Transcript Emotion
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY Chapter 12 Social Cognition and Emotion At the end of this Chapter you should be able to: Learn the importance of perceiving and understanding others Learn the importance of perceiving and understanding ourselves Understand the Attitudes Learn about Emotion Perceiving and understanding others Social Cognition: How we perceive and think about ourselves and each other; how we process and make meaning about our encounters One focus: why did someone else act as they did? We make attributions about others’ actions – and about our own Attribution Kelly: early social psychologist – According to Kelly… we specifically look for ways that events co-vary: “cause and effect” – Or: Causal attributions 2 types of attributions – Situational attributions and Dispositional attributions Attributional styles also vary by culture – E.g., individualistic and collectivistic Fundamental Attribution Error In an individualistic culture, the most common error made is the fundamental attribution error; a bias to explain others’ behavior by attributing it to their disposition, our own to our situation In collectivistic cultures: focus on group actions / contextual cues to explain behavior Actor-observer difference: Observer who watched from behind Actor A believed that B controlled the conversation, and the observer who watched from behind Actor B thought the reverse. The observer who watched from midway between the two believed that both were equally influential. Person Perception and Cognitive Schemas Cognitive schemas: Shortcuts when limited information is available Schemas: operate when trying to explain why people behave the way they do Implicit theories of personality: our schemas for - How we remember other people – How we perceive them – How we interpret what they have done Stereotypes One type of schematic thinking – Stereotypes often are used when we think about identified groups of people: e.g., Greeks, women, old people, etc. Origins of stereotypes: explicitly and implicitly communicated to us by others Used more often when we have little or no exposure in daily life to that group Effects of stereotypes: Self-fulfilling prophecies – We often pick up on others’ expectations for us (dictated by a stereotype) and behave in that way Stereotype threat – When a stereotype about us is made salient, in a “performance” situation, we often feel under threat – which holds performance down – Poor performance then may confirm stereotype Combating prejudice “Robbers cave” experiment (Sherif, 1966): – When groups compete, prejudice and hostility grow – When groups collaborate/cooperate to achieve an important task, prejudice and hostility decrease – To achieve this: Status must be held equal for all members Contact must be sustained for a long time Perceiving and understanding ourselves Social psychology: also concerned with how we perceive ourselves – We are “actors” in the drama of the social world – We seek to understand our own behavior as well Attitudes Attitude: belief, feeling, predisposition to act in a certain way Cover a wide range of topics about which we may feel quite strongly: nuclear power, abortion, bilingual education, etc. Attitude Formation Occur as a result of… – Classical conditioning Advertising for expensive car always accompanied by beautiful surroundings/people – Operant conditioning If a reward given for behavior, attitude for that behavior will change – Observational learning Attitude Change: Being Persuaded by Others Central route to persuasion: we attend to the message, the message-bearer, and make decisions accordingly Peripheral route to persuasion: context in which information is given is capable of determining our attitude Attitude Change: Being Persuaded by Ourselves: Cognitive Dissonance Festinger & Carlsmith (1959): Under different conditions of reward, people justify behavior with different explanations “Insufficient justification”: the notion that we try to justify our own behavior; if we cannot justify it, we experience dissonance between beliefs and actions We try to resolve that “cognitive dissonance” through the process of bringing attitudes in line with our behavior Emotion Emotions encompass: changes in behavior, changes in subjective experience, and changes in physiology – Emotions: briefer and more targeted than moods Theories of emotion: developed for over a century Common sense notions: we feel an emotion and then take action: feel fear, then run! – James-Lange Theory of Emotion Posited the reverse: – Emotional experiences cause emotional behavior – See a bear, run, “feel” our behavior as fear only after we run – Support: facial feedback theory The configuration in which we hold our facial muscles influences the emotion we then claim as our experience James Lang theory: We see a dangerous object (attacking bear); this triggers a bodily response (running, pounding heart), and the awareness of this response is emotion (fear). Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion Critique of James-Lange: our bodily experiences happen too slowly to be the source of our emotions Cannon-Bard: physiological and experiential responses occur simultaneously Both are triggered by changes in brain-state Cannon-Bard theory: A stimulus (such as a bear) triggers changes in the brain, and this brain activity then causes changes in both physiology and experience Functions of Emotion Help set up the body for reaction to threat/danger: “fight or flight” reaction and the accompanying emotion of fear Help recover from stress Aid in marking important memories Signal social intent/connection Emotion Regulation Two primary forms: – Cognitive reappraisal: decrease emotional response by re-interpretation of stimuli – Suppression: Decrease in emotional reaction by decreasing strength of facial expression or denying other behavior appropriate to that emotion (e.g., refusing to frown or cry when sad)