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 ………