Name:_________________________________________
SOCIAL COGNITION
I-
II-
SOCIAL COGNITION
A. Definition – Social cognition is the study of how information ________________
_______________ is processed and stored. Our ________________, perceptions and
__________________ about people are influenced by the ____________________
_____________ in which we interact with people.
B. Social cognition meets our __________________ to accurately ___________________
the world around us and to perceive ________________________ in a positive light.
PERSON PERCEPTION
A. Social schemas are mental representations that influence how we _______________
____________________. Schemas are also known as ___________________.
1- Schemas influence how information is processed and how we interpret information.
We pay more attention to people who portray characteristics that are consistent
with our schemas or ideas about how people should behave in a public setting.
Summarize the example:
2- Schemas influence what we remember because we attend to (see and hear) things
that are consistent with our current schemas.
3- This top-down processing helps us quickly respond to people we encounter, but it
can also lead to errors in judging others that result in narrow mindedness and even
prejudice.
Summarize the example:
B. A ________________ is an expectation about how a certain event or situation should
unfold.
Summarize the example:
C. A _____________ -__________________ ________________occurs when our
expectations cause us unconsciously to act in a manner to bring about behaviors that
confirm our expectations.
Summarize the example:
III-
THE ATTRIBUTION PROCESS
This process involves how we explain the causes of behavior (voth our own behavior and the
behavior of others.)
A. Internal (________________________) versus external (_________________________)
attributions are described as follows:
1- Internal (personal) attributions explain an outcome by looking within an individual.
Example:
2- External (situational) attributions (e.g., fate, luck, chance) explain an outcome by
looking outside of an individual.
Example:
B. Certain factors determine the type of attribution made, according to Kelley’s covariation
model.
1. ___________________________ or uniqueness of response is the extent to which
similar stimuli lead to the same behavior of a person.
Example:
2. ______________________ of response across people is the extent to which other
people’s behavior is similar to that of a particular person.
Example:
3. ___________________________ of response over time is the extent to which a
behavior occurs repeatedly in a particular situation.
Example:
Low consensus + high consensus = Internal attribution
Example:
High consensus + high consistency = External attribution
Example:
High consensus + high distinctiveness = External attribution
Example:
C. Biases in the attributional process
1. The _____________________ _______________________ error (also known as
correspondence bias) is overestimating internal (personal) influences and
underestimating external (situational) influences when judging the behavior of
others: “He’s poor because he is lazy.” This is more likely to happen when we do
not know the person well.
Summarize results of activity:
2- _______________-_________________ _____________ is attributing one’s own
behavior to external (situational) causes and the behavior of others to internal
(personal) factors. “I was unprepared for the exam because there was a family
emergency last night, but Sally was unprepared because she’s basically not that
good at math.”
3- ______________-__________________ _____________ is the tendency to
attribute success to internal (personal) factors and failures to external (situational)
factors. “I won the game today because I am a great athlete; yesterday I lost the
game because the referee made some bad calls.
4- The ____________ ________________ ___________________ is the tendency to
believe that good people are rewarded, and bad people are punished. It can lead to
the blaming-the-victim effect. “She deserves to be assaulted because she wore
revealing clothes.”
5- ________________ _____________________ ________________ is the tendency
to think other people share our attitudes more than they actually do. “I really like
this one television show, so I assume most of my peers like it as well.”
D. Cognitive heuristics that influence social cognition include the following:
1. The __________________________ _____________________ is the tendency to
judge the membership of a person or object based on how closely the person or
object fits the prototype of a given category. Example:
2.
The ________________ _____________________ is a term for when people
believe that future events are influenced by past occurences. Example:
3- The ___________________ ___________________ is the tendency to judge the
probability of an event’s occurring based on how readily examples come to mind.
Example:
4- ________________________ _________________ is the tendency to overestimate
how predictable an event was once the outcome is known. Example:
E. Counterfactual thinking is when people have thoughts on how past events might have
turned out differently. Example:
GROUP PROCESSES
I.
GROUP DYNAMICS
Group dynamics is an area of social psychology that studies groups and group
processes. A ________________ is defined as two or more people who are
interacting with and/or _____________________ one another.
II.
COMMON GROUP PROCESSES
A. _______________ _______________ --The mere presence of others can
improve performance on well-practiced tasks (e.g. Ryan, a pool player, should
perform better in front of a large crowd than while practicing his billiard moves
alone)
______________ _______________ -- The mere presence of others can impair
performance on tasks that one is not particularly good at (e.g., a novice pool player
will perform less well in front of a group.
B. Both social facilitation and social inhibition can be explained by _____________.
Arousal enhances performance for well-learned or familiar behaviors and hurts
performance for difficult or unfamiliar tasks.
C. ____________ ____________________ - On group tasks, people will
sometimes exert less effort if individual contributions are not possible to
identify. (e.g., when working on a group project for class, only a few people
from the group will do the majority of the task).
D. The _____________________ ________________ claims that behavior is
influenced by the number of people available to intervene. Example:
1. ____________________ _______ __________________ is the tendency
for indivduals to think others will help, so they do not intervene.
2. _______________________ ______________________ is the tendency to
do nothing because others are doing nothing; everyone assumes everyone
else must “know better” , and if others do not respond, then there must not
be an emergency.
E. _____________________________ is giving up normal behavioral restraints to
the group. Being less self-conscious and restrained in a group situation may
account for mob behavior. (e.g., students at pep assemblies are more likely to
behave badly at the assembly if they can not be identified individually for their
behavior.) Deindividuation may account for much fan behavior (good and bad)
at sports games. (painting faces, screaming insults an so on.)
F. _____________________ is a mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for
unanimity in a decision-making making group overrides a realistic appraisal of
alternative courses of action. This mode of thinking can result in bad group
decisions when, rather than defend their own ideas, individual group members
simply go along with the group.
Conditions that increase the likelihood of groupthink include the following:
1- The group is highly _____________________________.
2- There is a distinct and directive _______________________________.
3- The group is isolated from other _____________________________.
4- There is time pressure or intense __________________________.
5- The leader already has his or her mind made up.
Example:
G. Majority and minority influence
1. ____________ _______________________ occurs when a group supports a
decision supported by the majority of the group following a group discussion.
2. _________________ _______________________ occurs when a confident
and persistent minority group influences a decision made by a whole group.
DAY 10- Social psychology
First 5 minutes: pass out the attribution scale assignment and fill out.
Next 60 minues: Pass out note packets and begin going over outline while they fill in the blanks. Show
examples and do experiments throughout.
Homework: Come up with your own examples for five the the terms gone over today. Not a group
project, come up with your own examples.