Attribution Theory: Understanding People's Thoughts and Social Relationships, Study notes of History of Psychology

Download Attribution Theory: Understanding People's Thoughts and Social Relationships and more Study notes History of Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 5: Social Cognition PSY 450 Social Psychology Outline • What is Social Cognition? • Attribution Theory • Dual-Process Model • Schemas • Priming • Framing • Thought Suppression • Heuristics: Mental Shortcuts • Errors and Biases What is Social Cognition? • Social cognition • A movement in social psychology that focuses on thoughts about people and social relationships • Began in the 1970s • Cognitive revolution and scientific study of thinking • Previous focus on behaviorism and observable processes only • Based on the idea that it is impossible to understand people without examining their thoughts and feelings Attributions • Attributions • Causal explanations people give for their own and others’ behavior • Heider (1958) thought most explanations fall into one of two categories: • Internal factors • Ability, attitudes, personality, mood, effort • External factors • The task, other people, luck Internal vs. External Attribution • Covariation Principle • For something to be the cause of a behavior, it must be present when the behavior occurs and absent when the behavior does not occur • Information is derived from three sources: • Consensus • How do other people react to the same stimulus/event? • Consistency • How does the person react to the same stimulus/event on different occasions • Distinctiveness • How does the person respond to other stimuli/events that are similar? Internal vs. External Attribution • Bob talks during my class. What kind of attributions do you make about this behavior? • Consensus • Do other people talk during my class? • Consistency • Does Bob always talk during my class? • Distinctiveness • Does Bob talk during his other classes? • If all three are high
External attribution • It must be something about my class • If consistency is high but consensus and distinctiveness are low
Internal attribution • Bob is just talkative Automatic and Controlled Thinking • Dual-Process Model • Automatic and Conscious Thinking • Example: Stroop Test • A standard measure of effortful control over responses • Requires participants to identify the color of a word • The catch is that the word may spell out the name of a different color Name the color as quickly as possible Name the color of each word as quickly as you can, ignoring what the word says Name the color of each word as quickly as you can, ignoring what the word says The Stroop Effect • It usually takes longer to complete the Stroop test when the word and ink color do not match • Why? • You must consciously override the automatic tendency to read the word • The Stroop effect • People often have difficulty overriding this automatic tendency Dual-Process Model • These systems work together • These systems may come into conflict and the conscious system can override the automatic system Knowledge Structures • Schemas • Substantial information about a concept, its attributes, and its relationships to other concepts • e.g., Female singer • Schemas aid in navigating a complex world • Reduce amount of information to process • Unless a schema is violated • This leads to conscious thought • Analysis of why schema was violated Knowledge Structures • Scripts are schemas about certain events • Knowledge structures that contain important information about how people behave under a variety of circumstances • e.g., restaurant script: choose a table, order, wait, eat, pay the bill and leave • Include information about motives, intentions, goals and situations • Include information about the causal sequence of events • Learned from culture Priming • Memory is filled with concepts that are linked in memory (e.g., orange & juice; red & light; open & closed) • Sometimes the activation of one concept leads to the activation of related concepts • e.g., Think about the word ‘school’…may lead to thoughts of books, teachers, tests, grades, studying, friends, varying emotions, etc. • When concepts are activated intentionally, this is called priming • Influences subsequent thinking • May trigger automatic processes Heuristics • Representativeness Heuristic • Tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the extent to which it resembles the typical case • We use category membership and tend to ignore base rates • Jack is more likely to be a Lawyer • There are more lawyers than engineers (base rate information) • Example of representativeness heuristic taking precedence over base rate information • Use of stereotypes (e.g., How could Jack be a lawyer with no political interests?) Heuristics • Availability Heuristic • A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory. If instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace • Events that are common are usually easier to think of than events that are less common • Why does this occur? • Some events are easier to retrieve from memory • Are there more words that begin with the letter “k” or words that contain the letter “k” as their third letter? • Some events are easier to imagine • Which of the following causes more deaths each year: “being attacked by a shark” or “being struck by a falling airplane part”? • Exposure to a biased sample of events Heuristics • Simulation Heuristic • The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease with which you can imagine (or mentally simulate) it • e.g., Two men arrive together at the airport • One missed his delayed flight by 5 minutes • The other missed his flight by ½ hour • Who is likely to be more upset? Why? • Silver Medalists at the Olympics tend to be less happy with their medal than bronze medalists for the same reason • I was so close to winning the gold medal! Heuristics • Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) • The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an even by using a starting point (called an anchor) and then making adjustments up or down • Example: Estimate what percentage of the United Nations is comprised of African countries • Participants given either 10% or 65% as anchors and asked if higher or lower (e.g., “more of less than 10%”) • Avgerage estimate for the 10% anchor was 25% and the estimate for the 65% anchor was 45% • Example: How much would you be willing to pay for a $10,000 used car? Cognitive Errors and Biases • Confirmation Bias • The tendency to notice and search for information that confirms one’s beliefs and to ignore information that disconfirms one’s beliefs • Astrology and paranormal beliefs like telepathy can be explained by confirmation bias • People of different ideological persuasions (e.g., liberal, conservative) often seek media outlets that cater to their views Cognitive Errors and Biases • Illusory Correlation • Perception of stronger relationship than actually exists • e.g., Believing that professional athletes who are Black are dangerous • Particularly likely when two rare events occur together • Basis of superstitious behavior (e.g., basketball player believing their new socks are lucky because they played their best game) • Gambler’s Fallacy is a tendency to believe that a chance event is affected by previous events and will “even out” • Suppose you flip a coin 10 times. You flip nine heads in a row. Is your next flip more likely to be: • A. heads • B. tails • C. heads and tails are equally likely • People often say either A or B…but C is the correct answer Cognitive Errors and Biases • A town has two hospitals. In the larger hospital about 45 babies are born every day; in the smaller hospital about 15 babies are born every day. In one year, each hospital recorded the number of days on which more than 60% of the babies born were boys. Which hospital recorded more such days? • A. The large hospital • B. The small hospital • C. About the same number of days (within 5% of each other) • Most people answer C but the right answer is B because people fail to consider that variability decreases as sample size increases • Base Rate Fallacy is the tendency to ignore base rate information and be influenced by distinctive features of the case Cognitive Errors and Biases • False Consensus Effect • Tendency to overestimate the number of other people who share one’s opinions • e.g., believing that most people have the same religious beliefs as you do • False Uniqueness Effect • Tendency to underestimate the number of other people who share one’s prized characteristics or abilities • e.g., people who exercise regularly underestimate the number of other people who also exercise regularly Cognitive Errors and Biases • Statistical Regression • Statistical tendency for extremes to be followed by less extreme performances that are closer to average • e.g., Sports Illustrated jinx or the sophomore slump • Illusion of Control • A false belief that one can control chance situations • e.g., Throwing dice softly for low numbers • Magical Thinking • Assumptions that don’t hold up to logical scrutiny • e.g., Being afraid to eat chocolate shaped like a bug or to wear a sweater worn by someone with AIDS