ALHT106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Mnemonic, Ingratiation, Psychology Today
ALHT week 11 OL Social Cognition
What is Social Cognition?
- You may remember our discussions of ‘cognition’ from earlier in the semester,
particularly in the Memory and Intelligence lectures
- In modern psychology (following the ‘cognitive revolution’ of the 1960s), cognition is
the umbrella term used for all information-transforming processes undertaken in the
human brain, comprising the human mind
- Social cognition is the cognition relevant to Social Psychology
Social Psychology
- Social psychology, as a whole, is broadly split between 2 areas:
oStudying group and social relations (interpersonal phenomena):
Group dynamics eg. Group norms and expectations, hierarchies,
social roles, etc.
Social influences eg. Persuasion, conformity, compliance,
obedience, etc.
Relationships eg. Friendships, intimacy, mate selection, familial
conflict, etc.
oStudying the formation of the ‘self’ (intrapersonal phenomena):
Self-concept eg. Experience vs. recollection, self-esteem, culture and
gender, etc.
Social cognition and perception eg. Impression formation,
attraction, stereotyping, etc.
Attitudes and beliefs eg. Preference formation, ego-defence,
ideology, religion, etc.
- In our recent lectures on group dynamics, we focused on a range of Social
Psychology phenomena that only occur between people as they interact
(interpersonal phenomena)
- This week, a similar overview of Social Psychology concepts that are relevant to
Allied Health Practice will be offered, but focusing on Intrapersonal Phenomena
- The two areas are interrelated, so will refer back on occasion
Attribution
Attribution
- Of all of our intuitive social-cognitive abilities, arguably the most fundamental
element is our innate tendency to explain certain events and actions, with reference
to the presumed will of other agents
- We intuitively describe the behaviour of other people (and in many cases, even non-
living objects) as being reflective of internal states of motivation, feeling or belief
- These immediate, intuitive explanations for seemingly voluntary acts are called
‘Attributions’, because we give casual credit for the action (attribute it) to some
unseen but inferred intentional motive
- For example:
oI assume that people drinking water are thirsty
oI infer that someone smiling and waving at me is communicating with me
oWhen someone punches a foe, I assume it is out of hatred
- In addition to helping us explain cause and effect relationships in general, our
attributions are what make typical interpersonal engagements possible
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- One of the most lifestyle-debilitating aspects of expressing as highly neuroatypical
along the autism spectrum is an impaired ability to perform attributions in the social
domain
- Eg. You see a smile, but don’t intuitively infer that they’re happy
- While attribution is involved in the social perception of facial expression signals (as
we reviewed in week 5), it extends far beyond that to many other forms of everyday
explanation, including complex evaluations like “why there is crime in this
neighbourhood” and “why the liberal party keeps renewing mining subsidies”
- We use Attribution any time we attach meaning to behaviour
Categories of Attribution
- Most of the types of attribution we can do are best broken down as binary
categories between two oppositional extremes (two different ways you can attribute
some aspect of a situation)
- The specific elements of a social attribution often reduce to dichotomous
judgements, for example, the main dimensions of this being:
oInternal vs external did someone do something because of something
internal (eg. Goals or beliefs) or external (eg. A fire causes them to run away)
oStable vs unstable is it something that will change in the future (stable) or is
it something we can consider to be a consistent part of that person’s
presentation (unstable)
oControllable vs uncontrollable are they doing something involuntarily or is
it something you can negotiate with them about
oIntentional vs accidental but we only really engage in attribution for things
that we think are intentional
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Attribution Bias
- What makes the
phenomenon of attribution particularly interesting is the set of reliable biases that
exist in how we tend to use it
- We use the same cognitive apparatus, and indeed usually the same language (of
beliefs, motives, feelings and traits) to account for our own behaviour as we do
when describing and explaining others, but we do so in consistently faulty ways
Fundamental Attribution Error
- The most obvious of these biases is the Fundamental Attribution Error, which
(phrased simply) is our tendency to disproportionately explain the behaviour of
others (especially less well known others) with reference to innate traits or
dispositions (stable, internal, intentional attributions)
- In contrast, particularly when we do something wrong, we are happy to explain our
own behaviour with mitigating circumstances
- For example, let’s say I was driving to my fiancée’s parents house on the weekend,
and I merged too sharply onto the motorway forcing someone to brake sharply, I’d
think:
o“Well I’m somewhat distracted and under-slept, it’s just a small slip up, not at
all reflective of my generally excellent driving”
oBut if someone had done the same thing to me, I’d think: “Ugh, what a
menace, how’d he even get a license, jail him!!”
- The fundamental attribution error is essentially how quick we jump to conclusions
that other people’s behaviour, regardless of the context, is indicative of their true
character even when we wouldn’t extend similar considerations to ourselves
- It has been argued that the fundamental attribution error forms part of the
‘conceptual bedrock for the field of social psychology’, because it is crucial in
understanding not only a huge range of interpersonal misunderstandings and
escalations, but also explains certain aspects of our normative self-image
- One of the best ways to ‘train up’ your compassion is learning to see the mitigating
circumstances in the lives of others
Biases and Stereotypes
Cognitive Biases
- As we’ve touched on in some of the earlier lectures, fundamental attribution error is
only the tip of the iceberg of systematic cognitive biases that provide us with specific
‘mental shortcuts’ that often yield positive (or at least acceptable) results, but
sometimes get us into reliable trouble
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
You may remember our discussions of cognition" from earlier in the semester, particularly in the memory and intelligence lectures. In modern psychology (following the cognitive revolution" of the 1960s), cognition is the umbrella term used for all information-transforming processes undertaken in the human brain, comprising the human mind. Social cognition is the cognition relevant to social psychology. Social psychology, as a whole, is broadly split between 2 areas: studying group and social relations (interpersonal phenomena): Group dynamics eg. group norms and expectations, hierarchies, social roles, etc. Social influences eg. persuasion, conformity, compliance, obedience, etc. Relationships eg. friendships, intimacy, mate selection, familial conflict, etc: studying the formation of the self" (intrapersonal phenomena): Self-concept eg. experience vs. recollection, self-esteem, culture and gender, etc. Social cognition and perception eg. impression formation, attraction, stereotyping, etc. Attitudes and beliefs eg. preference formation, ego-defence, ideology, religion, etc. In our recent lectures on group dynamics, we focused on a range of social.
