7125 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Cognitive Miser, Gestalt Psychology, Categorical Logic
21 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Social cognition and social thinking
- Social psychology and cognition
Thought: internal language and symbols we use
Cognition: mental processing that can be largely automatic
Social cognition: cognitive processes and structures that influence and are
influenced by social behaviour
1980s: explosion of social cognition research
Has showed us how we process and store information about people and
how this affects interaction. Also new methods and techniques for
conducting social psychological research: borrowed from cognitive
psychology and neuroscience
oShort history of cognition in social psychology
Wundt 1897
Self observation and introspection for cognition understanding
oMethods became unpopular because unscientific
oHard to repute or generalize
Shift from internal to external observable events
oBehaviourism
Then behaviourism became inadequate as explanation of human
language and communication
With computers: cognitive psychology re emerged
Lewin drew on gestalt psychology (perspective in which the whole
influences parts rather than vice versa)
Whereby social behaviour from perecptions of world and
manipulation of perceptions
Cognitive emphasis in social psychology guises
Cognitive consistency
oPeople try to reduce inconsistency among cognitions,
because its unpleasant
Naïve scientist
oPeople use rational, scientific like, cause-effect analyses to
understand the world
Cognitive miser
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oPeople using least complex and demanding cognition that
are able to produce generally adaptive behaviours
Motivated tactician
oMultiple cognitive strategies to choose on the basis of
personal goals, motives and needs
Social neuroscience
Exploration of brain activity associated with social cognition and
social psychological processes and phenomena
ofMRI
detects and localizes electrical activity in the brain
associated with cognitive activities
- forming impression of other people
owhich impressions are important?
Configural model
Asches gestalt based model of impression formation which central
traits play a disproportionate role in configuring the final impression
Peripheral traits have much less influence
Asche pg 40
Replaced “warm” with “cold” in sentences to describe person with 7
words
Then evaluated if bipolar dimensions: warm: more favorable
Not as big a difference if polite and blunt (peripheral) than warm
and cold (central)
Kelly replicated asches experiment to students with a guest lecturer
People generally use to dimensions for evaluation
Good/bad social
Good/bad intellectual
Centrality of trait rests on intrinsic degree of correlation with other traits
oBiases in forming impressions
Primacy and recency: Asch
Primacy: earlier presented information has disproportionate
influence on social cognition: first impression counts~
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Recency: later presented information has the disproportionate
influence
Positivity and negativity
People tend to assume best of others in absence of information
However, if any negative info: draws disproportionate significance
(biased towards negativity)
omuch more difficult to change perception maybe because
information is unusual and distinctive
signifies potential danger
personal constructs and implicit personality theories
George Kelly: people can develop own idiosyncratic ways of
characterizing people (personal constructs)
Develop our own implicit personality theories
oCharacterizing people and explaining their behaviour
oLike stereotypes
Physical appearance counts
Can be accurate
Has impact on affiliation, attraction and love AND career
Men over 1.88m earned 10% more money in the USA (Knapp)
Stereotypes
Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and
its members
Social judgeability
Perception of whether it is socially acceptable to judge a specific
target
oCognitive algebra
Approach to the study of impression formation that focuses on how
people combine attributes that have valence into an overall positive
or negative impression
Summation
Method of forming positive or negative impressions by summing the
valence of all the constituent person attributes (sum of every piece
of information = impression)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Cognition: mental processing that can be largely automatic. Social cognition: cognitive processes and structures that influence and are influenced by social behaviour. Has showed us how we process and store information about people and how this affects interaction. Also new methods and techniques for conducting social psychological research: borrowed from cognitive psychology and neuroscience: short history of cognition in social psychology. Self observation and introspection for cognition understanding: methods became unpopular because unscientific, hard to repute or generalize. Shift from internal to external observable events: behaviourism. Then behaviourism became inadequate as explanation of human language and communication. Lewin drew on gestalt psychology (perspective in which the whole influences parts rather than vice versa) Whereby social behaviour from perecptions of world and manipulation of perceptions. Cognitive consistency: people try to reduce inconsistency among cognitions, because its unpleasant. Na ve scientist: people use rational, scientific like, cause-effect analyses to understand the world.
