Chapter 3 Textbook Flashcards
During unconcious and unintentional autonomatic thining, we implement ____.
schemas ; mental structures by relating them to our prior experiences.
schemas contain ___ ___ and ___ that we use to organize what we know about the social world and interpret new situations.
BASIC KNOWLEDGE and INTERPRETATIONS
benefits to schemas
1) help us organize the world
2) fills in the GAPS in our knowledge, allows us to relate new experiences to our past
3) no schemas in social world would make everything inexplicable.
4) provides our world with continuity. useful when we encounter ambiguous information.
T/F: as long as people have reason to believe that their schemas are accurate, it is perfectly reasonable to use them to resolve ambiguity.
TRUE. but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t consequences to automatically applying inaccurate schemas.
schemas are affected by their___
accessibility: the extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of peoples minds and therefore likely to be used when making judgements about hte social world
3 reasons why schemas are accessible
1) chronically accessible due to experience
2) accessible because the relate to CURRENT GOALS
3) accessible due to PRIMING via recent experience.
priming
the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of the schema, trait or concept, making it more likely that you will use this info to interpret an event.
** read chapter 3 lecture note queue cards about the donald study and how positive/negative primers can influence someone’s perception of a person.
PRIMING is an example of an unconcious AUTOMATIC THINKING process because it occurs quickly and unintentioinally. priming can influence how we perceive OTHERS and OURSELVES.
Embodied cognition
how physical sensations can influence particular schemas being primed.
explain how embodied cognition influences morality schema
participants sat in a room sented with citrus spray or no smell. pts in clean scented room were mroe trsuting and expressed more willingness to donate time and money to a charity than those who were in a no -scented room.
- clean smell may have primed a morality schema.
explain how embodied cognition influences an instability schema
instability schema influences mate selection preferences.
-pts filled out a questionaure about well known couples on a wobbly desk or stable furniture. when doing the questionnaire, people on wobbly furniture didn’t think the well known couple would last long, and people on wobbly (UNSTABLE) furniture also were drawn to people with STABLE personalities
bodily sensations can activate a schema that influences judgements about a completely unrelated topic or person
this is called the embodied cognition effect
T/F: peope often act on their schemas
true. this is called self fulfilling prophecy.
explain self fulfilling prophecy in schools
if teachers believe that certain children are “bloomers,” they will create a warmer climate for bloomers, give more resources, give better feedback and give them more opportunities to respond in class.
T/F the content of our schemas are influenced by our culture
true. Bantu farmers have well distinguished schemas about cattle.
what are heuristics
mental shortcuts people use to make JUDGEMENTS quickly and efficiently
availability heuristic
a mental shortcut whereby people base a judgement on the ease with which they can bring info to mind.
Explain a situation where you used an availability heuristic on others
-ex/ participants were presented with anmes of famous people and non famous people. when asked to recall names, they were more likely to recall names of famous person.
cons of the availability heuristic
-sometimes whats easiest to bring up is NOT representative of the entire picture. can thus lead to faulty conclusions
Explain Schwartz’s study where they studied using the availability heuristic on yourself
1) asked pts to list 6 instances they acted assertivevly, and another group had to list 12
2) people who were asked to think of 6 examples were more likely to think they were assertive because its easier to come up wiht 6 instances rather than 12.
representative heuristic. What does (an accurate heuristic) rely on?
mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a familiar case.
relies on BASE RATE INFORMATION: info about the relative frequency of members of different categories in the population.
T/F when thinking of a representative heuristic, most people use base rate info
false. even though base rate info would give you the highest chance of being correc,t people do not use it efficiently. they mainly pay attention to how the specific person represents a general category.
Do horoscopes rely on representative or availability heuristics?
representative; the statements are vague enough that virtually everyone can find a familiar case that is similar.
western cultures automatically think _____, and focus on the ____.
eastern cultures have an automatic ____ thinking style, and will focus on the ___ ____.
western cultures automatically think ANALYTICALLY, and focus on the SUBJECT
eastern cultures have an automatic HOLISTIC thinking style, and will focus on the WHOLE PICTURE.
T/F: FMRI and ERP studies show that more brain activity is required when people of different cultures are asked to do tasks that were opposite of the automatic thinking cultural style
true.
T/F when people are distracted, they are still working on a task unconciously, organizing info in a way that makes the best choice more apparent to them
true. Re; apartment choices.
the ___ unconcious allows us to pick up on relationship dynamics that concious reflectio may not.
the smart unconcious
Controlled thinking
thinking that is concious, intentional, voluntary and effortful.
counterfactual reasoning and an example
mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what MIGHT have been
ex/ if I only drove faster, then I wouldv’e made the plane.
The mroe ___ someone is in counterfactual thinking, the greater their distress
more engaged.
T/f people fell more sympathy for others in a near miss situation
true.
explain how counterfactual reasoning can lead to paradoxical effects of emotions.
silver medal winners feel worse than bronze medal winners.
pro and con of counterfactual reasoning
pro: allows you to think about how various outcomes could have been avoided and allows you to think of ways to better handle situation in the future
con: people high in PERFECTIONISM may not benefit from generating counterfactuals at all.
what is the overconfidence barrier
people are often too confident in their accuracy of judgement, especially if we answered a few hard questions correctly.
when does controlled thinking take place?
1) when you are checking and balancing automatic thinking
2) takes over when unusual events occur.
