Chapter 3- Social Cognition: How We Think About The Social World Flashcards
2 kinds of social cognition
- ) automatic thinking
2. ) controlled thinking
automatic thinking
- nonconscious
- unintentional
- involuntary
- effortless
- quick
- make decisions/impressions “w/o thinking
controlled thinking
- voluntary
- effortful
- deliberate
schema
- 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
ambiguous
- interpretable in either positive or negative manner
- depends on schema
accessibility
- extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of the mind
- likely to be used when making judgments
what makes schema accessible
- ) past experience (ex: alcoholic family member, so judge strange person as drunk)
- ) related to current goal (ex: studying for abnormal psych exam, so judge strange person as mentally ill
- ) recent experiences (ex: just watched mental hospital movie)
priming
- process by which recent experiences increase accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept
- automatic thinking
self-fulfilling prophecy
-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
priming metaphors
-physical sensation influences judgments about a completely related topic
-relationship between mind and body
Ex: felling hot beverage -> view person as “warm”
mental strategies and shortcuts
-make decisions easier
-don’t always lead to best decision
-do not guarantee accurate inferences
Ex: schemas and judgmental heuristics
judgmental heuristics
-mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently
availability heuristic
-basing judgment on ease at which you can bring something to mind
Ex: physicians base diagnosis on recently observed diseases
trouble with availability heuristic
-what is easiest to remember is not typical of overall picture
-leads to faulty conclusions
Ex: physician may overlook symptoms of certain disorders
representative heuristic
-mental shortcut used to classify something according to how similar it is to typical case
Ex: assume blonde haired, beach lover is from CA
trouble with representative heuristic
-people focus too much on individual characteristics and too little on base rates
Ex: if at NY school, disregard few CA students
base rate information
-relative frequency of members of different categories in population
Ex: % students from AR at AR school
unconscious thinking
- critical to navigating our way around the world
- fast
- may lead to errors
- responsible for decisions based on goal that has recently been primed
schemas across cultures
-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
analytic thinking style
- focus of properties of objects without considering surrounding context
- focus on individual’s face to judge feeling
- Western cultures
holistic thinking style
- focus on overall context and the ways objects relate to one another
- focus on everyone’s faces to judge feeling
- Eastern cultures
free will
-ability to control actions and choose what want to do
more people believe in free will
- more willing to help others
- less likely to engage in immoral actions
illusion of free will
-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
counterfactual thinking
-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
ruination
- bad outcome of counterfactual thinking
- repetitive focus on negative things in life
- leads to depression
coping
-good outcome of counterfactual thinking
-focus on coping better in future
Ex: motivates to study harder
overconfidence barrier
-people usually have too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgments
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
holistically
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
priming
________ are the cognitive structures we use to organize our knowledge of the world
schemas
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
cultures shape the schemas of those who grow up in them
The availability heuristic is associated with which of the following characteristics of schemas
accessibility
When people tend to focus on the properties of objects without consideration of the context, this is described as a(n) ___________ thinking style
analytic
In Wegner’s theory on the consequences of thought suppression, the “ironic” process is the ________ process because __________
monitoring; make one think about what they don’t want to think about
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
shooting black man with phone
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
representative heuristic
Which of the following is NOT an example of automatic thinking
conducting search on the internet
All of the following describe controlled thinking EXCEPT
effortless
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,
bloomers improved IQ more than non-bloomers
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
goals can be activated and influence behavior w/o one knowing
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
stop engaging in counterfactual thinking
Self-fulfilling prophecies can best be defined as
make schemas come through by treatment of others
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
overconfidence barrier
The shortcuts or rules of thumb that people use to make judgments and decisions quickly and efficiently are called
judgmental heuristics
According to the authors of your text, how is it best to characterize humans as social thinkers
we have amazing cognitive abilities, but there is room for improvement
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
she was relying on schemas
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
base rate information
