Chapter 3 - Social Cognition

Question 1

Social Cognition

Answer 1

How people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember and use social information to make judgments and decisions

Question 2

What is automatic thinking

Answer 2

Unconscious thinking that is unintentional, involuntary and effortless

Question 3

Schema?

Answer 3

Mental structures people use to organise knowledge of social world into categories which influence the way people notice think about and remember information.
(how we relate information to previous experiences)

Question 4

What is controlled thinking?

Answer 4

Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful.

Question 5

What affects which schema’s are used? (the accessibility)

Answer 5

Accessibility is the extent to which schema’s are at the forefront of the mind and therefore likely to be used when making judgements about the world. Can be affected by:

• Past experience – some schema’s are chronically accessible and constantly active and ready to use (eg. If family members is alcoholic, most likely explanation for behaviour of man on bus)
• Relation to current goal – eg. Attributing behaviour on bus to mental health because studying abnormal psych.
• Recent experiences – people primed by something they have been doing before encountering an event.

Question 6

Self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 6

A situation where a person might have an expectation of how another person will behave which causes them to act a certain way which in turn results in the person to behave in a way that is consistent with original expectations.

Question 7

Describe Rosenthal & Jacobson (1958/2003) experiments on self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 7

school teachers were told who were the ‘bloomers’ in the class (chosen at random). Bloomers showed significantly greater IQ when tested at end of year. Teachers expectation became a reality.

• An example of automatic thinking.
• A description of what teachers did differently also provided here on pg. 59.

Question 8

Judgemental Heuristics

Answer 8

Mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently

Question 9

Availability heuristic

Answer 9

A mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgment on the ease with which they can bring something to mind

Question 10

Representativeness Heuristic

Answer 10

A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case. (categorising something according to representatives eg. A blonde/tan surfer dude coming from Byron bay)

Question 11

Availability heuristic (a type of judgemental heuristic)

Answer 11

A mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgment on the ease with which they can bring something to mind

Question 12

Representativeness Heuristic (a type of judgemental heuristic)

Answer 12

A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case. (categorising something according to representatives eg. A blonde/tan surfer dude coming from Byron bay)

Question 13

What are some other types of automatic thinking? (other than schemas)

Answer 13

1. Automatic Goal Pursuit -
   Can depend on which goal has been recently primed.
2. Automatic thinking and metaphors about the body and the mind - Our bodies can influence our reactions. Physical sensations (e.g., holding a heavy clipboard) can prime a metaphor (e.g., that important thoughts “have weight”), which then influences people’s judgments (e.g., that student opinion should be given more weight on a campus issue).
3. Mental strategies and shortcuts: judgemental heuristics -mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently.

Question 14

Describe 2 different kinds of thinking styles and in which cultures they are more common?

Answer 14

Analytic thinking style
- A type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context; this type of thinking is common in western cultures.

Holistic thinking style – A type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which in which objects relate to each other; this type of thinking is common in East Asian cultures.

Question 15

What influences the east v west in terms of social cognition?

Answer 15

Influenced by philosophical ideas such as greek philosophy (plato/aristotle) in the west and buddhism, Taoism, confucionism in east (which emphasize the connectedness and relativity of all things)

Question 16

What has modern psych added to question of whether free will is an illusion?

Answer 16

In recent years social psych has developed a better understanding of how subconscious/automatic processes exert much more of an effect on behaviour than previously though. Meaning we may not have as much free will as we think.
But the more people believe in free will, the more willing they are to help others in need and the less likely they are to engage in im- moral actions such as cheating.

Question 17

Counterfactual thinking

Answer 17

A form of controlled thinking - Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been. (eg. If only I hadn’t have changed my answer to q17 and circled the wrong one, I would’ve passed the test) (Almost equivalent to the subjunctive in Spanish).
- Emotional responses to counterfactual thinking are stronger when it is easier to mentally undo an outcome eg. Failing by 1 mark rather than 10)

Question 18

Planning Fallacy

Answer 18

The tendency for people to be overly optimistic about how soon they will complete a project, even when they have failed to get similar projects done on time in the past

Question 19

What is priming?

Answer 19

the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema.

Question 20

Cultural Determinants of Schemas

Answer 20

Although everyone uses schemas to understand the world, the content of our schemas is influenced by the culture in which we live.

Question 21

Barnum effect?

Answer 21

Think in terms of astrology and how relatable we find generalised info

Question 22

Stroop effect (1935) and race

Answer 22

Stroop effect showed it’s easier to process information when we don’t have interference from other factors.

J. Karylowski, M. Motes, D. Curry & D. Van Liempd I (2002)“In What Font Color is Bill Cosby’s Name Written?” Automatic Racial Categorization in a Stroop Task .

• Faster to read ink colour when colour and racial category label match than when they mismatch.
• Racial categories come to mind automatically - so can’t ignore race

Question 23

Dunning, D., & Sherman , D. A . (1997). Stereotypes and tacit inference.

Answer 23

forming impressions:

Nuns v rock musicians - amount of liquor served, impressions formed

Question 24

Distinguishing automatic

from controlled processes

Answer 24

Logic: • If a task interferes with performance on the first task, performance on that task requires cognitive control. ie - controlled
• If no effect on performance of the task, is based on processes that are maximally efficient, ie - automatic
eg. hold a phone number in mind and try to- have a conversation or - drive a car.

Question 25

Dijkersthuuis & Van Knippenberg,

1998. - automatic effects on behaviour

Answer 25

Priming with 2 stereotypes of professors OR soccer hooligans for different amount of time then tested on trivia quiz. Those primed with professors performed better on quiz.

Question 26

Intentional operating process (IOP)

Answer 26

An effortful search for distractors (when trying not to think about something)

Question 27

Ironic monitoring process

Answer 27

automatic and effortless, monitors whether IOP is
successful (automatic, effortless). Does this by
searching for target word popping up. (when trying not to think about something)

Question 28

Wegner (2011) - studied what?

Answer 28

Escape from thought suppression - don’t think about a white bear.
strategies that helped in not thinking about the bear - focused distraction, stress and load avoidance, thought postponement, exposure and paradoxical approaches, acceptance and commitment, meditation, mindfulness, focused breathing, attention training, self affirmation, hypnosis, and disclosure and writing.

Question 29

What is the problem with similarity?

Answer 29

how to define which features are important?
- Any two objects can be similar or dissimilar on an
infinite number of dimensions (e.g., plums and
lawnmowers, Murphy & Medin, 1985.)

Question 30

Barsalou?

What are categories and how are they developed?

Answer 30

• Categories are theories about how features go
  together and why. We apply these theories to
  determine category membership ( Barsalou)

Question 31

What are some beliefs we may have about categories?

Answer 31

• Statistical beliefs (containing specific numbers) eg. The majority of books are paperbacks.
• Generic beliefs (not related to numbers) eg. books are paperbacks
• Stereotypes - typically generic beliefs removed from statistcs. eg. elderly people are slow, yet maybe only a small proportion of elderly move slowly.

Question 32

Ballcots & Dale (2003)

Answer 32

Priming interferes with ability to see the word liar in an experiment. Experiment primed participants with deceptive OR flirtatious sentences which impacted their ability to perceive the word ‘liar’.

Question 33

Describe experiment illustrating the priming effect (Higgins, Rholes, Jones, 1977)

Answer 33

Description of ‘Donald’. Participants primed to remember a particular set of words either positive or negative, then asked to rate Donald. Those primed with positive words rated same description as more positive.