Social CognitionHow do we make sense of ourselves

and others?

Social Cognition

An approach to studying social psychology

The study of how people form inferences from social information in the environment

•“Priming” is a technique borrowed from cognitive psychology. Priming is the presentation of a stimulus that activates a concept in memory

How satisfied are you with your life?

Powerful, yet invisible…the effects of situational cues

People asked about their life on sunny days reported being more satisfied than those on rainy

days!

Effect disappears if the weather is brought to their attention

Powerful, yet invisible…the effects of situational cues (contd.)

Participants were primed with words like Florida, gray, wise, wrinkle, forgetful

On their way out, their walking speed was measured…

People primed with “elderly” words walked 20% slower than control participants

How do we perceive ourselves? Self-esteem

Self-esteem is the affective component of the self, consisting of positive and negative

evaluations of the self

How do people obtain a sense of self?

How do we perceive ourselves? Self-Evaluation

The self must be perceived in relation to the social world

Social Comparison Theory (Festinger)

Upward and downward social comparisons

Basking in Reflected Glory (Tesser)

How do we perceive ourselves? Self-enhancement

Largely through deluding themselves! Self-enhancement occurs when people use self-serving biases to protect their self-esteem

Examples:

Actor-Observer Bias,

Above-Average Effect

•Which is healthier – to see yourself accurately or to see yourself through rose-colored glasses?

How do we perceive ourselves? Positive Illusions

Holding unrealistically positive views of yourself may be good for your health…

Shelley Taylor and colleagues have shown that breast cancer and AIDS victims who hold

“positive illusions” have higher survival rates

…but not necessarily for your relationships! People with very high self-esteem suffer long-

term loneliness and are less well-liked by others

Can we control ourselves? Thought Suppression

Dan Wegner (1994) examined how well people can control their own thoughts

He asked one condition to think about a white bear; others were asked to think about anything they wanted except for a white bear…Later, everyone was asked to

write down their thoughts and ring a bell when they thought of white bears.

What happened? People who had earlier suppressed thoughts of a white bear thought

about them far more – the ‘rebound effect’

Can we control ourselves? Thought Suppression

How do we perceive others? Back to Environmental Cues

Our perceptions of other people are also susceptible to influence from bias and from

situational cues

In a now-classic paradigm, Tory Higgins showed that priming can affect perceptions of others: Participants who first read words like brave rated a risk-taking man (Donald) more positively than those who had read words like

reckless.

How do we perceive others? The influence of Stereotypes

So our perceptions of others are influenced by salient environmental cues. Some cues are more

salient than others:

Race, Gender, Age, Class are categories that are often used in perceiving others

Stereotypes are beliefs that associate a group of people with certain traits

Examples: blonde women are less intelligent, librarians are quiet, the elderly

have bad memories, used-car salesmen are not trustworthy

How do we perceive others? The influence of Stereotypes (contd.)

How do stereotypes affect how we perceive others?

Outgroup homogeneity

Stereotype-consistent interpretations

How do we perceive others? The influence of Stereotypes (contd.)

Is stereotyping inevitable?

Devine (1989) showed that stereotypes are activated automatically upon exposure to

members of the group

Even among people who felt strongly that they were not prejudiced!

How do we perceive others? The influence of Stereotypes (contd.)

The most recent research suggests that successful inhibition of stereotypes depends on:

the amount of information available

cognitive capacity

motivation

But, remember the effects of trying to suppress your thoughts…