Chapter 5 Terms Flashcards
Social Cognition
A movement in social psychology that began in the 1970s that focused on thoughts about people and about social relationships
Cognitive Miser
A term used to describe peoples reluctance to do much extra thinking
Stroop Test
A standard measure of effortful control over responses, requiring participants to identify the color of a word (which may name a different color)
Stroop effect
In the stroop test, the finding that people have difficulty overriding the automatic tendency to read the word rather than name the ink color
Knowledge structures
Organized packets of information that are stored in memory
Schemas
Knowledge structures that represent substantial information about a concept, its attributes, and its relationships to other concepts
Scripts
Knowledge structures that define situations and guide behavior
Priming
Activating an idea in someone’s mind so that related ideas are more accessible
Framing
How information is presented to others
Gain-Framed Appeal
Focuses on how doing something will add to your health
Loss-Framed Appeal
Focuses on how not doing something will subtract from your health
Counter-Regulation
The “what the heck” effect that occurs when people indulge in a behavior they are trying to regulate after an initial regulation failure
Attributions
The casual explanation people give for their own and others’ behaviors, and for events in general
Self-Serving Bias
The tendency to take credit for success but deny blame for failure; or internal attributions for success, external attributions for failure
Actor/Observer Bias
The tendency for actors to make external attributions and observers to make internal attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error (Correspondence Bias)
The tendency for observers to attribute other peoples behavior to internal or dispositional causes and to downplay situational causes
Heuristics
Mental shortcuts that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of uncertain events
Representative Heuristics
The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the extent to which it resembles the typical case
Availability Heuristics
The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind
Simulation Heuristic
The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease of which you can imagine (or mentally simulate) it
Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristics
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.
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to notice and search for information that confirms ones beliefs and to ignore information that disconfirms ones beliefs
Illusory Correlation
The tendency to overestimate the link between variables that are related only slightly or not at all
One-shot Illusory Correlation
An illusory correlation that occurs after exposure to only one unusual behavior performed by only one member of an unfamiliar group
Base Rate Fallacy
The tendency to ignore or underuse base rate information and instead to be influenced by the distinctive features of the case being judged
Hot Hand
The tendency for gamblers who get lucky to think they have a “hot” hand and their luck with continue
Gamblers Fallacy
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
False consensus Effect
The tendency to overestimate the number of other people who share ones opinions, attitudes, values, and beliefs
False Uniqueness Effect
The tendency to underestimate the number of other people who shares ones most prized characteristics and abilities
Theory Perseverance
Proposes that once the mind draws a conclusion, it tends to stick with that conclusion unless there is overwhelming evidence to change it
Statistical Regression (regression to the mean)
The statistical tendency for extreme scores of extreme behavior to be followed by others that are less extreme and closer to the average
Illusion of Control
The false belief that one can influence certain events, especially random or chance ones
Counterfactual Thinking
Imagining alternatives to past or present events or circumstances
Upward Counterfactual Thinking
Imagining alternatives that are better than actuality
Downward Counterfactual Thinking
Imagining alternatives that are worse than actuality
First Instinct Fallacy
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
Regret
Involves feeling sorry for ones misfortunes, limitations, losses, transgressions, shortcomings, or mistakes
Debiasing
Reducing errors and biases by getting people to use deliberate processing rather than automatic processing
Meta-cognition
Reflecting on ones own thought processes
