Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
L1 - Advances in Social Psychology (Social thinking (Evolution of social…
L1 - Advances in Social Psychology
Social thinking
We are social beings - social thinking can be any encounter with other humans or thinking about others. e.g. supermarket etc
Social Cognition = area in social psyc that has 2 main approaches:
1) Social cognition
Derived from
cognitive
psychology.
Focus on individual thought processes
Social perceivers
respond
to social stimuli
But is defined by
how
people store (in
memory
) and think (
process
) such info
e.g. when encountering others we use
heuristics
Perceivers viewed as
information processors
People experience
social stimuli
(others) and form
impressions
of them based on information stored in
memory
...or through cognitively
effortful thinking
2) Social Identity theory
Focus on group - we think of ourselves in terms of our
in group
members Vs
out-group
We are motivated to have a positive
self-concept
: get this positive sense of self through our
social identity
defined by affiliation with out
in-groups
Intergroup behaviour driven by
shared identities
with others
If we see our group
negatively
we have a poor social identity and a low self-asteem
Tajfel
- father of social identity theory. Believed social cognitive theory focused too much on 'cognitive' and not enough on wider
social context
Evolution of social thinking:
Some animals do show social cognition (e.g. higher primates)
Some animals form mental representations and store social network information, BUT they cannot
convey this to others of their species
(Dunbar, 2003)
Language
unique to humans = v.useful.
Advanced human cultures require the ability to form
mental representations
of
ourselves
and
others
(including groups)
Also, to communicate
information
,
thoughts
,
beliefs
, &
attitudes
to one another - good social skills.
Until fairly recently it was thought that problem solving = unique to humans. e.g. crows can fashion and use tools (Wimpenny et al. 2009)
Neanderthals
Humans learn about one another because our societies require
communication
- they're large bodies meant they has less need for co-ordination in hunting.
Neanderthals lives alongside humans until
30,000 - 45,000
years ago - they faced
competition
with humans due to
poor
social cognitive abilities for communication/hunting etc. (Dunbar, 2003)
They traded
good visual perception
at the expense of social cognition - their cranial capacity was larger BUT mapped differently to ours
Social skills allow communication of
ideas
and
group co-ordination
- e.g. useful in hunting
They're hunting methods = high risk of injury. When prey was scarce they couldn't compete with humans co-ordinated attacks
Larger eye sockets - adaptation to poor lighting conditions. Larger forehead in humans - larger PFC.
Social brain Hypothesis
- Dunbar, 1998
Human brain size is driven by cognitive demands of living in groups -
Not
by ecological problems (e.g. increase prey size :red_cross: = increase brain size
Dunbar's Number
=
150
- it is a cognitive challange to keep track of more people = not enough time to have relationships with more
Primates groom eachother - too time consuming so humans developed language - more cognitively demanding but allowed us to develop
theory of mind
- we can understand thoughts and feelings (even more demanding - why the
neocortex
has evolved)
Self and Identity
The self concept
The set of
beliefs
or
knowledge
that a person has about themselves
Multi-dimensional construct - each
identity
and component of the self is represented in our mind as a
self-schema
Pursuing self-knowledge
Bem's
(1972) Self-perception theory: We make
attributions
about our behaviour
Festinger's
(1954) Social comparison theory: We
compare
ourselves
to
others
V.diff to judge self/develop self concept.
Three competing core motives influence how we search for knowledge about the self:
Self-assessmen
t - to seek accurate
info about the self
Self-verification
- to seek info
that we are correct
Self-enhancement
- to promote oneself
despite the evidence (strongest influence)
Self-esteem
The evaluation of your self-concept as +ve or -ve
Social identity theorists believe we seek to
boost
self esteem by
thinking positively
about our
individual
and
group
selves.
Proponents of Terror Management Theory
- argue that
self-esteem
helps
protect us
against the inherent human fear of death, because it reflects the degree to which we are
living up
to
societal values
and standards, giving us a sense of
meaning
and
purpose
.
Organising social thinking
2 influential
social psychologists:
Allport
(1924) - social psyc should focus on the self
Festinger's
(1954) Social comparisons Theory
upward
comparisons "you're better than me"
downward
comparisons "I feel sorry for you"
To organise social thinking we first need a sense of
self
...
Person Perception: Social Inference
Social inference is the way we process social information to form impressions and judgements.
Social inferences based on:
Systematic
processing
of information. Only likely when have time & motivation -
naive scientist
Simple
heuristics
.
cognitive misers
view siggests we tale shortcuts when we can categorise.
Motivated tactician
- we choose between the two as and when necessary.
Multiple Categorisation
We are members of
multiple social categories
e.g. race, gender, nationality etc
When activated social categories that fit poorly create
perceptual conflict
e.g. male nurse
Inconsistency resolution resulting in
emergent attributes
used to resolve the conflict (form of individuation)
Emergent attributes
smooth impression formation
resulting in
coherence
(Hutter and Crisp, 2005)
Stereotyping
Lippmann (1922) - stereotypes are the pictures we carry inside our heads
The
collection
of
traits
typical
of members of a particular social group
Why?
1) Makes life easy - they
simplify information
processing and
reduces cognitive load
Macrae et al. (1994) participants allowed to stereotype - had more
cognitive resources left over
to simultaneously monitor audio track.
2) It helps us to
justify existing social hierarchies
: System justification theory (Jost & Banaii, 1994)
Jost & Kay (2005) demonstrated that even ingroup members engate in system justification.
Automatic processes in social Cognition
Automatic and controlled thinking
4 key criteria:
Awareness
Automatic processes are characterised by a lack of awareness of the process operation or its effects.
Intention
Automatic processes are initiated without the deliberate intention of the individual
Control
Automatic processes are uncontrollable
Efficiency
Automatic processes spare our cognitive resources
Bargh's (1994) describes these components as the
four horsemen of automacity
:
Behavioural Priming
Exposure to concepts can
change behaviour
- automatically
Bargh (1996) priming "politeness" -
less
likely to
interrupt
an experimenter than participants primed with "rudeness"
Bargh (1996) also found that participants primed with elderly stereotypes of the
elderly
took
longer
to
exit
the
experiment
This effect has been replicated but NOT in all studies - criticised for generality.
