Chapter 3- Social Cognition: How We Think About The Social World

Question 1

2 kinds of social cognition

Answer 1

1. ) automatic thinking

2. ) controlled thinking

Question 2

automatic thinking

Answer 2

• nonconscious
• unintentional
• involuntary
• effortless
• quick
• make decisions/impressions “w/o thinking

Question 3

controlled thinking

Answer 3

• voluntary
• effortful
• deliberate

Question 4

schema

Answer 4

• mental structures that organize knowledge about social world
• use of past experiences/knowledge to influence information we notice, think about, and remember
• help us to make sense of ambiguous info
• automatic thinking

Question 5

ambiguous

Answer 5

• interpretable in either positive or negative manner

- depends on schema

Question 6

accessibility

Answer 6

• extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of the mind
• likely to be used when making judgments

Question 7

what makes schema accessible

Answer 7

1. ) past experience (ex: alcoholic family member, so judge strange person as drunk)
2. ) related to current goal (ex: studying for abnormal psych exam, so judge strange person as mentally ill
3. ) recent experiences (ex: just watched mental hospital movie)

Question 8

priming

Answer 8

• process by which recent experiences increase accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept
• automatic thinking

Question 9

self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 9

-people have expectation about what another person is like, which influences how they act toward the person, which causes that person to behave consistently with original expectation
-automatic thinking
Ex: teachers’ expectation of “blooming” students becomes reality

Question 10

priming metaphors

Answer 10

-physical sensation influences judgments about a completely related topic
-relationship between mind and body
Ex: felling hot beverage -> view person as “warm”

Question 11

mental strategies and shortcuts

Answer 11

-make decisions easier
-don’t always lead to best decision
-do not guarantee accurate inferences
Ex: schemas and judgmental heuristics

Question 12

judgmental heuristics

Answer 12

-mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently

Question 13

availability heuristic

Answer 13

-basing judgment on ease at which you can bring something to mind
Ex: physicians base diagnosis on recently observed diseases

Question 14

trouble with availability heuristic

Answer 14

-what is easiest to remember is not typical of overall picture
-leads to faulty conclusions
Ex: physician may overlook symptoms of certain disorders

Question 15

representative heuristic

Answer 15

-mental shortcut used to classify something according to how similar it is to typical case
Ex: assume blonde haired, beach lover is from CA

Question 16

trouble with representative heuristic

Answer 16

-people focus too much on individual characteristics and too little on base rates
Ex: if at NY school, disregard few CA students

Question 17

base rate information

Answer 17

-relative frequency of members of different categories in population
Ex: % students from AR at AR school

Question 18

unconscious thinking

Answer 18

• critical to navigating our way around the world
• fast
• may lead to errors
• responsible for decisions based on goal that has recently been primed

Question 19

schemas across cultures

Answer 19

-content differs
-different interpretations of world
-different sources of priming
-environment and way of life influences reliance on particular thinking style
Ex: analytic vs. holistic thinking style

Question 20

analytic thinking style

Answer 20

• focus of properties of objects without considering surrounding context
• focus on individual’s face to judge feeling
• Western cultures

Question 21

holistic thinking style

Answer 21

• focus on overall context and the ways objects relate to one another
• focus on everyone’s faces to judge feeling
• Eastern cultures

Question 22

free will

Answer 22

-ability to control actions and choose what want to do

Question 23

more people believe in free will

Answer 23

• more willing to help others

- less likely to engage in immoral actions

Question 24

illusion of free will

Answer 24

-unconscious desire actually triggers action, w/o intervening conscious thought
Ex: see ice cream on TV, later go get bowl of ice cream believing you consciously wanted it

Question 25

counterfactual thinking

Answer 25

-mentally changing some aspect of past and imagining it in a way it could have been
-“if only” thinking
-not always voluntary
Ex: “if only i answered one more correctly, I would have passed the test

Question 26

ruination

Answer 26

• bad outcome of counterfactual thinking
• repetitive focus on negative things in life
• leads to depression

Question 27

coping

Answer 27

-good outcome of counterfactual thinking
-focus on coping better in future
Ex: motivates to study harder

Question 28

overconfidence barrier

Answer 28

-people usually have too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgments

Question 29

Several studies conducted by Nisbett and his colleagues suggest that people who grow up in East Asian cultures think more ___________ than people who grew up in Western cultures

Answer 29

holistically

Question 30

In a study by Higgins, Rholes, and Jones (1977) described in the textbook, participants memorized either the word reckless or the word adventurous before reading an ambiguous passage about Donald in which he was described as engaging in a number of recreational activities (e.g., driving in a demolition derby; white-water rafting) in which he had risked injury and even death. This method was used to study the concept of

Answer 30

priming

Question 31

________ are the cognitive structures we use to organize our knowledge of the world

Answer 31

schemas

Question 32

One of the authors of your text relates an episode in which a visitor from Iran arrived at the author’s house during a televised football game. The man was horrified to see men in funny costumes and hats bashing one another and throwing one another to the ground as they chased an object that looked like a giant cigar. This example illustrates that

Answer 32

cultures shape the schemas of those who grow up in them

Question 33

The availability heuristic is associated with which of the following characteristics of schemas

Answer 33

accessibility

Question 34

When people tend to focus on the properties of objects without consideration of the context, this is described as a(n) ___________ thinking style

Answer 34

analytic

Question 35

In Wegner’s theory on the consequences of thought suppression, the “ironic” process is the ________ process because __________

Answer 35

monitoring; make one think about what they don’t want to think about

Question 36

In a study by Correll et al. (2002) described in the text, people played a video game in which they saw white and black people holding either a gun or a cell phone, and had to press either a “shoot” button if the target had a gun or a “don’t shoot button” if the target had a phone. People made the most errors in

Answer 36

shooting black man with phone

Question 37

Although there are only a few runners on your college track team, you see a woman on campus who has the physique of a runner. You decide that she’s a member of the track team. Your conclusion is based on

Answer 37

representative heuristic

Question 38

Which of the following is NOT an example of automatic thinking

Answer 38

conducting search on the internet

Question 39

All of the following describe controlled thinking EXCEPT

Answer 39

effortless

Question 40

In a controlled experiment, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) informed grade school teachers that some of their students (called “bloomers”) would show great academic improvement in the upcoming year. In reality, the “bloomers” were chosen randomly by the researchers, and were no smarter than any of the other students. Which of the following best describes the results of this study? At the end of the year,

Answer 40

bloomers improved IQ more than non-bloomers

Question 41

The study by Shariff and Norenzayan (2007) presented in your text showed that under some conditions, participants would be more likely to leave more money for a stranger. What is the larger contribution to understanding social cognition that this study makes

Answer 41

goals can be activated and influence behavior w/o one knowing

Question 42

When Jana was chiding herself for losing her favorite necklace and reciting a list of all the things she could have done to prevent the loss, her grandmother said, “Now, Jana. Don’t cry over spilled milk.” In essence, Jana’s grandmother was advising her to

Answer 42

stop engaging in counterfactual thinking

Question 43

Self-fulfilling prophecies can best be defined as

Answer 43

make schemas come through by treatment of others

Question 44

When asked a question during Trivial Pursuit, Sylvia is certain that her answer is correct, even though her teammates disagree. Sylvia cannot be persuaded by her teammates to reconsider how accurate her response is. She is demonstrating the

Answer 44

overconfidence barrier

Question 45

The shortcuts or rules of thumb that people use to make judgments and decisions quickly and efficiently are called

Answer 45

judgmental heuristics

Question 46

According to the authors of your text, how is it best to characterize humans as social thinkers

Answer 46

we have amazing cognitive abilities, but there is room for improvement

Question 47

Jennifer was walking along the street when she saw a man run out of a convenience store clutching on to a bag. The owner of the store runs out and shouts for the man to stop and come back. Jennifer immediately assumes that there has been a robbery, not that the man was in a hurry and forgot his change. How did she fill in this gap in her knowledge of the situation

Answer 47

she was relying on schemas

Question 48

When asked to guess whether Mark is from Montana or California, you guess California because more people live in California. You have used ____ in making your decision

Answer 48

base rate information