Chapter 3: Social Beliefs and Judgements Flashcards
Priming?
- activating particular associations in your memory
- eg. watching a scary movie and interpreting household noises as an intruder
Many primers influence what?
- our thoughts and actions
Subliminal priming?
- too briefly to be perceived consciously
- *whats out of sight may not be completely out of mind
ex: coke bottle shape is close to the hour glass shape of a female…so your attraction to a female is associated with wanting to buy coke.
Constructing Interpretations and Memories:
- preconceptions guide our ___ and ___ of information, especially when multiple ___are possible,
- perception and
- interpretation x 2
Constructing Interpretations and Memories:
- preconceptions guide our perception and interpretation of information, especially when multiple interpretation are possible.
L> Study via Valone, Ross and Lepper (1985)??
- they showed pro Israeli and pro-Arab students six network news segments describing the 1982 killing go civilian refugee camps in Lebanon. Each group perceived the network as hostile to its side.
Priming:
ex study: John Bargh and colleagues
- asked people to complete sentences containing words such as old, wise and retired. Shortly, after they observed these people walking more slowly to the elevator than did those not primed with aging related words..
study: Rothbart and Pamela Birrell (1977)??
- Had students assess the facial expression of a man. One group was told that he was a Gestapo leader responsible for the barbaric medical experiments on cent ration camp inmates during WWII –> they intuitively judged his expression as cruel.
- Another group was told the man was a leader in the anti Nazi underground movement whose courage saved thousands of jewish lives judged his facial expression as warm and kind.
- kulechov effect
Kulechov effect?
- when filmmakers control people’s perceptions of emotion by manipulating the setting in which they see a face.
Belief perseverance?
- shows that beliefs can take on a life of their own and survive the discrediting of the evidence that inspired them.
- *persistance of your initial conceptions, as when the basis for your belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.
Belief perseverance?
Ex: Study-> Anderson, Lepper and Ross (1980)
- asked people to decide whether ppl who take risks make good or bad firefighters..3 groups:
1. considered a risk probed person who was a successful firefighter.. (brave)
2. considered a cautious person who was an unsuccessful one. (careful)
3. considered cases suggesting the opposite conclusion - when the information was discredited the people still held their self generated explanation and considered risk people= good firefighters
Constructing memories:
- do memories = copies of the events?
- nope
- mood influences memory formation…maybe on the same topic but not an exact copy of the actual event
Constructing memories:
- Gary et al. (1996): Hyman et al (1995)
L>Misinformation effect?
- occurs after witnessing the event and receiving misleading information about it
- tendency to incorporate misinformation into ones memory of the event
- potential for the creation of false memories
Constructing memories:
- Gary et al. (1996): Hyman et al (1995)
L>Misinformation effect?
L> Study example via Loftus(2003,2007)
- typical exp= ppl witness an event, received misleading info about it (or not) and then took a memory test. The reported finding was the misinformation effect.
- suggested misinformation may even produce false memories of supposed child sexual abuse, argued lofts….incorporation of misinformation into memory.
Constructing memories:
- Gary et al. (1996): Hyman et al (1995)
L>Misinformation effect?
L> Study example via Croxton and colleagues ( 1984)
- had students talk with someone for 15 minutes
- those told the person reported liking them …recalled the persons behaviour as relaxed, comfortable and happy
- those told the person reported not liking them recalled the person as nervous, uncomfortable and not so happy.
Reconstructing past attitudes
-Rosy retrospection?
- recall mildly pleasant events more favourably than they experienced them
Reconstructing past attitudes
-Rosy retrospection
L> Mitchell &Thompson et al(1994, 1997)
- uni students went on a three week bike trip in austria and reported enjoying their experiences as they have them
- upon reflection they reported liking it even more so
Reconstructing past attitudes
-Rosy retrospection
L> Cathy McFarland and Michael Ross(1985)
- We also revise our recollections of other ppl as our relationships with them change
- uni students rate their steady partners…two months later they rated them again…students who were more in love than ever had a tendency to recall love at first sight…. those who ha broken up were more likely to recall recognized the partner as somewhat selfish and bad tempered.
Reconstructing past attitudes
-Rosy retrospection
L> study ex: Holmberg and Holmes (1994) ->similar to Ross and McFarland..
- surveyed newly married people
- most reported being very happy
- resurveyed two years later …those whose marriages soured reported things had always been bad……the worse your current view of your partner is the worse your memories are which only further confirms your negative attitudes.
Reconstructing past attitudes
-Blank et al (2003)
- hindsight bias
- totalitarian ego: dictator ex…..aka be firm with how you saw your role in the memory…you thought you had a bigger influence int he vent then you really did..
- inviting uni students after a surprising german election outcome to recall their voting predictions from two months ago … students demonstrated hindsight bias..by miss recalling their predictions as closer to the actual results.
Judging Others and Ourselves:
-overconfidence phenomenon?
- the tendency to be more confident than correct
- overestimate the accuracy of ones beliefs to factual information…judgments of others behaviour and judgements of our own behaviour
Judging Others and Ourselves:
- does overconfidence phenomenon extend to social judgement?
- Dunning et al (1990)
- created a game show asking students to guess a stranger vs roommate
- answers to a series of questions
- they knew the type but not the actual questions…the subjects first interviewed their target erson about background, hobbies, academic interests etc anything they thought might be helpful
- then while the targets privately answered the 20 questions the interviewers predicted their answers and rated their confidence of the prediction
- they guessed 63% of the time correctly..beating chance by 13
- avg= 75 sure of their predictions
-when subjects guessed roommates response
L> 68% right
L>78%confident …most confident ppl were more likely to be over confident
Judging Others and Ourselves:
- Incompetence feeds overconfidence?
L> Dunning et al (1999)
-students who score at the bottom not tests of grammar, humour and logic are most prone to overestimating their gifts at such.
Judging Others and Ourselves:
- reasons for overconfidence?
L>recollection?
- people tend to recall their mistaken judgements as times when they were ALMOST right
Judging Others and Ourselves:
- reasons for overconfidence
L>- people tend to recall their mistaken judgements as times when they were ALMOST right
**Tetlock study?
- inviting various academic and government experts to project from their viewpoint in the late 1980s the future governance of the Soviet Union, SA and Canada
- 5 year slater communism ha collapsed…SA became a multiracial democracy…quebec did not leave canada
- experts who felt more than 80 percent confidinet were right in predicting these turns of vents less than 40 percent of the time
- ** those that reflected on their judgements …those who erred believed they are still basically right
