Post on 12-Feb-2017
By :
Ar. Surashmie Gawande
Presenation
Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, of information in the brain, which relates to conspecifics (members of the same species).
how do
we
think
about the
social world.?
Book : social psychology – Baron , Branscombe ,Byrne and Bharadwaaj
• Schemas
• Heuristics
• Automatic & controlled processing
• Errors in social cognition
• Affect and cognition
Retrieve / Use
Store / remember
Process / analyze
Encode / interprete
Social Cognition
Systematic , logical , careful , highly effortful manner
Fast , relatively effortless , intuitive manner
Controlled processing Automatic processing
Thinking
• An individuals Experience
( common / unique )
mental framework /
structure.
• There is also cultural sharing of schemas . Indian people respect paper , pencil etc.
• Schemas dominate peoples thoughts and therefore behaviour
hence IMPACT our understanding
the social world & our relationship
with people
Schemas
Schemas: Mental frameworks centered on specific themes to
help organizing , using Information …… EFFICIENTLY . hence they act as FILTERS ………. But may vary across
cultural , social and economic categories .
Attention Retrieve
• Strong & well developed schemas are recovered or where the extent of mental effort was put in
• Helps In quick Judgement about people
• Consistency in schemas generally easy to recover .
Encode
• Information consistent with schemas gets encoded
• Also sharply contrasting info also gets stored with a TAG
• Information is filtered
• Consistent with schemas gets noticed & else is ignored unless extreme
Schemas : Priming , unpriming , persistence.
• Priming : has long lasting
effects generally / mostly
• Unpriming : deactivates
• Persistence : as schemas are
unaltered
• It is a situation that occurs when stimuli / events consciousness of specific types of information held in memory.
• The effects of priming vanish or Reduces once they are expressed in thought or behaviour
• Can give rise to Prejudice due to distortion of our understanding this is called perseverance effect.
What are Heuristics ? they are tactics for processing large amount of information
inferences are drawn very quickly simple rules for making complex decisions
Representativeness : judging by resemblance
• Have the basis on the extent to which current stimuli/ events resemble others ……. e.g. Traits , Behaviour
Attire , Manner , Style of a person .
But these can be erroneous .
The Availability heuristics :
• Have their basis
The ease / amount …….
of specific kinds of inputs are brought to mind …… e.g.
disease symptoms , event details etc.
Anchoring and adjustment :
• Based on the tendency to use a number or value as a starting point and to which one makes an adjustment.
• These adjustments are insufficient to reflect social reality since once a plausible value is reached
the process is stopped .
Automatic processing & controlled processing : the basic modes of social thought
• Non conscious • Effortless • Quick • Automatic • Beneficial & hence gives more satisfaction in decision making . • Efficient ….
Proved through research
• Occurs in Amygdala
• Careful
• Logical
• Systematic
• Effortful
• Non beneficial sometimes
• Limitations to processing
all information ,
dimensions /
elements
confusion and
ignore important
aspects
• Occurs in prefrontal cortex.
Potential sources of Error in social cognition when individuals deviate from
rationality
Negativity bias Overt optimism
Basic ‘tilts’ i.e. Sensitive to certain types of information
Gather information
Decisions Inferences Judgements
Process it
i.e. sensitive to negative information Rather than positive about others
• Can be reduced or eliminated • Not universal
i.e. The predisposition that……………. things will be well overall.
Overconfidence barrier
Planning fallacy
• External factors • Overlook past
experiences
Situation specific sources of error :
COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING : what might have been .
The tendency to think about other outcomes than what has occurred .
MAGICAL THINKING : Thinking involves assumptions that do not follow a rationale e.g. Fundamental traits / properties are shared by similar things
THOUGHT SUPPRESSION:
Efforts to prevent certain thoughts from entering our mind
Keep out unwanted thoughts prevention system gets activated
TERROR MANAGEMENT :
Thinking about unsettling outcomes of imaginary or real threats / entities / occurrences . E.g. belief in Supernatural
Affect and Cognition
Affect Cognition . How?
• Current moods can cause an individual to react positively / negatively to stimulus / situation / person
• Can influence creativity
• Good mood tendency to think heuristically
• Only mood consistent information would be stored this is called mood congruent effects
• Only specific types of information is retrieved in current mood this is called mood dependent memory
SO …………. FEELINGS SHAPE THOUGHT & THOUGHT SHAPE FEELINGS
Social thought is adaptable and often flows along channels which help us to deal effectively with the complex social world we live in…………
Cognition Affect.
External factors cause us to react and therefore understand our feelings and attitudes Schemas === race, ethnicity , religion or stereotype Cause the same understanding . Conscious choice / regulation of our current state Current affect / mood
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cognition http://ezequieldipaolo.wordpress.com/research/enactive_cognition/social-cognition/ http://www.google.co.in/imgres?q=interactions+with+people
Thank you ………