And now for our last lecture on social cognition.
Selective filtering occurs because we tend
to only look at information that already supports our preexisting beliefs. So, if I have an
attitude and I am pro belief and I have a list of pros and cons for that belief what
is going to happen is I am going to selectively filter out everything that doesn’t support
my belief and so now what I’m doing is seeing all these pros and I think “Wow my belief
is correct because there are all these things that support my belief”.
So illusory correlations stem from selective filtering and they occur when people think
that two things are related, when they are actually unrelated. So, I have an Aunt who
thinks women make terrible parallel parkers and perhaps some of you feel the same way.
So, what happens is when she sees someone who is parallel parking she checks the gender
and if it’s a women she thinks “Ugh every time a woman tries to parallel park she is
just sucking at it”. And if it’s a man she thinks “Oh that’s kind of weird that
this guy isn’t parallel parking so well”. And she doesn’t even check if the person
is parallel parking well. So, she sees a correlation between gender and the type of parallel parking
because she has very specific memories of seeing bad women parallel parkers. So, she
has an illusory correlation between gender and parallel parking.
Confirmation bias occurs when people seek out information that supports their pre-existing
beliefs. So, here we have a group of women and there are Republicans and Democrats. And
if the Republicans want to learn more about a political issue they are only going to talk
to other Republicans and when Democrats want to learn about a particular issue, they are
only going to talk to other Democrats. So, what’s happening is both of these women
are only talking to people that are going to have information that supports their preexisting
beliefs. And they can think to themselves, “Well I talked to a lot of people and they
all agreed with me”. So, they think they have done a good job vetting their opinion
when actually they were only seeking out information that would confirm what they believed.
And self-fulfilling prophecy is a consequence of confirmation bias and it occurs when people
behave in such a way that they unintentionally bring about the expected outcome.
So, I’ll give you an example. Pierre think he’s just not good enough to
make the team. He starts training, but when he experiences setbacks he attributes them
to a lack of ability. So when he starts to have some troubles he thinks to himself, “Well
I’m just not very good and that’s why I’m having these problems”. And so, he
stops training. And when he stops training, he is pretty much not going to make the team.
Conversely, if you think you word hard enough, you can make the team. So, you start training
and when you experience setbacks you don’t attribute them to a lack of ability. You think,
“Okay, well training means that sometimes it’s hard, but I’m going to keep working”
and so you keep working and you make the team. Good job! So both you and Pierre experienced
a self-fulfilling prophecy. Pierre thought that I’m just not good enough to make the
team and he ends up not making the team and that fulfills the prophecy he made in the
beginning. And you thought I can make the team, if I work hard, so you end up making
the team, and that fulfills the prophecy you made in the beginning.