2 7 12 Social Cognition environment The processes by which people think about and make sense of their social Tradition of Humans as rational Reasons is man s basic means of survival Ayn Rand o Advancements in science technology o Behavioral Economics We are not rational unbiased information consumers Reasons is costly in cognitive terms We have limited cognitive resources to o Solve problems o Direct attention and behavior People are cognitive misers o Conserve cognitive resources as much as possible Conserving mental resources Heuristics mental shortcuts strategy for solving problems or answering questions o Efficient o Provides a good enough answer most of the time o We aren t always pointed to the optimal option o Prone to certain types of errors use certain types of information Biases o Attend to particular kinds of information o 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 Heuristic Representative Heuristic Base decision on what seems right o What represents the typical case o 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 Stereotypes Availability Heuristic likely to happen If something is easy to think of we assume that it is more common and more o 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 false o 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 ourselves o 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 influences o 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 anchor o 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 realistic Price Heuristic If it costs more it s better o We assume that more expensive items are of higher quality o Especially when we don t know much about the product 2 12 13 Major form of bias spot jerk Imagine while driving to school someone cuts you off and takes your parking o You explain their actions with things like inconsiderate impatient o This is an attribution or explanation for the behavior Attribution and Mental shortcuts Another way to save cognitive energy Attribution trying to explain people s behavior o Dispositional internal attribution explain a behavior in terms of a o Situational external attribution explain a behavior as influenced by person s disposition the situation Actor Observer Bias People tend to make o Situation attributions for their own behavior Not their personality not stable o Dispositional attributions for others behavior Their personality stable Easier to see behavior than causes When explaining for behavior of others Fundamental attribution error personality underestimate situational influences situation people overestimate role of disposition Castro Experiment Participants heard pro castro essay o 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 cultures o Asians less likely to use than westerners We tend to over emphasize personality s influence on the behavior of others Biased Attention Confirmation 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 predictions o 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 groups o Teachers behaved towards the students in way that led them to confirm expectations students reacted to teachers behavior o Behave towards others in ways that leads them to confirm our Self fulfilling prophecy expectations So 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 environments o Understand social rules People are designed to survive and thrive in social environments Error 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 off Type I and Type II Error Type 1 False positive Play it safe o Think you hear a snake stop running o Error cost end run look foolish Type II False negative Side with skepticism o Keep running o Error cost snake bite 2 14 13 3 Error Management Theory interest from women Type I False positive o Rejection or embarrassment Type II False negative o Missed chance to reproduce Used to explain why men quickly and often erroneously infer sexual From an evolutionary perspective failing to reproduce is most costly error o Rejection is less costly than failing to pass on your genes Men
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