Social Cognitive

Social Cognitive

  • Submitted By: tmedas
  • Date Submitted: 05/29/2013 7:12 PM
  • Category: Psychology
  • Words: 742
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 211

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Social perception is the specific process we use to make sense out of individual behavior. It involves inferring motives for behavior and attributing causes for behavior. It’s a more focused and specific process than the more general social cognition process. Social perception and cognition are central to how we interpret situations and affect our social behavior. Each of us actively constructs a version of social reality based on the information we receive. Often we must infer motives from overt behavior. The inference process is complicated by the fact that we interact with a person while making inferences. Social perception, unlike object perception, is a two way process. Perception of an event is subjective and each person views the same situation differently based on his or her own prior experience, personality and expectations social perception is an active process. We actively construct a version of social reality.
Humans are not always rational, objective processers of information. Bias enters into social perception and cognition. In many cases construction of social reality is based on limited and/or inaccurate information. Many different strategies are used to construct social reality. We tend to choose the least effortful strategy. Because of this we tend to be cognitive misers and tunnel vision often occurs.
We block out much information and see social situations in a limited way. Social reality can be altered easily by imposing a new set of rules or parameters. Our version of social reality is constructed so that it fits with our perceptions of changing events. Preconceptions and expectations and the self-fulfilling prophecy are our main goals.
We have a tendency to categorize objects and people into groups. We may over categorize (fit an object into a...

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