CHAPTER 2 – SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Source: Social Psychology (10th Edition) by Saul Kassin (Author), Steven Fein (Author), Hazel
Rose Markus
Recommended additional study source:
Youtube – Frank M. LoSchiavo (Channel)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66wN8FmT9Y8andlist=PLApmiahrmPkuoBVvUtMXPR5TjrFlb
vwDSandab_channel=FrankM.LoSchiavo)
Chapter 2 – Social Cognition
• Social Cognition: Is how we interpret, analyse, remember and use info about the social
world.
• Heuristics: Simple rules for making complex decisions/drawing inferences in a rapid and
seemingly effortless manner.
• Affect: Our current feelings and moods.
Heuristics
• Info overload: Instances in which our ability to process info is exceeded.
• Conditions of uncertainty: Where the “correct” answer is challenging to know/would take
a great deal of effort to determine.
✓ Due to this limited cognitive capacity attempt to reduce effort spent on social
cognition, we use heuristics.
1. Representativeness Heuristic: Judging by resemblance
• Prototype: Summary of the common attributes possessed by members of a category.
• Representativeness heuristic: A strategy for making judgements based on the extent to
which current stimuli/events resemble other stimuli/categories, e.g. a person who is shy and
reserved is more likely to be a librarian than a manager.
• These judgements often ignore base rates – the frequency with which given events/patterns
(occupations) occur in the total population.
• Cultural differences exist in using representativeness to evaluate the likelihood that a
particular case was responsible for an effect.
✓ Asians tend to expect that “like will go with like” less than Westerners do.
2. Availability Heuristic
• = a strategy for making judgements based on how easy specific kinds of info can be
brought to mind, e.g. people are more afraid of dying in a plane crash than a car crash due
to media.
✓ It may also involve the amount of info we bring to mind.
✓ We tend to apply the ease of retrieval rule to judgements about ourselves that to
others
3. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
• = a heuristic that involves the tendency to use a number/value as a starting point to which
we then make adjustments, e.g. salesman staring at a high price and selling for lower,
making you think you got a good deal.
, 4. Status Quo Heuristic
• objects and options that are more easily retrieved from memory may be judged as better
than objects and options that are new, rarely encountered/represent a change from the
status quo, e.g. we tend to assume that a product that has been on the market is superior
to a new version.
Schemas: Mental frameworks for organising Social info
• Schemas: mental frameworks centring on a specific theme that helps us to organise social
info.
Impact of Schemas on Social Cognition
• Attention – The info we notice.
• Encoding – The processes through which info gets stored in memory
• Retrieval – The process through which we recover info.
Priming: Which schemas guide our thoughts?
• Priming: A situation that occurs when stimuli/events increase the availability in
memory/consciousness of specific types of info held in memory.
✓ E.g. commercials placed in happy TV shows tend to be more persuasive and receive
more positive evaluations by consumers.
• Unpriming: Refers to the fact that the effects of the schemas tend to persist until they are
expressed in thought/behaviour and only then do their effects decrease.
STUDY THE TABLE (FIGURE) IN THE TEXTBOOK.
Schema Persistence
• Perseverance Effect: The tendency for beliefs and schemas to remain unchanged despite
contradictory info.
• Schemas can sometimes be a self-fulfilling prophecy – they influence our responses to the
social world in ways that make them consistent with the schema.
Reasoning by Metaphor
• Metaphor: linguistic device that relates/draws a comparison between one abstract concept
and another different concept.
✓ Can shape how we perceive and respond to the social world.
Automatic and Controlled Processing
• Controlled processing: Social thought that occurs in a systematic, logical and highly
effortful manner (prefrontal cortex).
• Automatic processing: When after extensive experience, we reach the stage where we
can perform the task/process the info in a seemingly effortless, automatic and
nonconscious manner. (limbic system - amygdala)
Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behaviour
• When schemas/other cognitive frameworks are activated (even without conscious
awareness of such activation), they strongly influence our behaviour, triggering actions
Source: Social Psychology (10th Edition) by Saul Kassin (Author), Steven Fein (Author), Hazel
Rose Markus
Recommended additional study source:
Youtube – Frank M. LoSchiavo (Channel)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66wN8FmT9Y8andlist=PLApmiahrmPkuoBVvUtMXPR5TjrFlb
vwDSandab_channel=FrankM.LoSchiavo)
Chapter 2 – Social Cognition
• Social Cognition: Is how we interpret, analyse, remember and use info about the social
world.
• Heuristics: Simple rules for making complex decisions/drawing inferences in a rapid and
seemingly effortless manner.
• Affect: Our current feelings and moods.
Heuristics
• Info overload: Instances in which our ability to process info is exceeded.
• Conditions of uncertainty: Where the “correct” answer is challenging to know/would take
a great deal of effort to determine.
✓ Due to this limited cognitive capacity attempt to reduce effort spent on social
cognition, we use heuristics.
1. Representativeness Heuristic: Judging by resemblance
• Prototype: Summary of the common attributes possessed by members of a category.
• Representativeness heuristic: A strategy for making judgements based on the extent to
which current stimuli/events resemble other stimuli/categories, e.g. a person who is shy and
reserved is more likely to be a librarian than a manager.
• These judgements often ignore base rates – the frequency with which given events/patterns
(occupations) occur in the total population.
• Cultural differences exist in using representativeness to evaluate the likelihood that a
particular case was responsible for an effect.
✓ Asians tend to expect that “like will go with like” less than Westerners do.
2. Availability Heuristic
• = a strategy for making judgements based on how easy specific kinds of info can be
brought to mind, e.g. people are more afraid of dying in a plane crash than a car crash due
to media.
✓ It may also involve the amount of info we bring to mind.
✓ We tend to apply the ease of retrieval rule to judgements about ourselves that to
others
3. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
• = a heuristic that involves the tendency to use a number/value as a starting point to which
we then make adjustments, e.g. salesman staring at a high price and selling for lower,
making you think you got a good deal.
, 4. Status Quo Heuristic
• objects and options that are more easily retrieved from memory may be judged as better
than objects and options that are new, rarely encountered/represent a change from the
status quo, e.g. we tend to assume that a product that has been on the market is superior
to a new version.
Schemas: Mental frameworks for organising Social info
• Schemas: mental frameworks centring on a specific theme that helps us to organise social
info.
Impact of Schemas on Social Cognition
• Attention – The info we notice.
• Encoding – The processes through which info gets stored in memory
• Retrieval – The process through which we recover info.
Priming: Which schemas guide our thoughts?
• Priming: A situation that occurs when stimuli/events increase the availability in
memory/consciousness of specific types of info held in memory.
✓ E.g. commercials placed in happy TV shows tend to be more persuasive and receive
more positive evaluations by consumers.
• Unpriming: Refers to the fact that the effects of the schemas tend to persist until they are
expressed in thought/behaviour and only then do their effects decrease.
STUDY THE TABLE (FIGURE) IN THE TEXTBOOK.
Schema Persistence
• Perseverance Effect: The tendency for beliefs and schemas to remain unchanged despite
contradictory info.
• Schemas can sometimes be a self-fulfilling prophecy – they influence our responses to the
social world in ways that make them consistent with the schema.
Reasoning by Metaphor
• Metaphor: linguistic device that relates/draws a comparison between one abstract concept
and another different concept.
✓ Can shape how we perceive and respond to the social world.
Automatic and Controlled Processing
• Controlled processing: Social thought that occurs in a systematic, logical and highly
effortful manner (prefrontal cortex).
• Automatic processing: When after extensive experience, we reach the stage where we
can perform the task/process the info in a seemingly effortless, automatic and
nonconscious manner. (limbic system - amygdala)
Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behaviour
• When schemas/other cognitive frameworks are activated (even without conscious
awareness of such activation), they strongly influence our behaviour, triggering actions
