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Module IV: Social Cognition

IV. Social Cognition: Making Sense Of People/ How We Think About The Social World

It is the mind which creates the world about us, and even though we stand side by side in the
same meadows, my eyes will never sees what is beheld by yours.
- George Gissing. The private papers of Henry Ryecroft 1903

The case of Amadou Diallo:

In the early morning of February 4, 1999, Diallo, a black immigrant from West Africa was
standing near his building after returning from a meal. Four white police officers observing that
Diallo matched the description of a since-captured well-armed serial rapist involved in the rape
or attempted rape of 51 victims approached him.
The officers claimed themselves as NYPD officers and that Diallo ran up the outside steps
toward his apartment house doorway at their approach, ignoring their orders to stop and "show
his hands". Diallo then reached into his jacket and withdrew his wallet. Seeing the suspect
holding a small square object, Carroll yelled "Gun!" to alert his colleagues. Mistakenly believing
Diallo had aimed a gun at them at close range, the officers opened fire on Diallo. The four
officers fired 41 shots, more than half of which went astray as Diallo was hit 19 times. The post-
shooting investigation found no weapons on Diallo's body; the item he had pulled out of his
jacket was not a gun, but a rectangular black wallet.

 Why police officers have to make extremely quick decisions and have little time to
stop and analyze whether someone poses a threat?
 Would the officers have acted any differently if Diallo was white?
 More generally, how do people size up their social worlds and decide how to act or
in everyday situations people face all the time?
What is social cognition?
- Cognition refers to the many different processes by which creatures understand and
make sense of the world (Frith, 2008)
- Social cognition refers to the different psychological processes that influence how
people process, interpret, and respond to social signals. These processes allow
people to understand social behavior and respond in ways that are appropriate and
beneficial (Arioli, 2018)
- Social cognition is the way in which individuals process, remember, and use
information in social contexts to explain and predict how people behave (Fiske and
Taylor, 2013).

Other Definitions of social cognition

- The process of understanding or making sense of other people
- It focuses on how people think about other people and how they think they think
about others and themselves.
- It it involves how we actively interpret, analyze, remember and use information
about the social world (Berkowitz & Divine,1995)

Two components of social cognition

1. Making attributions about why people act as they do
2. Building an overall impression on the basis of what we know or think we know, or think we
know, about them as individuals and as members of group

Two different kinds of social cognitions

1. Automatic thinking ( low effort thinking) is thought that that is nonconscious, unintentional,
involuntary and effortless
- We form impressions of people quickly and effortlessly and navigate new roads without
much conscious analysis of our environments.
- We acted without thinking – that is without consciously deliberating about what they
saw and whether their assumptions were correct ( Bargh & Fegurson, 2000)

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- it saves us a great deal of time and effort, so we don't have to spend the entire day
thinking hard about everything we experience.
- Low-effort thinking can occur in the background of our minds while we actively think
about and/or do something else.
- Most of the time, low-effort thinking serves us well, and helps us size up a new situation
or information quickly and accurately. However, because we don't control low-effort
thinking, it can get us into trouble. For example, it can lead us to make false
assumptions or even control a racial bias that we aren't aware of.
- People size up a new situation very quickly

2. Controlled thinking or high effort thinking

- People do pause and think about themselves and their environments and think carefully
about the right course of actions
- It is more effortful and deliberate.
- Every time you encounter a new situation , you stop and think about it deliberately thinking
that is controlled and intentional.
- When you are engaged in high-effort thinking, you are fully aware that you are thinking.
- When we learn something new, we have to carefully think about the step-by-step
process that we perform.
- At the time, our thinking and behavior was carefully controlled, so we were engaged in
high effort thinking

A. Categorization and Stereotyping

Stereotype
 a generalization about a group of people whereby we attribute a defined set of
characteristics to this group based on their appearance posture, language, and so
on or our assumptions.
 According to Allport, a stereotype is an exaggerated belief associated with a
category (as cited in Brink & Nel, 2015).
 Stereotypes are generalizations about the personal attributes or characteristics of a
group of people (e.g., Allport, 1954as cited in Rosenthal, 2015)
 are oversimplified generalizations about groups of people. Stereotypes can be based
on race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation—almost any characteristic.
 Stereotypes are the beliefs associated with social categories.

Othe Definitions
 beliefs that associate a whole group of people with certain traits
 are an example of cognitive miserliness, as people assign different stimuli, such as
people of certain races, to particular categories with certain characteristics so that
they can attend to just the category, rather than the individual when engaged in
social situations.
 We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the
information, we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations.
 In the absence of the "total picture," stereotypes in many cases allow us to "fill in
the blanks."
 Our society often innocently creates and perpetuates stereotypes, but these
stereotypes often lead to unfair discrimination and persecution when the stereotype
is unfavorable.
 By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite
often, we have stereotypes about persons who are members of groups with which
we have not had first hand contact.
 It is a mental image of a group based on opinion without regard to individual
differences.
For example: if we are walking through a park late at night and encounter three
senior citizens wearing fur coats and walking with canes, we may not feel as threatened as if
we were met by three high school-aged boys wearing hoodies. These generalizations root
from our experiences we have had ourselves, read in books, and magazines, seen in movies
or television, or have had related to us by friends and family.

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Prejudice
 consists of negative feelings about others because their connection to a social group

How streotypes are formed ?

1. from a historical perspective, it springs from the past ( ex.slavery in america
gave rise to the portrayal of blacks as inferior)
2. from political perspective, it viewed as means by which groups in power came
to rationalize war, religious intolerance and economic oppressions
3. from socio-cutural perspective, it has been argued that the real difference
between social groups contribute to perceive differences

The formation of stereotypes involved two related processes.

1. Categorization- we sort people into groups
- the classification of persons into groups on the basis of common attributes (e.g. race,
gender and other common attributes

2. We perceive groups to which we belong (ingroups) as being different from groups to which
we do not belong.

Outgroup homogeneity effect

- there is greater similarity among Members of outgroups than among members One’s own
group.

Theories on stereotypes

The term stereotype was first coined by Lippmann in 1922 in order to describe a social
group's perceived characteristics(as cited in Brink & Nel, 2015).

Many stereotypes have a long history and were created as a result of specific economic,
political, or social circumstances. (e.g., Allport, 1954; Link and Phelan, 2001(Rosenthal,
2015).

According to the social learning theory (Barkley, 1982 as cited in Brink & Nel,
2015), people learn social behavior through direct experience (for example by being
rewarded or punished for behaving in a certain way) or through the observation of others
(for example by observing the consequences of others' actions). People will therefore
uphold those beliefs and behavior for which they or others are rewarded and put an end to
those beliefs and behaviors that will lead to them or others being punished (Whitley & Kite,
2006).

Considering this theory, it may be noted that people can acquire stereotypes about
other people either directly from their interactions with a particular group or through the
influence of others (Whitley & Kite, 2006). Nevertheless, people will continue to stereotype
others as long as they do not receive negative feedback for doing so (Ramasubramanian,
2005 as cited in Brink & Nel, 2015).

When thinking about stereotypes, individuals are inclined to believe that all
stereotypes are negative in nature; however, this is untrue. Stereotypic beliefs or
perceptions can be positive (e.g. 'Asians are good students and employees'), negative
('senior citizens are too old to be good employees') or neutral ('Australians like cricket')
(Mullins, 2010; Whitley & Kite, 2006 as cited in Brink & Nel, 2015).

McShane and Von Glinow (2014) believed that not all stereotypes are exaggerations or
falsehoods, but that stereotypes often have some extent of truthfulness. Therefore, when
stereotyping, individuals should not fall into the trap of believing that all stereotypes are a
clear representation of all members belonging to a specific group(as cited in Brink & Nel,
2015).

What leads people to stereotype?

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 We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the

information, we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations.
 In the absence of the "total picture," stereotypes in many cases allow us to "fill in
the blanks."
 By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite
often, we have stereotypes about persons who are members of groups with which
we have not had firsthand contact.
 It is a mental image of a group based on opinion without regard to individual
differences.

For example: if we are walking through a park late at night and encounter three
senior citizens wearing fur coats and walking with canes, we may not feel as
threatened as if we were met by three high school-aged boys wearing hoodies.
These generalizations root from our experiences we have had ourselves, read in
books, and magazines, seen in movies or television, or have had related to us by
friends and family.
Positive side:

Is there a positive side to stereotyping?

Stereotypes are basically generalizations that are made about groups. Such
generalizations are necessary: in order to be able to interact effectively, we must have
some idea of what people are likely to be like, which behaviors will be considered
acceptable, and which not.

For example: people in low-context cultures are said to be more individualistic, their
communication more overt, depending less on context and shared understanding. High context
cultures are more group orientated. Their communication is more contextually based,depending
more on shared understanding and inferences. These generalizations are stereotypes.

- They allow us to into a category, according to the group they belong to, and make
inferences about how they will behave based on that grouping.

Negative side

 Stereotypes can hurt the personal and social identities of individuals (Pickering, 2001
as cited in Brink & Nel, 2015).
 Stereotypes have a damaging effect, especially since stereotypes do not recognize
the differences in social groups and often lead to inaccurate perceptions and
inappropriate behavior towards people (Bergh & Theron, 2009). This does not mean,
however, that all stereotypes are incorrect; many stereotypes have a kernel of truth
(Whitley & Kite, 2006( as cited in Brink & Nel, 2015).
 Our society often innocently creates and perpetuates stereotypes, but these
stereotypes often lead to unfair discrimination and persecution when the stereotype
is unfavorable.

Categorization - we sort people into groups.

According to social identity theory, we tend to favor our own group over other groups
to maintain a positive perception of the ingroup and therefore maintain a high-level of
self-esteem. We make intergroup attribution biases to ensure that our group is
perceived in a positive light compared to other groups.

 Just as we categorize objects into different types, so do we categorize people

according to their social group memberships. Once we do so, we begin to respond to
those people more as members of a social group than as individuals.

 Thinking about others in terms of their group memberships is known as social

categorization—the natural cognitive process by which we place individuals into

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social groups. Social categorization occurs when we think of someone as a man

(versus a woman), an old person (versus a young person), a Black person (versus an
Asian or White person), and so on (Allport, 1954/1979).

 Categorization is occurring all the tim. We spontaneously categorize each other on

the basis of many other group memberships, including race, academic status
(student versus teacher), social roles, and other social categories (Fiske, Haslam, &
Fiske, 1991; Stangor, Lynch, Duan, & Glass, 1992).

 Social categorization is occurring all around us all the time. Indeed, social
categorization occurs so quickly that people may have difficulty not thinking about
others in terms of their group memberships.

 This social categorization process leads us to emphasize the perceived similarities

within our group and the differences between groups and involves the self (Daffin &
Lane, 2021).

 We construct in-groups, or groups we identify with, and out-groups, or groups that

are not our own, and categorize the self as an in-group member. From this, behavior
is generated such that the self is assimilated to the salient in-group prototype which
defines specific cognitions, affect, and behavior we may exhibit (Daffin & Lane,
2021). We favor ingroups, called ingroup favoritism, to enhance our own self-
esteem and produce a positive self-concept. Another consequence is that we tend
to see members of the outgroup as similar to one another while our ingroup is seen
as varied, called the outgroup homogeneity effect (Park & Rothbart, 1982 (Daffin &
Lane, 2021)). One reason why this might occur is that we generally have less
involvement with individual members of outgroups and so are less familiar with
them. If we have contact, then they are less likely to be seen as homogeneous
(Daffin & Lane, 2021).

The Benefits of Social Categorization

 The tendency to categorize others is often quite useful. In some cases, we categorize
because doing so provides us with information about the characteristics of people
who belong to certain social groups (Lee, Jussim, & McCauley, 1995). If you found
yourself lost in a city, you might look for a police officer or a taxi driver to help you
find your way. In this case, social categorization would probably be useful because a
police officer or a taxi driver might be particularly likely to know the layout of the
city streets. Of course, using social categories will only be informative to the extent
that the stereotypes held by the individual about that category are accurate.
 The idea that social categorization is a heuristic is also accurate in another sense: we
occasionally classify people not because it seems to reveal more about them but
rather because we might not have the time or desire to investigate further.
Assessing someone else based on our preconceived notions may make our lives
easier (Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, & Jetten, 1994). It's practical to think about
other individuals in terms of the social categories they belong to; when faced with
confusion, we simplify things by depending on our stereotypes.

The Negative Outcomes of Social Categorization

 We perceive groups to which we belong (ingroups) as being different from groups
to which we do not belong.
 One problem is that social categorization distorts our perceptions such that we tend
to exaggerate the differences between people from different social groups while at
the same time perceiving members of groups (and particularly outgroups) as more
similar to each other than they actually are. This overgeneralization makes it more
likely that we will think about and treat all members of a group the same way.

The Outgroup homogeneity effect

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“Oh, them, they’re all the same!”

When we categorize other people, we tend to see people who belong to the same
social group as more similar than they actually are, and we tend to judge people
from different social groups as more different than they actually are.

The tendency to see members of social groups as similar to each other is particularly
strong for members of outgroups, resulting in outgroup homogeneity which states
that is greater similarity among members of outgroups than among members one’s
own group. Outgroup homogeneity is the tendency to view members of outgroups
as more similar to each other than we see members of ingroups (Linville, Salovey, &
Fischer, 1986; Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992; Meissner & Brigham, 2001).

Outgroup homogeneity occurs in part because we don’t have as much contact with
outgroup members as we do with ingroup members, and the quality of interaction
with outgroup members is often more superficial. This prevents us from really
learning about the outgroup members as individuals, and as a result, we tend to be
unaware of the differences among the group members. In addition to learning less
about them because we see and interact with them less, we routinely categorize
outgroup members, thus making them appear more cognitively similar (Haslam,
Oakes, & Turner, 1996).

Ex. If men believe that women are all the same, then they might also believe that
women share the same traits, both good and bad (e.g., they're emotional and
nurturing). Women could also hold similar stereotypes of men, such as that they are
strong and uncaring. According to Lippman (1822) stereotypes are "pictures in our
heads" of various social groups. Though these ideas are often erroneous
overgeneralizations, they just seem natural and correct (Hirschfeld, 1996; Yzerbyt,
Schadron, Leyens, & Rocher, 1994).

In the end, stereotypes become self-fulfilling prophecies, such that our expectations
about the group members make the stereotypes come true (Snyder, Tanke, &
Berscheid, 1977; Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974). Once we believe that men make
better leaders than women, we tend to behave toward men in ways that makes it
easier for them to lead. And we behave toward women in ways that makes it more
difficult for them to lead.

The result? Men find it easier to excel in leadership positions, whereas women have
to work hard to overcome the false beliefs about their lack of leadership abilities
(Phelan & Rudman, 2010). This is likely why female lawyers with masculine names
are more likely to become judges (Coffey & McLaughlin, 2009) and masculine-
looking applicants are more likely to be hired as leaders than feminine-looking
applicants (von Stockhausen, Koeser, & Sczesny, 2013).

B. Mental Shortcuts

When making decisions or judgments, we often use mental shortcuts or "rules of thumb"
known as heuristics. For every decision, we don't always have the time or resources
to compare all the information before we make a choice, so we use heuristics to help
us reach decisions quickly and efficiently. Sometimes these mental shortcuts can be
helpful, but in other cases they can lead to errors or cognitive biases.

The 1950s saw the introduction of heuristics into psychology by Nobel Prize-winning
economist and cognitive scientist Herbert Simon. Although people try to make logical
decisions, he proposed that human judgement is influenced by cognitive limitations
(Rachlin, 2003).

Simon's research showed that humans were restricted in their capacity for rational
decision-making, but it was Tversky and Kahneman who introduced the study of

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heuristics and specific ways of thinking that people rely on to simplify the decision-
making process. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky presented their
findings on cognitive biases in the 1970s. They suggested that these biases affect
people's thoughts and opinions.

As people ignore large amounts of information from the social world, and in doing
so, make rapid inferences about information, and use categories to organize
information. People use heuristics, which are mental shortcuts, in order to make sense
of the world around them. These mental shortcuts allow people to categorize learned
information and as a result solve problems, make decisions, and understand the world
through schemas.

What is Heuristic?

Heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments
quickly and efficiently. These rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and
allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about the next course of
action. However, there are both benefits and drawbacks of heuristics. While heuristics
are helpful in many situations, they can also lead to cognitive biases (Kendra, 2022)

People use mental shortcuts, to make sense of the world around them. These mental
shortcuts allow people to categorize learned information and as a result solve problems,
make decisions, and understand the world through schemas.

Types of heuristics

1) the representative heuristic

 used to make judgments about probability (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973, 1982).
 The more similar the individual is to the prototype, the more likely he is to belong to that
group.
 a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical
case.
Consider the following description: Sarah loves to listen to New Age music and
faithfully reads her horoscope each day in her spare time, she enjoys aromatherapy and
attending a local spirituality group.

Based on the description above, is Sarah more likely to be a schoolteacher or a holistic

healer? Many people would identify her as a holistic healer based on representativeness. She
fits in with our existing ideas of how a holistic healer might behave.

2) the availability heuristic

 Making judgments about the frequency or probability of events on the basis of the instances
that comes easily or quickly to mind
 used to evaluate the frequency or likelihood of an event on the basis of how quickly
examples come to mind.
 A mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgment on the ease with which they can
bring something to mind
 We tend to leap to the conclusion that a person who shares some characteristics with typical
members of a group probably belongs to that group.

3. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

 We tend to base estimates and decisions on known ‘anchors’ or familiar positions, with
an adjustment relative to this start point. We are better at relative thinking than
absolute thinking.
 The Anchoring Heuristic, also know as focalism, refers to the human tendency to accept
and rely on, the first piece of information received before deciding. That first piece of
information is the anchor and sets the tone for everything that follows.

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Examples:
 If asked whether the population of Turkey was greater or less than 30 million,
you might give one or other answer. If then asked what you thought the actual
population was, you would very likely guess somewhere around 30 million, because you
have been anchored by the previous answer.
 A used car dealer, for instance, or any salesman for that matter, may begin a
negotiation with a price that is probably far higher than the fair value. As an anchor, the
high price will usually result in a higher ending price than if the vehicle dealer had
started at a fair or low price.

C. What is a cognitive miser?

Cognitive misers describe the idea that people are so limited in their ability to think and
make inferences that they take mental shortcuts whenever they can.This concept suggests
that individuals have a tendency to engage in automatic thinking and rely on mental
shortcuts to simplify complex situations and conserve cognitive resources. Cognitive misers
are more likely to rely on heuristics and stereotypes in situations where there is a high
cognitive load or time pressure.

Cognitive Miser is an idea that people do not use all available information to make
decisions and rely on heuristics and cognitive shortcuts in order to form judgments and
opinions about issues that they have little knowledge about. Some examples of cognitive
misers in action: Stereotyping, Confirmation Bias, Availability Anchoring and Adjustment
Heuristics
 The cognitive miser idea is fundamental in the information-processing
model of social cognition because it would be enormously taxing on individuals' to
attend to all information in the world scientifically (basically, with a high degree of
analysis), with individuals becoming overwhelmed by the confusion and complexity
of the social stimuli that they are attending to.
 As a result, people ignore large amounts of information from the social world, and
in doing so, make rapid inferences about information, and use categories to organize
information. People use heuristics, which are mental shortcuts, in order to make
sense of the world around them. These mental shortcuts allow people to categorize
learned information and as a result solve problems, make decisions, and understand
the world through schemas.
 The first key assumption of this theory is, people do not use all
available information to make decisions or come to conclusions about issues,
including new technologies or scientific discoveries. Instead people rely on heuristics
and cognitive shortcuts such as religious beliefs, media portrayals, and morals in
order to form judgments and opinions about issues that they have little knowledge
about.
- The second key assumption in the cognitive miser theory is that it describes overall
social patterns. For most of the general public the cognitive miser theory can be
used because many people have low information levels that require cognitive
shortcuts to be made to make decisions on complex topics.

D. Social world belief

 The beliefs we hold how the social worlds operates, shape many of our social judgments
 Our tendency to believe that others think and behave as we do (false consensus and
false uniqueness)
 Our tendency to think and behave in ways that verify our beliefs (confirmation bias
and self- fulfilling prophecy, making our schemas come true
 Our tendency to believe that the world is fair (just world belief)
 Our tendency to stop trying after repeated failure(learned helplessness)

E. We exaggerate our similarity and uniqueness to others.

False consensus effect

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 The tendency to believe that our own attitudes, opinions and beliefs are more
common than they really are ( Gross & Miller 1997). When it comes to attitudes and
opinions, we see ourselves more closely aligned with others than what is actually so
 We tend to think that our peers would respond like ourselves.
 We tend to perceive our opinions as fairly typical
 It is more likely the product of availability heuristic, maybe because we often assume
others share our attitudes and opinions maybe because our own self beliefs are
easily recalled from memories.
 It often occurs when we consider our attitudes and opinions.

False uniqueness effect

 the tendency to believe that our desirable traits and abilities are less common than
they really are. It appears to be the product of self-serving bias which Is the
tendency to more often attribute positive traits than negative traits to ourselves.
 It appears to be a product of self-serving bias, which is the tendency to to more
often attribute positive than negative traits to ourselves.

F. We seek information that support our beliefs.

Confirmation bias
 the tendency to seek only information that verifies your beliefs ( jones et.al.,2001)
 The confirmation bias highlights how our expectations often become the blueprint in
defining social realities. Our expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
 Although confirmation bias is generally thought of as being caused by people taking
cognitive shortcuts in soling problem ( the cognitive miser perspective), another
view is we may engage in confirmation bias due to our desire to get along with
others.
 We sometimes adopt a confirmation-seeking strategy during getting-acquainted
sessions to smooth the interaction and give others the impression that we
understand them ( Lyeyens & Ardene,1994)

G. Our expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

 The confirmation bias highlights how our expectations often become the blueprint in
defining social reality. In 1948, sociologist Robert Merton introduced the concept of
the self-fulfilling prophecy to describe a situation in which someone’s expectations
about a person or group actually lead to the fulfillment of those expectations.

 Three step process involving self-fulfilling prophecies

1. The perceiver forms an impression of the target person
2. The perceiver acts toward the target person in a manner consistent with this first
impression
3. The target person responds to the perceiver’s actions in a manner that
unwittingly confirms the perceiver’s initial belief.

 The more interactions the target has with the perceiver, and the more this three-
step process is repeated during those interactions, the more likely it is that the
target will internalize the perceiver’s expectations into his or her own self-concept.

H. Belief in a just world both comforts us and influences: How we explain others’
misfortune

The just-world belief system

 Melvin J. Lerner proposed the just-world theory (also called the just-world
hypothesis) in the 1960s. He noticed that people often thought of the world as fair
and just in order to make sense of or cope with various injustices.
 The just-world phenomenon is a term referring to people's tendency to believe
that the world is just, and that people get what they deserve. Because people want

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to believe that the world is fair, they will look for ways to explain or rationalize away
injustice - often by blaming the victim (APA Dictionary of Psychology).
 perceive the world as fair and equitable place, with people getting what they
deserve.
 Hard work and clean living will be rewarded while laziness and sinful living will be
punished.
 According to Melvin Lerner (1980), this social belief system is simply a defensive
reaction to the sometimes cruel twists of fate encountered in life but it is comforting
because most of us conceived ourselves to be good and decent people.
 The just-world phenomenon helps explain why people sometimes blame
victims for their own misfortune, even in situations where people have no control
over the events that befall them.

 Those with this belief tend to think that when bad things happen to people, it is
because these individuals are bad people or have done something to deserve their
misfortune. Conversely, this belief also leads people to think that when good things
happen to people it is because those individuals are good and deserving of their
happy fortune.

Examples of the Just-World Phenomenon The classic example tendency is found in

the Book of Job. In the text, Job suffers a series of terrible calamities and at one
point, his former friend suggests that Job must have done something terrible to
have deserved his misfortunes.

Explanations for the Just-World Phenomenon

 People have a need to believe in their own invulnerability.

For example, people don't like to think about themselves being the victims of a
violent crime. So when they hear about an even such as an assault or a rape, they
will blame the event on the behavior of the victim. By doing this, people can go on
believing that they will never be the victim of such a crime because they will simply
avoid these behaviors.

 People want to reduce the anxiety that is caused by injustices.

Believing that the individual is completely responsible for their misfortune, people
are able to go on believing that the world is fair and just.

I. Repeated failures lead to learned helplessness.

Learned helplessness
 is the passive resignation by repeated exposure to negative events that are
perceived to be unavoidable.
 When an unpleasant situation is perceived to be inescapable, humans and other
animals develop the belief that they are helpless to alter their circumstances by
means of any voluntary behavior. Because of this expectation that one’s behavior
has no effect on outcome, the person simply give up trying to change the outcome.
 In human studies, those exposed to uncontrollable bad events at first feel angry and
anxious that their goals are being blocked. However as the extent of uncontrollable
events increases and they began to feel helpless, the previous anger is replaced with
depression ( Peterson, et.al.1993)

J. The impact of schemas

a. Schema
 an abstract memory representation of knowledge derived from past experience and
inference that we use to interpret current experience.
 a cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept, object, event, etc.
and schema helps us to interpret our world

K. Priming: the impact of what’s in your mind

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Priming
 Is the process of somehow bringing certain attributes, typically behaviors or
personal characteristics, to mind that is activating them.
 tendency for recent thoughts or ideas to influence subsequent thoughts or ideas (to
put something in mind); heightens the availability of information.
 The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait
or concept.
 It is a good example of automatic thinking because it occurs quickly, unintentionally
and unconsciously.
 Thoughts then have to be accessible and applicable before they will act as primes,
exerting an influence on our social world
 Priming refers to an increased sensitivity to certain stimuli due to prior experience

framing
 our judgments about various issues are often strongly affected by the way the
information is presented, when information is presented in positive terms favorable
associations are made; when information is presented in negative terms unfavorable
associations are made.

L. ATTRIBUTION PROCESSES

Do you ever think of the influence that you have on other people? To make sense of our
social world, we try to understand the causes of other people’s behavior.

Fritz heider(1958) took the first step towards answering these questions. To him, we
are all scientists of a sort.

Psychologist Fritz Heider first discussed attributions in his 1958 book, The Psychology
of Interpersonal Relations. Heider made several important contributions that laid the
foundation for further research on attribution theory and attribution biases. He noted that
people tend to make distinctions between behaviors that are caused by personal disposition
versus environmental or situational conditions. He also predicted that people are more
likely to explain others' behavior in terms of dispositional factors (i.e., caused by a given
person's personality), while ignoring the surrounding situational demands.

Fritz Heider noted that in ambiguous situations, people make attributions based on
their own wants and desires, which are therefore often skewed. He also explained that this
tendency was rooted in a need to maintain a positive self-concept.

Bernard Weiner's contribution to attribution theory explored the concept of internal

attribution, which refers to the belief that an individual's behavior is driven by personal
characteristics, such as ability, effort, or personality traits. This perspective highlights the
role of social perception in shaping attributions, as individuals often rely on their
observations and evaluations of others to make judgments about the causes of
behavior(Main, 2023).

a. Attribution theory

 a group of theories that describe how people explain the causes of behavior.
 Attribution theory also provides explanations for why different people can interpret
the same event in different ways and what factors contribute to attribution biases.
 People constantly make attributions regarding the cause of their own and others’
behaviors; however, attributions do not always accurately mirror reality. Rather than
operating as objective perceivers, people are prone to perceptual errors that lead to
biased interpretations of their social world.
 Attributions are “explanations people offer about why they were successful or, more
importantly, why they failed in the past” (Dörnyei, 2001).

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 Attribution theory focuses on an individual’s perception of the cause of events and

behaviors.
 Attribution theory examines the cognitive processes that underlie the attribution
process. When individuals encounter events or behaviors, they naturally engage in
causal attributions to make sense of them (Main, 2023).
 The way people attribute causes to positive and negative events can greatly affect
their motivation and self-concept. For instance, attributing success to personal effort
rather than task difficulty or external sources can lead to increased self-esteem and
a stronger sense of self-efficacy. Conversely, consistently attributing failures to
personal shortcomings can result in decreased self-esteem and a sense of
helplessness (Main, 2023).
 Attribution theory also provides explanations for why different people can interpret
the same event in different ways and what factors contribute to attribution biases.

Attribution process

 Attributional studies began in the field of social psychology in the 1950s, and Fritz
Heider became the “father” of attributions’ theory and research (Dasborough &
Harvey, 2016, as cited in Egbert & Roe, n.d.)

Two types of attribution

1. Personal attribution- internal characteristics of an actor such as ability,

personality, mood or effort
2. Situational attribution- attribution to factors external to an actor, such as the
task, other people or luck.

b. Attribution biases

 an attribution bias or attributional bias is a cognitive bias that refers to the systematic
errors made when people evaluate and/or try to find reasons for their own and
others' behaviors.
 were first discussed in 1950s and 60s by psychologists such as Fritz Heider, who
studied attribution theory.
 Other psychologists, such as Harold Kelley and Ed Jones expanded Heider's early work
by identifying conditions under which people are more or less likely to make different
types of attributions.
 An attribution bias occurs when someone systematically over- or underuses the
available information when explaining behavior.
 Attribution biases is founded in attribution theory, which was proposed to explain
why and how we create meaning about others' and our own behavior. This theory
focuses on identifying how an observer uses information in his/her social environment
in order to create a causal explanation for events.
 attribution biases, drawing inaccurate conclusions about the cause of a given behavior
or outcome.
 There is evidence that when we are making judgments about the behavior of our own
group (the ingroup) and that of other groups (outgroups), we show attributional biases
that favor the ingroup.
 Specifically, where ingroup members are concerned, we explain positive behaviors in
terms of internal characteristics (e.g.,personality) and negative behaviors in terms of
external factors (e.g., illness). Conversely, where outgroup members are concerned,
we explain positive behaviors in terms of external characteristics and negative
behaviors in terms of internal characteristics.
 Of most relevance to the issue of intergroup attribution biases is locus of causality. An
internal attribution attitudes, and effort. An external attribution is any explanation
that locates the cause as being external to the person, such as the actions of others,
the nature of the situation, social pressures, or luck.

C. Types of attribution biases

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1. The correspondence bias or fundamental attribution error

 Fritz Heider explained that although it’s perfectly possible to attribute behavior to
external factor, we tend to be more comfortable with internal attributions
 We prefer to know the dispositions of the people with whom we interact because this
knowledge help us to predict and perhaps control their behavior.
 Because dispositional attribution requires us to decide that an action corresponds
directly to a dispositional attribution is correspondence bias.
 When we make attributions about another person's actions, we are likely to
overemphasize the role of dispositional factors, while ignoring the influence of
situational factors.

2. Actor-observer bias
 can be thought of as an extension of the fundamental attribution error.
 According to the actor-observer bias, in addition to over-valuing dispositional
explanations of others' behaviors, we tend to under-value dispositional explanations
and over-value situational explanations of our own behavior.
 Edward E. Jones's and Richard E. Nisbett's in 1971, who explained that "actors tend to
attribute the causes of their behavior to stimuli inherent in the situation, while
observers tend to attribute behavior to stable dispositions of the actor”.
 The actor–observer bias arises when we attribute other people's behavior to internal
causes and our own behavior to external causes.
A self-serving bias refers to people's tendency to attribute their successes to internal
factors but attribute their failures to external. This bias helps to explain why we tend to
take credit for our successes while often denying any responsibility for failures.
For example, a tennis player who wins his match might say, "I won because I'm a good
athlete," whereas the loser might say, "I lost because the referee was unfair."
The self-serving bias seems to function as an ego-protection mechanism, helping people
to better cope with personal failures.

3. Hostile attribution bias has been defined as an interpretive bias wherein individuals
exhibit a tendency to interpret others' ambiguous behaviors as hostile, rather than benign.
For example, if a child witnesses two other children whispering and assumes they are
talking about him/her, that child makes an attribution of hostile intent, even though the
other children’s behavior was potentially benign. Research has indicated that there is an
association between hostile attribution bias and aggression, such that people who are more
likely to interpret someone else's behavior as hostile are also more likely to engage in
aggressive behavior.

The self-serving attribution bias refers to our tendency to make internal attributions for our
successes and external attributions for our failures. If students excel in an exam, for example,
they are likely to think this is because they are very intelligent, but if they fail, they may
attribute this to the poor quality of their teacher.

Correspondent inference theory.

Building on Heider's early work, other psychologists in the 1960s and 70s extended work
on attributions by offering additional related theories. In 1965, social psychologists Edward E.
Jones and Keith Davis proposed an explanation for patterns of attribution termed a
correspondent inference.

correspondent inference- refers to the assumption that a person's behavior reflects a stable
disposition or personality characteristic. They explained that certain conditions make us more
likely to make a correspondent inference about someone's behavior:

1. Intention
- People are more likely to make a correspondent inference when they interpret
someone's behavior as intentional, rather than unintentional.

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2. Social desirability
- People are more likely to make a correspondent inference when an actor's behavior
is socially undesirable than when it is conventional.
3. Effects of behavior
- People are more likely to make a correspondent, or dispositional, inference when
someone else's actions yield outcomes that are rare or not yielded by other actions.

Harold Kelley developed a theory of causal attribution based on a scientific analysis of how
people should explain, or attribute, their own or others' behavior by using the available
information in a systematic manner. Heider and Kelley investigated the locus of causality,
whether behavior is caused by something internal or external to the actor (the person
performing the behavior).

Kelly proposed three factors that influence the way we explain behavior:
1. Consensus:
- The extent to which other people behave in the same way. There is high consensus
when most people behave consistent with a given action/actor. Low consensus is
when not many people behave in this way.
2. Consistency:
- The extent to which a person usually behaves in a given way. There is high
consistency when a person almost always behaves in a certain way. Low consistency
is when a person almost never behaves like this.
3. Distinctiveness:
- The extent to which an actor's behavior in one situation is different from his/her
behavior in other situations. There is high distinctiveness when an actor does not
behave this way in most situations. Low distinctiveness is when an actor does usually
behave in a particular way in most situations.
-
Kelley proposed that we are more likely to make dispositional attributions when consensus is
low (most other people don't behave in the same way), consistency is high (a person behaves
this way across most situations), and distinctiveness is low (a person's behavior is not unique to
this situation). Alternatively, situational attributions are more likely to be reached when
consensus is high, consistency is high, and distinctiveness is high. His research helped to reveal
the specific mechanisms underlying the process of making attributions.

Research has found that we often exhibit attribution biases when interpreting the behavior of
others, and specifically when explaining the behavior of in-group versus out-group members.
More specifically, a review of the literature on intergroup attribution biases noted that people
generally favor dispositional explanations of an in-group member's positive behavior and
situational explanations for an in-group's negative behavior. Alternatively, people are more
likely to do the opposite when explaining the behavior of an out-group member (i.e., attribute
positive behavior to situational factors and negative behavior to disposition). Essentially, group
members' attributions tend to favor the in-group.

According to social identity theory, we tend to favor our own group over other groups to
maintain a positive perception of the ingroup and therefore maintain a high-level of self-
esteem. We make intergroup attribution biases to ensure that our group is perceived in a
positive light compared to other groups.

Three findings support this social identity explanation.

1. First, making group membership salient prior to completing an intergroup attribution
task increases the extent to which participants show intergroup attribution biases.

2. Second, intergroup attribution biases are stronger among participants who highly
identify with their ingroup.

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3. Third, it has been demonstrated that making internal attributions about ingroup
members and making global attributions about the negative behavior of outgroup
members predicts higher self-esteem.

References
Cohen (1981), Kelley (1972), Weiner (1979, 1986), Markus (1977)
Miles Hewstone SAGE pulication

Doosje, B. and Branscombe, N. R. Attributions for the negative historical actions of a group. European
Journalof Social Psychology, vol. 33 (2003). pp. 235–248.

Hewstone, M. The “ultimate attribution error”? A review of the literature on intergroup causal
attribution.

European Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 20 (1990). pp. 311–335.

Islam, M. R. and Hewstone, M. Intergroup attributions and affective consequences in majority and
minoritygroups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 64 (1993). pp. 936–950.

Entry Citation:
Turner, Rhiannon N., and Miles Hewstone. "Attribution Biases." Encyclopedia of Group Processes &
Intergroup Relations. Ed. John M.

Levine and Michael A. Hogg. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2009. 43-46. SAGE Reference Online. Web. 30
Jan. 2012.© SAGE Publications, Inc.

Bebrave. Stereotyping. November 27, 2007. http://bebrave.org.uk/Stereotyping.html

Burgess, Heidi. Stereotypes/Charactertion Frames. Beyond Intractab

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