Editing Social psychology (section)

=== Social cognition ===
{{Main|Social cognition}}
Social cognition studies how people perceive, recognize, and remember information about others.<ref>{{Cite book |last=DeLamater |first=John D. |author-link=John DeLamater |display-authors=etal |title=Social Psychology |date=8 July 2014 |publisher=Avalon |isbn=978-0-8133-4951-0 |oclc=883566075}}</ref> Much research rests on the assertion that people think about other people differently than they do non-social, or non-human, targets.<ref>{{cite book|last=Moskowitz|first=Gordon B|title=Social Cognition: Understanding Self and Others|year=2005|publisher=Guilford|isbn=978-1-59385-085-2|series=Texts in Social Psychology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_-NLW8Ynvp8C&q=%22Social+Cognition%22+Moskowitz}}</ref> This assertion is supported by the [[Social cognitive theory|social-cognitive]] deficits exhibited by people with [[Williams syndrome]] and [[autism]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Dobbs|first1=Davis|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/magazine/08sociability-t.html|title=The Gregarious Brain|date=8 July 2007|newspaper=[[The New York Times Magazine]]|url-access=subscription|access-date=23 February 2017|archive-date=11 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081211031201/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/magazine/08sociability-t.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

====Attribution====
{{Main|Attribution (psychology)}}
A major research topic in social cognition is [[Attribution (psychology)|attribution]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Reisenzein|first1=Rainer|last2=Rudolph|first2=Udo|title=50 Years of Attribution Research|journal= [[Social Psychology (journal)|Social Psychology]] |volume=39|issue=3|year=2008|pages=123–124|issn=1864-9335|doi=10.1027/1864-9335.39.3.123}}</ref> Attributions are explanations of behavior, either one's own behavior or the behavior of others.

One element of attribution ascribes the cause of behavior to internal and external factors. An internal, or dispositional, attribution reasons that a behavior is caused by inner traits such as personality, disposition, character, and ability. An external, or situational, attribution reasons that a behavior is caused by situational elements such as the weather.<ref name="Aaronson1">
{{cite book|last1=Aronson|first1=Elliot|url=https://archive.org/details/Social_Psychology_7th_edition_by_Elliot_Aronson_Timothy_D._Wilson_R_M._Akert|title=Social Psychology|last2=Wilson|first2=Timothy D.|last3=Akert|first3=Robin M.|publisher=[[Prentice Hall]]|year=2010|edition=7|author-link=Elliot Aronson}}</ref>{{rp|111}}A second element of attribution ascribes the cause of behavior to stable and unstable factors (i.e., whether the behavior will be repeated or changed under similar circumstances). Individuals also attribute causes of behavior to controllable and uncontrollable factors (i.e., how much control one has over the situation at hand).

Numerous biases in the attribution process have been discovered. For instance, the [[fundamental attribution error]] is the bias towards making dispositional attributions for other people's behavior.<ref name="Myers">
{{cite book|last=Myers|first=David G.|url=https://archive.org/details/psychology8thedit00myer|title=Psychology|publisher=Worth Publishers|year=2007|edition=8|location=New York|url-access=limited|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>{{rp|724}}The actor-observer bias is an extension of the theory, positing that tendency exists to make dispositional attributions for other people's behavior and situational attributions for one's own.<ref name="Aaronson1" />{{rp|107}} The [[self-serving bias]] is the tendency to attribute dispositional causes for successes, and situational causes for failure, particularly when self-esteem is threatened. This leads to assuming one's successes are from innate traits, and one's failures are due to situations.<ref name="Aaronson1" />{{rp|109}}

====Heuristics====
{{Main|Heuristics in judgment and decision making}}
[[Heuristics in judgment and decision making|Heuristic]]s are cognitive shortcuts which are used to make decisions in lieu of conscious reasoning. The [[availability heuristic]] occurs when people estimate the [[probability]] of an outcome based on how easy that outcome is to imagine. As such, vivid or highly memorable possibilities will be perceived as more likely than those that are harder to picture or difficult to understand. The representativeness heuristic is a shortcut people use to categorize something based on how similar it is to a prototype they know of.<ref name="Aaronson1" />{{rp|63}} Several other biases have been found by [[social cognition]] researchers. The [[hindsight bias]] is a [[Confabulation|false memory]] of having predicted events, or an exaggeration of actual predictions, after becoming aware of the outcome. The [[confirmation bias]] is a type of bias leading to the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.<ref>{{Citation|title=Availability Bias, Source Bias, and Publication Bias in Meta-Analysis|work=Methods of Meta-Analysis: Correcting Error and Bias in Research Findings|year=2015|pages=513–551|publisher=SAGE Publications, Ltd|doi=10.4135/9781483398105.n13|isbn=978-1-4522-8689-1}}</ref>

==== Schemas ====
{{Main|Schema (psychology)}}
[[Schema (psychology)|Schemas]] are generalized mental representations that organize knowledge and guide information processing. They organize social information and experiences. Schemas often operate [[automaticity|automatically]] and unconsciously. This leads to biases in perception and memory. Schemas may induce expectations that lead us to see something that is not there. One experiment found that people are more likely to misperceive a weapon in the hands of a black man than a white man.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Correll|first1=Joshua|last2=Park|first2=Bernadette|last3=Judd|first3=Charles M|last4=Wittenbrink|first4=Bernd|title=The police officer's dilemma: Using ethnicity to disambiguate potentially threatening individuals|journal= [[Journal of Personality and Social Psychology]] |volume=83|issue=6|year=2002|pages=1,314–1,329|issn=0022-3514|doi=10.1037/0022-3514.83.6.1314|citeseerx=10.1.1.466.7243|pmid=12500813}}</ref> This type of schema is a [[stereotype]], a generalized set of beliefs about a particular group of people (when incorrect, an [[ultimate attribution error]]). Stereotypes are often related to negative or preferential attitudes and behavior. Schemas for behaviors (e.g., going to a restaurant, doing laundry) are known as ''scripts''.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Sternberg|first1=Robert J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NISqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA368|title=The Psychology of Human Thought: An Introduction|last2=Funke|first2=Joachim|date=22 August 2019|publisher=BoD – Books on Demand|isbn=978-3-947732-35-7|language=en}}</ref>