The Cognitive Perspective Social Psychology

							The Cognitive Perspective & Social Psychology
Module 33 PSY 2301 Alan Mikolaj, LP, BS
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The Cognitive Perspective
Theory of personality that deals with the way that individuals perceive, interpret, and assign meaning to events.

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Basic Concepts
 Processing of information is crucial for organism survival  Schemas-people’s self-perceptions, perceptions of others, goals, expectations, memories, fantasies, & previous learning that greatly influence, if not control, the processing of information.
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Basic Concepts
 Cognitive distortion-errors in reasoning, especially evident during stress
– Arbitrary inference – Selective abstraction – Overgeneralization – Magnification – Minimization – Personalization – Dichotomous thinking
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Basic Concepts
 Systematic bias-selectively interpreting or incorporating new information that results in dysfunctional interpretations
– Depressed person with a negative bias – Anxious person with a danger bias

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Social Psychology
The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.  Power of the situation  Power of the person  Importance of cognition

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Social Psychology
 Psychological & behavioral problems are essentially social & interpersonal  Emphasize the power of the situation & subjectiveness of individuals  Interventions focus on changing what & how we perceive, think, feel, & behave with/toward other people

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Confirmation Bias
 Tendency to behave toward others in ways that confirm your hypotheses about them  Normally unaware (automatic processing)  High need for accuracy may reduce it  When someone disagrees, may alter it

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Self-Serving Bias
 Tendency to perceive oneself favorably  Success: Internal
– I deserve it.

 Failures: External
– Not my fault.

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
 Expectations about someone affect the way they behave toward you in ways that confirm the expectations  Step 1: Perceiver has impression  Step 2: Perceiver behaves toward other consistent with expectations  Step 3: Target person adjusts behavior  Step 4: Perceiver attributes behavior to internal causes
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Stereotyping
 Belief that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a particular group  Gender, age, ethnicity  “What is beautiful is good”  Tradeoff: Simplicity (saved energy) for Inaccuracy

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 Characters

Stan Milgram’s Obedience Study (1965)
– Experimenter – Learner – Teacher

 Instrument
– ‘Shock-generator’

 Method
– Teacher gives word pairs – Deliver shocks if learner answers incorrectly
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How Far Would You Go?
 75 volts  135 volts  300 volts  435 volts XXX  450 volts XXX

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