3. Social Cognition Flashcards
1
Q
Define social cognition
A
Study of how people think about themselves and the social world. How they select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decision
2
Q
2 processes of social cognition
A
Automatic thinking
Controlled thinking
3
Q
What is automatic thinking?
A
- Thinking that is generally unconscious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless
- Automatic thinking helps us analyse our environment/new situations by relating them to our past experiences and knowledege
- Automatic thinking is deeply rooted in our schemas
4
Q
What are schemas?
A
- Schemas are mental structures that organize our knowledge about the social world
- Schemas influence the information we notice, think about and remember
- We use information based on the past (schemas) to understand the present and predict the future
5
Q
What are the functions of schemas?
A
- Help us organize and make sense of the world, and fill in the gaps of our knowledge
- Help us to have continuity and to connect our experiences from the past to the present and future
- Help us know what to do in ambiguous or confusing situations
6
Q
Explain Piaget’s theory of schemas
A
- Piaget suggested that we construct schemas from a young age to better understand the world around us and to make the world more predictable
- Part of cognitive development
- Assimilation: integrating new information into existing schemas
- Accomodation: alterating our existing schemas to adapt to new information
7
Q
Explain Bartlett’s theory of schemas
A
- Bartlett argued that our memories aren’t accurate and that they are reconstructions of our schemas. Each reconstruction is affected by our past experiences and viewpoints
- The reconstruction of memories are affected by: selectivity of relevant information, rationalization of details and cultural factors related to the interpretation of the event
8
Q
What is schema accessibility?
A
The extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people’s minds and are therefore likely to be used when making judgements about the social world
9
Q
Explain the 3 reasons for accessibility
A
- Chronically accessible: due to past experiences; these schemas are constantly active and ready to use to interpret ambiguous situations
- Temporarily accessible: because they’re related to a current goal
- Temporarily accessible: due to recent experiences (as result of priming)
10
Q
What is priming?
A
- A phenomenon in which exposure to one stimulus subconsciously alters the way we feel, behave, or think about the proceeding event or stimulus;
- Recent stimulus/experience that increases the likelihood that a particular schema will be accessed
- Can cause false memories
11
Q
What is embodied cognition?
A
- A form of priming
- The process by which bodily sensations activate mental structures such as schemas;
- A physical sensation that activates a schema which influences judgements about a completely unrelated topic or person, without people being consciously aware that their body had influenced their mind
12
Q
Explain the self-fulfilling prophecy
A
- When people’s expectations about another person influences their behavior towards that person, causing the person’s behavior to become consistent with the original expectation
- Can become cycle of confirmation bias
13
Q
What are judgmental heuristics?
A
- Mental shortcuts that help make judgements and decisions quickly and efficiently
- Heuristics do not always lead to accurate conclusions
14
Q
What is an availability heuristic?
A
A mental shortcut whereby people base a judgement on the ease with which they can bring something to mind
15
Q
Define representativeness heuristics and base rate information. What’s the relation between the two?
A
- Representativeness heuristic: Mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case (something that I know/expecting)
- Base rate information: Information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population
- When faced with base rate information and contradictory representativeness information, people will rely more on the representativeness heuristic
16
Q
What is hot cognition?
A
Mental processes that are influenced by desires and feelings
17
Q
Explain affective forecasting
A
- Affective forecasting means using our current emotions to predict our feelings in future situations
- Impact bias: predictions of how we’ll feel in the future and the strength of the feeling
- Durability bias: predictions about how long this feeling will last
18
Q
Explain cultural determinants of schemas
A
- The content of our schemas are influenced by our culture; we pay most attention to and best remember information that is important in our culture
- Draws on chronically available schemas
19
Q
Example of cultural determinants of schemas between Western and East Asian cultures
A
- North American and Eurocentric cultures tend to have an analytic thinking style. They focus on properties of objects/people without considering the surrounding context.
- East Asian cultures tend to have a holistic thinking styles, in which they focus on the whole picture (the person AND the surrounding context). Holistic styles are associated with information-rich cultural products (ex: Hong Kong which has so many stimuli); more efficient information processing
- Analytic and holistic thinking styles can be primed
20
Q
Explain controlled thinking
A
- Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary and effortful
- Provides checks and balances for automatic thinking
- Effortful, requires mental energy (unlike automatic thinking)
- People can only think in a conscious controlled way about one thing at a time
21
Q
Explain counterfactual reasoning
A
- Thinking of different possibilities; mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been - “if only…”
- Usually conscious and effortful, but not always voluntary and intentional
- Upward counterfactual thinking: focusing on hypotheticals on how a situation could have been better. Tends to help us restructure our schemas to make the future better/prepare for next time
- Downward counterfactual thinking: focusing on hypotheticals on how a situation could have been worse. To reinforce an existing schema, but also to help protect our self-esteem in the present
- People are more likely to engage in counterfactual thinking when they can easily imagine an alternative to an event. The more easily imagined, the more stressed people become
- People tend to feel more sympathy for others in near-miss situations.
22
Q
What are ways that counterfactual thinking can be useful?
A
- Focuses people’s attention on ways that they can cope better in the future
- Motivates people to take steps to prevent similar outcomes from occurring in the future
