last session

• We tend to like the beautiful. We find the “averaged” faces more

attractive. The characteristics of beauty are mostly related to being
normal and healthy.
• We like gifts, praises, and recognition as we like rewards. In return,
we like those who reward us.
• We tend to like those are near us and repeatedly contact us, unless
we disagree with them.
• We evaluate the probability of being accepted in a relationship and
decide whether to be liked in return.
• We tend to like those who are like us.
• Barriers sometimes enhance the attractiveness too!
 Reminders

• Weekly Quiz—set two alarms

• Group presentation: Welcome consultation.
APSS1A24 Social Cognition
Lecture 3

Social Cognition

Dr. Jasmine ZHU

Department of Applied Social Sciences
 Outline

1. First Impressions
2. Positive Illusions
3. Attribution Processes
4. Relationship beliefs
5. Impression Management
6. Further…Food for thoughts
 A funny video clip
Who is the doctor?
 1. First Impressions Matters

• Fast
• Enormous staying power.
• Long-lasting

Why and how?

 Research shows:
We jump to conclusions very, very quickly!

• That’s all it takes—only 39 milliseconds 1 —for us to

determine whether a stranger’s face looks angry (Bar et
al., 2006).
• We have formed judgments of a stranger’s
attractiveness, likeability, and trustworthiness that are
the same as those we hold after a minute’s careful
inspection of the person’s face (Willis & Todorov, 2006).
• After watching the stranger chat with someone of the
other sex for only 5 seconds, we’ve already decided
how extraverted, conscientious, and intelligent he or she
is (Carney et al., 2007).
• Poll time: please login the blackboard and join collaborate ultra.
• Introduce a friend to you,
• He is ……

• Remember to screenshot the poll result.

 1. First Impressions Matters
• Primacy effects: The first information we obtain about
others carries special weight, influencing our
interpretations of the later information we encounter.
• Long
• Strong
• Easily built-on
• First impressions also affect our choices of the new
information we seek.
• Recency bias: your recent actions are also important
Video on impression management
 1. First Impressions Matters
• confirmation bias: We’re more likely to pursue
information that will confirm our beliefs than to
inquire after data that could prove them wrong.
• (Story: Suspecting Others of Stealing the Hatchet（疑人偷斧）

• overconfident: We put too much faith in our judgments,

and think that we’re right about others more often than
we really are.

Confirmation bias game

2. Positive illusions
 2. Positive illusions

• Idealizing Our Partners

We often judge our lovers with
positive illusions
that portray them in the best possible light,
emphasizing their positive qualities,
and minimizing their faults.

• These perceptions are associated with greater

satisfaction, love, trust, and commitment as time goes by.
 Please think about it…
Imagine that you’re home in
bed, sick with a killer flu, and
your good friend doesn’t call
you during the day to see
how you’re doing.
…Your perception??
 3. Attributional Processes

• Attributional Processes
Attributions are our explanations of events.

They identify the causes of events, emphasizing the

role of some influences and minimizing the role of
others.
 3. Attributional Processes
We can emphasize influences that are:

• Internal to a person, such as personality or mood, or

• external, describing the situation the person faced.
• Stable and lasting, or
unstable and temporary.

• Controllable, so that we can manage them, or

uncontrollable, so there’s nothing we can do about
them.
 Your attribution:
If someone comes late to group
project?
https://aeementalperformance.com/resources/individual-burnout-
prevention-intro/individual-burnout-prevention-attribution-theory/
 Your attribution:
If you comes late to group project?
https://aeementalperformance.com/resources/individual-burnout-
prevention-intro/individual-burnout-prevention-attribution-theory/
 3. Attributional Processes
• Attributional Processes

The actor/observer effect:

People generate different explanations for their own
actions than they do for the similar actions they
observe in others.

As actors, we note external pressures, but as

observers, we make internal attributions.
 3. Attributional Processes
• Attributional Processes

Self-serving biases lead people to see themselves as

responsible for the good things that happen to them,
but as relatively blameless when things go wrong.

People routinely believe that relationship problems are

mostly the other partner’s fault.
 Why different?
Only punish Chinese passengers
【差別待遇？】中外乘客同在車廂
進食只罰中國人？
 3. Attributional Processes

Relationship Enhancing attributions help maintain

relationship satisfaction by giving partners credit for
their kindnesses and explaining away their
misbehavior.
 3. Attributional Processes

Desirable behavior seems intended and lasting, with

undesirable behavior seeming more accidental and
temporary.
 3. Attributional Processes

However, unhappy partners use Distress Maintaining

attributions to explain one another’s behavior in ways
that maintain their distress.
 3. Attributional Processes

Un desirable behavior seems to be intended, with desirable

behavior seeming more accidental and temporary.
 4. Relationship Beliefs
• Relationship Beliefs
• Be aware of the dysfunctional beliefs
• Disagreements are destructive.
• “Mindreading” is essential.
• Partners cannot change.
• Sex should be perfect every time.
• Men and women are different.
• Great relationships just happen.
 4. Relationship Beliefs
• Relationship Beliefs

Destiny beliefs assume that two people are either well-

suited for each other and destined to live happily ever
after, or they’re not.

Growth beliefs assume that good relationships are a

result of hard work.
 5. Impression Management

Whether or not we’re thinking about it, we’re often engaging

in impression management: trying to influence the impressions of
us that others form.
 5. Impression Management

Almost anything we do in public may

be strategically regulated to influence
what others think of us.

• What we say
• What we wear
• How much we eat
• The pictures we post on Facebook
 5. Impression Management
• Impression Management in Close Relationships

Individual differences can be important.

High self-monitors pay close attention to social

norms and adeptly adjust their behavior to fit.

Low self-monitors are less flexible; they make more

similar impressions from one audience to the next.
 Impression Management

In addition—and remarkably—we usually go to less

trouble to maintain favorable images for our intimate
partners than we do for others.

• We already know they like us, so there’s less motivation

to gain approval.
• They know us well, so there’s little we can do to affect
what they think.
• And many of us simply get lazy and work less hard to
be polite and charming.
Food for thoughts:
more theories about
cognitive bias
A talk from Professor Kahneman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0
 cognitive dissonance
• Motivated reasoning
• Confirmation bias
 How to anti-rumours…

• Investigate the source

• Dig deeper
• Check whether other,
reliable news sources
are carrying the story
 Information cocoon

• Practise openness
• Overcome inform cognitive biases
• Embrace the search for truth
In group:
• Look for difference
• Voice out and break the bubble
(like in the The Emperor's New
Clothes)
 Summary

• First Impressions
• When we first meet others, we jump to conclusions
because of stereotypes and primacy effects .
• Confirmation biases then affect our selection of subsequent
data, and overconfidence leads us to put unwarranted faith in
our judgments.
• The Power of Perceptions
• Partners’ perceptions can be very consequential.
• Idealizing Our Partners.
• Happy partners construct positive illusions that emphasize their partners’ virtues
and minimize their faults.
• Attributional Processes.
• The explanations we generate for why things happen are called
attributions. Partners are affected by actor/observer effects and self-
serving biases, and they tend to employ either relationship- enhancing
ordistress-maintaining patterns of attribution.
Examples
• Memories.
• We edit and update our memories as time goes by. This process
of reconstructive memory helps couples stay optimistic about their
futures.
• Relationship Beliefs.
• Dysfunctional relationship beliefs such as destiny beliefs are clearly
disadvantageous. Growth beliefs are more realistic and profitable.
• Expectations.
• Our expectations about others can become self-fulfilling prophecies,
false predictions that make themselves come true.
• Self-Perceptions.
• We seek reactions from others that are self-enhancing and
complimentary and that are consistent with what we already
think of ourselves—with self-verification leading people to
seek intimate partners who support their existing self-
concepts.
•
• Impression Management in Close Relationships.
• High self-monitors are less committed to their romantic
partners, but all of us work less hard to present favorable
images to our intimate partners than to others.
 References and readings

• Miller, R. S., Perlman, D., & Brehm, S. S. (2015).

Intimate relationships (7th ed.). Boston, MA:
McGraw-Hill.（Chapter 4）
• Heshmat, S. (2015) What is confirmation bias?
Wishful thinking. Psychology Today. Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-
choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias
• Heider, F. (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal
Relations. New York: Wiley.
 Time-in: a mindful moment to think…
Recall what you have learned in this session
Drop some keywords in Padlet and share

https://padlet.com/starryyyxi/apss-
1a24-reflection-qw8qauf7vyv1mxg7