Social Cognition: Models and Frameworks for How We Think About Others

UPI Study › Courses › Advanced Social Psychology › Free lessons › Lesson 1.4 Free with a free account

Social Cognition: Models and Frameworks for How We Think About Others

Advanced Social Psychology · Chapter 1: Introduction to Social PsychologySection 1.4 · lesson 4 of 8511 min · free with a free account

← The Seven Central Themes That Organize Social PsychologyNext lesson: Mental Shortcuts: Availability, Representativeness, and Base Rates →

Earn 3 college credits for Advanced Social PsychologyRecommended for credit by NCCRS · Psychology 310 · self-paced · one payment, lifetime access
Enroll in Advanced Social Psychology · $250 →Download the syllabus (PDF)

In this lesson

How social information is perceived, stored, explained, and quietly distorted.

  • Define social cognition and its distinctive subject matter
  • Compare System 1 and System 2 social judgment
  • Explain schema theory and the attribution models
  • Apply the Continuum Model to real social judgment

Free study notes

Get this lesson's notes by email

The key points and 4 practice questions with answers, in your inbox. One email, free.

One email. Unsubscribe in one click.

Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,509 words). Read along, or search it.

Introduction to Social Psychology

Social Cognition

Perceiving a chair is a solved problem. Perceiving a person is not. A chair does not have intentions, and it is not trying to manage your impression of it. Social cognition is the study of what the mind does with social information. How it is perceived, interpreted, stored, and acted on. This section covers the field's four organizing frameworks. The dual-process model, schema theory, attribution theory, and the Continuum Model. Along the way it names the biases each framework predicts. Those biases are not accidents. They are what the machinery produces when it works normally. That is the theme worth carrying through the whole section.

The Definition

Cognitive Psychology, Pointed at People

Start with the definition, from Fiske and Taylor in nineteen ninety-one. Social cognition refers to the mental processes involved in handling social information. Perceiving it, interpreting it, storing it, and acting on it. And social information means other people, social groups, and social norms. It also means the self, considered in relation to others. The field sits at an intersection, and that is the useful way to hold it. Cognitive psychology supplies the machinery: encoding, storage, retrieval, shortcuts. Social psychology supplies the subject matter. So the method is borrowed, and the stimuli are what make the field its own. Those stimuli turn out to be genuinely difficult, and the difficulty is productive. Social cognition is now one of the most productive research areas in the discipline.

Why People Are Hard

Three Things That Make Social Stimuli Different

So what exactly makes social stimuli harder than objects? Three things, and it is worth naming each one precisely. First, social stimuli are complex, dynamic, and motivated. Perceiving a person requires inferring states you cannot observe. Intentions, beliefs, emotions. None of them are visible. Second, you are not a neutral party to the conclusion. We care about conclusions that involve ourselves and the people we value. That is motivated reasoning, and it is built in rather than bolted on. Third, there is simply too much of it. The social world presents vastly more information than anyone can process. Keep those three pressures in mind, because every model here responds to one of them. Shortcuts are not laziness. They are what an overloaded system does.

The Organizing Frame

System 1 and System 2

The dominant organizing framework is the dual-process model. Daniel Kahneman gave it its most accessible form in twenty eleven. System one is fast, automatic, associative, effortless, and unconscious. System two is slow, deliberate, rule-governed, effortful, and conscious. Now, the two-systems language is a heuristic simplification, and the real architecture is more complex. But it captures a real fact: much of social judgment happens outside awareness, without deliberate intention. Here is the concrete case. You judge a stranger as threatening on sight. That is system one, drawing on threat detection and culturally learned stereotypes. Then you ask yourself whether that reaction was fair. That is system two. And here is the finding that matters most for everything downstream. System two correction of system one is incomplete, effortful, and resource-dependent. Knowing about a bias does not delete it. It only gives you a chance.

Schema Theory

What a Schema Does to Incoming Information

Now schemas, which are the most useful single concept in this section. A schema is a cognitive structure that organizes prior knowledge and expectations. Expectations about categories of people, situations, roles and events. The important claim is that a schema acts at three separate stages. At attention, we notice schema-consistent information, and what does not fit may go unregistered. At encoding: schema-consistent information is encoded more efficiently. At retrieval: schema-consistent information is more accessible later. Now notice what happens when you stack those three. A bias at attention feeds a bias at encoding, which feeds a bias at retrieval. Three small distortions pointing the same way do not stay small.

Schemas In Evidence

The War of the Ghosts, and Four Kinds of Schema

The classic demonstration is nearly a century old, and it still lands. Frederic Bartlett, in nineteen thirty-two, ran the War of the Ghosts study. Participants read an unfamiliar Native American folk tale, then recalled it. They distorted it systematically, to fit their own existing cultural schemas. The word systematically is doing the work here. This was not random forgetting. It was an early demonstration of constructive memory. Contemporary research distinguishes several types of schema. Person schemas represent specific individuals; role schemas hold expectations for people in particular roles. Event schemas, also called scripts, hold the typical sequence of a familiar situation. And self-schemas are organized representations of your own attributes. Sandra Bem, in nineteen eighty-one, showed that gender-schematic people process gender information faster and more categorically. That has direct consequences for how stereotypes are maintained and applied.

Attribution

How People Explain Behavior

Attribution theory tackles one question, and it is a deceptively simple one. How do people explain the causes of behavior? Fritz Heider, in nineteen fifty-eight, drew the founding distinction. Internal attributions point at disposition. External ones point at the situation. Jones and Davis, in nineteen sixty-five, added correspondent inference theory, which says when behavior reveals disposition. Three conditions license it: the behavior was freely chosen, low in social desirability, and high in distinctiveness. Harold Kelley, in nineteen sixty-seven, proposed the covariation model. It treats the social perceiver as a naive scientist, weighing three kinds of information. Consensus asks whether other people behave this way too. Distinctiveness asks whether this person behaves this way only in this situation. Consistency asks whether they always behave this way. The pattern across those three decides the cause: the person, the entity, or the circumstances.

Where It Goes Wrong

Four Attributional Biases

The attribution machinery is systematic, so its failures are systematic too. Four biases show up again and again. The fundamental attribution error, from Ross in nineteen seventy-seven, you have already met. Overestimate disposition, underestimate situation. Actor-observer asymmetry is the same bias, split by vantage point. Actors explain their own behavior situationally; observers explain the very same behavior dispositionally. Self-serving bias attributes success to internal causes and failure to external ones. And the ultimate attribution error extends all this to intergroup contexts. An outgroup's failures get read as dispositional, and its successes get explained away as situational. That last one is not a new mechanism. It is the same bias, aimed at a group. Which is how a perceptual habit quietly becomes a prejudice.

Person Perception

The Continuum Model of Impression Formation

Now the model that ties social cognition to prejudice reduction. Fiske and Neuberg published the Continuum Model of impression formation in nineteen ninety. Person perception, they argued, moves along a continuum. At one end sits pure category-based processing, relying entirely on group stereotypes. At the other, fully individuated processing, built from the person's own attributes. The model's key prediction is about the default, and it is not flattering. Perceivers default to categorical processing. It is efficient, and it is sufficient whenever goals do not demand accuracy. Individuation is engaged only under three conditions. One, the target's attributes are inconsistent with the initial category. Two, the perceiver is motivated to be accurate, which happens when their own outcomes depend on the target. Three, sufficient cognitive resources are actually available. Miss any one of those and the perceiver stays at the categorical end.

The Map

Six Frameworks, One Field

Let us put the frameworks side by side, because they are not rivals. Each one takes a different slice of the same question. The dual-process model says cognition runs on two systems, and its names are Kahneman, Evans, and Stanovich and West. Schema theory says mental frameworks guide encoding, interpretation and retrieval, from Bartlett, Fiske and Taylor, and Markus. Attribution theory, built by Heider, Jones and Davis, and Kelley, says causes are inferred by systematic but error-prone reasoning. The Continuum Model says perception ranges from category-based to attribute-based. Social identity theory, from Tajfel and Turner in nineteen seventy-nine, adds group membership. And embodied cognition says thought is grounded in the state of the body.

Two Loose Ends

Identity, the Body, and a Caution

Two of those deserve a closer look before we finish. Social identity theory holds that part of the self-concept comes from group memberships. Ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation are not just hostility. They serve identity functions, which is why they are so hard to argue people out of. The key concepts are social categories, ingroup bias, self-esteem, and identity salience. Embodied cognition makes a stranger claim. Cognitive processes are grounded in bodily states. Physical sensations like warmth, weight and cleanliness can prime social judgments. Its vocabulary includes embodied simulation, motor resonance, metaphor and priming. Now the caution, and please carry it forward. Embodied cognition research has faced replication challenges. That is not grounds for dismissing the area outright. It is grounds for asking about standards of evidence before you build on a finding.

Consolidate

What Social Cognition Buys You

Let us gather what this section gives you. Social cognition bridges cognitive and social psychology, studying how social information is perceived, remembered, and acted on. The dual-process model separates automatic from deliberate processing. And the deliberate correction is incomplete, which is the whole problem. Schemas accelerate processing and distort it, at attention, encoding and retrieval. Attribution theories describe how causes get inferred, and name the recurring biases. The Continuum Model makes individuation depend on motivation and cognitive resources. That last point has a sharp applied consequence. Improving intergroup relations requires conditions that foster individuation. Not merely exposure. Putting people in a room together is not an intervention. It is only the precondition for one.

About Advanced Social Psychology at UPI Study

Advanced Social Psychology (Psychology 310) is a self-paced online course of 85 video lessons in 12 chapters, from attitudes, persuasion and the self to prejudice, attraction and relationships, conformity and obedience, helping, aggression and social life online. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.

Every lesson transcript is free on pages like this one, and the videos are free with a free UPI Study account. Enrolling adds a practice quiz after each lesson, the graded work and final exam that earn the credit, lifetime access, and an official transcript on completion. UPI Study has helped over 130,000 students with college credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Enroll now → Course details Download the syllabus All Psychology and social science courses Every course with PRO →

Compare: Social Psychology vs Sociology

Why take it here

Why students take Advanced Social Psychology with UPI Study

How other people shape what we think and doAdvanced Social Psychology explains how people think about, influence and relate to one another: attitudes and persuasion, the self, prejudice and intergroup conflict, attraction and close relationships, conformity and obedience, helping and aggression. It is a common upper-level course in psychology and sociology degrees.
Credit at a fraction of the priceThe same 3 credits can cost $750 or more at a US college. Here it is one payment, self-paced, with lifetime access.
Finish your degree soonerTransfer credits reduce the courses you still owe, so you can graduate earlier or lighten a heavy semester.
Strengthen an applicationA completed college-level course on an official transcript shows admissions and scholarship committees you can do the work.
Study on your own scheduleNo start dates, no deadlines. Watch the lessons, practice, and take the final when you are ready.
130,000+students helped with college creditsACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Where the credit goes

Universities that work with NCCRS

Advanced Social Psychology carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Thomas Edison State UniversityThomas Edison State UniversitySigned partnerUniversity of the PeopleUniversity of the PeopleSigned partnerCharter Oak State CollegeCharter Oak State CollegeSigned partnerStrayer UniversityStrayer UniversitySigned partnerColumbia Southern UniversityColumbia Southern UniversitySigned partnerIndiana TechIndiana TechSigned partnerPenn StatePenn StateWorks with NCCRSSouthern New Hampshire UniversitySouthern New Hampshire UniversityWorks with NCCRSSUNYSUNYWorks with NCCRS +many more cooperating universitiesFind my college →

Find my college → Not listed? Ask Athena in the corner of this page, or book a 15-minute call.

FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Social Cognition: Models and Frameworks for How We Think About Others

What is social cognition in psychology?
Social cognition is the study of the mental processes people use to perceive, interpret, store, and act on social information, a definition associated with Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor. Social information includes other people, groups, norms, and the self in relation to others. The field applies the tools of cognitive psychology, such as encoding and retrieval, to people, who are harder to perceive than objects because their intentions and emotions are hidden.
How do schemas affect attention and memory?
Schemas bias attention, encoding, and retrieval toward information that fits existing expectations. People notice schema-consistent details, encode them more efficiently, and recall them more easily, so small biases at each stage compound. Frederic Bartlett's 1932 War of the Ghosts study showed this when participants recalled an unfamiliar Native American folk tale in ways that fit their own cultural expectations, an early demonstration that memory is constructive rather than a faithful recording.
What is Kelley's covariation model of attribution?
Harold Kelley's 1967 covariation model treats people as naive scientists who infer the cause of behavior from three kinds of information. Consensus asks whether other people act the same way, distinctiveness asks whether the person acts this way only toward this particular target or situation, and consistency asks whether they act this way repeatedly. For example, low consensus, low distinctiveness, and high consistency point to the person as the cause.
What is the continuum model of impression formation?
Susan Fiske and Steven Neuberg's 1990 continuum model holds that impressions range from category-based processing, which relies on stereotypes, to individuated processing based on the person's own attributes. People default to the categorical end because it is efficient. They move toward individuation when the person does not fit the category, when they are motivated to be accurate, such as when their outcomes depend on that person, and when they have enough cognitive resources.

About the Advanced Social Psychology course

How many college credits is Advanced Social Psychology?
Advanced Social Psychology (Psychology 310) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
How much does Advanced Social Psychology cost and what is included?
$250, paid once, with lifetime access: all 85 video lessons, a practice quiz after each, the graded work and final exam, and an official transcript when you finish. Students who want several courses choose UPI Study PRO instead.
Which universities accept UPI Study credits?
UPI Study has signed partner agreements with universities such as Thomas Edison State University, University of the People and Charter Oak State College, and works with universities such as Penn State, SNHU and SUNY. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities. Use "Find my college" on this page to check yours.
How long does Advanced Social Psychology take?
It is self-paced with no deadlines. The 85 lessons total about 15 hours of video; most students add reading and practice time and finish in a few weeks to a few months, on their own schedule.
How are the exams done?
Quizzes and assignments are online in the course. The final exam is taken online with proctoring; a person on the UPI Study team checks assignments, usually within two days.
How do my credits reach my college?
When the course shows 100% complete, request the official transcript from your dashboard. It is sent to the college you name, and you can send it to more than one. Check your college first with "Find my college" on this page, or ask Athena.

Ready for the full course? Earn 3 credits in Advanced Social Psychology.

85 video lessons, a quiz after each one, and the graded work that earns the credit. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.

Enroll in Advanced Social Psychology →Download the syllabusEvery course with PRO →
Advanced Social Psychology
3 credits · NCCRSEnroll →