CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL BELIEFS AND JUDGEMENTS Flashcards
System 1 thinking
The intuitive, automatic, unconscious, and fast way of thinking.
System 2 thinking
The deliberate, controlled, and slower way of thinking.
priming
Activating particular associations in memory.
embodied cognition
The mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments.
automatic processing
“Implicit” thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness; roughly corresponds to “intuition.” Also known as System 1.
controlled processing
“Explicit” thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious. Also known as System 2.
schemas
mental concepts or templates that intuitively guide our perceptions and interpretations of our experience; Whether we hear someone speaking of religious sects or sex depends on how we auto- matically interpret the sound.
overconfidence phenomenon
The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs. We recognize that we’ve fallen short of our goals in the past, but we have more positive expectations for our future performance in meeting deadlines, managing relationships, following an exercise routine, and so on.
confirmation bias
A tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions.
heuristics
A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments
representativeness heuristic
The tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member.
availability heuristic
A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory. If instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace.
counterfactual thinking
Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn’t. Imagining better (or worse) alternatives, and pondering what we might do differently next time, helps us prepare to do better in the future.
illusory correlation
A perception of a relationship where none exists or a perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists.
regression toward the average
The statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behaviour to return toward the person’s average. Often, though, we fail to recognize this regression effect. We puzzle at why baseball’s rookie-of-the-year often has a more ordinary second year: Did they become overconfident? Self-conscious? No, we just forgot that exceptional performance tends to regress toward normality.
belief perseverance
Persistence of your initial conceptions, as when the basis for your belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.
misinformation effect
incorporating “misinformation” into one’s memory of an event, after witnessing an event and then receiving misleading information about it.
misattribution
Mistakenly attributing a behaviour to the wrong cause.
attribution theory
The theory of how people explain the behaviour of others—for example, by attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to external situations, (what might have happened to them in the past, wether that be from an hour ago or things that happened to them since they were a child).
dispositional attribution
Attributing behaviour to the person’s disposition and traits.
situational attribution
Attributing behaviour to the environment
fundamental attribution error
The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences on others’ behaviour; also called correspondence bias because we so often see behaviour as corresponding to a disposition.
self-fulfilling prophecies
Beliefs that lead to their own fulfillment. This can be seen in some student teacher expectations.
behavioural confirmation
A type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people’s social expectations lead them to act in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations.
