12. Social Cog & Attitudes

• Social cognition


  The different psychological processes that influence how people process, interpret, and respond to social signals. These processes allow people to understand social behavior and respond in ways that are appropriate and beneficial.
• Social cognition


  How individuals perceive, interpret, and understand information about themselves and others in social situations. It involves processes such as understanding social cues, making judgments, and forming beliefs about others' thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
• Common factors of social cognition


  • Perceiving others
  • Learning about people
  • Study of social cognition
  • Attention to social information
  • Storage and use of social information
• Perceiving others


  How we see and understand other people. It's about noticing things like facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice to figure out what someone might be feeling or thinking.
• Learning about people


  How we gather information about others in the world around us. It's like observing how people behave, listening to what they say, and remembering these details to understand them better.
• Study of social cognition


  The exploration of how our minds work when we interact with others. It includes understanding how we perceive, remember, think about, and pay attention to people in our social world.
• Attention to social information


  Why we focus on certain things about people and how we store this information in our memory. It's about what catches our attention in social situations and how we use that information to interact with others.
• Storage and use of social information


  How we remember and utilize the information we gather about others. It's like storing memories of past interactions and using them to guide our behavior when we interact with people again.
• Theory of mind


  The ability to understand and attribute mental states, such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions, to oneself and others. It allows individuals to infer what others might be thinking or feeling and to predict their behavior based on these mental states.
• Attribution theory


  Explores how individuals explain the causes of their own and others' behavior. It suggests that people tend to attribute behavior to internal (personal characteristics) or external (situational factors) causes, which influences their perceptions and reactions in social interactions.
• Stereotyping


  Categorizing individuals into groups based on perceived characteristics or attributes associated with those groups. These generalized beliefs or expectations about group members can influence perceptions, judgments, and behaviors toward them.
• Prejudice


  Preconceived opinions or attitudes about a person or a group of people that are not based on reason or actual experience. These opinions or attitudes are often negative and can lead to unfair treatment or discrimination towards individuals based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or social class. Prejudice is rooted in stereotypes and can result in biased judgments, attitudes, and behaviors towards others.
• Social influence


  The ways in which individuals are affected by the presence, actions, or opinions of others. It includes processes such as conformity, compliance, and obedience, which shape behavior and attitudes in social contexts.
• Attitude


  The way that you think and feel about somebody or something.
• Attitude


  A psychological tendency to evaluate people, objects, or situations in a positive or negative way. It reflects beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies toward a particular target.

  
• Dimensions of attitudes


  • Cognitive component
  • Affective or emotional component
  • Behavioral component

  
• Cognitive component of an attitude


  Involves beliefs, thoughts, or perceptions about the attitude object. It reflects what we believe or think about something based on our knowledge or information.

  
• Affective or emotional component of an attitude


  Involves the emotional reactions or feelings associated with a particular attitude object. It reflects how we feel about something or someone.
• Behavioral component of an attitude


  Refers to the actions or behavioral tendencies associated with the attitude. It involves how we behave or intend to behave toward the attitude object.
• Explicit attitudes


  Very clear, controlled and conscious evaluative responses, and the person is aware of what they are saying.
• Implicit attitudes


  Automatic, non-conscious evaluative responses, hidden, often not aware of what is being said, and difficult to keep in consciousness.
• Attitude formation


  The process through which attitudes are developed over time, influenced by various factors such as personal experiences, socialization, and exposure to information.

  
• Factors influencing attitude formation


  • Direct contact (through personal experience)
  • Through interaction with people
  • Chance conditioning
  • Social learning or observational learning

  
• Our private beliefs, feelings and attitudes determine our public behavior
• Cognitive dissonance


  We change our behavior to suit attitudes, we change our attitudes to suit our behavior, or we add new information to the existing attitudes.
• Justification of effort theory


  Our attitudes may change because of behavior. If we work hard on something that we do not like first, because of the hardness of that work, at the end, we change our attitudes and give it a value.
• Counter attitudinal advocacy


  There is an attitude change if we get a small reward for appraising something that we do not like. It involves expressing support for ideas or opinions that are contrary to what an individual personally believes.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy


  Our behavior changes because of the expectations of others.
• Reactance theory


  People will do the opposite of what they think you want them to do. It is because they become upset when someone tries to take away free choice, so react by reasserting it.
• Attitudes and behaviors do not always relate
• Research studies show that emotions can change one's attitudes
• Attitude change


  Changing one's existing attitudes to a new attitude because of a psychological change.
• Compliance


  A change in behavior based on consequences, such as an individual's hopes to gain rewards or avoid punishment from another group or person.
• Identification


  A change of beliefs and affect in order to be similar to someone who one admires or likes.
• Internalization


  The change in beliefs and affect when one finds the content of the attitude to be intrinsically rewarding and thus leading to actual change in beliefs or evaluation towards an attitude object.
• Expectancy-value theory


  Describes the states that the behavior towards some object is a function of an individual's intent which is a function of one's overall attitude towards the action.

  
• Persuasion


  Any deliberate attempt to change attitudes or belief through information and arguments.
• Elaboration likelihood model


  Explains how likely a person is to think about an argument and how an attitude change takes place. It involves a central route of processing (thinking about the exact message) and a peripheral route of processing (considering external factors).
• Role


  A set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave.
• Attitude follows behavior principle


  If you want people to do a big favor for you, an effective strategy is to get them to do a small favor first for you. This includes techniques like the foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, and low-ball techniques.