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An ideal text for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, this accessible yet authoritative volume examines how people come to know themselves and understand the behavior of others. Core social-psychological questions are addressed as students gain an understanding of the mental processes involved in perceiving, attending to, remembering, thinking about, and responding to the people in our social world. Particular attention is given to how we know what we know: the often hidden ways in which our perceptions are shaped by contextual factors and personal and cultural biases. While the text's coverage is sophisticated and comprehensive, synthesizing decades of research in this dynamic field, every chapter brings theories and findings down to earth with lively, easy-to-grasp examples.
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SOCIAL COGNITION
TEXTS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Abraham Tesser, Editor Social Cognition: Understanding Self and Others Gordon B. Moskowitz
SOCIAL COGNITION Understanding Self and Others
GORDON B. MOSKOWITZ
THE GUILFORD PRESS New York London
© 2005 The Guilford Press A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc. 72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012 www.guilford.com All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America This book is printed on acid-free paper. Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moskowitz, Gordon B. Social cognition : understanding self and others / by Gordon B. Moskowitz. p. cm.—(Texts in social psychology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-10 1-59385-086-7 ISBN-13 978-1-59385-086-9 (hardcover) ISBN-10 1-59385-085-9 ISBN-13 978-1-59385-085-2 (pbk.) 1. Social perception. I. Title. II. Series. BF323.S63M67 2005 302.¢12—dc22 2004017501
About the Author
Gordon B. Moskowitz, PhD, was drawn to social psychology as an undergraduate at McGill University. He received his PhD from New York University in 1993. While at NYU, he developed interests in impression formation, automaticity, minority inf luence, accessibility effects, stereotypes, and the effects of goals on each of these processes. Following graduate training, Dr. Moskowitz did a year of postdoctoral study at the Max Planck Institute in Munich. After a year as a faculty member at the University of Konstanz, he then decided to return to the United States and moved to Princeton University, where he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology from 1994 to 2001. In the fall of 2001 Dr. Moskowitz moved to Lehigh University, where he is now Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. In addition to his research presented in journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Dr. Moskowtiz has edited a book titled Cognitive Social Psychology, has served on the editorial boards of several journals, and has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for his research on the control of stereotyping.
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Preface
Civilized men have gained notable mastery over energy, matter, and inanimate nature generally, and are rapidly learning to control physical suffering and premature death. But, by contrast, we appear to be living in the Stone Age so far as our handling of human relationships is concerned. Our deficit in social knowledge seems to void at every step our progress in physical knowledge. . . . Gains in medical science are widely negated by the poverty that results from war and from trade barriers erected largely by hatred and fear. At a time when the world as a whole suffers from pani