Ch 3 social beliefs and judgments

Question 1

social cognition

Answer 1

the study about how people think about themselves and other people. we are motivated to understand our social worlds (the causes of our own behaviour and or the causes of other people’s behaviour)

Question 2

We make two kinds of attributions

Answer 2

1) personal attributions (Dispotional and Internal) we describe the cause of behaviour to some internal motivation
2) situational attributions (External) when we describe the cause of behaviour to something outside of the world

Question 3

Why do we make attributes - accurate attributions?

Answer 3

accurate attributions:

• can explain the causes of behaviour and outcome
• predict our behaviour
• respond appropriately to social situations

Question 4

Correspondent Inference Theory (first attributional theory) by Jones and Davis and the three factors

Answer 4

describes a set of factors that people use to determine whether a behaviour is motivated by internal rather, than external factors
1) behaviour is freely chosen
-if internal attribution for behaviour = freely chosen
-if external attribution for behaviour = not freely chosen
2) behaviour was expected or common, if uncommon then we attribute internal attributions to the behaviour
3)behaviour has desirable outcomes for the actor using the principle augmenting and discounting states
augmenting - states that people assigned greater weight to a cause if other factors would work against it
discounting - states that people assign a lower weight for any particular cause if other factors might proceed it
ex Stacey

Question 5

Kelley’s Covariation Model (another attribution theory) and the three information we use

Answer 5

states that we make attribution using information about covariation - that is there must be a cause when an event occurs and absent when it does not occur

1) consensus - do other people behave the same way or is it something specific to the target
2) consistency - is the behaviour consistent across time
3) distinctiveness - is it specific to the target or the situation

Question 6

Kelley’s Covariation Model and Correspondent Inference Theory (to make an attribution) and when are we most likely to engage in these types of strategies (hint 4 times)

Answer 6

1) unexpected it motivates us to think it through
2) unpleasant/negative seek the cause of this behaviour
3) novel invest the time
4) self-relevant if it effects ourself we are more likely to invest in thinking about it because it has implications for our own future and well being

Question 7

The Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 7

when making attributions about the behaviour of others, we tend to overestimate dispositional causes and underestimate situational causes

Question 8

Two-Stage Model of Attribution by Gilbert (about the fundamental attribution error)

Answer 8

1) we make internal attribution and normally stop here
2) but if we have the motivation and cognitive resources we might consider situational attribution and revise our attributions accordingly ex airport baggage lane

Question 9

some errors relating to the fundamental attribution error (hint there are 3)

Answer 9

1)actor-observer effect - we are more likely to attribute the behaviour of other people to dispositional causes
-ex prof huge crowd in front of me and audience seems the person to be nervous
2)Blaming the victim or prejudiced beliefs about groups - a person or a group who has a negative misfortune or circumstance we are more likely to say “they must have done something to deserve this”
3)relationship-enhancing attributions versus distress maintaining attributions in romantic relationships - when relationship-enhancing attributions; partner does something positive we make internal attributions for our partner and when they do something negative we make external attributions for our partner’s behaviour, however,
distress maintaining attributions is reverse; partner does something positive we make external attributions for our partner’s behaviour and when they do something negative internal attributions for our partner

Question 10

There are two applications of attributions we make about our selves (what are the two mindsets)

Answer 10

ability and effort: these attributions reflect the difference in people’s belief about whether abilities are fixed or incremental
fixed - you think your either good or not good at something
incremental - growth mindset, you try to improve with effort and learning

Question 11

How do these mindsets affect how we react to failure? by Dweck study called ~ The Effect of Praise on Mindset

Answer 11

they found that kids praised for ability showed less persistence, and less enjoyment, and lower performance than kids praised for effort

Question 12

Different cultures mindset

Answer 12

independent - ability praise - fixed

interdependent - effort praise - incremental

Question 13

Heuristics

Answer 13

• are mental shortcuts we can take and enable quick and efficient judgments
• help with stimulating overload, we learn over time that these short cuts allow us to function effectively in our lives

Question 14

Representativeness Heuristic

Answer 14

People frequently make the mistake of believing that two similar things or events are more closely correlated than they actually are
-ex stereotypes are their core, such as carrot cake vs cheesecake what is more healthy, we classify carrot as healthy, therefore, we would say carrot cake is healthier than cheesecake when in fact it is not

Question 15

Availability Heuristic - ease of retrieval

Answer 15

use a retrieval mechanism, when something comes to mind quickly we figure it must be true

• hard to disentangle
• ex seeing many topics of car theft, then you might believe its much more common than it actually is

Question 16

Availability Heuristic - Schwarz 1991 what most likely causes this heuristic, does it work because people are more likely to believe information that comes to mind quickly or does it work because people are more likely to believe in information when there is a lot of it

Answer 16

-participants were randomly assigned in a two by two design
-asked to recall about a trait and then rate this trait
-independent variables:
trait dimension - assertive or unassertive
number of examples required - 6 traits either assertive/unassertive or 12 traits either assertive/unassertive
-then rate themselves on trait assertiveness
Found:
-found it was the ease of retrieval

Question 17

Availability Heuristic is related to three common bias and error

Answer 17

Biased Assessments of Risk
-Base Rate Neglect people ignore the numerical frequency or base rate of various events when estimating their likelihood
-ex quarter heads and tails
Contribution to Joint Project
-anchoring and adjustment is a mental shortcut where we rely on an initial starting point to make an estimate but then we fail to adequately adjust from this anchor
Order Effect
-we don’t weight all information equally
-negative information is weighted more heavily ex chocolate cake and spiders (ex blueberry and worm)
-primacy effect information we learn early is accorded more weighting that if the information we learn later. Especially if the information is negative. ex words

Question 18

Order Effect by Strack 1988

Answer 18

-asked two types of questions but in different orders for different groups
Found:
depend on the question but the first question impacted their emotions first

Question 19

Schemas

Answer 19

• are mental structures that people use to organize their knowledge, that help guide our behaviour and reduce ambiguity and reduce the amount of information we have to process (ex two different experimenters ~ Change Blindness )
• however, we can become too reliant on our schemas and not realize the person was there

Question 20

Priming

Answer 20

is the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept
-due to it being primed it can affect cognition and behaviour

Question 21

Priming affecting cognition - Higgins 1977

Answer 21

-participants were to listen to two groups of words and try to remember them than read a paragraph on some person
-then described the person as negative or positive
Found:
-people who listened to positive words before described the person as more positive
-people who listened to negative words before described the person as more negative
these words that they were exposed to affected how they interpreted the paragraph, therefore, priming

Question 22

Priming affecting behaviour - Bargh 2006

Answer 22

-he had participants completely a scramble word sentence
-half completed one based on old folks traits - priming effect
-half complete sentences that were random
-then measure how long it took them to walk to the elevator to leave (they didn’t know this was tested)
Found:
-the people who were primed old folk traits walked slower to the elevator then those who were not primed
-therefore, priming can affect behaviour as well

Question 23

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 23

someone “predicting” or expecting something, and this “prediction” or expectation coming true simply because the person believes it will and the person’s resulting behaviours align to fulfill the belief
if investors think the stock market will crash, they will buy fewer stocks.

Question 24

Self-fulfilling prophecy by Rosenthal and Jacobson 1968 study called ~ Pygmalion in the Classroom

Answer 24

• told teachers that some students are late bloomers but are expected to bloom
• teachers started to treat those students differently, these teachers held expectations on them, these kids started to begin to think differently about themselves, and in the end, these kinds performed significantly better than other kids
• 4 factors that helped:
• teachers created a warmer climate
• input factor, teachers teach more material
• response opportunity factor, they let those children talk longer and call upon on them
• feedback give kids positive reinforced or bad can help them develop

Question 25

Overconfidence

Answer 25

refers to the phenomenon that people’s confidence in their judgments and knowledge is higher than the accuracy of these judgments.

Question 26

confirmation bias

Answer 26

is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.

Question 27

planning fallacy

Answer 27

is a phenomenon in which predictions about how much time will be needed to complete a future task display an optimism bias and underestimate the time needed.

Question 28

counterfactual thinking

Answer 28

is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened
-an example is when a student receives a B+ who misses an A- by a point feels worse than a student with a B+ who actually just made that B+ by a point
a person may reflect upon how a car accident could have turned out by imagining how some of the factors could have been different, for example, If only I hadn’t been speeding….

Question 29

misinformation effect

Answer 29

refers to the tendency for post-event information to interfere with the memory of the original event. memory construction

Question 30

Rosie retrospection

Answer 30

refers to the psychological phenomenon of people sometimes judging the past disproportionately more positively than they judge the present.

Question 31

misattribution

Answer 31

is an effect in which the physiological stimulation generated by one stimulus is mistakenly ascribed to another source
-ex when a man notices a woman who is kind, thinks those kind ask as a sexual come on