Module 3: Social Cognition

Social cognition refers to the manner in which we interpret, analyse,

remember, and use information about the social world.

Schemas
Schemas are mental frameworks that help us to organize social information,
and that guide our actions and the processing of information relevant to those contexts. Once
schemas are formed, they play a role in determining what we notice about the social world,
what information we remember, and how we use and interpret such information. Research
findings suggest that they influence three basic processes: attention, encoding, and retrieval.
Attention refers to what information we notice. Encoding refers to the processes through
which information we notice gets stored in memory. Finally, retrieval refers to the processes
through which we recover information from memory in order to use it in some manner.
Schemas have been found to influence all of these aspects of social cognition.
With respect to attention, schemas often act as a kind of filter: information consistent with
them is more likely to be noticed and to enter our consciousness. Schemas are particularly
likely to be relied on when we are experiencing cognitive load—when we are trying to handle
a lot of information at one time. Turning to encoding—the information that becomes the
focus of our attention is much more likely to be stored in long-term memory. Research
suggests that people tend to report remembering information consistent with schemas more
than information that is inconsistent. Schemas can be temporarily activated by what is
known as priming—transitory increases in the ease with which specific schemas can be
activated .
The self-confirming nature of schemas
Schemas are often resistant to change—they show a strong perseverance effect,
remaining unchanged even in the face of contradictory information Such effects are
sometimes described as selfulfilling prophecies (pygmallion effect)- predictions that in a
sense make themselves come true. They influence our responses to the social world in ways
that make it consistent with the schema. The most dramatic evidence that schemas can be
self-fulfilling was provided by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968), in a famous study of teachers
and the unintended effects of their expectations on students. These researchers went to an
elementary school and administered an IQ test to all students. Then they told the teachers that
some of the students had scored very high and were about to “bloom” academically. The

1
teachers were not given such information about other students, who constituted a control
group. Although the researchers had chosen the names of the students for each group
randomly, they predicted that this information would alter teachers’ expectations about the
children and their behaviour toward them. To find out if this was true, 8 months later the
researchers tested both groups of children once again. Results were clear: those who had been
described as “bloomers” to their teachers showed significantly larger gains on the IQ test than
those in the control group. In short, teachers’ beliefs about the students had operated in a self-
fulfilling manner: The students whose teachers believed they would “bloom,” actually did.

Illustrations in Indian settings

Heuristics
At any given time, we are capable of handling a certain amount of information;
additional input beyond this puts us into a state of information overload where the demands
on our cognitive system are greater than its capacity. In addition, our processing capacity can
be depleted by high levels of stress or other demands To deal with such situations, people
adopt various strategies designed to “stretch” their cognitive resources—to let them do more,
with less effort, than would otherwise be the case. While many strategies for making sense of
complex information exist, one of the most useful tactics involves the use of heuristics—
simple rules for making complex decisions or drawing inferences in a rapid and efficient
manner. Some of the heuristics are:

[Link] heuristic- A strategy for making judgments based on the extent to

which current stimuli or events resemble other stimuli or categories. In other words, you
would make your judgment on the basis of a relatively simple rule: The more an individual
seems to resemble or match a given group, the more likely she or he is to belong to that
group. Such judgments are often accurate because belonging to certain groups does affect the
behaviour and style of people in them, and because people with certain traits are attracted to
particular groups in the first place. But sometimes, judgments based on representativeness are
wrong, mainly for the following reason: Decisions or judgments made on the basis of this
rule tend to ignore base rates—the frequency with which given events or patterns (e.g.,
occupations) occur in the total population

2
2. Availability heuristic- A strategy for making judgments on the basis of how easily specific
kinds of information can be brought to mind. Relying on availability in making social
judgments can also lead to errors. Specifically, it can lead us to overestimate the likelihood of
events that are dramatic but rare because they are easy to bring to mind. Consistent with this
principle, many people fear travel in airplanes more than travel in automobiles, even though
the chances of dying in an auto accident are hundreds of times higher.
The availability heuristic plays a role in many aspects of social thoughts
including self-serving bias and stereotypes. In addition, the availability heuristics relates to
another especially important process-priming- increased availability of information in
memory/consciousness resulting from exposure to specific stimuli or events. For e.g. during
the first year of medical school many students experience the ‘medical student syndrome’.
They believe that they or others have many serious illnesses.
Research findings indicate that priming may occur even when individuals
are unaware of the priming stimuli- an effect known as automatic priming. In other words
availability of certain kinds of information can be increased by priming stimuli, even though
we are not aware of having been exposed to these stimuli.
3. Anchoring and adjustment heuristic--A heuristic that involves the tendency to use a
number of value as a starting adjustments. This heuristic involves the tendency to deal with
uncertainty in many situations by using something we do know as a starting point, and then
making adjustments to it. These adjustments may not be sufficient to reflect actual social
reality; perhaps because once we attain a plausible value, we stop the process.

Automatic and Controlled Processing

Social thought can occur in either of two distinctly different ways: in a
systematic, logical, and highly effortful manner known as controlled processing, or in a fast,
relatively effortless, and intuitive manner known as automatic processing. Automatic
processing refers to processing of social information that is non-conscious, unintentional,
involuntary and relatively effortless. Automatic processing tends to develop after we have
extensive experience with a task or type of information and reach the stage which we can
perform the task or process the information without giving it conscious thought. For e.g.
while riding a bicycle we have to devote a lot of attention to the task at first. But once we
have mastered it riding requires less and less attention until finally we could do while
thinking of other things, talking to others etc. in such cases there is a shift from controlled to
automatic processing

3
 This is true for social thought as well as learning new skills. For
instance, we have a well-developed schema for a social group (e.g. doctors) we can think in
shorthand ways about members of that group. Research findings indicate that schemas, once
activated may exert automatic effects on behaviour. In other words people often act in ways
that are consistent with these schemas, even though they do not intent to do so and are
unaware that their behaviour is influenced by the schemas. Recent evidence suggests that
automatic and controlled processing may often occur together, especially in situations
involving some uncertainty.
Priming
Priming in social cognition refers to how subtle cues in our environment can activate mental
representations (schemas, stereotypes, traits, goals), which then influence how we perceive,
interpret, and respond to social information — often unconsciously.
When we are exposed to a stimulus (a word, image, behavior), it activates related nodes in
our memory network. This activation spreads to related concepts and shapes our thinking and
behavior in social situations.
Example: You read the word "rude" multiple times in a paragraph. Later, you interpret
someone’s neutral comment as impolite. Your social judgment is "primed" by prior exposure.
Types of Priming
Trait Priming - Activation of personality traits. Primed with “polite”, wait longer to
interrupt someone.
Stereotype Priming - Activation of group-based stereotypes. See images of elderly
people → behave more slowly.
Affect Priming - Emotional cues influence interpretation. After watching a scary movie,
interpret shadows as threatening.
Behavioral Priming - Influences actions or body movements. Primed with words related
to "achievement", better test performance.
Goal Priming - Activates motivation-driven behavior. Subliminal exposure to money,
more competitive behavior

Potential Sources of Error in Social Cognition

There are many different ways in which our social thought departs from
rationality. Some of them are:
1. Negativity bias( Automatic vigilance)

4
 Negativity bias refers to a greater sensitivity to negative information than
to positive information. This bias applies to both social information and information
about other aspects of the world as well. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes a lot
of sense. Negative information reflects features of the external world that may threaten
our safety or well-being. For this reason, it is especially important that we be sensitive to
such stimuli and thus able to respond to them quickly. Several research findings offer
support for this reasoning. For instance, consider our ability to recognize facial expression
in others. The result of many studies indicates that we are faster and more accurate in
detecting negative facial expressions than positive facial expressions.
In sum, we appear to have a strong tendency to show enhanced
sensitivity to negative information. This tendency seems to be a basic aspect of social
thought and may infect, be built into the structure and functioning of our brain.
2. Optimistic bias
Optimistic bias is a powerful predisposition to overlook risks
and expect things to turn out well. In fact, research findings indicate that most people
believe that they are more likely than others to experience positive events, and less likely
to experience negative events. Similarly, we often have greater confidence in our beliefs
or judgments than is justified—an effect known as the overconfidence barrier. While
most of us recognize that our past has been mixed in terms of “highs” and “lows,” we
tend to forecast a very rosy or golden future—one in which we will be quite happy and in
which few negative events happen to us.

Another illustration of optimism at work is the planning fallacy—our

tendency to believe that we can get more done in a given period of time than we actually can,
or that a given job will take less time than it really will. We can see this aspect of the
optimistic bias in announced schedules for public works (e.g., new roads, airports, bridges,
stadiums) that have no chance of being met. Individuals, too, adopt unrealistically optimistic
schedules for their own work.
According to Buehler et al. (1994), we fall prey to this particular kind of
optimism because of several reasons. One is that when individuals make predictions about
how long it will take them to complete a given task, they enter a planning or narrative mode
of thought in which they focus primarily on the future and how they will perform the task.
This, in turn, prevents them from looking backward in time and remembering how long
similar tasks took them in the past. As a result, one important “reality check” that might help

5
them avoid being overly optimistic is removed. In addition, when individuals do consider
past experiences in which tasks took longer than expected, they tend to attribute such
outcomes to factors outside their control. The result: they tend to overlook important potential
obstacles that can’t be easily foreseen when predicting how long a task will take, and fall
prey to the planning fallacy. Additional findings suggest that another factor, motivation to
complete a task, also plays an important role in the planning fallacy. When predicting what
will happen, individuals often guess that what will happen is what they want to happen
3. Counterfactual thinking
Counterfactual thinking refers to the tendency to imagine other
outcomes in a situation than the ones that actually occurred Counterfactual thoughts seem to
occur automatically in many situations—we simply can’t help imagining that things might
have turned out differently. To overcome these automatic tendencies, therefore, we must try
to correct for their influence, and this requires both active processing in which we suppress
the counterfactual thoughts or discount them. Consistent with this idea, studies have
demonstrated that anything that reduces our information-processing capacity actually
strengthens the impact of counterfactual thoughts on our judgments and behaviour
When counterfactual thinking does occur, a wide range of effects can
follow—some of which are beneficial and some of which are costly to the people involved..
If individuals imagine upward counterfactuals, comparing their current outcomes with more
favourable ones than they experienced, the result maybe strong feelings of dissatisfaction or
envy, especially when people do not feel capable of obtaining better outcomes in the future..
Alternatively, if individuals compare their current outcomes with less favourable ones (down
ward counterfactuals)—it might have been worse—they may experience positive feelings of
satisfaction or hopefulness. In sum, engaging in counterfactual thought can strongly influence
current affective states, and willingness to gamble on obtaining those outcomes in the future.
In addition, it appears that we often use counterfactual thinking to
mitigate the bitterness of disappointments. By assuming that negative events or
disappointments were inevitable, it tends to make these events more bearable. Counterfactual
thinking can sometimes help us to perform better—to do a better job at various tasks. by
imagining how we might have done better, we may come up with improved strategies and
ways of using our effort more effectively.
[Link] suppression
Thought suppression refers to our effort to prevent certain thoughts
from entering consciousness. According to Daniel Wegner(1992) efforts to keep certain

6
thoughts out of consciousness involve two components. First, there is an automatic
monitoring process that searches for evidence that unwanted thoughts are about to intrude.
When such thoughts are detected by the first process, a second one which is more effortful
and less automatic swings into operation .This operating process involves effortful conscious
attempts to distract oneself by finding something else to think about.
Under normal circumstances these two processes do a good job of
suppressing unwanted thoughts, when information overload occurs, or when individuals are
fatigued, however the monitoring process continues to identify unwanted thoughts, but the
operating process no longer has the resources to keep them from consciousness. the result is
that the individual actually experiences pronounced rebound effect in which the unwanted
thoughts occur at an even higher rate.
Sometimes people engage in thought suppression because they are told to
do so by someone else- for instance, a therapist who is trying to help them from personal
problems. Individuals who are high in reactance- those who react very negatively to
perceived threats in their personal freedom find it difficult to suppress their thoughts
5. Magical thinking
Magical thinking refers to thinking involving assumptions that don’t hold up
to rational scrutiny. One principle of such magical thinking assumes that one’s thoughts can
influence the physical world in a manner not governed by the laws of physics .For e.g. if you
think about being called on by your professor, it does not change the probability that you
actually will be. The law of similarity, suggests that things that resemble one another share
basic properties. For the same reason, people won’t eat a chocolate shaped like a cockroach
even though they know, rationally, that its shape has nothing to do with its taste. Another
principle, the law of contagion holds that when two objects touch, they pass properties to one
another and the effects of such contact may last well beyond the end of the contact between
them.
[Link] correlation
People not only see what they expect to see, they also tend to
overestimate how often they see it. Illusory correlation occurs when people estimate that they
have encountered more confirmations of an association between social traits than they have
actually seen. Statements like” I have never seen an honest lawyer” illustrate this effect. In
pointing to events that support their stereotypes, people may even recall events that they only
imagined without realizing that the events weren’t real.
Affect and Cognition

7
 Our emotions and moods strongly influence several aspects of cognition,
and cognition, in turn, exerts strong effects on our emotions and moods
The Influence of Affect on Cognition
Our current moods can influence our perceptions of the world around us.
When we are in a good mood (experiencing positive affect), we tend to perceive almost
everything—situations, other people, ideas, even new inventions—in more positive terms
than we do when we are in a negative mood. Another way in which affect influences
cognition involves its impact on memory. Here, two different, but related, kinds of effects
seem to occur. One is known as mood congruence effects. This refers to the fact that current
moods strongly determine which information in a given situation is noticed and entered into
memory. In other words, current moods serve as a kind of filter, permitting primarily
information consistent with these moods to enter into long-term storage. Second, affect also
influences what specific information is retrieved from memory, an effect known as mood
dependent memory .When experiencing a particular mood, individuals are more likely to
remember information they acquired in the past while in a similar mood than information
they acquired while in a different mood. Current moods, in other words, serve as a kind of
retrieval cue, prompting recall of information consistent with these moods
The Influence of Cognition on Affect
One aspect of this relationship is described in what is known as the
two-factor theory of emotion (Schachter, 1964). This theory suggests that often, we don’t
know our own feelings or attitudes directly. Rather, since these internal reactions are often
somewhat ambiguous, we infer their nature from the external world—from the kinds of
situations in which we experience these reactions. A second way in which cognition can
influence emotions is by activating schemas containing a strong affective component. A third
way in which our thoughts can influence our affective states involves our efforts to regulate
our own emotions and feelings. When we feel “down” or distressed, we often engage in
activities that we know might be bad for us in the long run, but that make us feel better, at
least findings indicate that the tendency to yield to temptation is a conscious choice, not a
simple lapse in the ability to control our own impulses temporarily (e.g., drinking alcohol ).
Combating errors in social cognition
Social cognition is subject to many types of errors. Some of the most important
errors of which we should be are of and try to guard against are:
[Link] self-confirming effect of schemas

8
 Once they are formed, schemas tend to become self- confirming. They lead
us to notice only information that is consistent with them. And cause us to act in ways that
confirm their validity.
[Link] negativity bias
We tend to be highly sensitive to negative information, devoting more
attention to it, and assigning more importance to it than positive information.
[Link] optimistic bias.
We generally expect things to turn out well, even when such expectations are
somewhat unrealistic. However, if we anticipate feedback that may be negative and have
important consequences for us, we may brace for the worst and may show a reversal of our
usual optimism.
[Link] thinking
Counterfactual thinking can increase our satisfaction if we imagine worse
outcomes than actually occurred. But may lead to strong feelings of regret and envy, if we
imagine better outcomes than actually occurred.
[Link] suppression
In many situations we try to suppress thoughts that we believe, will get
us into trouble. Unfortunately, trying to suppress such thoughts often lead us to have them
more than otherwise be the case.
[Link] role of affective states
When we are in a good mood we evaluate almost everything more
positively than would otherwise be the case, The opposite is true when we are in a bad mood.