The Similarity Of Cognitive Mechanisms Between Individual Impression Formation And Group Stereotye Formation

Individual impression will come into being on the procedure of usable individual information constructing overall conception, while group impression is created on the procedure of group members constructing overall conception. Both the two kinds of procedure are the key topics for social cognition psychology. They all achieved good academic rewards in their own fields. However, there is little discussion about the similarities on them. Therefore, the thesis compared the similarities in cognition of individual impression and group impression. Based on the related concepts, stage of establishment, the documentation and problem analysis of the theoretical explanation, the research discovered the commonplace of different social categorizations. Moreover, the research explained the establishment mechanism of deviation impression.Illusory-correlation effect and inverse base-rate effect are two classical paradigms which were used to study impression biases formation. The illusory correlation effect assumed that two objects in impression constructing have no differences, which is called indifference-condition. However, after artificial process they will be treated as different ones. The inverse base-rate effect assumed that two objects are real different, and the differences will be exaggerated after artificial process. This effect is named difference condition. Nowadays, the most studies investigated the similarity by the way of behavioural experiments. Nevertheless, behavioral studies only can be established on the test result after the impression have been constructed, which is indirect evidence. However, cognitive neurotic technology can obtain the deeper level direct-evidence by real time inspection of the impression process stage. Therefore, based on the event related potentials(ERPs) technology in behavioral and cognitive neurotic field, our research studied the similarities between individual impress deviation and group impress deviation under the conditions of difference and indifference.The thesis includes six chapters. Chapter one is the survey of construction of individual and group impression; Chapter two reports the collection of experimental materials; Chapter three compares the research reports of individual impress deviation and group impress based on false correlation paradigm; In Chapter 4, the author compares two kinds of cognitive deviation by using Illusory-correlation effect, while in Chapter 5, the two kinds of cognitive deviation are compared by using event related potentials(ERPs) technology, which includes efficiency validation, deviation experiments and deviation-restrained experiments; the conclusion and future work are described in Chapter six.In the summary, through illusory-correlation effect and inverse base-rate effect, the study investigates the relationship of constructions of individual impression and group impression. The research work is conducted both on behavior and cognitive neurotic science, which achieve the following conclusions:(1) Under the question frames of illusory correlation effect and inverse base-rate effect, Chinese undergraduates had consistent responses with western subjects. We can adopt the two paradigms to investigate the formation mechanisms of social cognition biases with Chinese undergraduate subjects.(2) On the condition of no difference, the study investigated individual perception and group perception based on paradigm of illusory correlation effect. The results showed that subjects responded similarly to individual targets and group targets. On the dimension of frequent cues, the index of impression bias, trait evaluation value, the frequency estimated items for frequent targets were higher than the ones for infrequent targets. On the contrary, on the dimension of infrequent cues, these parameters for frequent targets were lower than infrequent targets.(3) On the condition of difference, the study investigated individual perception and group perception, and compared the relationship of the formation mechanisms of individual impression and stereotype with the paradigm of inverse base-rate effect. The results showed that the subjects' responses of individuals and groups were similar, which indicated the similar biases formation mechanisms for the two types of targets. Based on the correctly learned of the relation between cues and targets, the response of subjects to the common cue I and the combination(PC+PR+I) conform to the reference ratio. However, the response to the conflict combination(PC+PR) is at the inverse base rate.(4) Whether the premise is difference or indifference, the experimental results could be interpreted by Prior-shift Attention Association theory. In the early stage of information processing, cognitive system priority paid attention to high frequency information, which further lead to the later sample size effect. When the low frequency information arise, attention transfer mechanism makes the cognitive systems focus on the connection among processing low-frequency events, which cause the middle competition discount effect. The machining mechanism is the basic psychological mechanism of false correlation effect and anti-benchmark rate effect.(5) Through pre-study on the related knowledge of impression biases and pay attention to the intervene style of information construct, we could self monitor the effect of restraining biases. The research results showed that the approach can only restrain rather than eliminate the impression biases. Impression biases formation is a kind of automatic and unconscious mental action.(6) Based on EEG research results of the illusory correlation paradigm we found that stimulation clues induce a variety of electrical components, including N1, P1, P2, P3 and LPC. Whether the target type of impression formation is individual or group, it does not affect the formation of impression bias. And there are no prominent difference to peak amplitude or average amplitude response on N1, P1, P2, P3 and LPC. However, the clues to the frequency of electrical components have prominent influence on it. In general, the subjects influence to low frequency stimulation induced electrical component amplitude is generally much higher than that of high frequency.(7) The EEG results showed that stimulating mainly induce the P2 and late positive component(LPC) with the Inverse Base-rate Effect paradigm. The target type influence on brain electrical component amplitude difference was not obvious. But the cue frequency has prominent influence on amplitude and latency. Subjects to low frequency stimulation of P2 incubation period average peak amplitude response and latent reaction are much higher than that of the high frequency stimulation.Furthermore, subjects to low frequency stimulation of late are ingredients(LPC) average amplitude responses are significant higher than that of the high frequency stimulation.