Page 141 - The Social Animal

Social Cognition 123

heartened or not, it is critical to realize that our shortcuts can produce
biases and prejudices that obscure the truth. Unless we recognize our
cognitive limitations we will be enslaved by them. For example, if we
fail to recognize that we often judge others on the basis of stereotypes
or that the specific manner in which a piece of information is presented
can bias our judgments, we will be unable to take steps to correct such
errors. Worse yet, if we fail to understand the consequences of being
cognitive misers, we are more prone to confuse our own interpretations
of things with absolute truth and assume that those who don’t share
our perspective are misguided, stupid, crazy—or evil. As history
demonstrates, it becomes easier for people to commit acts of hatred
and cruelty to the extent that they are certain they are absolutely
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right. Our propensity for bias and error, then, can be a significant
barrier to interpersonal and intergroup understanding.
The fact that we are cognitive misers does not mean we are
doomed to distort. Once we know some of the limitations and com-
mon biases of the human mind, we can begin to think a little better
and make smarter decisions. It is my purpose in this chapter to do
more than list some of these limitations of our thinking. Rather, by
exploring these limitations, I hope that we can learn to think a little
more clearly.

The Effects of Context on Social

Judgment
Let’s begin by looking at how the social context—the way things are
presented and described—affects our judgments about people, in-
cluding ourselves. We will take, in turn, four different aspects of the
social context: the comparison of alternatives, the thoughts primed
by a situation, how a decision is framed or posed, and the way infor-
mation is presented. As we do so, a basic principle of social thinking
should emerge: All judgment is relative; how we think about a per-
son or thing is dependent on its surrounding context.

Reference Points and Contrast Effects An object can ap-
pear to be better or worse than it is, depending on what we compare
it with. I suspect that most salespeople implicitly understand this
phenomenon. Some act on it. Let me illustrate by taking you house