3: Social Beliefs and Judgments Flashcards
“System 1”, the implicit, intuitive, automatic, unconscious, faster way of thinking - “gut feeling”, influences more of our actions than we often realize
automatic processing
“System 2”, the explicit, deliberate, controlled, conscious, slower way of thinking
controlled processing
the awakening/activating of certain associations in our memory - things we don’t consciously notice influencing how we interpret and recall events (form of automatic processing)
priming
the mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments (ex. when sitting in a wobbly chair, people view others’ relationships as more unstable)
embodied cognition
tendency to be more confident than correct in excessively relying on one’s intuition - overestimating the accuracy of one’s beliefs
overconfidence phenomenon
identifying too narrow a range of confidence that something will or will not happen - cutting things too close due to overconfidence
overprecision
form of bias in which those who lack competence in a particular domain are also most likely to overestimate their abilities - “ignorance of one’s incompetence”
Dunning-Kruger effect
a tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions and avoid information that may refute them
confirmation bias
phenomenon in which people most often choose their primary news sources based on how much they align with their pre-existing beliefs - even if a source is less reliable, people are more willing to believe it if it affirms their views
ideological echo chamber
simple thinking strategies that enable quick, efficient judgments - “shortcuts” in processing information
heuristics
tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds/information, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if they resemble/represent a “typical” member
representativeness heuristic
tendency to judge the likelihood of something based on how readily it comes to mind - the more easily we recall something, the more likely it seems
availability heuristic
phenomenon in which people worry about remote possibilities while ignoring higher probabilities due to availability heuristic - reason people may fear a plane crash more than climate change
probability neglect
imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened but didn’t, often as a means of comforting ourselves - underscores our perception of “good luck” vs. “bad luck”
counterfactual thinking
perception of a relationship between two variables where none actually exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists - people misperceive random events as confirming their beliefs
illusory correlation
overestimating our ability to control an outcome, breeding overconfidence (gambling, superstitions, etc.)
illusion of control
cognitive bias resulting in adverse events having a higher impact on our psychological state than positive events (ex. negative feedback is more memorable than positive feedback)
negativity bias
the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return closer to a normal level, baseline
regression toward the average
persistence of one’s initial explanations for a belief even after they are discredited - it is very difficult to demolish a falsehood after someone develops a rationale for it
belief perseverance
incorporating incorrect information into one’s memory of an event after witnessing it and being told misleading details about it
misinformation effect
recalling mildly pleasant events more favorably in retrospect than you did while experiencing them
rosy retrospection
theory of how people explain others’ behavior and what they infer from it - attributing behavior to either internal dispositions (traits, motives, attitudes) or external situations
attribution theory
attributing an individual’s behavior to their disposition, traits, and inherent personality (ex: “they were late because they were lazy and didn’t care”)
dispositional attribution
attributing an individual’s behavior to their environment (ex: “they were late because of heavy traffic”)
situational attribution
mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source (ex. misinterpreting someone being friendly as showing sexual interest)
misattribution
the phenomenon of effortlessly and automatically inferring traits after exposure to someone’s behavior
spontaneous trait inference
tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others’ behavior - we tend to assume others are the way that they act without extending the same presumptions to ourselves
fundamental attribution error
tendency, in police interrogations, for people to believe an individual’s confession if the video camera focuses on them, while assuming coercion if the camera focuses on the detective
camera perspective bias
a belief that leads to its own fulfillment - our ideas lead us to act in ways that confirm them (ex. believing someone will be hostile to you and acting hostile in self-defense, leading them to act hostile)
self-fulfilling prophecy
a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people’s social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations (ex. believing “attractive” people are more sociable and talking to them more warmly, leading them to be more sociable, while speaking to “unattractive” people less warmly, leading them to be more asocial)
behavioral confirmation
