Chapter 5: Social Cognition
What is social cognition?
A movement in social psychology that began in the 1970’s that focused on thoughts about people
and about social relationships.
Thinking about people: A special case?
People think about other people more than any topic and all other topics combined.
The human mind is designed to participate in society, its primary job is to deal with other people.
Recent research suggests that much thinking is for arguing, in the sens of trying to convince other.
The purpose of the human brain is for communicating with others and influencing them.
A basic fact of social life: people will often have different opinions as to what would be best to do &
so they need to get others to go along with them.
The emphasis on thinking about people (and arguing with them)- shows that inner processes serve
interpersonal functions.
Why people think, and why they don’t
If you compare the size of the cortex (part of brain involved in higher-order functions such as
thinking) to the rest of the body, humans are at the top of the list.
People seem lazy or careless about their thinking.
Cognitive miser: term to describe people’s reluctance to do much extra thinking.
Tries to avoid thinking too hard or too much.
Thinking takes effort: people’s capacity to think is limited, so people must conserve their thinking.
Not all thinking is equally difficult:
As the theory of the duplex mind indicates, deliberate thinking requires a lot more effort
than automatic thinking.
People prefer to conserve effort by relying on automatic modes of thought when they can.
The automatic system is not very good at some kinds of thinking, such as logical reasoning
and mathematics.
Automatic and deliberate thinking
Some thinking proceeds by automatic means, whereas other thinking relies on conscious control.
Stroop test:
James Ridley Stroop first described the Stroop Effect in 1935.
It takes conscious effort to override the automatic response and say the ink colour instead.
RED BLUE GREEN BLACK
BLACK BLUE RED GREEN
BLUE BLACK GREEN RED
, It showed that the automatic system and deliberate system learn in different ways and can’t
necessarily substitute for each other.
At least five elements distinguish automatic from deliberate processes:
1. Awareness
When people are engaging in automatic thinking, they may not even be aware that they are
thinking.
2. Intention
Automatic thinking is not guided by intention.
It may just happen whether you intend it or not.
3. Control
Automatic thoughts are not subject to deliberate control, so it can be difficult or even
impossible to avoid having certain thoughts that have been cued.
4. Effort
Automatic thoughts do not involve effort, whereas deliberate thoughts often involve mental
effort and can feel demanding and exhausting.
5. Efficiency
Automatic thoughts are highly efficient, unlike deliberate thoughts.
Automatic thinking involves little effort because it relies on knowledge structures.
Knowledge structures: are organised packets of information that are stored in memory. It forms
when a set of related concepts is frequently brought to mind, or activated.
When people think about a concept, it becomes active in memory. Related concepts also become
activated (light bulb moment/ pop into mind)
Over time, as related concepts are frequently activated together, the set of related concepts
becomes so strongly linked that activation of one part of the set automatically activates the whole
set.
Different people rely differently on one or the other type of thought.
Deliberative thinkers are better at knowing what they know.
People who use the deliberate style of thinking thus know there are different possible
answers, both the intuitive one and the one reached by thinking thing through.
The intuitive people only know the answer that intuition gives, so they are less likely to know
whether they got it right.
Intuition is often correct and certainly easier – but intuitive people tend to be overconfident
rather than knowing what they know.
Schemas
Are knowledge structures that represent substantial information about a concept, its attributes and
its relationships to other concepts.
Schemas make the complex world much easier to understand:
They help organise information by connecting beliefs that are related to each other.
They help the mind form expectancies.
One type of event that sparks deliberate thinking is a violation of expectancies.
What is social cognition?
A movement in social psychology that began in the 1970’s that focused on thoughts about people
and about social relationships.
Thinking about people: A special case?
People think about other people more than any topic and all other topics combined.
The human mind is designed to participate in society, its primary job is to deal with other people.
Recent research suggests that much thinking is for arguing, in the sens of trying to convince other.
The purpose of the human brain is for communicating with others and influencing them.
A basic fact of social life: people will often have different opinions as to what would be best to do &
so they need to get others to go along with them.
The emphasis on thinking about people (and arguing with them)- shows that inner processes serve
interpersonal functions.
Why people think, and why they don’t
If you compare the size of the cortex (part of brain involved in higher-order functions such as
thinking) to the rest of the body, humans are at the top of the list.
People seem lazy or careless about their thinking.
Cognitive miser: term to describe people’s reluctance to do much extra thinking.
Tries to avoid thinking too hard or too much.
Thinking takes effort: people’s capacity to think is limited, so people must conserve their thinking.
Not all thinking is equally difficult:
As the theory of the duplex mind indicates, deliberate thinking requires a lot more effort
than automatic thinking.
People prefer to conserve effort by relying on automatic modes of thought when they can.
The automatic system is not very good at some kinds of thinking, such as logical reasoning
and mathematics.
Automatic and deliberate thinking
Some thinking proceeds by automatic means, whereas other thinking relies on conscious control.
Stroop test:
James Ridley Stroop first described the Stroop Effect in 1935.
It takes conscious effort to override the automatic response and say the ink colour instead.
RED BLUE GREEN BLACK
BLACK BLUE RED GREEN
BLUE BLACK GREEN RED
, It showed that the automatic system and deliberate system learn in different ways and can’t
necessarily substitute for each other.
At least five elements distinguish automatic from deliberate processes:
1. Awareness
When people are engaging in automatic thinking, they may not even be aware that they are
thinking.
2. Intention
Automatic thinking is not guided by intention.
It may just happen whether you intend it or not.
3. Control
Automatic thoughts are not subject to deliberate control, so it can be difficult or even
impossible to avoid having certain thoughts that have been cued.
4. Effort
Automatic thoughts do not involve effort, whereas deliberate thoughts often involve mental
effort and can feel demanding and exhausting.
5. Efficiency
Automatic thoughts are highly efficient, unlike deliberate thoughts.
Automatic thinking involves little effort because it relies on knowledge structures.
Knowledge structures: are organised packets of information that are stored in memory. It forms
when a set of related concepts is frequently brought to mind, or activated.
When people think about a concept, it becomes active in memory. Related concepts also become
activated (light bulb moment/ pop into mind)
Over time, as related concepts are frequently activated together, the set of related concepts
becomes so strongly linked that activation of one part of the set automatically activates the whole
set.
Different people rely differently on one or the other type of thought.
Deliberative thinkers are better at knowing what they know.
People who use the deliberate style of thinking thus know there are different possible
answers, both the intuitive one and the one reached by thinking thing through.
The intuitive people only know the answer that intuition gives, so they are less likely to know
whether they got it right.
Intuition is often correct and certainly easier – but intuitive people tend to be overconfident
rather than knowing what they know.
Schemas
Are knowledge structures that represent substantial information about a concept, its attributes and
its relationships to other concepts.
Schemas make the complex world much easier to understand:
They help organise information by connecting beliefs that are related to each other.
They help the mind form expectancies.
One type of event that sparks deliberate thinking is a violation of expectancies.
