3.3 Social Cognition

Question 1

Study: schema stereotypes

Answer 1

Participants were faster when reading the stereo typical characters of each group then when reading it’s on stereo typical characteristics. They also tend to fill in the blank’s with schema consistent information. When asked if someone was a sales person or an actor and that his friends described him as very extroverted. If told he was an actor, Participants used words like like the party and not afraid of the spotlight. If I told you was a sales person used words like speaks loudly monopolizes conversations

Question 2

Study. 
Substitute prof comes in. The class is told he’s either warm or cold

Answer 2

Those who think he’s warm ask more questions and treat him as more social those who think him cold give him lower rating

Question 3

When are schemes accessible

Answer 3

When we have a experience with the schema. When we’re temporarily accessible to it (studying for a test on mental illness primes the mental illness schema). Or temporarily accessible due to recent experiences

Question 4

when is counterfactual thinking the strngest

Answer 4

-when we just miss a negative event
-for instance missing a flight by 5 minutes causes more counterfactual thinking then missing it by 20
or selling a person the winnipeg lotto ticket 2hrs before draw vs 2 weeks

Question 5

The dangers of counterfactuual thinking

Answer 5

the longer/more we think about what could have been the more distressed we get

• spinal injury, the more the person thing about what thye couldnt done to avoid the injury the more distreed
• parents who lost child think i couldve done something. 5 years later if still thinking that will be more distressed
• silver medal is sad wheras bronze is happy

Question 6

+ counterfactuals

Answer 6

• focusing on self-improvement
• prison “ I probably wouldn’t have been convicted if”
• school “ I would’ve done better if I did more studying “
• for people high in perfectionism: their best is never enough” this might not actually be helpful

Question 7

Though supression steps

Answer 7

1) auto thinking employs monitorig process that dearches for evidence that the unwanted thought is about to intrude on conciousness
2) controlled though employs operating process that is the effortful concious attempt to distract onself by finding something else to think about

Question 8

Thought supression gone wrong

Answer 8

is the operating process broken, (the persons too tires) tjem tje monitoring process still finds instances, but it then intrudes on coniousness unchecked by the controlled process and hyperaccessibility results where the unwanted thought occurs with high frequency

Question 9

Negative association of thought suppression

Answer 9

• med students asked to suppress the thoughts of what they had just wrote ended up with decreased immune system functioning
• the blasphemous story given to religious people told to suppress it ended with them very more anxious and the thoughts persisted longer than non-religious
• suppression can lead to obsessive thoughts, depressive thoughts, jealous thoughts, and anger

Question 10

Perseverance Effect

Answer 10

The finding that people’s beliefs about themselves and the social world persist even after the evidence supporting these beliefs is discredited

Question 11

Counterfactual Thinking

Answer 11

Counter factual thinking: Imagining how things may otherwise have been
–Runs counter to the facts
-An event is abnormal when you can easily imagine it turning out different
–More abnormal the greater the emotional response

Question 12

Determinants of abnormality / emotional response

Answer 12

–1. Closeness to ‘normal’ event
–2. Exception from routine
–3. Controllability
–4. Action or inaction

Question 13

Closeness to ‘normal’ event

Answer 13

missing bus by 1 minutes is worse then being 20 minutes late (think airport with Erin), bronze vs gold.
silver was thinking “I almost” = upward counterfactual. bronze thinking “at leas I” = downward counterfactual

Question 14

Exception from routine

Answer 14

easier to generate a counterfactual for an event that happened that was a deviation from routine.
Ex. If only he hadn’t taken that detour home instread of ‘if only he had stayed longer at work” he never stayed at work longer
Jurry gives for $$$ for people who went into store that was robbed if it was a store the person didn;t frequent often compared to one that we did.

Question 15

Controllability

Answer 15

People tend to generate counterfactuals that undo the behaviours of the person they are focusing on
All thinking of things related to Mr.Jones death, not the teenage driver
We tend to think of undoing the behaviour of the person we’re focused on

Question 16

Action or inaction

Answer 16

Ex 7. Paul think of switching to B finds out that he would have been better off by $1200 if he had switched to the stock of company B. George finds that he would have been better off by $1200 if he had kept his stock in company B. Who’s more regretful?
We think we’ll regret action more than inaction. In reality we tend to regret inaction in the long term then action (its the things we didn’t do in life that we tend to regret)
in the short term people regret action more, but in the long term people regret inaction more

Question 17

Reasons we regret inaction more over time

Answer 17

1. Inactions become more AVAILABLE
   Zeigarnik effect
   inactions become more over time
2. Inactions seem more painful in the rearview mirror
   Think of adding a difficult course
   The students didn’t
   but ask alumni and they decided the excuces were trivial and they decide they wouldve performed well
3. Regrettable actions activate psychological defences; inactions don’t
   in short term, when we do something its very psychologicaly uncomfortable so your brain comes up with a million justifications for why you did it [osychological defense] but in inaction you don’t do these defensive things.