SOCIAL COGNITION An Integrated Introduction Martha Augoustinos and Iain Walker ® SAGE Publications London • Thousand Oaks • New Delhi CONTENTS Preface IV 1 Introduction 1 PART I THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES IN SOCIAL COGNITION 2 Attitudes 12 © Martha Augoustinos and lain Walker 1995 3 Social Schemas 32 First published 1995, Reprinted 1996 4 Attributions 6° 97 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored 5 Social Identity in a retrieval system, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, 6 Social Representations 134 electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Publishers, PART II INTEGRATIONS, APPLICATIONS SAGE Publications Ltd AND CHALLENGES 6 Bonhill Street <D London EC2A 4PU 7 Social Schemas and Social Representations 164 SAGE Publications Inc 8 Attributions and Social Representations 185 2455 Teller Road 9 Stereotypes, Prejudice and Intergroup Attributions 207 Thousand Oaks, California 91320 10 Postmodern Challenges to Social Cognition 262 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd 32, M-Block Market 11 The Social Psychological Study of Ideology 288 Greater Kailash - I New Delhi 110 048 References 313 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data Index 340 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 8039 8989 X ISBN 0 8039 8990 3 pbk Library of Congress catalog card number 95-69398 Typeset by Photoprint, Torquay, S. Devon Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire PREFACE V achieving neither. Perhaps we were foolish to persist, but we believe and hope that we have managed to achieve both. Only you, the reader, can judge though. In the spirit of open academic exchange, we invite you to let us know what you think. In writing this book our friendship has not been strained as much as we feared it might be. There were fewer major disagreements than we expected. However, we do not always agree entirely with one PREFACE another, and there are places in the book where this may be evident. In the end, we decided not to try to remove or gloss over all the things we disagree about, but instead to let them stand. Social psychology, after all, is not without its internal wranglings and Each of us has taught social psychology for several years now. In that contradictions. Why should a text reflect a false harmony and time, we have each gone through the annual ritual of deciding on a unanimity? Similarly, it will probably be obvious to those who know textbook, knowing that none of the ones on offer really covers all the us and our respective styles who wrote which chapters. For the same material we want to address in our courses. We moaned about this reasons that we did not remove all our disagreements, we did not long and loud enough that we eventually talked ourselves into the attempt to impose a standard style on the chapters. position of having to put our typing fingers where our mouths were; A glance at the outline of the chapters makes it apparent that the that is, to write the book we always wished someone else would book is organized in a 'bottom-up' fashion, in which we start at an write. individualistic level and proceed to consider the broader areas of Why was it that v/e could not find a satisfactory book? After all, social identity, social representations, and ideology. This is deliberate, there is anything but a shortage of social psychology texts on the but perhaps not ideal. We did consider arranging the book in the market. Although there is a seemingly endless supply of such books, opposite direction, and one of us taught a whole course in that way they are, by and large, interchangeable. Further, with but a couple of in 1994. Students in that course were, however, more bemused and exceptions, they are all North American. Not that that is bad, befuddled than informed and educated. It seems that most psy­ necessarily. But most available texts present uncritically a social chology students are more comfortable with, and can more easily psychology which is predominantly North American, cognitivistic, grasp, an approach which starts with what is familiar to them - the and individualistic. There are, to be sure, a few texts written by individual. So we have retained the 'bottom-up' approach. Europeans, and even a couple by Australians, and these do at least Finally, we would like to acknowledge our debts to the many acknowledge social psychological research and theory outside the people who have helped us write this book. First and foremost we cognitivistic and individualistic mainstream. But none was satisfac­ thank Willem Doise, who, in discussions with Martha Augoustinos tory, at least to us. What we wanted was a text which, in a figurative at the First International Conference on Social Representations in sense, worked both sides of the Atlantic, but from a neutral southern Ravello in 1992, enthusiastically encouraged the writing of this book. hemispheric corner. We wanted to take the best of North American We also extend many thanks to Miles Hewstone who commented on social cognition and integrate it with the broader frameworks the initial outline. His continual support and encouragement is provided by European work on social identity, social represen­ greatly appreciated. Neil Macrae and Tom Pettigrew also com­ tations, and ideology. Possibly this reflects our own intellectual mented on outlines of the book. Thanks also to John Soyland who, upbringing in Australia, where we have been invariably exposed to despite his anti-cognitivist bent, saw some merit in the writing of a both North American and European traditions. book on social cognition. Jonathan Potter provided invaluable In writing this book, however, we wanted to do more than write a comments and points of clarification for Chapter 10, as did Ian John text for undergraduates. We also wanted the book to inform and and Richard Pank. Thanks also to the Meta-theory Discussion Group stimulate and challenge our colleagues, to do more than rehash what in the Department of Psychology at the University of Adelaide for they already know. In the embryonic days of the work, we were told comments on Chapter 11. Special thanks to Dave Taylor for his more than once we were daft to try to write both a text and a insightful comments on most chapters of this book and to Jill Barlow monograph, that to attempt both would inevitably result in who helped with the preparation of the manuscript. At Murdoch VI PREFACE University, Sally Ensor, Andrew Guilfoyle, Kerry Kretzschmar, Vance Locke, Gail Moloney, Maree Stirling, Anita Tan and Peter Warren have all read drafts of various chapters, and provided helpful comments gently suggesting ways to improve the text. Keith Gibbins at Murdoch has been a constant source of ideas, 1 enthusiasm, and difficult questions. Ziyad Marar at Sage has been a tremendous help and source of encouragement, prodding and extensions. Also at Sage, Nicola Harris has provided invaluable INTRODUCTION editorial guidance. Grants to each of us from the Australian Research Council have supported some of our own research described in the bock, and have also supported some of the research needed in the course of writing. But our biggest debts are owed to our THE CRISIS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY respective families, to whom we dedicate this book: Dave and Dylan, and Jane, Alex, and Joel. Thank you. A quarter of a century ago, Kenneth Ring (1967) published a provocative article taking to task the social psychology of his time for being frivolous, and for being more concerned with demonstrating a cute, clever experimental manipulation of the latest theoretical toy than with making serious progress in the task of building a body of worthwhile knowledge. Ring's article heralded the start of what came to be known as the 'crisis' in social psychology (Cartwright, 1979; Elms, 1975; Gergen, 1973; McGuire, 1973; Pepitone, 1976, 1981; Ring, 1967; Sampson, 1977, 1981; Tajfel, 1972; Taylor and Brown, 1979). The enthusiasm with which an earlier experimental social psychology was met became dampened by critics who described a general feeling of discontent with the discipline's course of direction. While experimentation deliberately and purposively controls for 'contaminating variables' of the real world, it was argued that the artificiality of this contrived environment did not and could not adequately simulate human social experience. Furthermore, exper­ imentation led to its own class of problem, such as demand characteristics (Orne, 1969) and experimenter bias (Rosenthal, 1969). Other possible sources of bias were identified, such as the political ideologies, cultural backgrounds and biographical characteristics of researchers (Innes and Fraser, 1971). Expressions of discontent were not only directed at the fetishism of laboratory experimentation. On a more epistemological level, Gergen (1973) claimed that social psychology could never be a science because the subject matter with which it deals (human social behaviour) is largely culturally and historically specific. Unlike the physical sciences, general laws of human behaviour cannot be established definitively, because these fluctuate with changing cultural and historical circumstances. Social psychology is, therefore, predominantly an 'historic inquiry'. For some, the location of the crisis was in the unchallenged epistemological assumption that 2 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION 3 the individual is 'the centre of all things', and thus should be the limitations of social psychology's methods, its epistemology, and principal unit of research and analysis. In particular, Hogan and even its questions (Gergen, 1985; Manicas and Secord, 1983). One of Emler (1978), Pepitone (1976,1981) and Sampson (1977, 1988) argued Ring's criticisms was that debates and issues in social psychology are how most of social psychology's theories (dissonance theory, game never really resolved. Rather, they just fade away from centre-stage theory, equity theory, attitude theories and theories of personality because people lose interest in them, not because we now know and socialization) are imbued with the thesis of self-contained more than before.