Chapter 3: Social Beliefs and Judgments
controlled processing
"explicit" thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious—also known as System 2
Embodied cognition
-mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments -Brain systems that process our bodily sensations communicate with the brain systems responsible for our social thinking -idea that human thoughts are effected by body health and feeling -our mental processing and physical processing are related and reciprocal. 3 domains: cognitive domain psych/social domain physical domain
The Limits of Intuition
Automatic, intuitive thinking can seem to "make us smart"; but the unconscious may not be as smart as once believed •Error-prone hindsight judgments •Capacity for illusion—for perceptual misinterpretations, fantasies, and constructed beliefs Note that although people create false beliefs, not all beliefs are false •To recognize falsification, it helps to know how it is done
Remedies for Overconfidence
Be wary of other people's dogmatic statements Confidence and competence do not always coincide Two techniques for reducing the overconfidence bias: •Obtain prompt feedback •Think of at least one good reason a judgment might be wrong Avoid undermining people's reasonable self-confidence and decisiveness; this can lead to shrinking from speaking up or making tough decisions
How Do We Judge Our Social Worlds, Consciously and Unconsciously?
Daniel Kahneman: We have two brain systems System 1 - automatic and unconscious System 2 - controlled and conscious
Representativeness vs Availability Heuristic
Definition R-Snap judgments of whether someone or something fits a category A-Quick judgments of likelihood of events (how available in memory) Example R-Deciding that Marie is a librarian rather than a trucker because she better represents one's image of librarians A-Estimating teen violence after school shootings But may lead to... R-Discounting other important information A-Overweighting vivid instances and thus, for example, fearing the wrong things
Perceiving and Interpreting Events
Our first impressions of one another are more often right than wrong; but on occasion, our prejudgments err Political perceptions are very much in the eye of the beholder •Same is true of sports fans' perceptions of referees; and most people's perceptions of media bias
Moods and Judgments
Our moods infuse our judgments •Unhappy people tend to be more focused and brooding; but a depressed mood also motivates intense thinking •Happy people are more trusting, loving, and responsive When we are in a happy mood, the world seems friendlier, decisions are easier, and good news more readily comes to mind Bad moods, however, prime recollections of negative events, and these affect our perceptions
How Do We Perceive Our Social Worlds?
Our preconceptions guide how we perceive and interpret information We respond not to reality as it is but to reality as we construe it
How Do Our Social Beliefs Matter?
Our social beliefs and judgments influence how we feel and act and by so doing may generate their own reality Self-fulfilling prophecy
POSTSCRIPT: Reflecting on Illusory Thinking
Our subjective experiences are the stuff of our humanity—art and music, friendship and love, and mystical and religious experiences •Our intuitions are an important source of creative ideas; but our susceptibility to error makes clear the need for disciplined training of the mind We need to remember our potential for misjudgment and resist feeling intimidated by the arrogance of those who cannot see their own potential for bias and error
How Do We Explain Our Social Worlds?
People make it their business to explain other people Social psychologists make it their business to explain people's explanations •Our judgments of people depend on how we explain their behavior •Attribution theory helps us make sense of how such explanations work
Getting from Others What We Expect
Self-fulfilling prophecies can operate in work settings, in courtrooms, in simulated police contexts, and between teens and parents One common finding in studies of social interaction is that we do to some extent get what we expect Behavioral confirmation
What Can We Conclude about Social Beliefs and Judgments?
Social cognition studies reveal that our information-processing powers are efficient and adaptive; but people do sometimes form false beliefs •Trying hard doesn't eliminate thinking biases •Our intuition is vulnerable to misjudgment •If anything, laboratory procedures overestimate our intuitive powers •False impressions, interpretations, and beliefs can produce serious consequences •Heuristic snap judgments, however, enable efficient thinking and can aid in our survival
intuitive judgments
Some advocate "intuitive management"—tuning in to our hunches Our thinking is partly automatic and partly controlled: -automatic processing -Contolled processing
System ____ influences more of our actions than we realize
System 1
Daniel Kahneman: We have two brain systems
System 1: Automatic processing (driving now) System 2: Controlled processing (learning how to drive)
Teacher Expectations and Student Performance
Teachers have higher expectations for some students than for others •These evaluations are a cause as well as a consequence of student performance—teachers' judgments can predict students' later performance •High expectations seem to boost low achievers through the teacher's positive attitude •Students are acutely sensitive to teachers' facial expressions and body movements •Students' expectations of their teachers also has an effect
self-fulfilling prophecy
a belief that leads to its own fulfillment •Experimenter bias: research participants sometimes live up to what they believe experimenters expect of them
availability heuristic
a cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory; if instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace example: airplanes vs car crashes, more people in Iran or in Tanzania, LGBTQ percentage estimates 23% when it is actually LGBTQ 4%
confirmation bias
a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions •We are eager to verify our beliefs but less inclined to seek evidence that might disprove them •People often choose news sources and friends that align with their beliefs, leading to "ideological echo chambers" •Confirmation bias appears to be a System 1 snap judgment •Stability of our self-images may be explained in part by confirmation bias example: only listen to the news and be friends with people who believe the same things as you
behavioral confirmation
a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations example of self-fulfilling prophecy example: male with picture of female on a phone call
priming
activating particular associations in memory •Can influence another thought or even an action •Things we don't even consciously notice can subtly influence how we interpret and recall events •Illustrates the concept that much of our social information processing is automatic example: We stood by the bank with priming of river or money unconsciously bells only mental butlers can hear memory or in social situations
Situational attribution
attributing behavior to the environment "They are like x because of y"
dispositional attribution
attributing behavior to the person's dispositions and traits "That's just who you are"
System 2
controlled processing: the deliberate, controlled, conscious, and slower way of thinking
Cognitive Mizers
humans want to think as little as possible so we uses automatic processing
Counterfactual Thinking
imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn't •Imagining worse alternatives helps us feel better •Imagining better alternatives and pondering what we might do differently next time helps us prepare for the future •Imagining what could have been occurs when we can easily picture an alternative outcome •More significant and unlikely the event, the more intense the counterfactual thinking example: Olympic athletes the bronze medalist is happier than the silver, 89.9 feels worse than 80.0
misinformation effect
incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of an event and receiving misleading information about it •Process affects our recall of social as well as physical events Elizabeth Loftus: memories are fallible example: bank tellers need to sit down and write out sketchy event without talking to prevent this effect
We often infer that other people's actions are
indicative of their intentions and dispositions, or traits spontaneous trait inference
People whose attitudes have changed often
insist that they have always felt much as they now feel •People often exhibit "rosy retrospection" •As relationships change, we also revise our recollections of other people
Heuristic
mental shortcut a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments
Misattribution
mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source
illusory correlation
perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists •Example: cloud-seeding experiment •People easily misperceive random events as confirming their beliefs •Gamblers attribute wins to their skill and foresight; losses are "near misses," "flukes," or a bad call by a referee -Regression toward the average example: women who are overweight are less happy, think about a person and then they call
Social psychology's most important lesson concerns
the influence of our social environment •Our internal state, and what we say and do, depends on the situation as well as on what we bring to the situation
Regression toward the average
the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward their average
fundamental attribution error
the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior •Example: assuming the questioning hosts on game shows are more intelligent than the contestants example: 8:00 am class with a student who came in every day late, why are you late? working night shift is situational and dispositional attitude is you are just always late
Overconfidence phenomenon
the tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs •Incompetence feeds overconfidence •Ignorance of one's incompetence occurs mostly on relatively easy-seeming tasks •Overconfidence may persist in part because we admire confidence in others
attribution theory
the theory of how people explain others' behavior -dispositional attribution -situational attribution
Memory construction enables us
to revise our own histories of past behavior •Example: benefits of toothbrushing •We underreport bad behavior and overreport good behavior
Psychological research has found that we construct memories at the time of
withdrawal •Thus we can easily (although unconsciously) revise our memories to suit our current knowledge
Automatic processing
•"implicit" thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness; roughly corresponds to "intuition"—also known as System 1 Automatic thinking often involves schemas, emotional reactions, the effects of expertise, and snap judgments
We study attribution errors for several reasons
•To reveal how we think about ourselves and others •To illuminate how environmental causes are often the root of people's failures, disabilities, and misfortune •We are mostly unaware of our biases and can benefit from greater awareness
Why do we make the attribution error?
•We observe others from a different perspective than we observe ourselves •Example: camera perspective bias •When recalling the past, we are like observers of someone else •We also find causes where we look for them •We observe others from a different perspective than we observe ourselves •Example: camera perspective bias •When recalling the past, we are like observers of someone else •We also find causes where we look for them
spontaneous trait inference
•an effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior •Example: "The librarian carries the old woman's groceries across the street"
System 1
•automatic processing: the intuitive, automatic, unconscious, and fast way of thinking—also known as "intuition" or "gut feeling"
belief perserverance
•persistence of one's initial conceptions •More we examine our theories and explain how they might be true, the more closed we become to challenges to our belief Once accepted, it is surprisingly difficult to demolish a falsehood •Researchers implanted a belief in participants; participants were asked to explain why it was true; and then the researchers totally discredited the initial information •About 75% of the false belief survived intact -Especially important to the issue of "fake news" example: people who are risk-takers and whether they would be good firefighters
Representativeness heuristic:
•the tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member example: an interview with 100 different participants and 70 were lawyers and 30 were engineers. Vignette said the person was divorced twice and spend a lot of time at the country club bar and were in school a long time. Participants said it was more likely to be a lawyer. When flipping the percentages, still 80% say the vignette represents lawyer bank teller and feminist
