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    Errors in Social Cognition

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    LACHIMOLALA EDITZ
    Errors

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    Errors in Social Cognition

    Uploaded by

    LACHIMOLALA EDITZ
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    Errors

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    Errors

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    39 views17 pages

    Errors in Social Cognition

    Uploaded by

    LACHIMOLALA EDITZ
    Errors

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    Errors in Social Cognition

    By ,
    LAKSHMY E V
    INTRODUCTION
    • Social Cognition:
    • How people process, store and apply information other people
    and social situations.
    • Why do errors occur?
    • Human being do not always think rationally.
    • We have many tendencies that can lead us into serious errors.
    • Example: choosing a career
    7 Potential Sources of Errors in Social
    Cognition
    • Optimistic Bias
    • Over- Confidence Barrier
    • Planning Fallacy
    • Negativity Bias
    • Counterfactual Thinking
    • Magical Thinking
    • Thought Suppression
    OPTIMISTIC BIAS
    • People tend to see the world through “rose-coloured glasses”.
    • Our predisposition to expect things to turn out well.
    • Future – oriented: We tend to forecast a golden future.
    • Newby-Clark and Ross (2003) study.
    • Sweeny and Shepperd (2010) research.
    OVERCONFIDENCE BARRIER
    • We have greater confidence in our beliefs than is justified.
    • Vallone, Griffin, Lin, and Ross (1990) illustrated how overconfident
    people can be in their predictions.
    • Errors of Omission : Caputo and Dunning
    • Study regarding WD-40.
    PLANNING FALLACY
    • Our tendency to believe that a job will take less time than it
    actually will.
    • We underestimate how long projects will take and overestimates
    how quickly we can get jobs done.
    • Examples: Schedules for public works, to-do lists
    • Why does this happen?

    • Cognition:-
    • We focus primarily on the future.
    • We avoid looking backward and studying similar projects.
    • Hence, we overlook potential obstacles.

    • Motivation:-
    • We predict what we want to happen.
    • We want to finish it on time, so predict that we will.
    • Who is more prone to planning fallacies?
    • People in powerful positions are more likely to do so.
    • Because they focus on getting the task done, rather than how to
    get the task done.
    • Weick and Guinote (2010)
    NEGATIVITY BIAS
    • The tendency to show greater sensitivity to negative information
    than positive information.
    • Example: while introducing a person we tend to focus on the one
    negative trait about them rather than the many positive ones.
    • The evolutionary relevance.
    COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING
    • The “what might have been”s.
    • It can influence our feelings of sympathy. (Eg: employee leaving
    early and getting into an accident).
    • The belief in freewill encourages CFT.
    • These influence our moods and our
    acceptance of certain events.
    • Types of Counterfactual Thinking
    • Upward & Downward Counterfactuals
    • Upward: we compare outcomes with more
    favourable ones.
    • Downward: we compare outcomes with
    less favourable ones.
    • Additive & Subtractive Counterfactuals
    • Thinking adding or subtracting an event can
    change the outcome
    • Self or Other Counterfactuals
    MAGICAL THINKING
    • Thoughts that do not hold up to rational scrutiny.
    • Examples :
    • if you don’t want the teacher to call on you, you try to imagine not
    being called on.
    • thinking that you are tempting fate by not taking insurance
    • blowing on the dice before rolling it
    • the hesitancy to eat a chocolate in the
    shape of a bug
    • Why do we think this way?
    • Law of Similarity : things that resemble each other share basic
    properties (voodo doll and a human)
    • Terror Management: when we come face to face with the
    certainty of our own deaths, we believe that supernatural powers
    outside our understanding and control can influence our lives.
    THOUGHT SUPPRESSION
    • Human beings can manage to keep some thoughts out of their
    consciousness.
    • It can be achieved through two stages:
    1. Operating Process: Conscious, controlled, effortful
    2. Monitoring Process: Automatic, subconsciously
    CONCLUSION
    • Our social thoughts, though sometimes result in errors, can also
    be adaptive.
    • They reduce the effort required for navigating the social world,
    much like heuristics.

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