2/7/12Social Cognition The processes by which people think about and make sense of their social environmentTradition of Humans as rational “Reasons is man’s basic means of survival.” – Ayn Rando Advancements in science, technologyo Behavioral EconomicsWe are not rational, unbiased information consumers Reasons is costly (in cognitive terms) We have limited cognitive resources to…o Solve problemso Direct attention and behavior People are cognitive miserso Conserve cognitive resources as much as possibleConserving mental resources Heuristics - mental shortcutso Efficient strategy for solving problems or answering questionso Provides a “good enough” answer most of the timeo We aren’t always pointed to the optimal optiono Prone to certain types of errors Biases - use certain types of informationo Attend to particular kinds of informationo Too effortful to try to process all information“We respond not to reality as it is but to reality as we construe it”Heuristics Representativeness Availability Anchoring and Adjustment Price HeuristicRepresentative Heuristic Base decision on what seems righto What represents the typical caseo Is the man who loves wine, classical music, and playing chess is he a truck driver or a college professor? (most people would believe the description to be a college professor)o StereotypesAvailability Heuristic If something is easy to think of, we assume that it is more common and more likely to happeno K as the 1st or 3rd letter, we think that there are more with k as the 1st letter because it is easier to think of those—they are more available… therefore we think there are more words that begin with k, even though that is falseo Which death is more possible: Death by plane parts or shark attack? Most people believe sharks are more common when death by plane parts is 30 times more likely… we hear about sharks a lot more often Can influence how we see ourselveso Geography test where one group was given state capitals and one was given African countries capitals…. The ones who took the state capitals test answered that they were good at geography whereas those with the African test answered they were not good Ease of information influenceso How common events are (shark vs. plane)o Howe we think of ourselves (geography test)Anchoring & Adjustment Heuristic Failing to sufficiently adjust estimates away from an initial start value or “anchor”o Am I older or younger than 50? 50 is the anchor, we can not usually get away from that anchor. More or less than 10 jellybeans in this jar? 10 is the anchor, and even if it is a lot more than 10 your guess would still typically be smaller because of the anchoro 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8 vs 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 asking participants to guess how much it is…. People in the first guess 512 and the people in the second guess 2,250 people who begin with 8 have a higher anchor and people who start with one have a lower anchor. But the answer is actually 40,320, both groups get anchored way lower than realisticPrice Heuristic If it costs more, it’s bettero We assume that more expensive items are of higher qualityo Especially when we don’t know much about the product2/12/13Major form of bias… Imagine while driving to school, someone cuts you off and takes your parking spoto You explain their actions with things like “inconsiderate, impatient, jerk”o This is an attribution or explanation for the behaviorAttribution and Mental shortcuts Another way to save cognitive energy Attribution: trying to explain people’s behavioro Dispositional (internal) attribution : explain a behavior in terms of a person’s dispositiono Situational (external) attribution : explain a behavior as influenced by the situationActor/Observer Bias People tend to make:o Situation attributions for their own behavior Not their personality, not stableo Dispositional attributions for others’ behavior Their personality, stable Easier to see behavior than causesWhen explaining for behavior of others… Fundamental attribution error: people overestimate role of disposition (personality) ; underestimate situational influences (situation)Castro Experiment Participants heard pro-castro essayo Then discovered author was forced to write in favor of castro or freely chose it Participants still thought that the author was pro-castro, even when they knew the essay writer had no choice!Cultural differences Research suggest phenomenon isn’t fundamental Effects are greatest in individualistic cultureso Asians less likely to use than westernersBiased Attention We tend to over-emphasize personality’s influence on the behavior of othersConfirmation Bias The tendency to notice and search for information that confirms one’s beliefs and to ignore information that disconfirms one’s beliefs People attend to information that confirms their predictionso Ignore and forget information that disconfirms expectations Expectations don’t just influence what we attend to or remember, it also influences how we interact with others and behave Psychologists told teachers that some students were gifted and about to excel and some students were challenged and not expected to do well. In reality, there was no difference between the two groupso Teachers’ behaved towards the students in way that led them to confirm expectations; students reacted to teachers’ behavior Self-fulfilling prophecy: o Behave towards others in ways that leads them to confirm our expectationsSo what are we good at?Our minds are great for solving social problems. The Wason Selection Test is much, much easier when framed in terms of a social contract The mind was developed to understand social environmentso Understand social rules People are designed to survive and thrive in social environmentsError Management Theory Even our errors are adaptive when assessed in a social context People avoid the more costly error Type 1 error: no fire, but the smoke alarm goes off Type 2 error: fire, but the smoke alarm does not go offType I and Type II Error Type 1: False positive. “Play it safe”o Think you hear a snake, stop runningo Error cost= end run, look foolish Type II: False negative “Side with skepticism”o Keep runningo Error cost = snake bite2/14/13 <3Error Management Theory Used to explain why men quickly (and often erroneously) infer
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