This is a summary of the book 'Social Cognition' which is needed for the exam in Economic and Consumer Psychology. It is 107 pages long and therefore summarizes , but also gives sufficient detail to understand and study. It includes all relevant material for the exam. (and thus does not cover the n...
Economic and Consumer
Psychology - Summary
Chapter 1 - Introduction 1
Chapter 2 - Dual Modes in Social Cognition 8
Chapter 3 - Attention and Encoding 16
Chapter 4 - Representation in Memory 24
Chapter 5 - Self in Social Cognition 34
Chapter 6 - Attribution Processes 41
Chapter 7 - Heuristics and Shortcuts 49
Chapter 8 - Accuracy and EfBiciency in Social Inference 56
Chapter 9 - Cognitive Structures of Attitudes 61
Chapter 10 - Cognitive Processing of Attitudes 67
Chapter 11 - Stereotyping 72
Chapter 12 - Prejudice 81
Chapter 13 - From Social Cognition to Affect 89
Chapter 14 - From Affect to Social Cognition 97
Chapter 15 - Behavior and Cognition 103
Chapter 1 - Introduction
- example of mistaken social cognition
- Social Cognition = study if how people make sense of other people and themselves
- Focuses on how ordinary people think and feel about people
- can be studied by asking people how they make sense of others = phenomenology
- = to describe systematically how ordinary people say they experience the world
- Even useful when people are wrong
- naive psychology = common sense theory, peoples’ everyday theories about each other
- Sometimes researchers’ informal personal experience provides a basis for formal theory
and empirical research
- social cognition goes beyond naive psychology -> also entails Bine grained analysis of how
people think about themselves and others -> methods of cognitive psychology
- Cognitive processes inBluence social behavior -> two viewpoints: intuitive analysis and Bine
grained cognitive perspective
, 2
Approaches to studying the social thinker
Asch’s Competing Models
- Solomon Asch (1946) examined how people make sense of other people, combining their
personality components and coming up with an integrated overall impression
- Set the stage for person perception research
- Asch theorised that we Bit the persons various qualities (traits) into a single unifying theme
(impression)
- Made this point in 12 unique studies
- Participants had to form an impression based on list of personality traits
- eg. Switching the traits cold and warm amongst other traits created a completely
different description of the target person
- Asch proposed two models to account for the results: conBigural and algebraic model
- Con?igural Model = people form a uniBied overall impression of other people; the
unifying forces shape individual elements to bring them in line with the overall
impression
- Pressure towards unity changes meaning of individual traits to Bit into context
- People use variety of strategies to organise and unify impression and thus change
meaning of ambiguous terms
- Schema
- Holistic model/approach to social cognition
- Algebraic Model = takes each individual trait,
evaluates it in isolation and combines the
evaluations into a summary
- All pros and cons -> information averaging
- Much research backs this up
- Impression = a + b + c + d / a+b+c+d+G (G here general positivity/negativity)
- Elemental approach to social cognition
- these two ideas are fundamentally different ideas -> debated
- But both models are Blexible enough to account for each others data -> neither falsiBiable
- Both models are right, but people follow each process under different circumstances
- Elemental approach = breaks scientiBic problems down into pieces and analyses the pieces
in separate detail
- Holistic approach = analyses pieces in context of other pieces and focus on entire
conBiguration
Elemental Origins of Social Cognition
- until the beginning of the 20th century, psychology was branch of philosophy
- British philosophers’ elemental tradition likened the mind to chemistry
- Basic elements creates mental chemistry
- in elemental view, ideas Birst come from our sensations and perceptions -> then become
associated by contiguity in space and time
- Associated through repeated pairings
- Frequency of repetition is a major factor that determines the strength of an association
- psychology as own science in early 20th century -> mental chemistry tested by Wundt and
Ebbinghaus
, 3
- Observed their own thought processes
- Introspection
- Basis of modern experimental psychology
Holistic Origins of Social Cognition Research
- Immanuel Kant
- Against elemental approach
- Argued for tackling the whole mind at once
- Mental phenomena as inherently subjective
- Construction of reality (same as perception)
- The intellect organised the world, creating perpetual order from surrounding Bield
- Gestalt Psychology
- Drew on holistic insights and Kant
- First describe phenomenon of interest, the immediate experience of the perception,
without analysis
- Reliance on asking people how they make sense of the world
- Focus on experience of dynamic wholes (as opposed to elementalists)
- Believe that emergent structure is lost by breaking the whole into pieces
- Perceptual whole as having properties not discernible from the isolated parts
- The individual acquires meaning in context
Lewin’s Person-Situation Field Theory
- Kurt Lewin (1951)
- Imported gestalt ideas to social psychology
- Focused on persons subjective perceptions not on objective analysis
- Emphasised the inBluence of the social environment as perceived by the individual =
psychological ?ield -> cannot result from objective description by others
- Restraining and driving forces
- motivation, cognition and person in the environment
- Persons own reports provide best reports
- Emphasis on individual phenomenology
- No one force predicts actions, but the dynamic equilibrium among them, the ever changing
balance of forces predicts action
- Total Psychological Field is determined by: Person in the Situation + Cognition and
Motivation
- Person in the situation = person contributes needs, beliefs, perceptual abilities -> act on
environment to constitute psychological Bield
- Cognition and Motivation = both are functions of person and situation and jointly predict
behavior
- Cognition provides the interpretation of world(if person is confused, behavior will be
unstable)
- Motivation strength predict whether a behavior will occur and how much of it
Conclusion about Elemental and Holistic Views
- historical origins of social cognitions contrast elemental and holistic viewpoints
- Elemental approaches aim to build up from the bottom
- Piecemeal nature of this approach contrasts sharply with the holistic nature of the gestalt
- Holistic view tackles entire conBiguration
, 4
The Ebb and Flow of Cognition In Psychology
- introspection got bad reputation
Cognition in Experimental Psychology
- Wundt’s work relied heavily on trained introspection
- But ultimately abandoned introspection because didn’t conform to scientiBic standards
- Data should be publicly reproducible
- Examination and replication
- psychologists shifted away from studying internal processes towards external events
- Behaviourist Psychology
- early 20th century
- Only overt measurable acts were of importance
- Thorndike, Skinner
- Instrumental learning and no place for cognition
- Rewards and punishment
- The effect becomes a cause
- S and R
- But linguists criticised the lack of frameworks attempt to account for language
- And new approaches came about
- Information Procession = mental operations can not be broken down into sequential
stages
- Many cognitive processes
- How people acquire knowledge and skill
- Information procession theory speciBies the steps intervening between stimulus and
response
- Main focus: sequential processing
- Aiming to specify cognitive mechanisms
- new scientiBic tools
- Computer simulations
- Also as metaphor
- Framework for mental processes -> input output, memory storage etc.
- Human cognition resembles computer information processing
- cognitive neuroscience -> brain networks etc.
- 1970s: cognitive psychology re-emerged
- 1990s: decade of the brain -> neuroscience profoundly altered studies
- Distinct neural bases for distinct types of category learning
- Neural evidence for episodic memory
- Neuropsychology of brain damage
- Neuroimaging studies
Cognition in Social Psychology
- social psychology always leans on cognitive concepts
- Reaction depends on people’s perception
- Other people can inBluence each other without even being present -> ultimate reliance on
perception to the exclusion of objective stimuli
- Social psychological causes are largely cognitive and the results are largely cognitive
- Person in between the presumed cause and the result is viewed as a thinking organism
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller nhackmann1. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $8.97. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
