Page 137 - The Social Animal

Social Cognition 119

We are forever trying to make sense of our social world; how we do
it makes a difference. Whenever we meet a new person, we form a
first impression. Every time we enter a supermarket, we walk down
an aisle full of several brands for each of hundreds of products; we
must attempt to discern which will best suit our needs. Occasionally,
someone will ask us a question about ourselves, and we must think
back over the bits and pieces of our lives to construct answers we be-
lieve to be accurate. Every day we make decisions— what clothes to
wear, with whom to eat lunch, what to eat, which movie to see,
whether to answer the telephone. Occasionally, our decisions are of
vital importance: whom to trust, what to major in, what profession to
follow, which social policy to support, which person to marry, whether
to have children, and so on. How we make both trivial and important
decisions depends on how we make sense of our social world.

How Do We Make Sense of the World?

We humans have powerful and efficient brains. But wonderful as
they are, they are far from perfect. One consequence of this imper-
fection is that most of us end up “knowing” a lot of things that sim-
ply are not true. Let us take a common example: Many people harbor
the belief that relatively infertile couples who adopt a baby are sub-
sequently more likely to conceive a child of their own than relatively
infertile couples who do not adopt. The reasoning goes something
like this: After the adoption, the pressure is off; now that the couple
is relaxed, this somehow makes conception easier. But according to
4
Tom Gilovich, this belief, although widespread, is simply not true;
relatively infertile couples who adopt a baby are no more likely to
conceive than relatively infertile couples who do not adopt. Why do
most people believe it is so? Two reasons: (1) It is such a charming
and comforting idea that we want it to be true, and (2) we tend to
focus our attention on those few instances when adoptive parents
later conceived a baby of their own and not on those instances when
they failed to conceive or when nonadoptive parents conceived a
baby. Thus, because of selective attention and selective memory, it
sure seems to be true.
Are we rational animals or not? We try to be. One common view
of human cognition is that it is completely rational; each individual