Social Cognition

1. Social Cognition Chapter 8: Shortcomings and Biases in Person Perception

2. Person Perception if Motivated Need to maintain a positive sense of self. May contradict accuracy needs. However, data on depressive realism suggests that�s okay!! (1) Unrealistically positive views of the self (positive illusions). Self-serving bias: attributional style where success is attributed internally and failure externally.

3. Shelters from Negative Info Social norms: feedback is generally positive (this is why mentors are �evil�!) Similarity theory in attraction. People tend to interpret ambigous feedback positively. Ability to denigrate the source of unavoidable negative feedback. Motivated skepticism: tendency to critically examine information we don�t like but to be uncritical of self-affirming information.

4. Cognitive Dissonance Reduction Negative information about self is dissonant with self image. Reduce by: Recruiting cognitions that are consistent with discrepancy (yes, I failed, but I tried) Change one�s attitude so that cognitions are no longer discrepant (sure I failed, the task is impossible!). Affirm self through thoughts in unrelated domain. Trivialization, denigration, etc.

5. Defensive Pessimism vs. Self-Handicapping Defensive pessimism: expect the worst and thus prepare like mad to avoid it. Self-handicapping: create and external attribution for one�s failure.

6. (2) Unrealistic Optimism about the future Partially fueled by critical skepticism. Danger is that we may risk health! Affective forecasting � we seem inaccurate at predicting impact of events. Durability bias: seem to believe that impact will last longer than it actually does.

7. Implicit Self-Esteem Tendency to evaluate things associated with self more positively than things not linked to self. Letters in name Subway game at Yankee Stadium People who share birthday.

8. Need for Control Heider asserted that we lean toward dispositional explanations for control reasons. Exaggerated perceptions of personal control: Illusion of control (dice throwing, lottery tix) Self-verification theory Evaluate self in ways that verify existing views of self (a form of control). Just world theory: scary if bad things happen to good people!

9. Social Identity Theory and Group Biases Historical antecedents include Cooley�s looking glass self and Mead�s concept of the significant symbol. Social Identity Theory: our self-esteem is linked to the social groups to which we belong. Group enhancement occurs through attribution patterns that mimic the fundamental attribution error Pettigrew labeled this the ultimate attribution error.

10. Ingratiation Interesting paradox concerning the dislike of ingratiation techniques considering their ubiquity and ties to the basic need for affiliation.

11. Egocentric Perception Metaperception, metacognition an theory of mind. Egocentric communication We forget to take other�s perspective and thus screw up communication.

12. Embracing Negative Information Despite our preference for positive information it doesn�t mean we ignore negative. In fact�. Cacioppo and Berntson suggest separate neurophysiological structures for positive and negative information. Negative information is more informative and diagnostic. We are risk averse � unless we expect to lose � then we go for it!

13. Accuracy We aren�t always wrong! The more it matters the more pragmatic accuracy stands a chance. �People are accurate predictors when the persons being predicted are confined to important relationships and the qualites being judged are relevant to those relationships.