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Social Sci LibreTexts

2: Social Learning and Social Cognition

  • Page ID
    38935
    • Anonymous
    • LibreTexts

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    Most generally, this chapter is about social cognition, the mental activity that relates to social activities and helps us meet the goal of understanding and predicting the behavior of ourselves and others. A fundamental part of social cognition involves learningthe relatively permanent change in knowledge that is acquired through experience. We will see that a good part of our learning and our judgments of other people operates out of our awareness—we are profoundly affected by things that we do not know are influencing us. But we also consciously think about and analyze our lives and our relationships with others, seeking out the best ways to fulfill our goals and aspirations.

    • 2.1: Prelude to Social Learning and Social Cognition
      This page examines the wrongful conviction of Rickie Johnson, illustrating the dangers of eyewitness misidentification and highlighting the unreliability of human memory. It discusses DNA evidence that exonerated him in 2007 and introduces the concept of social cognition, which aids in understanding behavior in social contexts.
    • 2.2: Sources of Social Knowledge
      This page covers various learning principles, including operant, associational, and observational learning, and their roles in shaping schemas and attitudes. It highlights influential studies demonstrating how behaviors, beliefs, and perceptions are formed and reinforced through social interactions and cognitive processes like confirmation bias.
    • 2.3: How We Use Our Expectations
      This page explores cognitive biases affecting social judgments and memory accuracy. It discusses salience, which highlights prominent traits influencing perceptions, and cognitive accessibility, impacting how easily certain schemas come to mind. Key concepts include the availability and representativeness heuristics, counterfactual thinking, and their effects on decision-making and self-assessments.
    • 2.4: Thinking Like a Social Psychologist About Social Cognition
      This page explores how operant learning, modeling, and cognitive biases affect social cognition and perceptions of others. It encourages self-reflection on how personal experiences shape attitudes and highlights the impact of biases like counterfactual thinking and the representativeness heuristic on decision-making. The text stresses the need for a better understanding of social cognition to prevent misjudgments, advocating for more modest personal evaluations of oneself and others.
    • 2.5: Chapter Summary
      This page discusses social cognition, emphasizing the processes by which we learn about and evaluate others. It highlights the accuracy and potential flaws in our judgments stemming from schemas and heuristics, along with various learning methods such as operant conditioning and observational learning. The chapter details schema adaptation through accommodation and assimilation, the latter being more prevalent.


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