflicts with representativeness
new situations efficiently and seamlessly. A script information, use of this heuristic is less appropriate.
for dining at a restaurant would indicate that one For example, if asked to judge whether a quiet, thin
should wait to be seated by the host or hostess, that man who likes to read poetry is a classics professor
food should be ordered from a menu, and that one at a prestigious university or a truck driver, the
is expected to pay the check at the end of the meal. representativeness heuristic might lead one to guess
 he’s a professor. However, considering the base- at is an example of a future prediction. In the next
rates, we know there are far fewer university section, we examine individuals’ ability to
classics professors than truck drivers. Therefore, accurately predict others’ behaviors, as well as their
although the man fits the mental image of a own future thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and
professor, the actual probability of him being one how these predictions can impact their decisions.
(considering the number of professors out there) is
lower than that of being a truck driver. Making Predictions About the Social World
➢ In addition to judging whether things belong to
particular categories, we also attempt to judge the ➢ Whenever we face a decision, we predict our future
likelihood that things will happen. A commonly behaviors or feelings in order to choose the best
employed heuristic for making this type of course of action. If you have a paper due in a week
judgment is called the availability heuristic. and have the option of going out to a party or
➢ People use the availability heuristic to evaluate the working on the paper, the decision of what to do
frequency or likelihood of an event based on how rests on a few things: the amount of time you
easily instances of it come to mind (Tversky & predict you will need to write the paper, your
Kahneman, 1973). Because more commonly prediction of how you will feel if you do poorly on
occurring events are more likely to be cognitively the paper, and your prediction of how harshly the
accessible (or, they come to mind more easily), use professor will grade it.
of the availability heuristic can lead to relatively ➢ In general, we make predictions about others
good approximations of frequency. However, the quickly, based on relatively little information.
heuristic can be less reliable when judging the Research on “thin-slice judgments” has shown that
frequency of relatively infrequent but highly perceivers are able to make surprisingly accurate
accessible events. inferences about another person’s emotional state,
➢ For example, do you think there are more words personality traits, and even sexual orientation based
that begin with “k,” or more that have “k” as the on just snippets of information—for example, a 10-
third letter? To figure this out, you would probably second video clip (Ambady, Bernieri, & Richeson,
make a list of words that start with “k” and compare 2000; Ambady, Hallahan, & Conner, 1999;
it to a list of words with “k” as the third letter. Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993).
Though such a quick test may lead you to believe ➢ Furthermore, these judgments are predictive of the
there are more words that begin with “k,” the truth target’s future behaviors. For example, one study
is that there are 3 times as many words that have found that students’ ratings of a teacher’s warmth,
“k” as the third letter (Schwarz et al., 1991). In this enthusiasm, and attentiveness from a 30-second
case, words beginning with “k” are more readily video clip strongly predicted that teacher’s final
available to memory (i.e., more accessible), so they student evaluations after an entire semester
seem to be more numerous. Another example is the (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993). As might be
very common fear of flying: dying in a plane crash expected, the more information there is available,
is extremely rare, but people often overestimate the the more accurate many of these judgments become
probability of it occurring because plane crashes (Carney, Colvin, & Hall, 2007).
tend to be highly memorable and publicized. ➢ Because we seem to be fairly adept at making
➢ In summary, despite the vast amount of information predictions about others, one might expect
we are bombarded with on a daily basis, the mind predictions about the self to be foolproof, given the
has an entire kit of “tools” that allows us to navigate considerable amount of information one has about
that information efficiently. In addition to category the self compared to others. To an extent, research
and frequency judgments, another common mental has supported this conclusion.
calculation we perform is predicting the future. We ➢ For example, our own predictions of our future
rely on our predictions about the future to guide our academic performance are more accurate than
actions. When deciding what entrée to select for peers’ predictions of our performance, and self-
dinner, we may ask ourselves, “How happy will I expressed interests better predict occupational
be if I choose this over that?” The answer we arrive
 choice than career inventories (Shrauger & Osberg, how negative you’ll feel? What about how long
1981). those negative feelings will last?
➢ Yet, it is not always the case that we hold greater ➢ Predictions about future feelings are influenced by
insight into ourselves. While our own assessment of the impact bias: the tendency for a person to
our personality traits does predict certain behavioral overestimate the intensity of their future feelings.
tendencies better than peer assessment of our ➢ For example, by comparing people’s estimates of
personality, for certain behaviors, peer reports are how they expected to feel after a specific event to
more accurate than self-reports (Kolar, Funder, & their actual feelings after the event, research has
Colvin, 1996; Vazire, 2010). shown that people generally overestimate how
➢ Similarly, although we are generally aware of our badly they will feel after a negative event—such as
knowledge, abilities, and future prospects, our losing a job—and they also overestimate how
perceptions are often overly positive, and we happy they will feel after a positive event—such as
display overconfidence in their accuracy and winning the lottery (Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-
potential (Metcalfe, 1998). Bullman, 1978).
➢ For example, we tend to underestimate how much ➢ Another factor in these estimations is the
time it will take us to complete a task, whether it is durability bias. The durability bias refers to the
writing a paper, finishing a project at work, or tendency for people to overestimate how long (or,
building a bridge—a phenomenon known as the the duration) positive and negative events will
planning fallacy (Buehler, Griffin, & Ross, 1994). affect them. This bias is much greater for
➢ The planning fallacy helps explain why so many predictions regarding negative events than positive
college students end up pulling all-nighters to finish events, and occurs because people are generally
writing assignments or study for exams. The tasks unaware of the many psychological mechanisms
simply end up taking longer than expected. that help us adapt to and cope with negative events
➢ On the positive side, the planning fallacy can also (Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatley,
lead individuals to pursue ambitious projects that 1998;Wilson, Wheatley, Meyers, Gilbert, &
may turn out to be worthwhile. That is, if they had Axsom, 2000).
accurately predicted how much time and work it ➢ In summary, individuals form impressions of
would have taken them, they may have never themselves and others, make predictions about the
started it in the first place. future, and use these judgments to inform their
➢ The other important factor that affects decision- decisions. However, these judgments are shaped by
making is our ability to predict how we will feel our tendency to view ourselves in an overly positive
about certain outcomes. Not only do we predict light and our inability to appreciate our habituation
whether we will feel positively or negatively, we to both positive and negative events. In the next
also make predictions about how strongly and for section, we will discuss how motivations, moods,
how long we will feel that way. Research and desires also shape social judgment.
demonstrates that these predictions of one’s future
feelings—known as affective forecasting—are Hot Cognition: The Influence of Motivations, Mood,
accurate in some ways but limited in others (Gilbert and Desires on Social Judgment
& Wilson, 2007).
➢ We are adept at predicting whether a future event ➢ Although we may believe we are always capable of
or situation will make us feel positively or rational and objective thinking (for example, when
negatively (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003), but we often we methodically weigh the pros and cons of two
incorrectly predict the strength or duration of those laundry detergents in an unemotional—i.e.,
emotions. For example, you may predict that if your “cold”—manner), our reasoning is often influenced
favorite sports team loses an important match, you by our motivations and mood.
will be devastated. Although you’re probably right ➢ Hot cognition refers to the mental processes that
that you will feel negative (and not positive) are influenced by desires and feelings.
emotions, will you be able to accurately estimate ➢ For example, imagine you receive a poor grade on
a class assignment. In this situation, your ability to
 reason objectively about the quality of your ➢ Many of our decisions are based in part on our
assignment may be limited by your anger toward memories of past events, and our retrieval of
the teacher, upset feelings over the bad grade, and memories is affected by our current mood.
your motivation to maintain your belief that you are ➢ For example, when you are sad, it is easier to recall
a good student. In this sort of scenario, we may the sad memory of your dog’s death than the happy
want the situation to turn out a particular way or our moment you received the dog.
belief to be the truth. ➢ This tendency to recall memories similar in valence
➢ When we have these directional goals, we are to our current mood is known as mood-congruent
motivated to reach a particular outcome or memory (Blaney, 1986; Bower 1981, 1991;
judgment and do not process information in a cold, DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, & Rucker, 2000; Forgas,
objective manner. Bower, & Krantz, 1984; Schwarz, Strack, Kommer,
➢ Directional goals can bias our thinking in many & Wagner, 1987).
ways, such as leading to motivated skepticism, ➢ The mood we were in when the memory was
whereby we are skeptical of evidence that goes recorded becomes a retrieval cue; our present mood
against what we want to believe despite the strength primes these congruent memories, making them
of the evidence (Ditto & Lopez, 1992). come to mind more easily (Fiedler, 2001).
➢ For example, individuals trust medical tests less if Furthermore, because the availability of events in
the results suggest they have a deficiency compared our memory can affect their perceived frequency
to when the results suggest they are healthy. (the availability heuristic), the biased retrieval of
Through this motivated skepticism, people often congruent memories can then impact the
continue to believe what they want to believe, even subsequent judgments we make (Tversky &
in the face of nearly incontrovertible evidence to the Kahneman, 1973).
contrary. ➢ For example, if you are retrieving many sad
➢ There are also situations in which we do not have memories, you might conclude that you have had a
wishes for a particular outcome but our goals bias tough, depressing life.
our reasoning, anyway. ➢ In addition to our moods influencing the specific
➢ For example, being motivated to reach an accurate memories we retrieve, our moods can also influence
conclusion can influence our reasoning processes the broader judgments we make. This sometimes
by making us more cautious—leading to leads to inaccuracies when our current mood is
indecision. In contrast, sometimes individuals are irrelevant to the judgment at hand.
motivated to make a quick decision, without being ➢ In a classic study demonstrating this effect,
particularly concerned about the quality of it. researchers found that study participants rated
➢ Imagine trying to choose a restaurant with a group themselves as less-satisfied with their lives in
of friends when you’re really hungry. You may general if they were asked on a day when it
choose whatever’s nearby without caring if the happened to be raining vs. sunny (Schwarz & Clore,
restaurant is the best or not. 1983). However, this occurred only if the
➢ This need for closure (the desire to come to a firm participants were not aware that the weather might
conclusion) is often induced by time constraints be influencing their mood. In essence, participants
(when a decision needs to be made quickly) as well were in worse moods on rainy days than sunny
as by individual differences in the need for closure days, and, if unaware of the weather’s effect on
(Webster & Kruglanski, 1997). Some individuals their mood, they incorrectly used their mood as
are simply more uncomfortable with ambiguity evidence of their overall life satisfaction.
than others, and are thus more motivated to reach ➢ In summary, our mood and motivations can
clear, decisive conclusions. influence both the way we think and the decisions
➢ Just as our goals and motivations influence our we ultimately make. Mood can shape our thinking
reasoning, our moods and feelings also shape our even when the mood is irrelevant to the judgment,
thinking process and ultimate decisions. and our motivations can influence our thinking
even if we have no particular preference about the
outcome. Just as we might be unaware of how our
 reasoning is influenced by our motives and moods, positive social effects of doing so. That is,
research has found that our behaviors can be automatic mimicry has been shown to lead to more
determined by unconscious processes rather than positive social interactions and to increase liking
intentional decisions, an idea we will explore in the between the mimicked person and the mimicking
next section. person.
➢ When concepts and behaviors have been repeatedly
Automaticity associated with each other, one of them can be
primed—i.e., made more cognitively accessible—
➢ Do we actively choose and control all our behaviors by exposing participants to the (strongly associated)
or do some of these behaviors occur automatically? other one. For example, by presenting participants
A large body of evidence now suggests that many with the concept of a doctor, associated concepts
of our behaviors are, in fact, automatic. such as “nurse” or “stethoscope” are primed. As a
➢ A behavior or process is considered automatic if it result, participants recognize a word like “nurse”
is unintentional, uncontrollable, occurs outside of more quickly (Meyer, & Schvaneveldt, 1971).
conscious awareness, or is cognitively efficient ➢ Similarly, stereotypes can automatically prime
(Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). associated judgments and behaviors. Stereotypes
➢ A process may be considered automatic even if it are our general beliefs about a group of people and,
does not have all these features; for example, once activated, they may guide our judgments
driving is a fairly automatic process but is clearly outside of conscious awareness. Similar to
intentional. schemas, stereotypes involve a mental
➢ Processes can become automatic through representation of how we expect a person will think
repetition, practice, or repeated associations. and behave. For example, someone’s mental
Staying with the driving example: although it can schema for women may be that they’re caring,
be very difficult and cognitively effortful at the compassionate, and maternal; however, a
start, over time it becomes a relatively automatic stereotype would be that all women are examples of
process, and aspects of it can occur outside this schema. As you know, assuming all people are
conscious awareness. a certain way is not only wrong but insulting,
➢ In addition to practice leading to the learning of especially if negative traits are incorporated into a
automatic behaviors, some automatic processes, schema and subsequent stereotype.
such as fear responses, appear to be innate. For ➢ In a now classic study, Patricia Devine (1989)
example, people quickly detect negative stimuli, primed study participants with words typically
such as negative words, even when those stimuli are associated with Blacks (e.g., “blues,” “basketball”)
presented subliminally (Dijksterhuis & Aarts, in order to activate the stereotype of Blacks. Devine
2003; Pratto & John, 1991). found that study participants who were primed with
➢ This may represent an evolutionarily adaptive the Black stereotype judged a target’s ambiguous
response that makes individuals more likely to behaviors as being more hostile (a trait
detect danger in their environment. Other innate stereotypically associated with Blacks) than
automatic processes may have evolved due to their nonprimed participants. Research in this area
pro-social outcomes. suggests that our social context—which constantly
➢ The chameleon effect—where individuals non- bombards us with concepts—may prime us to form
consciously mimic the postures, mannerisms, facial particular judgments and influence our thoughts
expressions, and other behaviors of their interaction and behaviors.
partners—is an example of how people may engage
in certain behaviors without conscious intention or
awareness (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). For
example, have you ever noticed that you’ve picked
up some of the habits of your friends? Over time,
but also in brief encounters, we will non-
consciously mimic those around us because of the