Social Psychology (mod 1 and 2) quantitative research designs.

Sociologists in this area are

interested in a variety of demographic, social, and cultural
MODULE 1
phenomena. Some of their major research areas are social
What is Social Psychology? inequality, group dynamics, social change, socialization, social
identity, and symbolic interactionism.
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, Social psychology bridges the interest of psychology (with its
imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, emphasis on the individual) with sociology (with its emphasis
scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The on social structures). Most social psychologists are trained
terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all of the within the discipline of psychology. Psychologically oriented
psychological variables that are measurable in a human being. researchers place a great deal of emphasis on the immediate
The statement that others may be imagined or implied social situation, and the interaction between person and
suggests that we are prone to social influence even when no situation variables. Their research tends to be highly empirical
other people are present, such as when watching television, and is often centered on lab experiments. Psychologists who
or following internalized cultural norms. study social psychology are interested in such topics as
attitudes, social cognition, cognitive dissonance, social
Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a influence, and interpersonal behavior.
result of the interaction of mental states and immediate social
situations. In Kurt Lewin's conceptual formula, behavior can History of Social Psychology
be viewed as a function of the person in the environment, B =
The discipline of social psychology began in the United States
f(P , E). In general, social psychologists have a preference for
at the dawn of the twentieth century. The first published
laboratory-based, empirical findings. Social psychology
study in this area was an experiment by Norman Triplett
theories tend to be specific and focused, rather than global
(1898) on the phenomenon of social facilitation. During the
and general. Social psychology is an interdisciplinary domain
1930s, many Gestalt psychologists, particularly Kurt Lewin,
that bridges the gap between psychology and sociology.
fled to the United States from Nazi Germany. They were
During the years immediately following World War II, there
instrumental in developing the field as something separate
was frequent collaboration between psychologists and
from the behavioral and psychoanalytic schools that were
sociologists. However, the two disciplines have become
dominant during that time, and social psychology has always
increasingly specialized and isolated from each other in recent
maintained the legacy of their interests in perception and
years, with sociologists focusing on "macro variables" (e.g.
cognition. Attitudes and a variety of small group phenomena
social structure) to a much greater extent. Nevertheless,
were the most commonly studied topics in this era.
sociological approaches to social psychology remain an
important counterpart to psychological research in this area. During World War II, social psychologists studied persuasion
In addition to the split between psychology and sociology, and propaganda for the US military. After the war,
there has been a somewhat less pronounced difference in researchers became interested in a variety of social problems,
emphasis between American social psychologists and including gender issues and racial prejudice. In the 1960s,
European social psychologists. As a broad generalization, there was growing interest in a variety of new topics, such as
American researchers traditionally have focused more on the cognitive dissonance, bystander intervention, and aggression.
individual, whereas Europeans have paid more attention to By the 1970s, however, social psychology in America had
group-level phenomena reached a crisis. There was a heated debate over the ethics of
https://personal.us.es/einfante/uploads/DOCENCIA/PSYCH3 laboratory experimentation, whether or not attitudes really
01-1.1.1-Social-psychology-reading.pdf predicted behavior, and how much science could be done in a
cultural context (Gergen 1973). This was also the time when a
Links between Social Psychology and Sociology
radical situationist approach challenged the relevance of self
Social psychology is a branch of psychology that studies and personality in psychology.
cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes of individuals as
During the years immediately following World War II, there
influenced by their group membership and interactions, and
was frequent collaboration between psychologists and
other factors that affect social life, such as social status, role,
sociologists (Sewell 1989). However, the two disciplines have
and social class. Social psychology examines the effects of
become increasingly specialized and isolated from each other
social contacts on the development of attitudes, stereotypes,
in recent years, with sociologists focusing on macro variables
discrimination, group dynamics, conformity, social cognition
(such as social structure) to a much greater extent.
and influence, self-concept, persuasion, interpersonal
Nevertheless, sociological approaches to social psychology
perception and attraction, cognitive dissonance, and human
remain an important counterpart to psychological research in
relationships.
this area.
A significant number of social psychologists are sociologists.
Social psychology reached maturity in both theory and
Their work has a greater focus on the behavior of the group,
method during the 1980s and 1990s. Careful ethical standards
and thus examines such phenomena as interactions and social
now regulate research, and greater pluralism and
exchanges at the micro-level, and group dynamics and crowd
multicultural perspectives have emerged. Modern
psychology at the macro-level. Sociologists are interested in
researchers are interested in a variety of phenomena, but
the individual, but primarily within the context of social
attribution, social cognition, and self-concept are perhaps the
structures and processes, such as social roles, race and class,
greatest areas of growth. Social psychologists have also
and socialization. They tend to use both qualitative and
maintained their applied interests, with contributions in
health and environmental psychology, as well as the SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:
psychology of the legal system.
- If I ask you to make a list of all the activities which you
http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/Links perform from the time you get up till you sleep, you will
to an external site. observe that about 20% of these activities are just ‘behaviors’
but the remaining 80% of these are ‘social behaviors’.
What is Social Psychology?
- From breakfast, preparing for the office, getting a ride and
Social Psychology – a science that studies our situation, with
fulfilling the office task ----these are involve social behaviors.
special attention to how we view (perceive) and affect one
another - A careful look at these ‘social interaction’ would make it very
clear that in many of these interactions, our behavior is
The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and
influenced by others and we influence others behavior.
relate to one another
- Life is not only ‘social’ but our social interactions to a large
Social Psychology is the study of:
extent are shaped, influenced and changed as a result of
Social Thinking social influence. A major part of our behavior occurs in a social
context, as well as in an environment involving ‘others’.
1. How we perceive ourselves and others
- Many of human needs are satisfied in this social context.
2. What we believe
- In satisfying the needs one establishes contacts, co-operates
3. Judgments we make with other people and adjusts with other members of the
4. Our Attitudes society.

Social Influence - Actions that are performed by the individual in relation to

the members of the society are called ‘Social Actions and
1. Culture and biology Interaction’ as these actions affect two or more individuals.
2. Pressures to conform - This interaction with others is called ‘Social Interaction’ and
3. Group of people this social interaction is the basis for establishing lasting
relationship in life
Social Relations

1. Prejudices
Two mechanisms underlie every social interaction
2. Aggression
1. Social interaction requires a social contact or social
3. Attraction and Intimacy relationship:
4. Helping Every social situation involves social contact at least between
two people without which no interaction can take place. This
contact may be direct or indirect and can have negative and
Social Psychology
positive impact. Positive social contact gives rise to pro- social
- How people view and affect one another behaviors like co-operation, organization as simulation,
adjustment, adaptation and accommodation. Negative social
- Study attitudes, beliefs, conformity and independence, love
contact may retract a person away from entering into social
and hate
interaction and even if s/he ‘has to’, it results in unhelpful
- Still a young science, this is the reason for the incomplete social behaviors like unhealthy competition, aggression etc.
answers to some phenomena
2. Social interaction involves communication:
Concept of Social Psychology
Social interaction between any two individuals involves some
- Behavior which is result or caused by or occurs because of form of communication that is verbal or non-verbal without
others presence or influence is called social behavior. which the social interaction cannot take place. As is known,
social interaction takes place at three levels, a) Individual to
- This social behavior is of great significance to social
individual, b) Individual to groups, and c) Group to group level.
psychology. Whenever our psychological processes of
perceiving, learning, motivating, decision making etc. are Concept of Social Influence
influenced by or a result of or related to / or occur in a social
Nina is newly married and comes to her in-laws house in a new
context, these processes are called as social perception, social
city. Her behavior is more likely to be influenced by the
learning, social motivations, group conformity respectively.
directions etc. which slowly do influence her husband and
- These behaviors which have a social context and occur children.
in social environment and involve social stimuli are the
Our social life is thus a process of mutual influence and change
main subject matter of social psychology.
which enrich our relationship in a social context known as
Social Influence.

Concept of Social Behavior

 Provides a frame of reference for interpreting and comparing
Additionally Social Behavior is also influence by our a wide range of social situations and behaviors

1. Intuition- is the “automatic processing,” “implicit memory,” 1. ROLE THEORY

“heuristics,” “spontaneous trait inference,” instant emotions,
“People conform to norms defined by the expectations
and nonverbal communication. Social cognition matters. Our
behavior is influenced not just by the objective situation but Of others to someone’s role.”
also by how we construe it. Ex. We avoid people who are
suspicious because we have experience before dealing with a ♥ People spend most of their lives participating as members
hold upper. It becomes an automatic action for us to prevent of a group or organizations
people with the same looks. ROLE – set of functions performed by a person for the group;
2. Personal Attitudes and Dispositions defined by expectations

Ex. Allen's disposition in life is to gain more friends because it NORMS – rules specifying how a person should behave in
makes her fulfilled as a person. Eventually, she will have accordance to his/her role
friends and form a group of friends. Explaining the regular and recurring patterns apparent in day-
Info bits: to-day activities.

I KNEW IT ALL ALONG: IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY SIMPLY To change a person’s behavior, it is necessary to change or
COMMON SENSE? redefine his or her role.

- Is social psychology is just common sense in fancy words? Roles shape one’s attitude.
Social psychology faces two contradictory criticisms: first, that Influences values that people hold and affect the direction of
it is trivial because it documents the obvious; second, that it their personal growth and development.
is dangerous because its findings could be used to manipulate
people. Difficulty in explaining deviant behaviors

- Hindsight bias- The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an DEVIANT –one that differs from a norm, especially a person
outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen how something whose behavior and attitudes differ from accepted social
turned out. Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along standards.
phenomenon. 2. REINFORCEMENT THEORY

“Social behavior is governed by external events.”

Social psychology: theoretical CONDITIONING - process of changing behavior by rewarding

or punishing a subject each time an action is performed until
perspectives the subject associates the action with pleasure or distress
Introduction: Aral ka mabuti nene labyou
REINFORCEMENT - a consequence that will strengthen an
♥ Warren reported to his boss that he would not be able to organism's future behavior whenever that behavior is
complete an important project on schedule… preceded by a specific antecedent stimulus

♥His boss became enraged and told him to complete the task SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY – one person can acquire new
by the following Monday – or he will be fired. responses by observing the behavior of another person

♥ He talked to his girlfriend that he could not take her to the IMITATION – by observing the model’s behavior one will
party on Friday evening as originally planned. – Maddison got understand how to behave in a similar manner without any
mad reinforcement

Theory: Both conditioning and imitation are important processes in

socialization, and helps explain how person acquire complex
♥ a set of interrelated propositions that organizes and social behaviors.
explains a set of observed phenomena.
SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY – individuals have freedom of
♥ Theories pertains not just to some particular events but to choice and often face social situations in which they must
whole classes of events. choose among alternative actions
Middle-range Theory: Any action provides some rewards and entails some costs
Narrow, focused frameworks that identify the conditions that Attractiveness of a relationship: profits they provide vs.
produce a specific social behavior profits available in other
SPECIFIC – CAUSAL: cause & effect, persuasion & changes, etc. EQUITY – prevails when people receive rewards in proportion
Theoretical Perspectives: to the contribution they made

Broader in scope than middle-range theories, offer general 3. COGNITIVE THEORY

explanations for a wide array of social behaviors in a variety
of situations.
“Mental activities are important determinants of social Why study social behavior? Since so many "common sense"
behavior.” explanations exist for so many human actions, people
sometimes fail to see the value in scientifically studying such
COGNITIVE PROCESSES – includes perception, memory,
behaviors. However, it is important to remember that folk
judgment, problem solving and decision making
wisdom can often be surprisingly inaccurate and that the
Individuals not only actively interpret the meaning of stimuli scientific explanations behind a behavior can be quite
but also select the actions to be made in response shocking.

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY – people understand the meaning of Milgram's infamous obedience experiments Links to an
a stimulus only by viewing it in the context of an entire system external site. are examples of how the results of an
of elements experiment can defy conventional wisdom.

People do more than react to their environment, they actively If asked most people if they would obey an authority figure
structure their world cognitively even if it meant going against their moral code or harming
another individual, they would probably emphatically deny
COGNITIVE STRUCTURE or SCHEMAS – organized pattern of that they would ever do such a thing. Yet Milgram's results
thought or behavior that organizes categories of information revealed that 65 percent of participants would hurt another
and the relationships among them person simply because they were told to do so by an authority
First impressions figure.

Relies on our past experiences https://www.verywellmind.com/social-psychology-research-

methods-2795902Links to an external site.
Helps in remembering information efficiently
SOCIAL RESEARCH
COGNITIVE CONSISTENCY – maintains that individuals strive
to hold ideas that are consistent with one another, rather What is Social Research?
than ideas that are inconsistent or odd Social Research is a method used by social scientists and
(Sometimes oversimplifies) researchers to learn about people and societies so that they
can design products/services that cater to various needs of
(Cognitive phenomenon are not directly observable) the people.
4. SYMBOLIC INTERACTION THEORY Types of Social Research
“Human nature and other social order are products of Qualitative research is defined as a market research method
communication among people.” that focuses on obtaining data through open-ended and
Human behavior emerges continually through conversational communication.
communication and interaction with others This method is about “what” people think and “why” they
NEGOTIATING MEANINGS – people view things not so much think so. For example, consider a convenience store looking
on the properties but on what can be possibly do to/with it to improve its patronage. A systematic observation concludes
that more men are visiting this store. One good method to
SELF IN RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER – an individual imagines determine why women were not visiting the store is
how he or she looks from the significant other’s viewpoint conducting an in-depth interview method with potential
customers.
5. EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
Quantitative research involves collecting and analyzing
“Social behavior is a product of long-term evolutionary
numerical data. It is ideal for identifying trends and averages,
adaptation.”
making predictions, testing relationships, and generalizing
Focused on the genetic transmission of behavioral tendencies results for large populations.
and the frequency with which these behaviors appear in the
This method is widely used in natural and social sciences, such
population
as biology, chemistry, psychology, economics, sociology,
Social behaviors arise from biological underpinnings, mostly marketing, and others.
linked with

What is Social Psychology Research?

This article will provide you with an overview of the different
Social psychology research allows psychologists to get a types of quantitative research, tips on applying this method,
better look at what causes people to engage in certain and the benefits of conducting it.
behaviors in social situations. In order to empirically study
What is quantitative research?
social behavior, psychologists rely on a number of different
scientific methods to conduct research on social psychology Quantitative research is a systematic investigation of
topics. These methods allow researchers to test hypotheses phenomena by gathering quantifiable data and performing
and theories and look for relationships between different statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques.
variables. Quantitative research collects information from existing and
potential customers using sampling methods and sending out
Why Do Psychologists Study Social Behavior?
online surveys, online polls, and questionnaires, for example. Mundane realism Degree to which an experiment is
superficially similar to everyday situations.

Social Research Methods Experimental realism Degree to which an experiment absorbs

and involves participants.
Surveys: A survey is conducted by sending a set of pre-
decided questions to sample of individuals from a target Deception, in research, an effect by which participants are
market. This will lead to a collection of information and misinformed or misled about the study’s methods and
feedback from individuals that belong to various purposes.
backgrounds, ethnicities, age-groups etc. Surveys can be
Demand characteristics Cues, in an experiment that tell the
conducted via online and offline mediums. Due to the
participant what behavior is expected
improvement in technological mediums and their reach,
online mediums have flourished and there is an increase in Informed consent, an ethical principle requiring that research
the number of people depending on online survey software participants be told enough to enable them to choose
to conduct regular surveys and polls. whether they wish to participate. Debriefing in social
psychology, the post experimental explanation of a study to
There are various types of social research surveys:
its participants regarding their understandings and feeling
Longitudinal, Cross-sectional, Correlational Research.

Longitudinal and cross-sectional social research surveys are Example of Dangerous Social Experiment
observational methods while correlational is a non-
experimental research method. Longitudinal social research Stanford Prison Experiment the Stanford Prison Experiment,
surveys are conducted with the same sample over a course of perhaps one of the most famous experiments ever
time while cross-sectional surveys are conducted with conducted, took place in August of 1971. The purpose of the
different samples. experiment was to study the causes of conflict between
prisoners and those who guard them. Twenty-four male
Experiments: An experimental research is conducted by students were randomly assigned the role of either guard or
researchers to observe the change in one variable on another, prisoner, and then set up according to their role in a
i.e. to establish the cause and effects of a variable. In specifically designed model prison located in the basement of
experiments, there is a theory which needs to be proved or the psychology building on Stanford’s campus. It soon
disproved by careful observation and analysis. An efficient became apparent that those who had been given the role of
experiment will be successful in building a cause-effect guard were taking their job very seriously. They began to
relationship while proving, rejecting or disproving a theory. enforce harsh measures and subjected their “prisoners” to
Laboratory and field experiments are preferred by various degrees of psychological torture. If that’s surprising,
researchers. perhaps it is even more surprising that many of the prisoners
in the experiment simply accepted the abuses. The
Interviews: The technique of garnering opinions and authoritarian measures adopted by the guards became so
feedback by asking selected questions face-to-face, via extreme that the experiment was abruptly stopped after just
telephone or online mediums is called interview research. six days.
There are formal and informal interviews- formal interviews
are the ones which are organized by the researcher with https://www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/unethical
structured open-ended and closed-ended questions and -experiements-psychology/
format while informal interviews are the ones which are more
of conversations with the participants and are extremely
flexible to collect as much information as possible. MODULE 2
Examples of interviews in social research are sociological The module covers the topics of Social Learning and Social
studies that are conducted to understand how religious Cognition. Specifically, it will include Sources of Social
people are. To this effect, a Church survey can be used by a Knowledge, How We Use Our Expectations and Thinking like
pastor or priest to understand from the laity the reasons they a Social Psychologist about Social Cognition
attend Church and if it meets their spiritual needs.
The objective of this module is to familiarize the students by
Observation: In observational research, a researcher is analyzing and criticizing the different sources of social
expected to be involved in the daily life of all the participants knowledge. Illustrate the concept of social expectations.
to understand their routine, their decision-making skills, their Discuss the concept of social expectations by giving concrete
capability to handle pressure and their overall likes and examples. Illustrate the concept of social cognition and affect
dislikes. These factors and recorded and careful observations applied in real-life situations and assess the ideas of a Social
are made to decide factors such as whether a change in law Psychologist on social cognition.
will impact their lifestyle or whether a new feature will be
accepted by individuals. Moreover, a concept of social innovation fundamentals is
integrated into this module. The social innovation that is
incorporated into this module is Global Issues particularly
THE ETHICS OF EXPERIMENTATION Good health and Well-being. The module will provide a
clearer picture of the social issues that concern the health and
well-being of the people.
 when people pay attention to the behavior of models and are
Social Learning and Social Cognition highly motivated to imitate them.

Sources of Social Knowledge

Schemas as Social Knowledge
Human beings have proportionately very large brains and
highly developed cognitive capacities in comparison with • The outcome of learning is knowledge, and this knowledge
other species. Thus it should come as no surprise that we is stored in the form of schemas, which are knowledge
meet the challenges of everyday life largely by thinking about representations that include information about a person,
them and then planning what to do. Over time, we develop a group, or situation.
huge amount of knowledge about ourselves, other people,
• In the brain, our schemas reside primarily in the prefrontal
social relationships, and social groups. This knowledge guides
cortex the part of the brain that lies in front of the motor areas
our responses to the people we interact with every day. But
of the cortex and that helps us remember the characteristics
where does this social knowledge come from?
and actions of other people, plan complex social behaviors,
Social learning evolution from human interaction (physical) to and coordinate our behaviors with those of others (Mitchell,
technology (Virtual). Mason, Macrae, & Banaji, 2006).

Our Knowledge Accumulates as a Result of Learning

Info bits: How Schemas Develop: Accommodation and
• People have many memories about their experiences with Assimilation
other people, and they use this information to make
• Schemas represent our past experience, and because past
predictions about what people will do in the future. This
experience is useful for prediction, our schemas influence our
knowledge is gained through learning.
expectations about future events.
Operant Learning-BF. Skinner
• For instance, if you have watched Italian movies or if you
If a child touches a hot radiator, he or she quickly learns that have visited Italy, you might have come to the conclusion that
the radiator is dangerous and is not likely to touch it again. Italians frequently gesture a lot with their hands when they
Through stimulus generalization, the child will also learn that talk—that they are quite nonverbally expressive. If so, this
radiators in general are not to be touched. If we have knowledge will be contained in your group schema about
unpleasant experiences with people from a certain city, Italians. Therefore, when you meet someone who is Italian, or
region, or country, or a positive relationship with a person even when you meet someone who reminds you of an Italian
who has blond hair or green eyes, we may develop negative person, you may well expect that he or she will gesture when
or positive attitudes about people with these particular talking.
characteristics and attempt to reduce or increase our
• Having a database of social knowledge to draw on is
interactions with them.
obviously extremely useful. If we didn’t know or couldn’t
• It is the principle that experiences that are followed by remember anything about anyone or about anything that we
positive emotion (reinforcements or rewards) are likely to be had encountered in the past, our life would be very difficult
repeated, whereas experiences that are followed by negative because we would continually have to start our learning over
emotions (punishments) are less likely to be repeated. again. Our schemas allow us to better.

• In operant learning, the person thus learns from the Imagine, for instance, that you have a schema—and thus an
consequences of his or her own actions. expectation— that Italians are very expressive, and you now
meet Bianca, who has arrived at your school directly from
Rome. You immediately expect her to be outgoing and
Associational Learning-I. Pavlov
expressive. However, as you get to know Bianca, you discover
If you have ever become hungry when you drive by one of that she is not at all expressive and does not “talk with her
your favorite pizza stores, it is probably because the sight of hands.” In fact, she is quite shy and reserved. How does
the pizzeria has become associated with your experiences of existing information influence how you react to the new
enjoying the pizzas. We may enjoy smoking cigarettes, information you receive? One possibility is that the new
drinking coffee, and eating not only because they give us information simply updates existing expectations. You might
pleasure themselves but also because they have been decide, for instance, that there is more variation among
associated with pleasant social experiences in the past. Italians in terms of expressiveness than you had previously
realized, and you might resolve that Italians can sometimes
• It occurs when an object or event comes to be associated be very shy and thoughtful. Or perhaps you note that
with a natural response, such as an automatic behavior or a although Bianca is Italian, she is also a woman. This might lead
positive or negative emotion. you to change your schema to believe that although Italian
men are expressive, Italian women are not.
Observational Learning- A. Bandura When existing schemas change on the basis of new
People learn by observing the behavior of others. information, we call the process accommodation.

• Bandura considered observational learning to be a • In other cases, however, we engage in assimilation, a

fundamental determinant of all social behavior, particularly process in which our existing knowledge influences new
conflicting information to better fit with our existing judgments, which are strongly influenced by our schemas, are
knowledge, thus reducing the likelihood of schema change. made quickly and automatically (Willis & Todorov, 2006)

• In the scenario, if you used assimilation, instead of changing When we deliberately size up and think about something, for
your expectations about Italians, you might try to reinterpret instance, another person, we call it controlled cognition.
Bianca’s unexpected behavior to make it more consistent with
• Automatic cognition in a study that uses a common social
your expectations.
cognitive procedure known as priming, a technique in which
In most cases, once a schema is developed, it will be difficult information is temporarily brought into memory through
to change it because the expectation leads us to process new exposure to situational events, which can then influence
information in ways that serve to strengthen it rather than to judgments entirely out of awareness.
weaken it. The tendency toward assimilation is so strong that
We each have a large number of schemas that we might bring
it has substantial effects on our everyday social cognition.
to bear on any type of judgment we might make. When
• One outcome of assimilation is the confirmation bias, the thinking about Bianca, for instance, we might focus on her
tendency for people to seek out and favor information that nationality, her gender, her physical attractiveness, her
confirms their expectations and beliefs, which in turn can intelligence, or any of many other possible features. And we
further help to explain the often self-fulfilling nature of our will react to Bianca differently depending on which schemas
schemas. we use. Schema activation is determined both by the salience
of the characteristics of the person we are judging and by the
• The confirmation bias has been shown stronger among
current activation or cognitive accessibility of the schema
people with individualist versus collectivist cultural
backgrounds (Kastenmuller and colleagues 2010) Info bits:

Basis of Expectations • One determinant of which schemas are likely to be used in

social judgment is the extent to which we attend to particular
*Reconstructive memory bias- remembering things that
features of the person or situation that we are responding to.
match our current beliefs better than those that don’t and
reshape those memories to better align with our • We are more likely to judge people on the basis of
characteristics of salience, which attract our attention when
Current beliefs (Hilsabeck, Gouvier, & Bolter, 1998).
we see someone with them.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy -A self- fulfilling prophecy is a process
• For example, things that are unusual, negative, colorful,
that occurs when our expectations about others lead us to
bright, and moving are more salient and thus more likely to
behave toward those others in ways that make our
be attended to than are things that do not have these
expectations come true
characteristics (McArthur & Post, 1977; Taylor & Fiske, 1978).
Social Learning and Social Cognition
• We are more likely to initially judge people on the basis of
How We Use Our Expectations? their sex, race, age, and physical attractiveness, rather than
on, say, their religious orientation or their political beliefs, in
Once we have developed a set of schemas and attitudes, we part because these features are so salient when we see them
naturally use that information to help us evaluate and (Brewer, 1988).
respond to others. Our expectations help us to think about,
size up, and make sense of individuals, groups of people, and • Another thing that makes something particularly salient is
the relationships among people. If we have learned, for its infrequency or unusualness.
example, that someone is friendly and interested in us, we are
likely to approach them; if we have learned that they are
Cognitive Accessibility
threatening or unlikable, we will be more likely to withdraw.
And if we believe that a person has committed a crime, we • Although the characteristics that we use to think about
may process new information in a manner that helps convince objects or people are determined in part by their salience,
us that our judgment was correct. In this section, we will individual differences in the person who is doing the judging
consider how we use our stored knowledge to come to are also important. People vary in the type of schemas that
accurate (and sometimes inaccurate) conclusions about our they tend to use when judging others and when thinking
social worlds. about themselves. One way to consider this is in terms of the
cognitive accessibility of the schema. ---that is available.
Automatic versus Controlled Cognition
• Cognitive accessibility refers to the extent to which a
Automatic cognition refers to thinking that occurs out of our
schema is activated in memory and thus likely to be used in
awareness, quickly, and without taking much effort (Ferguson
information processing.
& Bargh, 2003; Ferguson, Hassin, & Bargh, 2008)
• Processing fluency refers to the ease with which we can
Most of us can ride a bike andoperate a television remote
process information in our environments. When stimuli are
control in an automatic way. Even though it took some work
highly accessible, they can be quickly attended to and
to do these things when we were first learning them, it just
processed, and they therefore have a large influence on our
doesn’t take much effort anymore. And because we spend a
perceptions. This influence is due, in part, to the fact that we
lot of time making judgments about others, many of these
often react positively to information that we can process
quickly, and we use this positive response as a basis of
judgment (Reber, Winkielman, & Schwarz, 1998; Winkielman weight initial information too heavily and thereby
& Cacioppo, 2001). People tend to buy iPhone because he insufficiently move our judgment away from it. This is called
read and remembered about the user friendly characteristics the problem of anchoring and adjustment.
of the phone. People likely to buy iPhone if the information is
available in the environment like brochures, sales lady, TV
Overconfidence
commercials etc.
• Still another potential judgmental bias, and one that has
The False Consensus Bias Makes Us Think That Others Are
powerful and often negative effects on our judgments, is the
More like Us than They Really Are
overconfidence bias, a tendency to be overconfident in our
• The tendency to base our judgments on the accessibility of own skills, abilities, and judgments.
social constructs can lead to still other errors in judgment.
• We often have little awareness of our own limitations,
• One such error is known as the false consensus bias, the leading us to act as if we are more certain about things than
tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people we should be, particularly on tasks that are difficult. Example:
hold similar views to our own. As our own beliefs are highly
• The tendency to be overconfident in our judgments can
accessible to us, we tend to rely on them too heavily when
have some very negative effects. When eyewitnesses testify
asked to predict those of others.
in courtrooms regarding their memories of a crime, they often
• For instance, if you are in favor of abortion rights and are completely sure that they are identifying the right person.
opposed to capital punishment, then you are likely to think But their confidence doesn’t correlate much with their actual
that most other people share these beliefs (Ross, Greene, & accuracy. This is, in part, why so many people have been
House, 1977). wrongfully convicted on the basis of inaccurate eyewitness

• In one demonstration of the false consensus bias, college

students were given a personality test. Then they asked the The Importance of Cognitive Biases in Everyday Life
same participants to estimate the percentage of other
• In our review of some of the many cognitive biases that
students in their school who would have answered the
affect our social judgment, we have seen that the effects on
questions the same way that they did. The students who
us as individuals range from fairly trivial decisions; for
agreed with the items often thought that others would agree
example, which phone to buy (which perhaps doesn’t seem
with them too, whereas the students who disagreed typically
so trivial at the time) to potentially life and death decisions
believed that others would also disagree (Krueger & Clement,
(about methods of travel, for instance).
1994)
• However, when we consider that many of these errors will
• A closely related bias to the false consensus effect is the
not only affect us but also everyone around us, then their
projection bias, which is the tendency to assume that others
consequences can really add up. Why would so many people
share our cognitive and affective states (Hsee, Hastie, & Chen,
continue to buy lottery tickets or to gamble their money in
2008)
casinos when the likelihood of them ever winning is so low?
One possibility, of course, is the representative heuristic—
people ignore the low base rates of winning and focus their
Perceptions of What “Might Have Been” Lead to
attention on the salient likelihood of winning a huge prize.
Counterfactual Thinking

• Imagining the outcome that is better than what actually

Biased About Our Biases: The Bias Blind Spot
happened, then we may experience sadness and
disappointment; on the other hand, if we can easily imagine • Social psychologists have become interested in how aware
that a result might have been worse that what actually we are of how these biases and the ways in which they can
happened, we may be more likely to experience happiness affect our own and others’ thinking. The short answer to this
and satisfaction. is that we often underestimate the extent to which our social
cognition is biased, and that we typically (incorrectly) believe
• The tendency to think about events according to what might
that we are less biased than the average person. Researchers
have been is known as counterfactual thinking (Roese, 1997)
have named this tendency to believe that our own judgments
are less susceptible to the influence of bias than those of
Anchoring and Adjustment Lead Us to Accept Ideas That We others as the bias blind spot (Ehrlinger, Gilovich, & Ross,
Should Revise 2005).

• In some cases, we may be aware of the danger of acting on Bias blind spot
our expectations and attempt to adjust for them.
• The tendency of people to see themselves as less
• Perhaps you have been in a situation where you are susceptible to nonconscious predispositions and cognitive
beginning a course with a new professor and you know that a influences than others.
good friend of yours does not like him. You may be thinking
that you want to go beyond your negative expectation and
prevent this knowledge from biasing your judgment.
However, the accessibility of the initial information frequently
prevents this adjustment from occurring— leading us to
What is Social Cognition? Cognition Influences Affect

Social cognition is concerned with the study of human • Misattribution of arousal occurs when people incorrectly
thought processes, both implicit and explicit, through which label the source of the arousal that they are experiencing.
humans attain an understanding of self, others, and their
• Some romantic relationships, for instance, are characterized
environment. Its basic assumption is that the experience of
by high levels of arousal, and the partners alternately
the world is constructed by the perceiver and that the mental
experience extreme highs and lows in the relationship. One
representations one uses for assimilating and making sense of
day they are madly in love with each other, and the next they
information develop over a lifetime of experience to provide
are having a huge fight. In situations that are accompanied by
a framework for organizing incoming information, creating
high arousal, people may be unsure what emotion they are
expectations and predictions regarding future events, and (re)
experiencing. In the high arousal relationship, for instance,
processing information stored in memory. Such cognition
the partners may be uncertain whether the emotion they are
serves (1) as the foundation for social interaction, or in the
feeling is love, hate, or both at the same time.
service of producing appropriate action, and (2) to allow the
individual to maintain a coherent understanding/narrative of Social psychologists have also studied how we use our
the world despite an unending stream of stimuli, new cognitive faculties to try to control our emotions in social
experiences, and evidence that might contradict already situations, to prevent them from letting our behavior get out
existing beliefs. Social cognition’s research focus spans from of control. Self-Regulation is the process of setting goals and
higher-order cognition such as reasoning, ruminating, and using our cognitive and affective capacities to reach those
deliberation among options to low-order processes such as goals and a good part of self-regulation involves regulating
perception, attention, categorization, memory (encoding, our emotions.
retrieval, reconsolidation), and spreading activation among
concepts in networks of associated mental representation ( • Succeeding at school, at work, and at our relationships with
Moskowitz, G. 2017). others takes a lot of effort. When we are successful at self-
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo regulation, we are able to move toward or meet the goals that
-9780199828340/obo-9780199828340-0099.xmlLinks to an we set for ourselves. When we fail at self-regulation, we are
external site.) not able to meet those goals. People who are better able to
regulate their behaviors and emotions are more successful in
Affect Influences Cognition their personal and social encounters (Eisenberg & Fabes,
1992), and thus self-regulation is a skill we should seek to
• There is abundant evidence that our social cognition is
master.
strongly influenced by our affective states. For example,
whatever current mood we are experiencing can influence A significant part of our skill in self-regulation comes from the
our judgments of people we meet. deployment of cognitive strategies to try to harness positive
emotions and to overcome more challenging ones.
Affect heuristic describes a tendency to rely on automatically
occurring affective responses to stimuli to guide our • For example, to achieve our goals we often have to stay
judgments of them. motivated and to be persistent in the face of setbacks.
• For example, we judge a particular product to be the best • Cognitive reappraisal involves altering an emotional state by
option because we experience a very favorable affective reinterpreting the meaning of the triggering situation or
response to its packaging, or we choose to hire a new staff stimulus. For example, if another promotion position does
member because we like her or him better than the other comes up, the employee could reappraise it as an opportunity
candidates. Empirically, the affect heuristic has been shown to be successful and focus on how the lessons learned in
to influence a wide range of social judgments and behaviors previous attempts could strengthen his or her candidacy this
(Kahneman, 2011; Slovic, Finucane, Peters, & MacGregor, time around. In this case, the employee would likely feel more
2002). positive towards the opportunity and choose to go after it.
In addition to influencing our schemas, our mood can also The Power of Positive Cognition
cause us to retrieve particular types of memories that we then
use to guide our social judgments. • The power of positive thinking”—the idea that thinking
positively helps people meet their goals and keeps them
• . Mood-dependent memory describes a tendency to better healthy, happy, and able to effectively cope with the negative
remember information when our current mood matches the events that they experience. It turns out that positive thinking
mood we were in when we encoded that information. really works. People who think positively about their future,
who believe that they can control their outcomes, and who
• For example, if we originally learned the information while
are willing to open up and share with others are happier,
experiencing positive affect, we will tend to find it easier to
healthier people (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
retrieve and then use if we are currently also in a good mood.
Similarly, mood congruence effects occur when we are more • Others people have focused on self-efficacy, the belief in our
able to retrieve memories that match our current mood. ability to carry out actions that produce desired outcomes.
People with high self- efficacy feel more confident to respond
• Have you ever noticed, for example, that when you are
to environmental and other threats in an active, constructive
feeling sad, that sad
way—by getting information, talking to friends, and
attempting to face and reduce the difficulties they are
experiencing. These people, too, are better able to ward off
their stresses in comparison with people with less self-efficacy
(Thompson, 2009).

Cognition about Affect: The Case of Affective Forecasting

• Another way in which our cognition intersects with our

emotions occurs when we engage in affective forecasting,
which describes our attempts to predict how future events
will make us feel.

• For example, we may decide to apply for a promotion at

work with a larger salary partly based on forecasting that the
increased income will make us happier. While it is true that
we do need money to afford food and adequate shelter for
ourselves and our families, after this minimum level of wealth
is reached, more money does not generally buy more
happiness (Easterlin, 2005).