14 Social Behaviour · 14.1 Social behaviour
14.1.2 Social cognition, person perception, stereotypes and prejudice
Social cognition is how we take in, store and use information about people, using schemas, prototypes and stereotypes; we form impressions (shaped by the perceiver, the target and the situation, and by implicit theories of which traits go together), explain behaviour through internal or external attributions with predictable errors, and prejudice (an attitude) can turn into discrimination (behaviour) unless reduced by education, contact, superordinate goals and a wider identity.
- APPSC Paper I
- Standard level
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Core facts
- Social cognition: the mental processes by which we receive, interpret and remember information about the social world.
- Schema: an organised mental structure (a cognitive unit) that guides how we process information about a person, group or event.
- Prototype: a concept-based schema: the best or most typical example of a category.
- Stereotype: a category-based schema about a group of people ("all members of group X are ..."); the cognitive component of prejudice.
- Prejudice: an attitude, usually negative, towards a group, held without enough evidence.
- Discrimination: the behaviour: unfair treatment of members of a group. Prejudice can exist without discrimination, and the reverse.
- Impression formation: making inferences about a person's personal qualities. Three parts (NCERT): the perceiver, the target and the situation.
- What shapes impressions: the nature of the information, its salience (some traits stand out), the setting, and familiarity with the target.
- Solomon Asch (1946): central traits. Changing just "warm" to "cold" in a list of traits changed the whole impression; "polite / blunt" made little difference (peripheral traits).
- Primacy effect: information received first has more influence; recency effect: information received last has more.
- Halo effect: knowing one positive trait, we assume the person has other positive traits (E.L. Thorndike, 1920).
- Implicit personality theory: our own unstated beliefs about which traits go together ("kind people are honest"); Bruner and Tagiuri (1954). It rests on personal experience, not on data, so it is often wrong.
- Attribution: explaining the cause of behaviour. Fritz Heider (1958): internal (dispositional) vs external (situational) causes.
- Kelley's covariation model (1967): consensus, consistency, distinctiveness.
- Errors in attribution:
- Fundamental attribution error: overstressing internal causes for others' behaviour (also called correspondence bias);
- Actor-observer effect: we blame the situation for our own failures, the person for others';
- Self-serving bias: success to ourselves, failure to circumstances.
- Sources of prejudice (NCERT): learning, a strong social identity with ingroup bias, scapegoating, the kernel of truth idea, and the self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Reducing prejudice: education and information (most often named as the best strategy), intergroup contact (Gordon Allport, 1954, contact hypothesis), superordinate goals (Muzafer Sherif, Robbers Cave experiment, 1954), stressing individual identity over group identity, and stopping self-fulfilling prophecies.
Explained
1. Schema, prototype, stereotype
| Term | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Schema | organised knowledge about anything social | how a court hearing goes |
| Prototype | the most typical member of a category | the picture "a typical police officer" |
| Stereotype | a schema about a group, applied to every member | "all old people are forgetful" |
Schemas save effort but cause errors: we notice information that fits and miss information that does not.
2. Impression formation in three steps (NCERT)
- Selection: we take in only some of the information about the target;
- Organisation: we combine it in a systematic way;
- Inference: we draw a conclusion about the kind of person the target is.
3. Asch's warm-cold study. Two groups heard the same list (intelligent, skilful, industrious, warm / cold, determined, practical, cautious). With "warm" the person was seen as generous, happy and humorous; with "cold" as the opposite. Central traits act like a filter for the rest. A later field study (H.H. Kelley, 1950) found students rated a guest lecturer more favourably and took part more when told in advance he was "warm".
4. Implicit personality theory. If we are told a person is "intelligent", we may assume she is also "hard-working" and "responsible". These links come from our own experience and person perception, not from tests, which is why such theories are often found incorrect when checked. The halo effect is one form of it.
5. Attribution: Heider and Kelley
- Internal: "He failed because he is lazy." External: "He failed because the paper was unusually hard."
- Kelley's three questions:
| Information | Question | If high it points to |
|---|---|---|
| Consensus | do others behave the same way here? | external |
| Consistency | does this person behave so every time here? | (needed for any stable cause) |
| Distinctiveness | does the person behave so only in this situation? | external |
Low consensus + high consistency + low distinctiveness → internal cause. High consensus + high consistency + high distinctiveness → external cause.
6. Errors in attribution, side by side
| Error | What happens | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamental attribution error | others' behaviour put down to their character | "the accused is simply a bad person" |
| Actor-observer effect | own behaviour to situation, others' to character | "I was late due to traffic; he is careless" |
| Self-serving bias | success inside, failure outside | "I topped because I worked; I failed because of bad teaching" |
| Belief in a just world | victims "deserve" what happens | blaming victims of crime |
Culture: NCERT notes that Indians tend to make more external (situational) attributions than Americans, so the fundamental attribution error is weaker in collectivist cultures (J.G. Miller, 1984).
7. Prejudice, stereotype, discrimination: ABC again
| Component | Name | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Cognitive | stereotype | "group X is dishonest" |
| Affective | prejudice (dislike) | feeling uneasy around group X |
| Behavioural | discrimination | not renting a house to group X |
8. Sources of prejudice (NCERT)
- Learning: from family, reference groups, personal experience and media.
- Strong social identity and ingroup bias: favouring "us" over "them" (Henri Tajfel's social identity theory).
- Scapegoating: a frustrated majority blames a weaker minority for its problems.
- Kernel of truth: a stereotype is defended because a few members fit it.
- Self-fulfilling prophecy: the target group, expected to behave in some way, comes to behave that way, which seems to "confirm" the prejudice.
9. Strategies to reduce prejudice
| Strategy | How it works | Name to remember |
|---|---|---|
| Education and information | corrects stereotypes, teaches about other groups | NCERT; best long-term strategy |
| Intergroup contact | meeting under equal status, common goals, cooperation, support from authorities | Allport, 1954 |
| Superordinate goals | a goal both groups need and can reach only together | Sherif, Robbers Cave, 1954 |
| Cooperative learning | each student holds one piece of the lesson | Aronson, jigsaw classroom, 1971 |
| Individual over group identity | people seen as persons, not as members | NCERT |
10. Confusable pairs
| Pair | First | Second |
|---|---|---|
| Prejudice vs discrimination | attitude | behaviour |
| Stereotype vs prejudice | belief (cognitive) | feeling (affective) |
| Schema vs stereotype | any organised knowledge | schema about a group |
| Primacy vs recency | first information wins | last information wins |
| Halo effect vs implicit personality theory | one good trait spreads | general belief about trait links |
| Fundamental error vs actor-observer | others: too internal | self external, others internal |
| Allport vs Sherif | contact hypothesis | superordinate goals |
Common traps
- ✗ "Category-based schemas about groups are called prototypes." ✓ They are stereotypes; a prototype is the most typical example of a concept.
- ✗ "Prejudice and discrimination are the same." ✓ Prejudice is an attitude; discrimination is behaviour.
- ✗ "Impression formation is inference about a person's social influence." ✓ It is inference about a person's personal qualities (traits), drawn from limited information about the target.
- ✗ "Implicit personality theories rest on factor analysis." ✓ They rest on personal experience and person perception, so they are often wrong.
- ✗ "Asch's central traits were 'polite / blunt'." ✓ The central traits were warm / cold.
- ✗ "Fundamental attribution error: too much weight on the situation." ✓ Too much weight on internal (dispositional) causes of others' behaviour.
- ✗ "Superordinate goals: Allport." ✓ Superordinate goals = Sherif (Robbers Cave); contact hypothesis = Allport.
- ✗ "Any contact reduces prejudice." ✓ Contact works under equal status, cooperation and common goals.
- ✗ "Kelley: high consensus points to an internal cause." ✓ High consensus points to an external cause.
- ✗ "Halo effect was named by Asch." ✓ Halo effect = Thorndike (1920).
Quick revision
- Social cognition = processing information about people; schemas are cognitive units.
- Prototype = typical example; stereotype = schema about a group.
- Impression formation: perceiver, target, situation; selection, organisation, inference.
- Asch 1946: warm / cold central traits; primacy beats recency in first impressions.
- Halo effect (Thorndike 1920); implicit personality theory (Bruner and Tagiuri 1954), based on experience.
- Heider 1958: internal vs external attribution; Kelley: consensus, consistency, distinctiveness.
- Errors: fundamental attribution error, actor-observer effect, self-serving bias.
- Prejudice = attitude, stereotype = belief, discrimination = behaviour.
- Sources: learning, ingroup bias, scapegoating, kernel of truth, self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Reduce: education (best), contact (Allport 1954), superordinate goals (Sherif 1954), jigsaw (Aronson).
Go deeper: Deeper (beyond what APPSC Paper I usually asks)
Deeper Advanced
1. Weiner's attribution theory (1972-1986). Causes of success and failure vary in locus (internal-external), stability (stable-unstable) and controllability. Ability = internal, stable, uncontrollable; effort = internal, unstable, controllable; luck = external, unstable. Attributing failure to low effort keeps motivation up; attributing it to low ability lowers it.
2. Correspondent inference (Jones and Davis, 1965). We infer a stable trait from an act when the act was freely chosen, had unusual (non-common) effects and was low in social desirability.
3. Authoritarian personality (Adorno and others, 1950). Rigid, obedient to authority, hostile to outgroups; measured by the F-scale. A personality explanation of prejudice, criticised for ignoring social conditions.
4. Realistic conflict and Robbers Cave. Sherif's two groups of boys at summer camp became hostile when they competed for scarce prizes; contact alone did not end the hostility, but tasks that needed both groups (fixing the water supply, pulling a stuck truck) did. Competition for real resources breeds prejudice; superordinate goals reduce it.
5. Minimal group studies (Tajfel, 1970s). Boys divided on a trivial basis (preference for one painter) still favoured their own group in sharing rewards, showing that categorisation alone produces ingroup bias.
6. Conditions for contact to work (Allport). Equal status within the contact situation, common goals, intergroup cooperation, and support of authorities, law or custom. Casual contact under unequal status can strengthen stereotypes.
Practise this topic. Questions on Social cognition, person perception, stereotypes and prejudice, with answers explained.
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