Need to be Accurate
- desire to achieve accurate understanding
- activated when being inaccurate could result in undesired outcomes
Need to reach closure quickly
- desire for simple, quick and clearcut understanding as opposed to confusion and ambiguity
- activated when thinking is effortful or unpleasant (time pressure)
Need to Confirm what one already believes
- desire to understand something in a way that fits well with previously held beliefs and values
- activated when prior beliefs and values are brought to mind, central to one’s sense of meaning in life or personal worth, or threatened by contradictory information.
Cognitive system
Conscious, rational and controlled system of thinking
Experiential system
Unconscious, intuitive and automatic system of thinking.
Implicit attitudes
Automatic associations based on previous learning through the experiential system
Explicit attitudes
Attitudes people are consciously aware of through the cognitive system
5 ways unconscious is smart
- Motives that guide thinking operate unconsciously.
- Memory consolidation occurs during sleep.
- Unconscious mind wandering can help generate creative ideas.
- Intuition can facilitate sound decisions.
- Unconscious emotional associations can promote beneficial decisions.
Somatic marker hypothesis
Idea that changes in the body experienced as emotion, guide decision making
Schema
Mental structure stored in memory that contains prior knowledge and associations with a concept.
Scripts
Schemas about an event that specify the typical sequence of actions that take place.
Impressions
Schemas people have about other individuals.
Accessibility
Ease with which people can bring an idea into consciousness and use it in thinking.
Salience
Aspect of a schema that is active in one’s mind and consciously or not, Colors perceptions and behaviour.
Priming
Process by which exposure to a stimulus in the environment increases the salience of a schema.
Associative networks
Models for how pieces of information are linked together and stored in memory.
Chronically accessible schemas
Schemas that are easily brought to mind because they are personally important and used frequently.
Self-fulling prophecy
Phenomenon whereby initially false expectations cause the fulfillment of those expectations.
Theory of lay epistemology (Arie Kruglanski, 1989, 2004)
- Need to be accurate
- Need to reach closure quickly
- Need to confirm what one already prefers to believe
Implicit association test
Measures degree to which person mentally associates two concepts, essentially by lumping together examples of concept 1 alongside concept 2
Meaning maintenance model
Brief exposure to stimuli that seem out of place or inconsistent with expectations can put ppl on alert to make sense of their environment or to affirm other moral convictions.
