ALTH106 Week 9 Lecture- Social Cognition

Cognition umbrella term used for all information-transforming processes undertaken in the
human brain.

Social cognition is the cognition relevant to social psychology. The way in which people process,
remember and use information in social contexts to explain and predict their own behaviours and
that of others.

Social Cognitive Abilities

1. Attribution ‘conceptual bedrock for the field of social psychology’

Attribution is any time we attach meaning to behaviour.

Most fundamental element social cognitive ability, innate tendency to explain certain event and
actions, with reference to the presumed will of other agent.

Through intuition we describe behaviour of other people as being reflective of internal states of
motivation, feeling or belief.

These immediate, intuitive explanations for seemingly voluntary acts are called ‘Attributions,’
because we give casual credit for action to some unseen but inferred intentional motive.

Examples:

 I assume that people drinking water are thirsty.

 I infer someone smiling and waving at me is communication
 When someone punches a foe, I assume they are enemies.

Importance –

- Explain cause and effect relationships in general

- Our attributions make typical interpersonal engagements possible.

There are attribution biases  Fundamental Attribution Error is our tendency to

disproportionately explain the behaviour of others with reference to innate traits or dispositions.

One of the best ways to ‘train up’ your compassion is learning to see the mitigating
circumstances in the lives of others.

2. Cognitive Biases

Self-serving biases account for our tendency to see the world around us in a manner that
disproportionately favours our own interests and supports our self-esteem.

Depressive Realism the description of life without the cognitive biases.

Self-serving biases example includes fundamental attribution error. Social cognition is highly
categorical in nature, and beyond just the simple difference between ‘self and other’, we also
intuitively divide the social world up based on group memberships, either Ingroup or Outgroups.

Social Identity Theory describes the importance of how we label both ourselves and others with
the various categories of social groups available on our cultural lexicon. These group biases are
best understood as the extension of our self-biases to our socially categorised view of the wider
world and the other people in it.
 We see ourselves in our ingroup members, and thus see them as being more noble, individual,
nuanced and self-determined.

We see our outgroups in a more negative light, containing less variation dictated largely by
stable, internal factors.

 Leads to the formation of group stereotypes. Stereotypes are sweeping generalisations of

social groups, which shape our expectations and subsequent social judgements of the
member of those groups.

Prejudice  negative attitude based on group membership

Discrimination unfair or unjust behaviours based in prejudice.

Confirmation Bias describes our tendency to search for, interpret or recall information in a way
that confirms one’s beliefs or hypotheses, often overlooking disconfirming or unwanted detail.

3. Attitude and Persuasion

Attitudes is defined by 2 characteristics:

1. Attitude object – the ‘thing’ the attitude is ‘about’

2. Attitude valence- an evaluative sense of positivity or negativity.

Valence  a magnitude along some dichotomous continuum with opposing poles.

When considering the function role attitudes have in our mental lives, an attitude can typically
be said to have 3 channels of influence:

- Affect – the aspect of emotion/ mood that is feels ‘good or bad’

- Behaviour- a general tendency to approach or avoid the object
- Cognition- the relevant conscious beliefs and judgements

Attitudes are valuable phenomenon due to strong relationships they often show with intentional
behaviour. When we have time and energy to think about our action, our attitudes are one of the
statistically strongest predictors of behaviour.

2 major theories of how attitudes are formed

1. Self-Perception Theory – noticing how we’re already reacting

2. Balance Theory – extrapolating out any consistent patterns based on your existing attitudes.

Cognitive dissonance describes the sensation of tension and discomfort we experience, whenever
we are made consciously aware of internal contradiction or inconsistencies.

Techniques for persuasion:

- Ingratiation involves performing a small favour or nicety to make them feel positive about
your offer (affect).
- Low-Balling and the Foot-in-the-door Effect rely on getting someone to make a small, initial
commitment to an action they would rather not do, then haggling them up (behaviour).
- Straight up lying is about implanting false beliefs (cognition).

The self-concepts

- Self-schemas – learned models of self-definition

- Self-esteem – our evaluative sense of our own relative value

Sociometer Theory of Self-Esteem  evaluation that we use to gauge our ‘current socials
standing’ in order to judge how outgoing or adventurous it is currently safe to be, given how
people are reacting to you.

- Self-consistency- How we interpret personal inconsistencies

- Self-presentation – The performative aspect of our selves, the semi-idealised impressing we
want to display for others.