Social Cognition
How 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
Powerful, yet invisible…the
effects of situational cues
How satisfied are you with your life?
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! Selfenhancement occurs when people use selfserving 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 longterm 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…