cours 4

• Social Information Processing


  How individuals construct their respective views of the social environment
• Today's Topics

  19.03.2024
• Today's Topics


  • The construction of the social world
  • Perception
  • Categorisation and Organisation
  • Judgement and Decision Making
  • Controlled vs. Automatic Thinking
• The construction of the social world


  People not only intake information, but also process and become "architects" of their own social environment
• Social cognition

  Research area that addresses how individuals construct their respective views of the social environment
• Cognitive stages of social information processing


  1. Perception

  2. Categorisation and Organisation

  3. Judgement and Decision Making

  
• Perception


  Stimuli are combined into a subjective totality of sensory impressions
• Social Perception


  The stimuli are "social" and/or the genesis of perception is influenced by social factors
• Many characteristics in the social world are only indirectly accessible (e.g. "honesty", "infatuation")
• Perceptual set


  A mental predisposition to perceive something specific and not something else
• Perceptual set examples


  • "MIT brew": adding vinegar to beer doesn't affect liking unless people are told beforehand
  • Baby name effect: a baby named "David" is perceived as bigger than if introduced as "Diana"
• Culture and contextual effects influence perception
• Halo effect


  Individual characteristics of a person (e.g. attractiveness) create a positive or negative impression that "shines" over the further perception of the person and disproportionately influences the overall impression
• Primacy effect of judgment formation


  The first stimuli in a series have a particularly strong influence on judgment formation
• Emotional impressions are subject to "contagion effects"
• Social information processing


  People not only intake information, but also process and become "architects" of their own social environment
• Social cognition


  • Research area that addresses how individuals construct their respective views of the social environment
• Cognitive stages of social information processing

  1. Perception

  2. Categorisation and Organisation

  3. Judgement and Decision Making

  4. Controlled vs. Automatic Thinking

  
• Perception


  Stimuli are combined into a subjective totality of sensory impressions
• Social perception


  The stimuli are "social" and/or the genesis of perception is influenced by social factors
• Many characteristics in the social world are only indirectly accessible (e.g. "honesty", "infatuation")
• Perceptual set


  A mental predisposition to perceive something specific and not something else
• Perceptual set examples


  • "MIT brew": adding vinegar to beer doesn't affect liking unless people are told beforehand
  • Baby name effect: a baby named "David" is perceived as bigger than if introduced as "Diana"
• Culture and contextual effects influence perception
• Halo effect


  • Individual characteristics of a person (e.g. attractiveness) create a positive or negative impression that "shines" over the further perception of the person and disproportionately influences the overall impression
• Primacy effect of judgment formation

  • The first stimuli in a series have a particularly strong influence on judgment formation
• Emotional impressions are subject to "contagion effects"
• Categorisation


  We have the tendency to categorize objects (including people) into discrete groups based on common characteristic features
• Category (or concept)


  A grouping of two or more distinguishable objects that are treated as equal
• Functions of categories

  • Support cognitive processes and help apply existing knowledge to new experiences
• Explanatory models of categorisation

  • Classical view
  • Prototype approach
  • Exemplar approach
• Schema


  A cognitive structure or mental representation that encompasses preprocessed information about certain objects, processes, or people of certain categories; our expectations about specific objects, processes, or groups; what defines the objects, processes, or groups
• Example of schema/"script" for a restaurant visit

  • Distinction between restaurant - department store - hairdresser - railway station, Reading menu, Ordering, Eating, Requesting bill
• Differences in restaurant visit script: lingering after the meal in the USA vs. Germany/Romania
• A mysterious story about a father and son in a car accident where the surgeon recognises the son as their own
• Changeability of schemas


  • Schemas are very stable and resistant to change, apparently there are high psychological costs associated with adapting a schema
• Theoretical models for schema/stereotype change

  • Accounting model
  • Conversion model
  • Subtyping model
• Experiment on changeability of schemas

  • Very atypical vs slightly atypical physics students - having encounters with many slightly atypical group members is better for changing schemas than a few highly atypical members
• Judgment heuristics


  Cognitive tools that enable individuals to make judgments through simplifying "rules of thumb," which do not require a lot of effort but often lead to good results
• Representativeness heuristic


  Judgments about an object are made based on their similarity to a prototype