Chapter 5 Terms

Question 1

Social Cognition

Answer 1

A movement in social psychology that began in the 1970s that focused on thoughts about people and about social relationships

Question 2

Cognitive Miser

Answer 2

A term used to describe peoples reluctance to do much extra thinking

Question 3

Stroop Test

Answer 3

A standard measure of effortful control over responses, requiring participants to identify the color of a word (which may name a different color)

Question 4

Stroop effect

Answer 4

In the stroop test, the finding that people have difficulty overriding the automatic tendency to read the word rather than name the ink color

Question 5

Knowledge structures

Answer 5

Organized packets of information that are stored in memory

Question 6

Schemas

Answer 6

Knowledge structures that represent substantial information about a concept, its attributes, and its relationships to other concepts

Question 7

Scripts

Answer 7

Knowledge structures that define situations and guide behavior

Question 8

Priming

Answer 8

Activating an idea in someone’s mind so that related ideas are more accessible

Question 9

Framing

Answer 9

How information is presented to others

Question 10

Gain-Framed Appeal

Answer 10

Focuses on how doing something will add to your health

Question 11

Loss-Framed Appeal

Answer 11

Focuses on how not doing something will subtract from your health

Question 12

Counter-Regulation

Answer 12

The “what the heck” effect that occurs when people indulge in a behavior they are trying to regulate after an initial regulation failure

Question 13

Attributions

Answer 13

The casual explanation people give for their own and others’ behaviors, and for events in general

Question 14

Self-Serving Bias

Answer 14

The tendency to take credit for success but deny blame for failure; or internal attributions for success, external attributions for failure

Question 15

Actor/Observer Bias

Answer 15

The tendency for actors to make external attributions and observers to make internal attributions

Question 16

Fundamental Attribution Error (Correspondence Bias)

Answer 16

The tendency for observers to attribute other peoples behavior to internal or dispositional causes and to downplay situational causes

Question 17

Heuristics

Answer 17

Mental shortcuts that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of uncertain events

Question 18

Representative Heuristics

Answer 18

The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the extent to which it resembles the typical case

Question 19

Availability Heuristics

Answer 19

The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind

Question 20

Simulation Heuristic

Answer 20

The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease of which you can imagine (or mentally simulate) it

Question 21

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristics

Answer 21

The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by using a starting point (called an anchor) and then making adjustments up or down.

Question 22

Confirmation Bias

Answer 22

The tendency to notice and search for information that confirms ones beliefs and to ignore information that disconfirms ones beliefs

Question 23

Illusory Correlation

Answer 23

The tendency to overestimate the link between variables that are related only slightly or not at all

Question 24

One-shot Illusory Correlation

Answer 24

An illusory correlation that occurs after exposure to only one unusual behavior performed by only one member of an unfamiliar group

Question 25

Base Rate Fallacy

Answer 25

The tendency to ignore or underuse base rate information and instead to be influenced by the distinctive features of the case being judged

Question 26

Hot Hand

Answer 26

The tendency for gamblers who get lucky to think they have a “hot” hand and their luck with continue

Question 27

Gamblers Fallacy

Answer 27

The tendency to believe that a particular chance event is affected by previous events and that chance events will “even out” in the short run

Question 28

False consensus Effect

Answer 28

The tendency to overestimate the number of other people who share ones opinions, attitudes, values, and beliefs

Question 29

False Uniqueness Effect

Answer 29

The tendency to underestimate the number of other people who shares ones most prized characteristics and abilities

Question 30

Theory Perseverance

Answer 30

Proposes that once the mind draws a conclusion, it tends to stick with that conclusion unless there is overwhelming evidence to change it

Question 31

Statistical Regression (regression to the mean)

Answer 31

The statistical tendency for extreme scores of extreme behavior to be followed by others that are less extreme and closer to the average

Question 32

Illusion of Control

Answer 32

The false belief that one can influence certain events, especially random or chance ones

Question 33

Counterfactual Thinking

Answer 33

Imagining alternatives to past or present events or circumstances

Question 34

Upward Counterfactual Thinking

Answer 34

Imagining alternatives that are better than actuality

Question 35

Downward Counterfactual Thinking

Answer 35

Imagining alternatives that are worse than actuality

Question 36

First Instinct Fallacy

Answer 36

The false belief that it is better not to change ones first answer on a test even if one starts to think that a different answer is correct

Question 37

Regret

Answer 37

Involves feeling sorry for ones misfortunes, limitations, losses, transgressions, shortcomings, or mistakes

Question 38

Debiasing

Answer 38

Reducing errors and biases by getting people to use deliberate processing rather than automatic processing

Question 39

Meta-cognition

Answer 39

Reflecting on ones own thought processes