Social Cognition and Social Perception

Transcription

1 Social Cognition and Social Perception Gathered & Prepared By: Maha Wasfi Mobasher Professor of Psychiatry-Faculty of Medicine Cairo University December

2 Social Psychology -Introduction: People do not live in isolation, but come in contact or interact with others on a regular basis. As a result, people are influenced by other people at a variety of levels. "We humans are social species

3 Social Psychology- Introduction: Social Psychology seeks to understand these interactions, and can thus be defined as the scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of people are influenced by the presence of others. It is important to note that the presence of others does not have to be real; people only have to perceive that others are there.

4 Social Psychology- Introduction: The underlying premise of Social Psychology is that people are not merely their personalities, not merely a product of their environments, but are who they are as a result of the interaction of the environment and personality.

5 Social Psychology- Introduction: Kurt Lewin ( ) was a German- American Psychologist often referred to as the father of social psychology. He expresses the interaction between personality and the environment: B=f(P, E) (B=behavior, P=person, E=environment, and f=the function of).

6 Social Psychology- Introduction: There are several perspectives within social psychology, including the Evolutionary Perspective, the Socio-cultural Perspective, Social Learning Perspective, and Social- Cognitive Perspective. Some of the major topics within social psychology include Cognitive Dissonance, Social Cognition, Group Dynamics, Attitudes, Persuasion, Obedience, and Interpersonal Attraction

7 Social Cognition Definition: The general process by which we make sense out of social situations and begin to interpret them Important mediator of social behavior

8 SOCIAL PERCEPTION Definition : The specific process we use to make sense out of individual behavior Involves inferring motives for behavior and attributing causes for behavior More focused and specific process than the more general social cognition process

9 Schemas They are organized beliefs and knowledge about people, objects, events and situations.

10 Stereotypes -These are schemas of classes of people.

11 Self schema It is schema about ourselves. It is a set of organized self concepts stored in memory.

12 Schematic processing -The process of searching in memory for the schema that is most consistent with the incoming data. - It occurs rapidly and automatically that we are not even aware it is taking place.

13 -Social perception and cognition are central to how we interpret situations and affect our social behavior.

14 Advantages -Schemas and schematic processing permit us to organize and process enormous amount of information very efficiently. -Instead of having to perceive and remember all the details of each new object or event, we can simply note that it is like one of our preexisting schemas and encode or remember only its most prominent features.

15 Advantages -Without schemas and schematic processing, we would be overwhelmed by the information that inundates us. We would be very poor information processors. -But the price we pay for such efficiency is a bias in both our perception and our memories of the data.

16 Problems in Social Cognition and Perception: Humans are not always rational, objective processers of information. Bias enters into social perception and cognition as follows:

17 Bias in social perception: 1- In many cases construction of social reality is based on limited and/or inaccurate information. 2- Many different strategies are used to construct social reality We tend to choose the least effortful strategy We tend to be COGNITIVE MISERS

18 Bias in social perception: 3-TUNNEL VISION often occurs We block out much information and see social situations in a limited way 4-Social reality can be altered easily by imposing a new set of rules or parameters. 5- Our version of social reality is constructed so that it fits with our perceptions of changing events.

19 Other sources of bias: 6-We in our daily life are informal survey researchers so our major source of data about others is likely to be people we know personally. 7- Another source of data is mass media. They are simply reporting the news.

20 Other sources of bias: 8- In every day life we constantly accumulate information in memory and attempt to recall it when we are called upon to make some judgment. -Thus not only the data we collect is biased but the data we bring to bear our social judgments are further biased by problems of selective recall.

21 Other sources of bias: 9- Vividness is one of the factors that influence the information we notice and remember. -The vivid face to face information is more influential than the non vivid written information even though it is based on less complete and representative data.

22 Other sources of bias: 10- Schemas and stereotypes persist in the face of nonconforming and disconfirming data this is known as "the perseverance effect ".

23 Factors Contributing to Social Perception: 1-Preconceptions and expectations and the selffulfilling prophecy 2- Categorization Tendency to categorize objects and people into groups We may over categorize (fit an object into a group where it doesn't belong) We may over generalize (respond to a person based on category membership and not individual traits

24 Factors Contributing to Social Perception: 3-Two types of expectancies are developed based on categorization Category-based expectancy: Expectancy that all members of a group will behave in similar and consistent ways Target-based expectancy: Expectancy that an individual member of a category will behave in a given way 4- Prototypes and exemplars

25 Impression Formation Definition: An impression is a judgment we make about the motives and behavior of others First impressions influence later perceptions and judgments of others They also bias how we process later information received about a person We often form impressions based on limited information

26 So, the traditional convention that first impressions make or break us has a great deal of truth.

27 Attributions These are schemas of cause and effect for human behavior.

28 Internal or dispositional attribution -If we infer that something about the person is primarily responsible for the behavior our inference is called an internal or dispositional being related to the person's beliefs, attitudes and personality characteristics.

29 External or situational attribution If we conclude that some external causes are responsible for one's behavior, it is called an external or situational attribution.

30 The fundamental attribution error "The Attribution Theory of Fritz Heider": -An individual's behavior is so compelling to us that we take it at face value and give insufficient weight to the circumstances surrounding it. -We underestimate the situational causes of behavior, jumping too easily to conclusions about the person's disposition.

31 Cognitive Dissonance Theory: "We do not like to think that our cognitions are inconsistent; nor do we like to think that they are inconsistent with our behaviors." -Awareness that two cognitions are dissonant, or that our cognitions and our behavior are inconsistent, is sufficient to motivate us to reduce the discrepancy.

32 -Cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant state that is accompanied by increased physiological arousal (anxiety).

33 Cross-Cultural Differences in Attribution Processes -Some of the attribution effects may not be universal but may reflect an individualist orientation, which values independence and self-assertiveness that dominates more in Western industrialized nations.

34 Cross-Cultural Differences in Attribution Processes In contrast to the more collective orientation, which stresses people interdependence with others in the community that prevails in most of the non-western cultures.

35 Interpersonal attraction Interpersonal attraction as liking, loving and sexual attractions are areas of human behavior in which cognitive and affective components are intertwined complexly.

36 Interpersonal attraction Affecting factors: 1- Physical attractiveness; In most of surveys conducted about the issue people do not rank physical attractiveness as very important in their liking of others. But research on actual behavior showed that only physical attractiveness played a role in how much the person was liked by his or her partner.

37 Interpersonal attraction Affecting factors: Fortunately there is a hope for the unbeautiful among us. First, physical attractiveness appear to decline in importance when a permanent partner is being chosen. Second there are several other factors that can work in favor.

38 Interpersonal attraction 2- Proximity; -Proximity simply increases the intensity of the initial reaction, and the most frequent result of sustained proximity is friendship. -There are cases, of course in which proximate subjects hate one another and the friendship promoting effect of proximity seems to occur when there are initial antagonism.

39 Interpersonal attraction 3- Familiarity; One of the major reasons that proximity creates liking is that it increases familiarity, and familiarity all by itself increases liking. Familiarity breeds liking effect. -If you are not beautiful or you find your admiration of someone unreciprocated, be persistent and hang around. Proximity and familiarity are your most powerful weapons.

40 Interpersonal attraction 4- Similarity; -Research dating all the way back to 1870 supports that the old saying which declares that the opposites attract is mostly false. -However opposites may still attract to certain complementary personality traits.

41 Interpersonal attraction Similarity (continued) -Results of recent studies showed that 99% of married couples are of the same race and religion. Statistical surveys show that husbands and wives are significantly similar to each other not only in sociological characteristics and socioeconomic class but also with respect to psychological and physical characteristics.

42 Romantic/ sexual attraction and love 1-Passionate love: -It is defined as an intense emotional state in which" tender and sexual feelings, elation and pain, anxiety and relief, altruism and jealousy coexist in a confusion of feelings". -Both theory and research suggest that the intense feelings that characterize the passionate love are unlikely to persist over time.

43 Romantic/ sexual attraction and love 2- Companionate love: It is defined as "affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined". It is characterized by trust, caring, tolerance and an emotional tone of warmth and affection rather than high pitched emotional passion. -Most successful long term couples emphasize the companionate elements of their relationship.

44 Romantic/ sexual attraction and love The triangular theory of love: It is a more differentiated classification that divides love into three components: 1- Intimacy, which is the emotional component and involves closeness and sharing of feelings. 2- Passion, which is the motivational component, and consists of sexual attraction and romantic feeling of being in love. 3- Commitment, which is the cognitive component. Companionate love is characterized by high intimacy and commitment, but low passion.

45 Mating Strategies in Sociobiological Theory -The Key idea is that, just like biological mechanisms, psychological mechanisms must have evolved over millions of years through a process of natural selection. -This means that they have a genetic basis and have proved useful to the human species in the past for solving some problems of survival or increasing the chance of reproducing.

46 Mating Strategies in Sociobiological Theory Individuals must solve several problems, including: 1- Winning out over competitors in gaining access to fertile members of the opposite sex.

47 Mating Strategies in Sociobiological Theory 2- Selecting mates with the greatest reproductive potential. 3- Engaging in the necessary social and sexual behavior to achieve conception. 4- Preventing the mate from defecting or deserting. 5- Ensuring the survival and reproductive success of one's offspring. "The more complex an organism's nervous system is, the longer the time required to reach maturity."

48 Mating Strategies in Sociobiological Theory -Men and women play different roles in reproduction, and their mating tactics and strategies used might also have evolved to be different. -It is theoretically possible for a man to father hundreds of children; it is to his evolutionary advantage to impregnate as many women as possible in order to pass along the greatest number of his own genes.

49 Mating Strategies in Sociobiological Theory -The woman, however, must invest a great deal of time and energy in each birth and can have only a limited number of offspring. -Thus it is to her advantage to select a mate who is most willing and best able to assist in protecting and raising her children, thereby maximizing the likelihood of passing her genes along to future generations.

50 Mating Strategies in Sociobiological Theory -This reasoning suggests that evolution would have made men more promiscuous and less discriminating in their choice of sexual partners than women. -In fact societies that permit one man to mate with more than one woman far outnumber those in which one woman may mate with many different men.

51 Mating Strategies in Sociobiological Theory -Sociobiological theory also predicts that a man should prefer to mate with the most fertile young woman available because they are most likely to bear his children. -A woman should prefer to mate with a man of high social status and solid material resources, one who can give the children the best chance of surviving to adulthood and reproducing in their turn. Thus women will prefer older men (who have more resources).

52 Mating Strategies in Sociobiological Theory -Sociobiological theory has not gone unchallenged. The need to ensure that one's offspring survive to reproductive age- the same need that presumably gave rise to human pair bonding in the first place- would provide an opposing evolutionary push toward monogamy. -In other words, Sociobiological theory could be invoked to explain either male promiscuity or male sexual fidelity.

53 Other Issues Related to Social cognition and Perception- Watch videos related on line about: 1-Bandura-Social Cognitive Theory 2-Non Verbal Communication & Others

54 Read the following paragraph and answer the short questions. A handsome young man and a beautiful lady met during one of their holiday trips for the first time among a group of common friends. They got attracted to each other from the first moment as they discovered that they live in the same area in the town. Each of them had an unexplained feeling that they met before but still uncertain. More surprisingly they were students of the same college. Actually they fall in love very rapidly.

55 Discuss from your point of view factors that enhanced the love relation described above. Depending on your theoretical psychological background classify the possible type of this love relation. What do you expect for this relation (you can imagine future conditions if needed to support your prognosis)?

56 Good luck THANK YOU