Social Cognition

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social psychology

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sceintific stud of how people's thoughts & feelings influence their behavior toward others & how the behavior of others influences ' people's own thoughts, feelings, and behavior

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social cognition

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mental processes associated with the ways in which people perceive and react to other individuals and groups

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slef concept

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the beliefs we hold about who we are and what characteristics we have

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self esteem

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evaluations we make about how worthy we are as human beings

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temporal comparison

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using one's previous performance or characteristics as a basis for judging oneself in the present

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social comparison

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evaluate ourselves in relation to others

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relative deprivation

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the belief that no matter how much you are getting in terms of recognition, status, money, and so forth, it is less than you deserve

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social identity

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our beliefs about the groups to which we belong

*part of our self-concept

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self-schemas

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people's beliefs about themselves & the attributes they possess

*info that is consistent with our self-schema is usually perceived faster & remembered longer than info that is inconsistent w/ our self schema

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social perception

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the process through which people interpret information about others, form impressions of them, and draw conclusions about the reasons for their behavior

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self fulfilling prophecy

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a process through which an initial impression of someone leads that person to behave in accordance with that impression

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attribution

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the process people go through to explain the causes of behavior (including their own)

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Describe the 3 sources of attribution

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1. Consensus: the degree to which other people's behavior is similar to the actor's

2. Consistency: the degree to which the behavior is the same across time and/or situations

3. Distinctiveness: concerns the extent to which the actor's response to one situation stands out from responses to similar situations

Kelley’s theory suggests that people are most likely to make internal attributions about an actor’s behavior when there is low consensus, high consistency, & low distinctiveness

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fundamental attribution error

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bias toward overattributing the behavior of others to internal causes

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ultimate attribution error

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Through this error, when members of a social or ethnic out-group (people we see as "different") do something positive, we attribute their behavior to an itnernal cause, such as dishonesty

*at the same time, when members of an in-group (people we see as being like ourselves) do good deeds, we attribute the behavior to integrity or other internal factors

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actor-observer bias

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the tendency to attribute other people's behavior to internal causes while attributing our own behavior (especially errors & failures) to external causes

*happens mainly b/c people have different kinds of information about their own behavior & about other's behavior

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self-serving bias

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the tendency to take personal credit for success but to blame external causes for failure

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unrealistic optimism

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the tendency to believe that positive events are more likely to happen to yourself than to others & that negative events are more likely to happen to others than to yourself

*fueled in part by unique invulnerability

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attitude

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tendency to think, feel, or act positively or negatively toward objects in our EV

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What are the three components of attitude? Describe

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Cognitive: set of beliefs about the attitude object

Emotional/Affective: includes feelings about the object

Behavioral: the way people act toward the object

*If these components were always in harmony, we would be able to predict people's behavior

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Describe the mere-exposure effect

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All else being equal, attitudes toward an object will become more positive the more frequently people are exposed to it

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elaboration likelihood model

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a model suggesting that attitude change can be driven by evaluation of the content of a persuasive message (central route) or by irrelevant persuasion cues (peripheral route)

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Whether a persuasive message succeeds in changing attitudes depends primarily on what 3 factors?

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1. The person communicating the message
2. The content of the message
3. The audience who receives it

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Describe the peripheral route

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when it is activated, we devote little attention to the central contetn of the persuasive message

*instead, we tend to be affected by the persuasion cues that surround it, such as the confidence, attractiveness, or other characteristics of the person delivering the message
*Persuasion cues influence attitude change even though they say nothing about the logic or validity of the message content

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Describe the central route to attitude change

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when it is activated, the content of the message becomes more important than the characteristics of the communicator in determining attitude change

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Describe the cognitive dissonance theory

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Holds that people want their thoughts, beliefs, & attitudes to be consistent w/ one another & w/ their behavior
*When people experience inconsistency, or dissonance, among these elements, they become anxious & are motivated to make them more consistent

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Describe self-perception theory

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*a theory suggesting that attitudes can change as people consier their behavior in certain situations & then infer what their attitude must be

*Does not assume that people experience discomfort when their attitudes are inconsistent w/ their behaviors--a process that is crucial to self-perception theory

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Contact hypothesis

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stereotypes & prejudice toward a group will diminish as contact w/ that group increases