Chapter 13
Social Cognition
Social Cognition deals with the behavior of the other people like how they encode, perceive ,process, remember and use information in social context.
SOCIAL INFERENCE
The Naïve Scientist-
The rationality principle in human can be applied to everyday social cognition and action. According to Heider (1958), our need for making a coherence in the world and the need to gain a control over the environment, we behavior like a naive scientist and test our hypothesis about other behavior logically and rationally. Attribution theory-
According to Heider (1958), the attribute is a basic need for causing behaviors and have a major driving force in social cognition. Types of Attribution-
When the cause is being internal to the person (i.e person mood, personality etc.),then the attribute is internal attribute contrary if it external (i.e. nature of the situation, other's behavior) then it is the external attribute.
There are two more dimensions for divide attribute. In stability dimension, it can be permanent of temporary and In controllability dimension, it can be influenced by other or random (i.e. luck). Making Attributions-
Correspondent Inference Theory and the Co-variation Models is two model of attribution processing.
Correspondent Inference Theory-
Jones and Davis (1965) believed that when people make social inference they also try to make correspondence inference according to their former knowledge. Therefore, people give preference to their dispositional or internal attributes rather than situational or external attributes.
In dispositional attribution, such as correspondence between personality and behavior, there are three kinds of information processing - social desirability, choice, and non-common effects.
Social desirability - In which, the information is according to the social norms and people are trying to become different with go along to the social norms. Social desirable behavior does not tell much about person's personality because it may or may not due to the just following of social norm. However, social undesirable behavior does because it does not due to the following of the majority.
Choice - Jones and Davis (1965) Choice believed that the choice may or may not be freely. If the choice is freely then, it is more likely that behavior is dispositional otherwise it may be due to the threat and inducements.
Non-common effects - It is more likely to have dispositional attribution, when behavior have a unique result and this type of effects are called non-common effects. The Co-variation Model -
Kelley (1967) used both external and internal attributions in this model. He suggests that the presence and the absence of the result of the particular behavior, due to the presence and absence of that particular behavior. Three type of information is required for external or internal attribution- consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness. The presence or absence of these information has implication for differents kind of attribution. Consensus information is the reaction of the other people as the target person react. The consistency and the distinctiveness are the reaction of the target person in different the occasions and the social context respectively.
The presence of the consensus information implies situational attribution, whereas the presence of consistency and distinctiveness imply a dispositional attribution. In contrast, the absence of the absence of these information implies an opposite attributions. Attributional Biases-
We usually make assessment of other people with intuition or gut feeling rather than doing complex calculation as suggested by Kelley and a number of errors or bias observed in assessment. There are three main bias which were mostly documented - the fundamental attribution error, the actor observer bias; and self-serving attributions. The fundamental attribution error-
These types of errors are perceptual salience. People use the simple rule to for social judgmentand a person is observed by the perceptually silent situation rather than the internal attributions. The actor- observer bias -
People use internal attribution for judging other people however; they consider some situation for the same behavior of themselves, so they use internal attribution to judge themselves. So this type of bias is called actor-observer bias. Self-Serving Attributions-
Additionally to cognitive-perceptual processes, motivation also biased the attributions. According to Olson and Ross (1988), people use internal attribute for success and external attributes for failure and with that they maintain their self-esteem. The Cognitive Miser
According to Fiske and Taylor (1991), just opposite to naive scientist who requires cognitive effort people are usually a cognitive miser. People engage in various ways to save their time and cognitive efforts. They use heuristics in their judgment for that. Heuristics-
Heuristics reduces the complex judgment into simple rules and save the time and efforts; however, it can result in biased information processing. Representativeness and availability are the two most common heuristics. Representativeness heuristics :-
This is a category based heuristic, in which a people are categorized according to their match with the prototype of a given category. Because of the representativeness information there may be some ignorance of statistical information which is called a base-rate fallacy. The Anchoring Heuristic :-
The tendency of being biased toward starting value in quantitative judgment is called anchoring. The anchoring heuristic is distinct from the available heuristic and has an influence on available heuristic because it has most available source of information, which is related to the issue.
The Motivated Tactician:-
People use some mental shortcut or heuristic to make judgment simple and quick. Although these type of judgment are not less accurate than the rational, they are approximate. Kruglanski (1996) believed, people as a flexible social thinker and choose different strategies according to their current goals, needs and motives. According to him people are the motivated tactician rather than cognitive miser and naïve scientist.
In another way the strategies of being a naïve scientist or a cognitive miser, depend on number of factors such as time, information, cognitive load, and importance. SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION -
Basic Principles-
Categorization makes one thing different or equal to other things. Categorization is “the process of understanding what something is by knowing what other things it is equivalent to, and what other things it is different from” (McGarty, 1999: 1). The categorization has evolved over the time. The use of uncertain or fuzzy boundary in categorization makes them distinct to rigid categorization. The group members can or cannot be a typical type. They can vary in high to low range of typically and the typically is defined by the prototype, which is the representative member of category. Category content-
In social categories prototypes are called stereotypes. Social learning and exposure play a role for categorize the stereotypes. Illusory correlation is a ways in which negative stereotypes are associated with minority groups and it describes that two group are associated with each other, even there is no actual association in them. This can be described by shared distinctiveness, in which half as many total behaviors were used to describe the minority group compared to the majority group. The low number of negative stereotypes is represent to the minority group.
Category structure:-
Additionally to category content, category variation also depends on the structure of the category. The heterogeneous categories are made by many different types of people whereas the homogeneous categories are made by same type (a few) of people. Intra category variability is attenuated by categorized in ingroups and outgroups. If think in outgroup then all the group members appear similarin intergroup context, which is called outgroup homogeneity effect (OHE). People can remember more about the member of their own group. The possible explaination of OHE is that the people are more familiar with their own group member and they know more about them. Why Do We Categorize?:-
Categorization makes us cognitive miser and it saves time and reduces cognitive processes. Apart from it also clarifies our perception of the world and understands ourselves in relation to others. When Do We Categorize?:-
Categorization is a heuristic process; therefore it helps to reduce complexity and time. There are several factors responsible for categorization even if we don’t consciously choose to employ it as a strategy of socialinference. There are three mainfactorsfor determine categorization - temporal primacy (on the basis of feature), perceptual salience (when the difference is silent), and chronic accessibility (categorization in term of common categories). Interestingly, we can lead more thinking about the categorization if we are trying to not to think about it. We do not always choose heuristic, and sometime perceptual silence affect the judgment.
Consequences of Categorization-
Categorization helps in the accessibility of stereotype consistent information and the selective encoding of subsequently acquired target information.
Categorization and prejudice:-
Additionally to neutral categories stereotype-consistent biases is also applied to social distinction. More positive information is recalled for someone in their own group and conversely more negative information is recalled in another group. Stereotype-inconsistent informations are salients and attention- grabbing, some time they may be remembered more, which is the opposite to the rule because it required more cognitive load.
Categorization and Unconscious Behaviour:-
Behavioral assimilation is a phenomenon, when people act unconsciously in a stereotypical association during the thinking about categories. Participates does not express any knowledge and also they does not aware about its influence on behavior. According to Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998) intelligence is an abstract concept, which is associated with series of behavior pattern. Priming induced participants to behave differently and do not changed the level of their intelligence and knowledge.
Categorization and Self-efficacy:
In Stereotype threat situation, participants felt a negative stereotype association in their own group member. This can have an adversely impact in academic performance. Each member is underperform task with threaten domain.
Dual Process Theories:
In dual process theory, Brewer believed that impression formation to comprise 2 process - categorization and individuation. The same is believed by Fiske and Neuberg (1990) in their continuum model. According to the Brewer (1988) during the formation of impressions to other, either heuristic or systematic approach is used, this distinction is directed to the naive scientist or cognitive miser approaches. Same in continuum model, one extremity is category based processing and other is attributed based processing. Fiske and Neuberg (1990) believed that people start the impression formation by using cognitive miser approaches and try to fit in suitable categories. If they are not fit in categories then they start with attributed based approaches. Brewer (1988) believed that the mode of perception will vary form category-based heuristics to a systematic. The switching from categorization to individual is called decategorization, which allows more personalized perception.