Chapter.3 : Social Cognition
How We Think About the Social World
- People are good at social cognition.
o Social Cognition : the ways people think about themselves and the social world including
how they select, interpret, remember, and use social information.
o Two kinds of Social Cognition :
▪ Automatic Thinking
▪ Controlled Thinking
3.1 : What is automatic thinking and how are schemas are an example
? What are the advantages and disadvantages of schemas ?
On Automatic Pilot : Low-Effort Thinking
- We form impressions of people quickly and effortlessly without conscious analysis.
- Automatic Thinking : thought that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless.
o Automacity : thinking that satisfies all criteria of automatic thinking or most of them.
People as Everyday Theorists : Automatic Thinking with Schemas
- Automatic thinking helps us understand new situations by relating them to previous experiences.
o People use schemas which influence the information we notice, think about, and remember.
▪ Schemas : mental structures that organize our knowledge about the social world.
o Schemas contain basic knowledge and impressions that we use to understand the social world
and interpret new situations and to fill gaps of our knowledge
o Having continuity is important that people who lose it invent non-existent schemas.
▪ Continuity : ability to relate new experiences to our past schemas.
o Schemas are useful in confusing situations to figure out what is going on.
o Sometimes what we see is unambiguous, so we don’t need to use schemas.
What Schemas Do We Use ? Accessibility and Priming
- Social world is full of ambiguous information open to interpretation.
- The schema that comes to mind and guides your impressions of someone can be affected by
accessibility.
o Accessibility : extent to which we schemas and concepts are at forefront of mind therefore
more likely to be used when making judgements
o Something can be accessible for 3 reasons :
▪ Due to past experience.
▪ Relating to a current goal
▪ Recent Experiences
- Priming : process by which recent experiences increase accessibility of schema, trait, or concept.
, Making Our Schemas Come True : Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- People can inadvertently make their schemas come true by the way they treat other people.
o Self-Fulfilling Prophecy :
▪ People have an expectation about what another person is like.
▪ This influences how they act toward that person.
▪ That causes the person to behave consistently with people’s expectations.
▪ Making expectations come TRUE.
How We Think About the Social World
- People are good at social cognition.
o Social Cognition : the ways people think about themselves and the social world including
how they select, interpret, remember, and use social information.
o Two kinds of Social Cognition :
▪ Automatic Thinking
▪ Controlled Thinking
3.1 : What is automatic thinking and how are schemas are an example
? What are the advantages and disadvantages of schemas ?
On Automatic Pilot : Low-Effort Thinking
- We form impressions of people quickly and effortlessly without conscious analysis.
- Automatic Thinking : thought that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless.
o Automacity : thinking that satisfies all criteria of automatic thinking or most of them.
People as Everyday Theorists : Automatic Thinking with Schemas
- Automatic thinking helps us understand new situations by relating them to previous experiences.
o People use schemas which influence the information we notice, think about, and remember.
▪ Schemas : mental structures that organize our knowledge about the social world.
o Schemas contain basic knowledge and impressions that we use to understand the social world
and interpret new situations and to fill gaps of our knowledge
o Having continuity is important that people who lose it invent non-existent schemas.
▪ Continuity : ability to relate new experiences to our past schemas.
o Schemas are useful in confusing situations to figure out what is going on.
o Sometimes what we see is unambiguous, so we don’t need to use schemas.
What Schemas Do We Use ? Accessibility and Priming
- Social world is full of ambiguous information open to interpretation.
- The schema that comes to mind and guides your impressions of someone can be affected by
accessibility.
o Accessibility : extent to which we schemas and concepts are at forefront of mind therefore
more likely to be used when making judgements
o Something can be accessible for 3 reasons :
▪ Due to past experience.
▪ Relating to a current goal
▪ Recent Experiences
- Priming : process by which recent experiences increase accessibility of schema, trait, or concept.
, Making Our Schemas Come True : Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- People can inadvertently make their schemas come true by the way they treat other people.
o Self-Fulfilling Prophecy :
▪ People have an expectation about what another person is like.
▪ This influences how they act toward that person.
▪ That causes the person to behave consistently with people’s expectations.
▪ Making expectations come TRUE.
