Ch 2 Flashcards
social cognition
the study of how people think about the social world and make decisions about socially relevant events
cognitive misers:
the idea that people look for ways to conserve cognitive energy; they do that by attempting to adopt strategies that simplify complex problems
evolutionary psychology
the brain is an organ that has been shaped and
programmed by evolution, adapted to challenges that faced our biological hunter-gatherer ancestors in their foraging way of life for hundreds of thousands of years
bias blind spot
the belief that we are more objective and less biased than most other people
confirmation bias
a tendency to seek confirmation of initial impressions or beliefs
Egocentric Bias
We tend to place ourselves in the center of our own universes. The egocentric bias can lead us to uncritically accept flattery and falsehoods.
spotlight effect
People feel as though the social spotlight shines
more brightly on them than it actually does
the cloak of invisibility illusion
we also feel that we notice and observe others more than they notice and observe us
Barnum Effect
P.T. Barnum is credited with saying, “There’s
a sucker born every minute,” and his name now applies to a common psychological phenomenon. The Barnum Effect refers to the fact that when people are given vague, all-purpose descriptions of themselves that could
apply to almost anyone, they usually say “Incredible! That’s me exactly!” This effect helps explain why so many people mistakenly believe in the accuracy of astrology, fortune telling, and even some pop-psych personality
tests.
negativity bias
A curious feature of the evolved
human mind is that it is oriented toward negativity: We tend to focus more on potential threats than blessings, a tendency often called the negativity bias.
loss aversion
a phenomenon where, when given a choice, people are more likely to try to avoid loss than to try to achieve gains
The Mind’s Two Thinking Systems
Automatic processing and controlled processing.
Automatic processing
the unconscious (implicit) and involuntary operations that guide most of our behavior: well-learned associations or routines that our mental systems perform effortlessly, without awareness.
Controlled processing
the conscious (explicit) effort we make in dealing with novel problems, such as learning to drive, solving complex math problems, trying to remember the name of a movie, or answering a question like “Why do you love your boyfriend? Because controlled processing demands more time, focus, effort, and energy than automatic thinking, it is prone to fatigue and distraction, and therefore we are attracted to shortcuts.
default mode network
a set of interacting brain regions that are active when not directed to a task or focused on the outside world. This network is also active when we’re explicitly thinking about people. That is why, when our minds wander, they typically wander to social matters: plans we’re making with friends, memories of loved ones, conflicts with a partner, sexual fantasies about all kinds of people, or problems caused by other people.
ingroup
our group, the one with which we identify and feel we belong
outgroup
a group with which we do not identify; the members of which we tend to see as being all the same
The Central Social Motives
belonging Understanding Others and Predicting Accurately Control A Need to Matter Trust
attribution theory
a theory that describes the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior
fundamental attribution error
the tendency to overestimate the general importance of personality or dispositional factors relative to situational or environmental influences when describing or explaining the cause of social behavior
explanatory style
Over time, people develop a habitual pattern of explaining their successes and failures, and this pattern — called their explanatory style — affects their sense of control and emotional well-being.
self-fulfilling prophecy
the process that occurs when people (1) have an expectation about what another person is like, which then (2) influences how they act toward that person, and (3) causes that person to behave in a way that confirms those people’s original expectations
contrast effect
an object appears to be better or worse than it is, depending on the quality of the objects with which it is compared
social comparison
the process by which we evaluate our abilities, achievements, attitudes, and other attributes by comparing ourselves to others
growth mindset
the belief in the human ability to grow and the commitment to self-improvement.
schemas
As cognitive misers, we are prone to organize and retrieve information by way of schemas, mental models of the world. Schemas can be stereotypes, categories, expectations, attitudes, and mindsets.
priming
a procedure based on the notion that ideas that have been recently encountered or frequently activated are more likely to come to mind and thus will be used in interpreting social events
primacy effect
the effect that occurs when information encountered first has more impact on our impressions or beliefs than subsequent information
heuristics
mental shortcuts that provide general rules of thumb to guide problem solving and decision-making
availability heuristic
a mental rule of thumb that refers to judgments that are based on how easy it is for us to bring specific examples to mind
affect heuristic
Our feelings are valuable sources of information so when we tap into our feelings to shape our evaluations of people or ideas, we are using an affect heuristic. If you’re in a bad mood, you are likely to evaluate a job candidate more negatively than if you’re in a happy mood.
representativeness heuristic
When we focus on surface similarities to make inferences, we are using the representativeness heuristic. We know that high-quality products are often costly; therefore, if something is expensive, we infer that it’s better than something cheaper.
Constructive Prediction
Predicting how certain outcomes will make us
feel determines the goals we set and the risks we are willing to take. Indeed, whenever we seek to get something (whether it is a sandwich, a job, or a
divorce), we are essentially making a bet that getting it will make us happy, or at least happier. Yet we often make predictions about ourselves that are dead
wrong.91 We overestimate the emotional impact of future events and how long our reactions will last, whether the events are positive or negative.
Perceptual salience
The importance of information that is the focus of people’s attention. We focus our attention
more on people (rather than the situation) because
they’re more perceptually salient.
