This document discusses several concepts related to social perception and cognition. It defines social perception as how people try to understand others and themselves, and social cognition as how people interpret, remember, and use social information. It also discusses attitudes, values, stereotypes, attribution, dogmatism, cognitive dissonance, and the cognitive balance theory. Cultural differences are noted for some of these concepts. For example, East Asian cultures tend to value hierarchy and conservatism more than Western cultures.

1. Social Perception
& Social Cognition
Bilal Anwaar, 191065

2. Freedom and slavery are
mental states.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869–
1948)
2

3. 3
Social Perception
& Social Cognition
Attitudes
Stereotypes
Social
Attribution
Psychological
Dogmatism
Cognitive
Dissonance
The Cognitive
Balance
Theory
Values
Instrumental
Value
Terminal
Values

4. Social Perception
• The process through which we try to understand other people and
ourselves is called social perception. People are not born with
judgments, attitudes, and beliefs. Rather, they acquire them through
socialization experiences from their cultural milieu.
• A real-world example of social perception is understanding that others
disagree with what one said when one sees them roll their eyes.
4

5. Social Cognition
• Social cognition is the process through which we interpret, remember, and
then use information about the world and ourselves.
• Social cognition tends to be stable, not easily changing.
• Ethnic groups engaged in a conflict against one another see the cause of
their hostility differently, each from the biased lenses of centuries-old negative
stereotypes of the other.
5

6. Values
• Values, are attitudes that reflect a principle, standard, or quality an
individual considers most desirable or appropriate. Values hold a
more central, stable position than attitudes, influencing people’s
behaviour toward a variety of objects and situations.
• An Indian woman in the United States would not eat a beef
sandwich served to her at a friend’s party because abstinence from
beef (a Hindu value).
6

7. Types of Values
• When a specific behaviour is
preferred to another behaviour is
called instrumental value.
• Instrumental values designate
morality and competency issues.
7
• When a specific goal is preferred to
another goal is called terminal value.
• Terminal values (goals) usually refer
to social and personal concerns.
Instrumental Values Terminal Values

8. Cultural Difference in Values
• Schwartz had argued about cultural differences in individual values. He suggested individual values
as being connected to the way various groups cope with basic societal problems. Three basic
issues make various social groups different from one another: (view the slide# 9)
• Schwartz’s study included 40 countries divided into several groups: West European, Anglo
(including the United States), East European, Islamic, East Asian, Japan and Latin American. East
Asian nations were especially high on hierarchy and conservatism and low on egalitarianism and
autonomy. West European participants showed the opposite trend. The Anglo profile fell somewhere
in between the West European and East Asian samples. Cultures high on hierarchy (and low on
egalitarianism) tend to emphasize power and status differences among people.
8

9. The conservative views are
shared by individuals who
believe in the status quo,
advocate self-discipline, and
care about family, social
order, and tradition. Those
who share values of
autonomy emphasize the
right of individuals to pursue
their own ideals and to enjoy
the variety of life for the sake
of pleasure and excitement.
If a person supports the
hierarchy values, he justifies
the legitimacy of an unequal
distribution of power,
resources, and social roles. If
a person has egalitarian
values, she sees individuals
as equals who share basic
interests and should be
treated equally as human
beings.
Conservatism vs.
Autonomy
Hierarchy vs.
Egalitarianism
Mastery values encourage
individuals to exercise control
over society and exploit its
natural resources. Ambition
and high self-esteem are
important individual traits that
accompany mastery values.
Harmony values are based
on assumptions that the
world should be kept as is:
preserved and cherished
rather than violated and
exploited.
Mastery vs. Harmony
9

10. Attitudes
• Attitudes are one’s psychological representations and evaluations of
various features of the social world. Based on personal experience,
they are the psychological links or associations between various
cognitive images and their evaluations.
• An Italian autoworker strongly attached to the value of equality is
likely to support (an attitude) government actions aimed at helping
refugees from neighbouring Yugoslavia.
10

11. Morality is simply the attitude
we adopt toward people whom
we personally dislike.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
10/9/2021 PRESENTATION TITLE 11

12. The Cognitive Balance Theory
• Heider’s theory of attitude balance states that people seek consistency among their attitudes. In general, a
balance is achieved if you and a person you like agree on something or when you and a person you dislike
disagree about something.
• Triantis (1994) demonstrated that while principles of cognitive balance were virtually universal, cognitive
consistency varies across cultures. For instance, in the United States people are more concerned about the
consistency of their attitudes than individuals in Japan, where the ability to handle inconsistency is considered
a sign of maturity. In the former communist countries of the Soviet bloc, moral consistency required personal
modesty, honesty, sacrifice on behalf of society, and public criticism of others who do not follow these
standards. In Islamic societies, being consistent in one’s religious attitudes requires a more complex
behavioural reaction than the religious behaviour of people in other societies.
12

13. Cognitive Dissonance
• People experience psychological tensions when they perceive mismatch (dissonance)
between (1) attitudes and behaviour, (2) two or more decisions, or (3) two or more attitudes.
These tensions are known as cognitive dissonance.
• People in predominantly individualistic cultures in Western countries tend to experience
dissonance when their behaviour violates either a personal or a social standard. Meanwhile,
people in predominantly collectivistic cultures are much more concerned about violating social
standards, out of fear of challenging social harmony and thus being rejected by others.
13

14. Psychological Dogmatism
• Dogmatism is a tendency to be extremely selective, rigid, and inflexible in opinions and
subsequent behaviour. This is a powerful alliance of attitudes and beliefs, usually organized
around one central idea. This idea has absolute authority over the individual and usually
causes intolerance toward other people or issues.
• In his well-known study, Ofer Feldman compared dogmatism in politicians from the United
States, Italy, and Japan. Japanese public officials were found to be less dogmatic than Italian
politicians but more dogmatic than their U.S. counterparts. The findings were explained in the
context of differences in political systems in the countries studied.
14

15. Social Attribution
• Social attribution, a process through which people seek to explain and identify the causes
underlying others’ behaviour, as well as their own.
• Research on social attribution provides some evidence that people across countries, despite
many similarities, express different attributions. In a study, U.S. and Japanese subjects were
asked to look at smiling or nonsmiling white and Japanese faces and rate them on how
attractive, intelligent, and sociable they were. The Americans normally rated the smiling faces
higher on all three dimensions. The Japanese, in general, rated the smiling faces only as more
sociable and the neutral faces as more intelligent.
15

16. Stereotypes
• Stereotypes are categorical assumptions that all members of a given group have a particular
trait. Stereotypes could be positive or negative, simple or differentiated, and held with or without
confidence.
• It was found in a study that Anglo-Australians held very positive stereotypes of themselves and
very negative stereotypes about Aboriginal Australians. The latter held somewhat favourable
stereotypes about Anglo-Australians and only moderately positive stereotypes about
themselves. Israeli Arabs saw Jews as more intellectually advanced; however, the Arabs saw
themselves as far superior socially—thus referring to their friendships, love, family traditions,
and overall collectivism.
16

17. Thanks