Chapter 3 Flashcards

1
Q

Information is processed in two ways

A
  • Automatic: unconscious, unintentional, involuntary, effortless
  • Controlled:conscious, intentional, voluntary, effort
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2
Q

Automatic processing - Schemas

A
  • Schemas: mental structure for organizing and storing social information
    Advantages of schemas: efficient, reduced ambiguity, preparedness
    Disadvantages: we only notice information that fits our schemas, dismiss information that doesn’t fit
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3
Q

How to select schemas

A

3 kinds of accessibility:

  • chronic accessibility: past experiences
  • Temporary accessibility: current goals OR current activity

Current activity - priming: exposure to something makes us think a certain way
Donald experiment: given crossword with either positive word list or negative word list; then told story about Donald (no job, sails the world etc..). Results: people with negative word list thought badly of Donald, people given positive word list thought well of Donald

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4
Q

Priming

A

Subliminal:
- example: flashed either legal or neutral words on screen too fast to be consciously aware; then read ambiguous meeting of two people and asked what they think; Results: those with legal stuff said the scenario was competitive and less trustworthy than people who were primed with neutral words

Activated through physical sensation:

  • examples: in clean scented room people more trusting of stranger and more willing to spend on charity than in no scent
  • examples: people holding hot cup of coffee more likely to think others are nice than if cold cup
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5
Q

Schema and memory

A
  • Often remember things wrong
    Study: • Carli (1999) marriage proposal/assault study
  • Same story, but ending is different – one he proposes and other he rapes her; participants read either one and then come back later and read through list of events and asked whether events were part of the story; Results: both groups misremembered events that happened

This is why eye-witness testimony isn’t trustworthy

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6
Q

Perseverance effect

A
  • People’s schemas are resistant to change
  • STUDY:
    Ross et al. study – fake feedback was given on performance either good or bad; at end of experiment they were told that the feedback was TOTALLY made up; then asked how they would do if it was real; people who were given bad feedback said they’d do bad, people given good feedback said they’d do good
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7
Q

Self-fulfilling prophecies

A
  • inadvertently making schemas come true by the way we treat people
  • expectations –> our behaviour –> other’s behaviours –> expectations and so on (ex: have expectancy or social theory about someone “he’s a snob”; behave toward person in manner consistent with your idea “walk by, not say hi”; they respond to your behaviour “what a jerk! I guess I’ll ignore him too”; you see their behaviour as proof that your expectations were right without realizing the role you played in their behaviour “I knew he was a jerk!”’; cycle restarts)

EX: Rosenthal Bloomers study: Teachers were told that specific students were prodigies….therefore taught them differently/better; at end of school year their grades were highest in class

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8
Q

Heuristics (mental shortcuts)

A

We use heuristics when we don’t have a schema for the situation or when we have too many schemas to choose from
*Judgement heuristics

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9
Q

Availability heuristics

A
  • availability of relevant information; how easily it comes to mind
  • ex: if asked if your buddy “Mark” was generous your response would depend on how easily it is for you to think of examples
  • also; if asked to generate 3 examples of when mark was generous you’re likely to be able to do it and say oh yah he’s generous or if asked to generate 6 and you can’t you’ll feel like he isn’t
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10
Q

Representativeness heuristics

A
  • classify something based on how similar it is to a typical case
  • use base rate information (% of a type of person in that population for example)
  • ignore base rate information if other information present
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11
Q

Cultural differences in thinking style

A

Western: analytic thinking; focus on object rather than context
East Asian: holistic thinking; focus on overall context

STUDY: show image with slight differences in context or main object of photo; westerns noticed more differences in the main objects; east asians more in the context

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12
Q

Controlled processing

A
  • people have tendency to believe everything we hear…until something makes us stop and think
  • When accuracy is important, switch to controlled processing – requires motivation and energy
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13
Q

Strategies in thought suppression

A
  • Monitoring; scanning unwanted thoughts (automatic)

- Operating; effortful, conscious attempt to distract oneself by finding something else to think about (controlled)

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14
Q

Contributions to faulty thought suppression

A
  • fatigue, stress, preoccupation

- automatic monitoring is working, but controlled operating isn’t

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15
Q

Upward counterfactual reasoning

A
  • attempt to rewrite the past
  • imagine outcomes that are better than reality
    Use this when negative events happen or near misses
    ex: policy of never picking up hitch hikers but you do and they end up mugging you - “if only I had stuck to my policy”
    ex: miss the bus by 5 minutes - “if only I had left 5 minutes earlier”
  • people feel more sympathy when negative events occur that are unusual and near misses
    ex: more sympathy if someone gets into accident on alternate route home
    ex: 2nd place in olympics rather than 3rd OR 1/10000th of a second away from winning
  • used more often in tragic/more distress
  • Utility: lesson for futures, motivation
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16
Q

Downward counterfactual reasoning

A
  • imagining outcomes that are worse than reality
    ex: I’m in a wheelchair but I could have been killed in that accident
  • relief/silver lining
17
Q

Overconfidence barrier

A
  • people tend to be really confident in the accuracy of their judgements; but judgements usually not as correct as they think they are
  • Solutions: consider alternate points of view, improved reasoning