Instructor Notes

In this module, our focus will be on social cognition—cognition that relates to social activities and that helps us understand and predict the behavior of ourselves and others (Fiske & Taylor, 2007; Macrae & Quadflieg, 2010). A fundamental part of social cognition involves learning, the relatively permanent change in knowledge that is acquired through experience. As we investigate the role of cognition in everyday life, we will consider the ways that people use their cognitive abilities to make good decisions and to inform their behavior in a useful and accurate way. We will also consider the potential for mistakes and biases in human judgment.

This week contains a number of “Major Points” with videos and discussion and assignment prompts to support the topics. This chapter contains an abundance of content. As an instructor, you will want to choose just 1 or 2 videos and perhaps just a few of the “Major Points” to cover and meet the learning outcomes of your course. You may wish to reference the “How to use this Resource” section for ideas on how to tailor your course offering.

Readings

Chapter 2: Social Cognition in Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International H5P Edition.

Teaching Materials

• Major Points
• Selected video presentations (choose 1 or 2)
• Class Discussion

Student Tasks

• Online Discussion Forum
• Assignment: Cognitive Biases
• Chapter Quiz (Available upon request)

Major Points

1. Judgement of Others
   1. Attribution theory
   2. Internal and external attributions
   3. Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
2. Cognitive Dissonance
   1. Festinger and Carlsmith $20 Experiment
   2. Reducing dissonance
   3. Self-fulfilling prophecy
3. Cognitive Schema
   1. Assimilation, Accommodation
   2. Schema salience
   3. Counterfactual thinking
   4. Culture and Indigenous Perpective
4. Cognitive Biases
   1. Availability Bias
   2. False consensus Bias
   3. False Uniqueness Bias
   4. Confirmation Bias
   5. Optimistic Bias
   6. Self-serving Bias
5. Cognitive Reappraisal
   1. Self-regulation
   2. The Marshmallow Experiment
   3. Self-efficacy
6. Cognition & Affect
   1. Primacy of cognition or emotion?
   2. Interaction

Videos

YouTube

12 Cognitive Biases Explained – How to Think Better and More Logically Removing” Bias by Practical Psychology is licensed under a Standard YouTube license. (10:08)

Why incompetent people think they’re amazing – David Dunning by TED-Ed is licensed under a Standard YouTube license. (5:07)

Are we in control of our decisions? | Dan Ariely by TED is licensed under a Standard YouTube license. (17:26)

Ted Talks

Cortney Warren: Honest Liars- The Psychology of Self-deception is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License. (13:47)

Discussion

Assignment

Content Attributions

The instructor notes are adapted from Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International H5P Edition by Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani and Dr. Hammond Tarry which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.