Chapter 3 - Social Beliefs and Judgements

Question 1

We have two brain systems
system 1
system 2

Answer 1

System 1 - The intuitive, automatic,
unconscious, and fast way of thinking.

System 2 - The deliberate, controlled,
and slower way of thinking.

Question 2

priming

Answer 2

Activating particular associations in memory.

Experiments show that priming one thought, even without awareness, can influence another thought or even an action

Question 3

embodied cognition

Answer 3

The mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments.

Question 4

automatic processing

Answer 4

“Implicit” thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness; roughly corresponds to “intuition.” Also known as System 1.

Question 5

controlled processing

Answer 5

“Explicit” thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious. Also known as System 2.

Question 6

Emotional reactions

Answer 6

Emotional reactions are often nearly instantaneous, before there is time for deliberate thinking. One neural shortcut takes information from the eye or ear to the brain’s sensory switchboard (the thalamus) and out to its emotional control centre (the amygdala) before the thinking cortex has had any chance to intervene

Question 7

Subliminal stimuli

Answer 7

Subliminal stimuli, as we have already noted, can have intriguing effects. Consider the following study: Mark Baldwin of McGill University and his colleagues (1990) had Catho-
lic women read a sexually explicit passage and then Baldwin and colleagues subliminally flashed either a picture of the Pope frowning, a picture of a stranger frowning, or a blank screen. As you can see in Figure 3–1, the women subsequently reported lower self-esteem if they were exposed to the frowning Pope. This effect was particularly pronounced for women who reported being more devout Catholics. Even outside awareness, the image of a disapproving Pope made these women feel worse after reading a steamy passage.

Question 8

overconfidence phenomenon

Answer 8

The tendency to be more confident
than correct—to overestimate the
accuracy of one’s beliefs.

To study overconfidence, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (1979) gave people factual questions and asked them to fill in the blanks, as in the following: “I feel 98 percent certain that the air distance between New Delhi and Beijing is more than overconfidence phenomenon. The tendency to be more confident
than correct—to overestimate the
accuracy of one’s beliefs. Chapter 3 Social Beliefs and Judgments 79_____ miles but less than ______ miles.” Most individuals were overconfident: About 30 percent of the time, the correct answer lay outside the range they felt 98 percent confident about. Even when participants were offered lottery tickets for a correct answer, they were still too overconfident, identifying too narrow a range.

Question 9

incompetence feeds overconfidence

Answer 9

Students who score the lowest on tests of grammar, humour, and logic are the most prone to overestimating their abilities. Those who don’t know what good logic or grammar is are often unaware that they lack it.

Question 10

confirmation bias

Answer 10

A tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions.

People also tend not to seek information that might disprove what they believe. We are eager to verify our beliefs but less inclined to seek evidence that might disprove them. We call this phenomenon the confirmation bias. For example, opponents of same-sex marriage gave up the chance to win money to avoid hearing from those on
the other side—and so did supporters of same-sex marriage.

Confirmation bias appears to be a System 1 snap judgment, where our default reaction is to look for information consistent with our presupposition.

Question 11

heuristics

Answer 11

A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments.

Question 12

representativeness heuristic

Answer 12

The tendency to presume, sometimes
despite contrary odds, that someone
or something belongs to a particular
group if resembling (representing)
a typical member.

To judge something by intuitively comparing it to our mental representation of a category is to use the representativeness heuristic.

Question 13

availability heuristic

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

counterfactual thinking

Answer 14

Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn’t.

Such counterfactual thinking—imagining what could have been—occurs when we can easily picture an alternative outcome

If we barely miss a plane or bus, we imagine making it if only we had left at our usual time, taken our usual route, or not paused to talk. If we miss our connection by a half-hour or after taking our usual route, it’s harder to simulate a different outcome, so we feel less frustration.

Question 15

illusory correlation

Answer 15

A perception of a relationship where none exists or a perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists.

Question 16

Gambling

Answer 16

The gambling industry thrives on gamblers’ illusions. Gamblers attribute wins to their skill and foresight. Losses become “near misses” or “flukes”—perhaps

Question 17

regression toward the average

Answer 17

The statistical tendency for extreme
scores or extreme behaviour to return toward the person’s average.

Tversky and Kahneman (1974) noted another way by which an illusion of
control may arise: when we fail to recognize the statistical phenomenon
of regression toward the average. Because exam scores fluctuate partly
by chance, most students who get extremely high scores on an exam will get lower scores on the next exam

Question 18

mood and perception

Answer 18

A temporary good or bad mood strongly influenced people’s ratings of their videotaped behaviour. Those in a bad mood detected far fewer positive behaviours.

Moods pervade our thinking. From Germans enjoying their team’s World Cup soccer victory (Schwarz et al., 1987) to Australians emerging from a heartwarming movie (Forgas & Moylan, 1987), people seem good-hearted; life seems wonderful.
When we are in a happy mood, the world seems friendlier, decisions are easier, and good news more readily comes to mind (DeSteno et al., 2000; Isen & Means, 1983; Stone & Glass, 1986). Let a mood turn gloomy, however, and thoughts switch onto a different track. Now the bad mood primes our recollections of negative events (Bower, 1987; Johnson & Magaro, 1987). Our relationships seem to sour. Our self-image takes a dive. Our hopes for the future dim. Other people’s behaviour seems more sinister (Brown & Taylor, 1986; Esses, 1989; Mayer & Salovey, 1987).

Question 19

belief perseverance

Answer 19

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.

Craig Anderson, Mark
Lepper, and Lee Ross (1980)’s research reveals that it is surprisingly difficult to demolish a falsehood, once the person conjures up a rationale for it. Each experiment first implanted a belief, either by proclaiming it to be true or by showing the participants some anecdotal evidence. Then the participants were asked to explain why it is true. Finally, the researchers totally discredited the initial information by telling the
participants the truth: The information was manufactured for the experiment, and half the people in the experiment had received opposite information. Nevertheless, the new belief survived approximately 75 percent intact, presumably because the participants
still retained their invented explanations for the belief.

Question 20

constructing memories

Answer 20

we construct memories at the time of withdrawal. Like a paleontologist inferring the appearance of a dinosaur from bone fragments, we reconstruct our distant past by using our current feelings and expectations to combine fragments of information (Hirt, 1990; Ross & Buehler, 1994). Thus, we can easily (though unconsciously) revise our memories to suit our current knowledge.

When an experimenter or a therapist manipulates people’s presumptions about their past, a sizable fraction will construct false memories. Asked to vividly imagine a childhood time when they ran, tripped, fell, and stuck their hand through a window, or a time when they knocked over a punch bowl at a wedding, about one-fourth will later recall the fictitious event as something that actually happened (Loftus & Bernstein, 2005). In its search for truth, the mind sometimes constructs a falsehood.

Question 21

misinformation effect

Answer 21

Incorporating “misinformation” into one’s memory of an event, after witnessing an event and then receiving misleading information about it.

In experiments involving more than 20 000 people, Elizabeth Loftus (2003, 2007, 2011a) and her collaborators explored our mind’s tendency to construct memories. In the typical experiment, people witness an event, receive misleading information about it (or not), and then take a memory test. The results find a misinformation effect in which people incorporate the misinformation into their memories:
They recall a yield sign as a stop sign, hammers as screwdrivers, Vogue magazine as Mademoiselle, Dr. Henderson as “Dr. Davidson,” breakfast cereal as eggs, and a clean-shaven man as having a moustache. Suggested misinformation may even produce false memories of supposed child sexual abuse, argued Loftus.

Question 22

Attitude changes

Answer 22

Experimenters have explored such questions, and the results have been unnerving. People whose attitudes have changed often insist that they have always felt much as they
now feel (Wolfe & Williams, 2018).

Question 23

misattribution

Answer 23

Mistakenly attributing a behaviour to the wrong cause.

Question 24

attribution theory

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

dispositional attribution

Answer 25

Attributing behaviour to the person’s
disposition and traits.

Question 26

situational attribution

Answer 26

Attributing behaviour to the environment.

Question 27

spontaneous trait inference

Answer 27

An effortless, automatic inference of
a trait after exposure to someone’s
behaviour.

Question 28

fundamental attribution
error

Answer 28

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.

Edward Jones and Victor Harris (1967) had students read debaters’ speeches supporting or attacking Cuba’s leader, Fidel Castro. When the position taken was said to have been chosen by the debater, the students logically enough assumed it reflected the person’s own attitude. But what happened when the students were told that the debate coach had assigned the position? Students still inferred that the debater had the assigned leanings

In an experiment mimicking his student-to-professor experience, Ross set up a simulated quiz game. He randomly assigned some students to play the role of questioner, some to play the role of contestant, and others to observe. The researchers invited the questioners to make
up difficult questions that would demonstrate their wealth of knowledge. Any one of us can
imagine such questions, using our own domain of competence: “Where are the clearest waters for scuba diving in Canada?” “What is the seventh book in the Old Testament?” “Which has the longer coastline, Europe or Africa?” If even these few questions have you feeling a little
uninformed, then you will appreciate the results of this experiment (Ross et al., 1977).* Everyone had to know that the questioner would have the advantage. Yet both contestants and observers (but not the questioners) came to the erroneous conclusion that the questioners really were more knowledgeable than the contestants (Figure 3–5). Follow-up research shows that these misimpressions are hardly a reflection of low social intelligence. If anything, university students and other intelligent and socially competent people are
more likely to make the attribution error

Question 29

Why do we make attribution errors

Perspective and situational awareness
An actor–observer difference

Answer 29

Attribution theorists point out that we observe others from a different perspective than we observe ourselves

When we act, the environment commands our attention. When we watch another person act, that person occupies the centre of our attention and the situation becomes relatively invisible.

A Western world-view predisposes people to assume that people, not situations, cause events. Internal explanations are more socially approved

Yet people in Eastern Asian
cultures are somewhat more sensitive to the importance of situations. Thus, when aware of the social context, they are less
inclined to assume that others’ behaviour correspond to their traits

Negative behaviour causing dispositional attribution leads to an unfavourable reaction

While negative behaviour causing situational attribution leads to a sympathetic reaction

Question 30

self-fulfilling prophecies

Answer 30

Beliefs that lead to their own fulfillment

Question 31

behavioural confirmation

Answer 31

A type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people’s social expectations lead them to act in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations.