We can say, then, that emotions have two factors—an arousal factor and a cognitive factor

Although arousal is necessary for emotion, it is not sufficient. Arousal becomes emotion only when it is accompanied by a label or by an explanation for the arousal (Schachter & Singer, 1962).

had participants rate how funny cartoons were while holding a writing pen in their mouth such that it forced them either to use muscles that are associated with smiling or to use muscles that are associated with frowning (Figure 3.3). They found that participants rated the cartoons as funnier when the pen created muscle contractions that are normally used for smiling rather than frowning.

And moods have other influences on our cognition and behavior: Positive moods may lead us to think more creatively and to be more flexible in how we respond to opinions that are inconsistent with cultural norms

Although affect can be harmful if it is unregulated or unchecked, our moods and emotions normally help us function efficiently and in a way that increases our chances of survival (Bless, Bohner, Schwarz, & Strack, 1990; Schwarz et al., 1991).

The goal of this chapter is to review the wide influence of affect on our social lives. We’ll see how we use moods and emotions to help us understand our social worlds and how they relate to our current happiness and well-being (our sense of satisfaction with our everyday experience).

We share our emotions with others through our social behavior, including our facial expressions, touch, voice, and posture, and even in our art, poetry, and music (Hertenstein, 2002; Oatley, 2003; Scherer, Johnstone, & Klasmeyer, 2003).

The potential biases that are the result of everyday social cognition can have important consequences, both for us in our everyday lives but even for people who make important decisions affecting many other people. Although biases are common, they are not impossible to control, and psychologists and other scientists are working to help people make better decisions.

Variations in the accessibility of schemas lead to biases such as the availability heuristic, the representativeness heuristic, the false consensus bias, and biases caused by counterfactual thinking.

A good part of our social cognition is spontaneous or automatic, operating without much thought or effort. On the other hand, when we have the time and the motivation to think about things carefully, we may engage in thoughtful, controlled cognition.

We use our schemas and attitudes to help us judge and respond to others. In many cases, this is appropriate, but our expectations can also lead to biases in our judgments of ourselves and others.

the use of cognitive heuristics is increased when people are under time pressure (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983) or when they feel threatened (Kassam, Koslov, & Mendes, 2009), exactly the situations that may occur when professionals are required to make their decisions.

This is called the problem of anchoring and adjustment.

If we can easily imagine an outcome that is better than what actually happened, then we may experience sadness and disappointment; on the other hand, if we can easily imagine that a result might have been worse that what actually happened, we may be more likely to experience happiness and satisfaction.

Cognitive Process Description Example Cognitive accessibility Some schemas and attitudes are more accessible than others. We may think a lot about our new haircut because it is important to us. Salience Some stimuli, such as those that are unusual, colorful, or moving, grab our attention. We may base our judgments on a single unusual event and ignore hundreds of other events that are more usual. Representativeness heuristic We tend to make judgments according to how well the event matches our expectations. After a coin has come up heads many times in a row, we may erroneously think that the next flip is more likely to be tails. Availability heuristic Things that come to mind easily tend to be seen as more common. We may overestimate the crime statistics in our own area because these crimes are so easy to recall. Anchoring and adjustment Although we try to adjust our judgments away from them, our decisions are overly based on the things that are most highly accessible in memory. We may buy more of a product when it is advertised in bulk than when it is advertised as a single item. Counterfactual thinking We may “replay” events such that they turn out differently—especially when only minor changes in the events leading up to them make a difference. We may feel particularly bad about events that might not have occurred if only a small change might have prevented them. False consensus bias We tend to see other people as similar to us. We are surprised when other people have different political opinions or values. Overconfidence We tend to have more confidence in our skills, abilities, and judgments than is objectively warranted. Eyewitnesses are often extremely confident that their identifications are accurate, even when they are not.

person commit a crime) will find it very difficult to change his or her mind about that decision later. Even if the individual is provided with evidence that suggests that he or she was wrong, that individual will likely assimilate that information to the existing belief. Assimilation is thus one of many factors that help account for the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony.

As we have seen in our earlier discussion, accommodation (i.e., the changing of beliefs on the basis of new information) does occur—it is the process of learning itself. Our beliefs about Italians may well change through our encounters with Bianca. However, there are many factors that lead us to assimilate information to our expectations rather than to accommodate our expectations to fit new information. In fact, we can say that in most cases, once a schema is developed, it will be difficult to change it because the expectation leads us to process new information in ways that serve to strengthen it rather than to weaken it. The tendency toward assimilation is so strong that it has substantial effects on our everyday social cognition. One outcome of assimilation is the confirmation bias—the tendency for people to favor information that confirms their expectations, regardless of whether the information is true.

we might decide that Bianca’s behavior is actually more expressive than we thought it was at first, or that she is acting in a more shy and reserved manner because she is trying to impress us with her thoughtfulness or because she is not yet comfortable at the new school. Or we might assume that she is expressive at home with her family but not around us. In these cases, the process of assimilation

Or perhaps we might note that although Bianca is Italian, she is also a woman. This might lead us change our schema such that we now believe that although Italian men are expressive, Italian women are not. When existing schemas change on the basis of new information, we call the process accommodation.

existing knowledge (Piaget & Inhelder, 1966; Taylor & Crocker, 1981). Imagine, for instance, that you have a schema—and thus an expectation—that Italians are very expressive, and you now meet Bianca, who has arrived at your school directly from Rome, Italy. You immediately expect her to be outgoing and expressive. However, as you get to know Bianca, you discover that she is not at all expressive and does not “talk with her hands.” In fact, she is quite shy and reserved. How does existing information influence how we react to the new information that we receive?

the prospects for [human] survival would be slim indeed if one could learn only by suffering the consequences of trial and error. For this reason, one does not teach children to swim, adolescents to drive automobiles, and novice medical students to perform surgery by having them discover the appropriate behavior through the consequences of their successes and failures. The more costly and hazardous the possible mistakes, the heavier is the reliance on observational learning from competent learners. (1977, p. 12).

Lewicki (1985) conducted research that demonstrated the influence of associational learning and how quickly and easily such learning can happen. In his experiment, high school students first had a brief interaction with a female experimenter who had short hair and wore glasses. The study was set up so that the students had to ask the experimenter a question, and (according to random assignment) the experimenter responded in either a negative way or a neutral way toward the participants. Then the students were told to go into a second room in which two experimenters were present and to approach either one of them. The researchers arranged it so that one of the two experimenters looked a lot like the original experimenter and the other one did not (she had longer hair and did not wear glasses). The students were significantly more likely to avoid the experimenter who looked like the original experimenter when that experimenter had been negative to them than when she had treated them neutrally. As a result of associational learning, the negative behavior of the first experimenter unfairly “rubbed off” onto the second.

learning—the relatively permanent change in knowledge that is acquired through experience. We will see that a good part of our learning and our judgments of other people operates out of our awareness—we are profoundly affected by things that we do not know are influencing us. But we also consciously think about and analyze our lives and our relationships with others, seeking out the best ways to fulfill our goals and aspirations.