CHAPTER 2 Social Learning and Social Cognition Sources of Social Knowledge Over time people develop a huge amount of knowledge about the self about other people about social relationships and about social groups This knowledge guides our behavior our responses to new people and even our perceptions of our own selves Cognitive heuristic An information processing rule of thumb that enables us to think in ways that are quick and easy but that may sometimes lead to error Our Knowledge Accumulates as a Result of Learning People have many memories about their experiences with other people and they use this information to make predictions about what people will do in the future This knowledge is gained through learning operant instrumental learning experiences that are followed by positive emotions reinforcements or rewards are likely to be repeated experiences that are followed by negative emotions punishments are less likely to be repeated Associational learning occurs when an object or event comes to be associated with a natural response such as an automatic behavior or a positive or negative emotion Associational learning also influences our knowledge about and our judgments of other people More negative side We may dislike people from certain racial or ethnic groups because we frequently see them portrayed in the media as associated with violence drug use or terrorism And we may avoid people with certain physical characteristics simply because they remind us of other people we know that we do not like observational learning learn by observing the behavior of others Observational learning is useful because it allows people to learn without having to actually engage in what might be a risky behavior Schemas and Attitudes Form the Foundation of Our Social Knowledge Our schemas and our attitudes contain our knowledge and our evaluations of the world around us Because they represent our past experience and because past experience is useful for prediction our schemas and attitudes serve as expectations about future events allow us to better understand people and help us make sense of information particularly when the information is unclear or ambiguous allow us to fill in the blanks by making guesses about what other people are probably like or probably going to do in cases where things are uncertain helps explain why different people draw different conclusions about the same events influence our subsequent learning such that the new people and situations that we encounter are interpreted and understood in terms of our existing knowledge Accommodation When existing schemas change on the basis of new information Process of learning itself Assimilation may act to influence the new information in a way that makes the conflicting information fit with our existing knowledge and thus reducing the likelihood of change In fact we can say that in most cases once a schema is developed it will be difficult to change it because the expectation leads us to process new information in ways that serve to strengthen it rather than to weaken it In some cases our existing knowledge acts to direct our attention toward information that matches our expectations and prevents us from attempting to attend to or acknowledge conflicting information one of many factors that help account for the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony self fulfilling prophecy an process that occurs when our expectations about others lead us to behave toward those others in ways that make those expectations come true Automatic versus Controlled Cognition Automatic cognition refers to thinking that occurs out of our awareness quickly and without taking much effort thoughtful or controlled cognition When we deliberately size up and think about something for instance another person Priming The technique of temporarily bringing information into memory through exposure to situational events Salience and Accessibility Determine Which Expectations We Use Salience Some stimuli such as those that are colorful or moving grab our salience of the stimuli in our social worlds has a big influence on our judgment and in some cases may lead us to behave in ways that we might better not have base rates he likelihood that events occur across a large population Representativeness Heuristic We tend to make judgments according to how well the event matches our expectations Cognitive Accessibility Some schemas and attitudes are more accessible than attention others People vary in the schemas that they find important to use when judging others and when thinking about themselves accessibility can also be influenced by situational factors Availability Heuristic Things that come to mind easily tend to be seen as more common The idea is that things that are highly accessible in this case the term availability is used come to mind easily and thus may overly influence our judgments In sum we are more highly influenced by things that are salient and accessible and thus which are clearly part of our social perception On the other hand we are much less likely to be influenced by things that are not so obvious even if they are equally important The False Consensus Bias Makes us Think that We are More Like Others than We Really Are are similar to us false consensus bias the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people You can see that the false consensus bias might also occur through the operation of cognitive accessibility Once we have indicated our own belief it becomes highly accessible and it colors our judgments of other people Counterfactual Thinking Specifically our emotional reactions to events are often colored not only by what did happen but also by what might have happened If we can easily imagine an outcome that is better than what actually happened then we may experience sadness and disappointment on the other hand if we can easily imagine that a result might have been worse that what actually happened we may be more likely to experience happiness and satisfaction counterfactual thinking The tendency to think about events according to what might have been our thinking is frequently influenced by processes that we are not aware of and which may lead us to make judgments that although they seem reasonable are objectively inaccurate In the case of counterfactual thinking the accessibility of the potential alternative outcome leads to some very paradoxical effects Anchoring and Adjustment Leads us to Accept Ideas that we Should Revise Anchoring and
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