SOCIAL COGNITION



SOCIAL COGNITION

Psychology 454, Fall 2016

VKC 207

TuTh Noon - 1:50PM

Instructor: Dr. Stephen J. Read

821 Seeley G. Mudd Building

Phone: (213) 740-2291. Email: read@usc.edu

Office Hours: Thursday 11AM-Noon and by appt.

How we think about our social worlds plays a major role in social behavior. We are constantly making judgments about ourselves and other people. We want to know the reasons why people do things, we want to know what other people are like, we want to know what we are like. Thus, Social Cognition is the study of how people make sense of others and themselves. It is the study of how people think about people and the effect this has on social behavior.

Essentially, Social Cognition is the study of the role that cognitive processes play in social behavior. Much social cognition research is based on the application of current work in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience to the understanding of how people think about their social world.

The study of social cognition includes such topics as the following:

--- How do we explain our own and others' behavior? That is, how do we arrive at the causes and reasons of our own and other's behavior? What are the social theories that seem to underlie these explanations? What roles do our explanations of our own and other's behavior play in such things as academic achievement, the development of depression, and the maintenance and breakup of inter-personal relations?

--- How do we develop and maintain our self-concepts of the kind of people we are? What role do our self-concepts play in guiding our interpretations of the world and other people?

--- How do we make judgments about the characteristics of ourselves and other people? For instance, how do we decide that Joe is friendly while Jane is hostile? When we watch a TV show or movie what are the processes involved in our ability to understand people’s personality, motivation, and behavior?

--- How do we figure out what other people are thinking and feeling? How do we know that our partner is feeling angry, sad, or joyful? What information do we use and how do we use it?

--- What are stereotypes? How do they affect our impressions and judgments of other people? How are they learned and how might they be changed?

--- What role do unconscious cognitive processes play in such things as impression formation, stereotyping, and attitudes?

--- How do people make decisions about what to do? Why are people often so bad at making decisions? Why do they make risky decisions, like doing drugs, having risky sex, or driving too fast?

--- Why do we remember what we do about others and ourselves? How does social memory work?

--- What is the relationship between thinking and feeling? How are cognitive processes related to emotion?

--- What role do cognitive processes play in social interaction? How do our impressions of others guide our behavior in close relationships and other kinds of social interaction?

--- What role do our various goals and motives play in guiding our behavior?

Required Readings:

Text

Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (2013). Social Cognition: From Brains to Culture. (2nd edition) Sage Publishing.

Journal articles

Every week I will assign several journal articles, in addition to the chapters from Fiske and Taylor. These can be downloaded from the class Blackboard site.

Course Requirements

Class participation. There should be considerable discussion of the readings, in addition to lectures. Active participation in the class will count towards your grade (and lack of participation will subtract from it). Among the things I hope we can discuss are: (1) implications of the theories and finding for a variety of real world phenomena, (2) adequacy of the theories we will cover for understanding human social behavior, and (3) strengths and problems with the studies we will read about.

Tests. There will be a midterm and a final. These will be multiple choice and short answer.

Paper. A 10 page, double spaced paper will be due by Tuesday December 6, at 5PM. It should be on some aspect of social cognition. You should consult with me before deciding on a topic.

Examples portfolio. Each student should collect examples of real-life illustrations of phenomena learned about in the course. You may choose examples from TV, newspapers, the Internet, or from your everyday interactions with others. In each case be sure to briefly define the phenomenon and explain exactly how your example maps onto it (do not exceed one typed double spaced page for each example).

Collection of examples should be an ongoing activity – do not wait until the due date.

Your portfolio should include 4 examples, each illustrating a different phenomenon. Up to 2 of these may be based on everyday incidents from your own social life. At least 2 must be based on examples you have come across in the media, and must be accompanied by copies of newspaper, magazine, or Internet articles. Examples found on the World Wide Web must include a copy of the article and the address of the web site. Examples coming from a movie or TV show must include a full citation of the source. The portfolio is to be handed in, in two parts. The first part will be the first two examples, due September 22, in class. The remainder of the portfolio is to be handed in on November 17, in class.

Extra Credit. There will be opportunities for earning extra credit by participating in psychology experiments. Details will be provided in class. If you do not wish to participate in experiments, then we can discuss alternative ways to earn extra credit.

Readings. The reading assignments are listed below.

Grading

Class participation 10% of the grade

Midterm: 20% of the grade

Final: 25% of the grade

Paper: 25% of the grade

Examples portfolio: 20% of the grade

Late Penalty

For both the final paper and the examples portfolio, I will subtract 5% of the points for that assignment for each day late.

Blackboard

I will use the University’s Blackboard system to post grades, to post weekly readings, and to post copies of any assignments or announcements that I hand out in class. I will also use your email address in the University system to send out last minute messages, if necessary. Note that Blackboard relies on your University email account. You need that account to log in and email will be sent to that address.

Statement on Academic Conduct and Support Systems

Academic Conduct

Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with serious consequences.  Please familiarize yourself with the discussion of plagiarism in SCampus in Section 11, Behavior Violating University Standards .  Other forms of academic dishonesty are equally unacceptable.  See additional information in SCampus and university policies on scientific misconduct, .

The minimum penalty for cheating on an exam will be a score of zero on that exam. Particularly gross academic dishonesty on an exam, such as obtaining a copy of the exam beforehand, will result in an F for the course and may result in suspension or expulsion from the University. Cheating on a homework assignment will result in a zero on that assignment and repeated cheating on homework assignments will result in an F for the course.

Plagiarism on any of the class papers will result in a zero for the paper. Particularly gross academic dishonesty, such as turning in a paper done by another (such as a purchased paper) will result in an F for the course. According to the University guidelines plagiarism is defined as: (a) The submission of material authored by another person but represented as the student’s work, (b) the submission of material subjected to editorial revision by another person that results in substantive changes in content or major alteration of writing style, (c) the improper acknowledgement of sources in essays or papers. If you use the words or ideas of another you must properly acknowledge the source. If you use a direct quote then you must indicate the source and page number, using APA style. Even if you paraphrase someone’s ideas you must still acknowledge the source, using APA style.

You should also be aware that it is considered academic dishonesty to use a paper or project in more than one course without both instructors’ permission. The recommended penalty for this is an F in the course.

This description is not intended to be exhaustive. You are expected to be familiar with the relevant parts of the student conduct code.

Discrimination, sexual assault, and harassment are not tolerated by the university.  You are encouraged to report any incidents to the Office of Equity and Diversity or to the Department of Public Safety .  This is important for the safety of the whole USC community.  Another member of the university community – such as a friend, classmate, advisor, or faculty member – can help initiate the report, or can initiate the report on behalf of another person.  The Center for Women and Men provides 24/7 confidential support, and the sexual assault resource center webpage describes reporting options and other resources.

Support Systems

A number of USC’s schools provide support for students who need help with scholarly writing.  Check with your advisor or program staff to find out more.  Students whose primary language is not English should check with the American Language Institute , which sponsors courses and workshops specifically for international graduate students.  The Office of Disability Services and Programs provides certification for students with disabilities and helps arrange the relevant accommodations.  If an officially  declared emergency makes travel to campus infeasible, USC Emergency Information will provide safety and other updates, including ways in which instruction will be continued by means of blackboard, teleconferencing, and other technology.

Students with Disabilities

Students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP when adequate documentation is filed. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is open Monday-Friday, 8:30-5:00. The office is in Student Union 301, their phone number is (213) 740-0776, and their email is: ability@usc.edu.

Topics and Readings

Week 1: Introduction: What is Social Cognition?

8/23,8/25 Readings: Chapter 1: Introduction in Fiske and Taylor

Week 2: Basic Concepts in Social Cognition: Dual Modes in Social Cognition

8/30,9/1 Readings: Fiske and Taylor: Chap. 2. Dual modes in social cognition

Aarts, H., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2000). Habits as knowledge structures: Automaticity in goal-directed behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(1), 53-63.

Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54, 462-479.

Week 3: Basic Concepts in Social Cognition: Attention and Encoding

9/6,9/8 Readings: Fiske & Taylor: Chap. 3. Attention and Encoding

Langlois, J. H., & Roggman, L. A. (1990). Attractive faces are only average. Psychological Science, 1, 115-121.

Rhodes, G., Sumich, A., & Byatt, G. (1999) Are Average Facial Configurations Attractive Only Because of Their Symmetry? Psychological Science, 10(1), 52-58.

Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Making up your mind after a 100-ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592-598.

Week 4: Basic Concepts in Social Cognition: Representation in Memory

9/13,9/15

Readings: Fiske & Taylor: Chap. 4: Representation in Memory

Niedenthal, P. (2007). Embodying emotion. Science, 316(5827), 1002-1005.

Read, S., Vanman, E., & Miller, L. (1997). Connectionism, parallel constraint satisfaction processes, and gestalt principles:(Re) introducing cognitive dynamics to social psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1(1), 26-53.

Kunda, Z., & Thagard, P. (1996). Forming impressions from stereotypes, traits, and behaviors: A parallel-constraint-satisfaction theory. Psychological Review, 103(2), 284-308.

Week 5: Self in Social Cognition

9/20,9/22 FIRST PORTFOLIOS DUE September 22.

Readings: Fiske & Taylor, Chap. 5: Self in Social Cognition

Baumeister, R., Vohs, K., & Tice, D. (2007). The strength model of self-control. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(6), 351-355.

Molden, D., et al. (2012). Motivational versus metabolic effects of carbohydrates on self-control. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1137-1144.

Oyserman, D., Terry, K., & Bybee, D. (2002). A possible selves intervention to enhance school involvement. Journal of Adolescence, 25(3), 313-326.

Week 6: Attribution Processes

9/27,9/29 Readings: Fiske & Taylor. Chap. 6: Attribution Processes

Read, S. J. (1987). Constructing causal scenarios: A knowledge structure approach to causal reasoning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 288-302.

Pennington, N. & Hastie, R. (1986). Evidence evaluation in complex decision-making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 242-258.

Reeder, G. (2009). Mindreading: Judgments about intentionality and motives in dispositional inference. Psychological Inquiry, 20(1), 1-18.

Week 7: Heuristics and Shortcuts

10/4,10/6

Readings: Fiske & Taylor, Chap. 7: Heuristics and Shortcuts: Efficiency in Inference and decision making.

Schwartz, N., Bless, H., Strack F., Klumpp, G., Rittenauer-Schatka, H., & Simons, A. (1991). Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 195-202.

Trope, Y., Liberman, N., & Wakslak, C. (2007). Construal levels and psychological distance: Effects on representation, prediction, evaluation, and behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 17(2), 83-95.

Week 8: MIDTERM

10/11,10/13 Review session

Thursday: MIDTERM

Week 9: Accuracy and Efficiency in Social Inference

10/18,10/20

Readings: Fiske & Taylor: Chap. 8. Accuracy and Efficiency in Social Inference

Kunda, Z. (1987). Self-serving generation and evaluation of causal theories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 636-647.

Epley, N., Keysar, B., Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2004). Perspective taking as egocentric anchoring and adjustment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(3), 327-339.

Week 10: Cognitive Structures of Attitudes

10/25,10/27

Readings: Fiske & Taylor, Chap. 9. Cognitive Structures of Attitudes

Conrey, F. R., & Smith, E. R. (2006). Attitude representation: Attitudes as patterns in a distributed, connectionist representational system. Social Cognition.

Jost, J., Nosek, B., & Gosling, S. (2008). Ideology: Its resurgence in social, personality, and political psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(2), 126-136.

Week 11: Cognitive Processing of Attitudes

11/1,11/3

Readings: Fiske & Taylor, Chap. 10. Cognitive Processing of Attitudes

Chaiken, S. (1980). Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(5), 752-766.

Olson, M., Fazio, R., & Hermann, A. (2007). Reporting tendencies underlie discrepancies between implicit and explicit measures of self-esteem. Psychological Science, 18(4), 287-291.

Cunningham, W., Johnson, M., Raye, C., Gatenby, J., Gore, J., & Banaji, M. (2004). Separable neural components in the processing of black and white faces. Psychological Science, 15(12), 806-813.

Week 12: Stereotyping: Cognition and Bias

11/8,11/10

Readings: Fiske & Taylor, Chap. 11. Stereotyping: Cognition and Bias

Kunda, Z., Sinclair, L., & Griffin, (1997). Equal ratings but separate meanings: Stereotypes and the construal of traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 720-734.

Spencer, S. J., Steele, C. M., & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women’s math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 4-28.

Schamader, T. (2010). Stereotype threat deconstructed. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 14-18.

Week 13: Prejudice: Interplay of Cognitive with Affective Biases

11/15,11/17 SECOND PORTFOLIOS DUE November 17

Readings: Fiske & Taylor: Chap. 12. Prejudice: Interplay of Cognitive with Affective Biases.

Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., & Wittenbrink, B. (2002). The Police Officer’s dilemma: Using ethnicity to disambiguate potentially threatening individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1314-1329.

Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2001). Prescriptive gender stereotypes and backlash toward agentic women. Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 743-762.

Olson, M. A. & Fazio, R. H. (2006). Reducing Automatically Activated Racial Prejudice Through Implicit Evaluative Conditioning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 421-433.

Week 14: Interplay of Social Cognition and Affect

11/22, THANKSGIVING

Readings: Fiske & Taylor, Chap. 13. From Social Cognition to Affect

Fiske & Taylor, Chap. 14. From Affect to Social Cognition.

Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275(5304), 1293-1294.

Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective forecasting: Knowing what to want. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(3) 131-134.

Naqvi, N., Shiv, B., & Bechara, A. (2006). The role of emotion in decision making. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(5), 260.

Week 15: Behavior and Cognition

11/29,12/1

Readings: Fiske & Taylor, Chap. 15. Behavior and Cognition

Brandstatter, V., Lengfelder, A., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2001). Implementation intentions and efficient action initiation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 946-960.

Kenrick, D. T., Neuberg, S., Griskevicius, V., Becker, D. V., & Schaller, M. (2010). Goal-driven cognition and functional behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 63-67.

Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., Griffin, D. W (1996). The benefits of positive illusions: Idealization and the construction of satisfaction in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(1), 79-98.

PAPER DUE: Tuesday, December 6, 5:00PM. FINAL EXAM: Tuesday, December 13, 11AM-1PM

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