Module 21: Social Cognition and Influence: How Do People Interact?

1. Attributions
 Attribution: A way to describe someone’s behavior
 Dispositional
o The behavior of a person is a result of the person’s personality or
disposition
 Situational
o The behavior of someone is a result of their situation
 Under Ideal Circumstances
o Make initial dispositional attribution, then correct for situation
o We often do not correct enough…
 Correspondence Bias
o How we tend to think of someone’s actions because of who they are
rather than the situation
 Actor-Observer Bias
o We fall for correspondence bias when judging other people and NOT
when judging ourselves
 Attitudes and Behaviors
o Psychological tendency to evaluating something favorability or not
 Three Components of an Attitude
o Beliefs
o Feelings
o Behaviors
 What Determines if Attitude Predicts Behavior?
o It needs to be the right kind of attitude
o What kind of influence do others have on you
o The attitude needs to be strong to be able to predict behavior
 Can Behaviors Cause Attitudes?
o Cognitive dissonance
 Contradictory thoughts lead to dissonance (discomfort) we are
motivated to reduce the dissonance
 We try to cancel the discomfort by convincing ourselves
otherwise of our beliefs
2. Group Effects on Individuals
 Social Norms
o The “rules” that govern a particular group
o Sometimes the rules are explicit and known, but often not
 Two Types of Social Norms
 o Descriptive Norms
 A norm that is described by what a crowd or group is doing
 Ex: Fitting in by following a clothing trend
o Injunctive Norms
 Norms that are normally known (the do and do not)
 Ex: Not talking in a movie theater
 Conformity
o When someone is acting according to what others are doing to fit in
o When multiple people are doing something, there is a pressure to
conform
 What Makes People Conform?
o If multiple people are choosing one thing
o If the group size is at least 3 and up to 8
o Having high status members
o Having high group cohesion (getting along)
3. Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
 Stereotypes
o A set of beliefs about a person derived from group membership
o Ex: Believing that black cats give bad luck
 Prejudice
o Feeling or evaluation of the stereotyped person
o Ex: If people feel nervous about black cats giving black cats, the
feeling is prejudice
 Discrimination
o Treating a person differently because of stereotypes and prejudice`
o Ex: Refusing to adopt black cats from shelters because you believe
they give bad luck
 Oppression
o Systemic subordination of a group of people by another group with
more power
o Ex: White people oppressing black people
 Old Explanations for Stereotypes
o It used to be believed that something was wrong with you if you
believed stereotypes
 New Explanation
o Now thought that stereotypes arise from normal cognitive processes
o Not thought of necessarily wrong now
 Group Status Shapes Our Impressions
o Outgroup members are seen as more similar to each other
  Outgroup: People that are not like you
o We see ingroup members more favorably
 Ingroup: People like you
 We Learn Stereotypes from Culture
o We tend to learn stereotypes from the culture we come from
 Prejudice
o Feelings about stereotyped people
o Prejudice often makes people feel discomfort when in contact with
prejudiced group
o Often believed that an outgroup poses a threat to you
 Racisms and Attitudes
o Explicit attitudes
 Attitudes we are aware of
o Implicit attitudes / bias
 Attitudes we are not aware of, but that may guide our thinking
and behavior
 Reducing Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
o We must understand and internalize the concepts
o We must encourage strategic contact between groups
o We must acknowledge and learn how to compensate for implicit biases