CHAPTER 9: SOCIAL COGNITION
The goal of social cognitive research is to understand how older adults make sense of
themselves, others, and events in everyday life.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL-CONTEXTUAL ASPECTS OF COGNITION
Even though basic cognitive processes decline with age, older adults may have social
knowledge and skills that allow them to function effectively
SOCIAL JUDGMENT PROCESSES
Impression Formation: the way people form and revise first impressions
Hess and colleagues found that older adults are more willing to change their first
impressions from positive to negative and are less willing to change a negative
initial impression to a more positive view
Older adults rely on life experiences and social rules
Negativity bias: older adults let their initial impressions stand because negative
information was more striking to them and thus affected them more strongly
Older adults weigh emotional information more heavily and are less likely to use
detailed, specific information when forming impressions than younger adults
Older adults are at a disadvantage when the social context is demanding
Knowledge Accessibility and Social Judgments
Social knowledge: when we are faced with new situations, we draw on our previous
experiences stored in memory-- must be available to guide behavior
must have had experiences with a particular subject to use it to guide behavior in similar
situations in the future; must be accessible to guide behavior
Accessibility depends on the strength of the information available in
memory
Age-related differences in accessibility of social knowledge may be a function of
Experience, the more you have with a particular subject the easier it will be to
assess the information
Older adults rely on easily assessable social knowledge, such as
impression formation
Source judgments: when you try to determine the source of a particular piece of
information
Determining if information is true or false
Older adults have more difficulty ignoring false information
A processing capacity explanation for age differences in social judgments
Because older adults typically display lower levels of cognitive processing
resources, it is possible that this decline might impact the social judgment
process
SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES AND BELIEFS
Are defined in terms of how we represent and interpret the behavior of others in a
social situation
Understanding Age Differences in Social Beliefs
Three important aspects in understanding age differences
need to examine the specific content of social beliefs
Some age differences in social beliefs can be attributed to cohort or
generational
need to consider the strength of these beliefs to know under what conditions
they may influence behavior
must know the likelihood that these beliefs will be automatically activated
when you are confronted with a situation in which these beliefs are being
violated or questioned
STEROTYPES AND AGING
Content of Stereotypes
Stereotypes: are a special kind of social knowledge structure or social belief about
characteristics and behaviors of a particular social group
We use them to help us process information and they affect how we interpret
new information
Both older and younger adults hold similar age stereotypes
With age though the content of stereotypes does vary and becomes more
elaborated when life experiences are integrated into our beliefs
Age Stereotypes and Perceived Competence
Age-based double standard: is operating when an individual attributes an older
person’s failures in memory as more serious than a memory failure observed in a
young adult
Younger adults generally judge older adults who are forgetful more harshly
than older adults judge other older adults
Activation of Stereotypes
Implicit stereotypes: automatically activated unconscious negative stereotypes
about aging that guide our behavior
Patronizing talk: is when you slow your speech, use childlike vocabulary,
dramatically articulate your works, speak with demeaning emotional tones, and
engage in superficial conversations
Can cause social alienation and damaging effects on older adults’ self-esteem
However, modifying speech by using more representation, more elaborations,
and speaking less complexly decreases communication failures in older adults
Stereotype Threat: an evoked fear of being judged in accordance with a negative
stereotype about a group to which you belong
If a negative stereotype is activated in an older adult, it can negatively influence
performance on a variety of tasks
This could partially account for why older adults perform more poorly than
younger adults on cognitive tasks
PERSONAL CONTROL
Personal Control: the degree to which one believes that performance in a situation
depends on something one personally does
A high sense of personal control implies the belief that performance is up to you,
while a low sense of personal control implies that your performance is under the
influence of forces other than your own
Personal control is thought to play a role in memory, intelligence, depression, and
adjustment to and survival in institutions
Multidimensionality of Personal Control
Control Strategies
Heckhausen and Schulz (1999) view control-related strategies in terms of primary
and secondary control
Primary control: involves bringing the environment into line with one’s
desires and goals; action is directed toward changing the external world
Secondary control: involves brining oneself in line with the environment; goal
is to minimize losses
Primary control helps shape their environment to fit their goals, whereas
secondary control simply minimizes losses or expands levels of primary
control
With age secondary control increases, while primary control decreases
Some Criticisms Regarding Primary Control
Cross-cultural perspective challenge the notion of primacy and primary control
In collectivists societies, the emphasis is not on individualistic strategies (i.e.,
primary control strategies), but to establish interdependence with others, to be
connected to them, and bound to a large social institutions
SOCIAL SITUATIONS AND SOCIAL COMPETENCE
Collaborative Cognition: occurs when two or more people work together to solve a
cognitive task
Collaborating with others in recollection helps facilitate memory and problemsolving in older adults
Well-acquainted older couples demonstrate an expertise to develop an
adaptive pattern of recalling information, which includes both social support
issues and strategic efforts
Social Context and Memory
The social context can serve a facilitative function in older adults’ memory
performance
Thus, it is important not to limit our explanations of social cognitive change
simply to cognitive processing variables
Discussion Questions
1. How does social cognition relate to postformal thought?
2. Cognitive theorists believe that your perception of what you did or are is more
important than what you actually have done or who you really are. Given this, what
advice might you give to someone taking care of a person with Alzheimer’s disease?
3. How do you engage in collaborative cognition in your everyday life?
Suggested Activities and Assignments
1. Have students discuss social knowledge about common events (i.e., taking an exam,
going on a date, dining out, going to the doctor, etc.). Also, have students write
scripts for these events. Discuss how deviations from the expected scripts make
people feel.
2. Have students find examples of aging stereotypes in the popular press and media. In
particular, what negative stereotypes seem to be focused on and are any positive
stereotypes common?
3. Have students devise a plan to change people’s stereotypical beliefs about aging in
their community.
4. Visit a nursing home or retirement community and ask residents about how they feel
the staff treats them. How do the residents treat the staff? Are there any stereotypes
operating?
5. As a permutation of the above have students observe interactions in a nursing home,
retirement community, or even the local grocery store. Do the students observe any
examples of patronizing talk? Under what circumstances did this occur? Did the
speech occur in the context of a commonly held stereotype about aging?
6. Have students read one of Blanchard-Fields articles on causal attributions (possibly
the one mentioned in the “How Do We Know” box on page 320). This will give
students first hand knowledge of the research and a chance to review research design
from Chapter 1.
7. Have students complete the Discovering Development activity “How much control
do you have over your cognitive functioning” on page 332.
8. Based on Heckhausen and Schulz research on primary and secondary control
strategies, have students discuss their methods of reacting to obstacles in life (e.g.,
not getting a class they need, losing a job, etc.). Do they try to change the
environment (primary control) or change their goals (secondary control)?
9. Visit a nursing home or retirement community and see what measures are taken to
help residents maintain some degree of personal control. Or have staff from a
nursing home, retirement community, or senior citizen’s center discuss the measures
that are taken to help residents maintain some degree of their personal control.
10. Provide some suggestions to help maintain older adults’ sense of personal control in
nursing home facilities. What is the significance of personal control?