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PSYC201 Chapter 4

Chapter Four of the document discusses social cognition, which involves how we process and interpret information about people and situations. It highlights the impact of minimal and misleading information on our judgments, including concepts like snap judgments, pluralistic ignorance, and self-fulfilling prophecies. Additionally, it explores how the order and framing of information can significantly influence our evaluations and decisions.

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Li Leo
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13 views

PSYC201 Chapter 4

Chapter Four of the document discusses social cognition, which involves how we process and interpret information about people and situations. It highlights the impact of minimal and misleading information on our judgments, including concepts like snap judgments, pluralistic ignorance, and self-fulfilling prophecies. Additionally, it explores how the order and framing of information can significantly influence our evaluations and decisions.

Uploaded by

Li Leo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PSYC 201: Introduction

to Social Psychology
Social Cognition

Viki Xu (she/they),
PhD student,
Social and Personality Psychology
CHAPTER FOUR
SOCIAL COGNITION

Thinking about People and


Situations
Social Cognition
Social cognition: The encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing of
information.
How we interpret, remember, and understand information that we
receive about the people and situations that surround us every day
How do we think about the world and make judgments that help us
interpret the past, understand the present, and predict the future?
Our judgments are rarely, if ever, flawless
study on errors: show how the system works by showing the limitation
strategies and rules that people follow to make judgments
CHAPTER FOUR
SOCIAL COGNITION

The Information Available


for Social Cognition
Social Cognition
Social cognition (social judgments) depend on (accurate) information
But sometimes we have:
Minimal information
Misleading information

Having little or misleading information, doesn’t stop us from making


inferences about people or situation (biased judgement)

Bias: is a tendency to put disproportionally more weight in favor of or


against a idea/believe/thing. It’s systematic.
Minimal Information
Snap judgement: People tend to make very complex inferences about
motives and personality based on very small amounts of information
We make the judgment within an extremely short time.
Inferring personality from physical appearance (Willis & Todorov, 2006)
Showed participants faces, had them rate them on attractiveness,
aggressiveness, likability, trustworthiness, competence
Given varying amounts of time: 1 s, 0.5 s, 0.1 s
Control group: allowed to take as much time as they needed to form a judgment
Hurried trait judgments corresponded remarkably well with the more reflective
assessment.
Minimal Information
What exactly do we judge during this brief glance?
The two most prominent dimensions assessed (Todorov et al., 2008)
Trustworthiness (positive-negative): is the target nice/mean,
friend/foe
Functional judgment: Approach/avoid
Dominance (power): is the target intelligent/not, confident/bashful
Functional judgment: topdog/underdog
Minimal Information
Untrustworthy dominant judgement
small eyes,
small forehead,
angular, prominent chin

Trustworthy submissive judgement


large round eyes
large forhead
high eyebrows
rounded small chin
Minimal Information
How accurate are snap judgments? It depends.
Relationship between facial appearance & self-reports of
approachability, extraversion, power
No relationship between facial appearance & self-reports of
agreeableness, conscientiousness
No relationship between facial appearance & behavioral observations

Snap judgments aren’t the only instances where firsthand info is


inaccurate…
Misleading firsthand information
Information that we get firsthand
(immediate impression, direct experiences),
isn’t always correct
People’s behaviors do not always reflect their
true attitude.
Pluralistic ignorance: Misperception of a
group norm that results from observing
people who are acting at variance with their
private beliefs, out of a concern for the
social consequences—actions that reinforce
the erroneous group norm
Pluralistic ignorance
B
So they
believe in B

A A

A B B
A

B B
B
People often behave in line with
group norms for fear of negative
social consequences (motivation for
impression management)

misleading firsthead information——> biased judgement ——> behaviors


How best to avoid pluralistic ignorance?
Reach out to another person.
Connect with your peers, form a support group.
Set time aside to discuss the fundamentals.
Misleading Firsthand Information
Our own behavior has brought about what we seeing.

Self-fulfilling prophecy - our expectations lead us to behave in ways that


elicit the very behavior we expect from others.

A situation in which people


a. have an expectation about what another person is like, which
b. influences how they act toward that person, which
c. causes the person to behave consistently with the original expectation,
thus making the expectation come true!
Misleading Information
self-fulfilling prophecy
Teachers’ expectations influence student performance (Rosenthal &
Jacobson, 1968)
Before the school year, gave teachers dossiers on students
Randomly labeled some students as “intellectual bloomers”
Results: At the end of the year, the “intellectual bloomers” had made more progress
(higher IQ scores) than others who were originally equal
Reason: Teachers gave those students more attention, challenged them more, gave
them more amount of materials and more difficult materials.

Self-fulfilling prophecies have real consequences!


CHAPTER FOUR
SOCIAL COGNITION

How Information is
Presented
How information is Presented
Order effect
Framing effect
Temporal Framing
Order Effects
The order in which items are presented can have a powerful influence on
judgment.
Primacy effects:
Sometimes information presented first has an overly strong influence
on later judgments
when information is ambiguous
Recency effects:
Other times information presented last has an overly strong influence
on later judgments
when the last item come more readily to mind
e.g, our impression on a person might be based more on our lastest
interaction.
Order Effects
Primacy effect: Asch (1946)
Evaluate an individual:
This is an intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and
envious person”
1-10 how much you like this person
Order Effects
Primacy effect: Asch (1946)
Evaluate an individual:
This is a stubborn, envious, impulsive, critical, intelligent, industrious,
person”
1-10 how much you like this person
Order Effects
Primacy effect: Asch (1946)
Evaluate an individual:
This is an intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and
envious person”
This is a stubborn, envious, impulsive, critical, intelligent, industrious,
person”
Framing Effects
Framing effects: The influence on judgment resulting from the way that
information is presented (order effects are a type of framing effect)
Spin framing: Changing the way something is phrased/framed so that it
looks more favorable or unfavorable

Most things can be described (or framed) in ways that emphasize the good
or the bad.
Framing can influence how we evaluate a situation.
Framing Effects
Would you rather by (A) or (B) ?

(A) 80% lean (A) 20% fat


Framing Effects
McNeil, Pauker, Sox, & Tversky, 1982
400 doctors were asked whether they would recommend surgery or radiation for a
cancer patient

Condition 1 (positive frame): 82% of doctors recommended surgery


Condition 2 (negative frame): 56% of doctors recommended surgery
A 26% difference!
Temporal Framing
Temporal framing: How actions and events are framed within a particular
time perspective

Helping a friend move next Saturday at 9 am? Or helping a friend move


today in 30 minutes at 8:30 in the morning?
Temporal Framing
Construal level theory: the temporal perspective from which people view
events has important and predictable implications for how they construe
them
Distant actions are thought about abstractly, whereas close actions are
thought about concretely

Examples for abstract vs concrete construal


Going to the dentist: protecting one’s teeth vs. getting a cavity filled
Donations: being generous vs. giving money

Some things seem more desirable when they are further away
PRESENTED BY VIKI XU

THANK YOU!

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