Chapter 9 Flashcards
What is social cognition
The study of how people think about the social world
What is the difference between repsentativeness and availability heuristic
Representativeness- a heuristic in which the likelihood of an object belonging to a category is evaluated based on the extent to which the object appears similar to one’s mental representation of the category
Availability- evaluates the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easily instances of it come to mind (the likelihood things will happen)
What is planning fallacy
A cognitive bias in which one underestimates how Long it will take to complete a task
What is affective forecasting
Predicting how one will feel in the future after some event or decision. Good qt predicting if the feeling will be positive or negative but not at how strongly we will feel it and the duration
(Influenced by impact bias)
What is the different between impact bias and durability bias
Impact- the tendency for a person to overestimate the INTENSITY of their future feelings
Durability- the tendency for people to overestimate how LONG (duration) postive/negative events will effect them
What is hot cognition
The mental processes that are influenced by desires and feelings
What are directional goals
The motivation to reach a particular outcome or judgment (can lead to motivated skepticism)
What is motivated skepticism
Whereby we are skeptical of evidence that goes against what we want to believe despite the strength of the evidence
What is the need for closure
The desire to come to a firm conclusion
What is mood-congruent memory
Our retrieval of memories is affected by our current mood. Ex. When sad it is easier to recall the sad memory of your dogs death than the happy moment you got him
When is a behavior or process considered automatic
If it is unintentional, uncontrollable, occurs outside of conscious awareness, or is cognitively efficient (practice can lead to automatic behaviors)
What is the chameleon effect
Individuals nonconsciously mimic the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of their interaction partners
What is attitude
A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor
What is the difference between explicit and implicit attitude
Explicit- an attitude that is consciously held and can be reported on by the person holding the attitude
Implicit- an attitude that a person does not verbally ot overtly express
What is implicit measure of attitudes
Measures of attitudes in which researchers infer the participants attitude rather than have the participant explicitly report it
What is the implict association test
An implications attitude task that assesses a person’s automatic associations between concepts by measuring the response time ls in pairing the concepts (ex. Cats=good)
What is the evaluating priming task
Measures how quickly the participant labels the valence (postive/negative) of the attitude object when it appears immediately after a positive or negative image. The more quickly the participant labels the attitude object after being primed with a positive versus negative image indicated hoe quickly the participant evaluates the object.
What is happiness
The populat word for subjective well being (SWB)
What is the difference between top-down and bottom-up causes of happiness
Top-down- (internal) the persons outlook and habitual response tendencies that influence their happiness, ex. Their temperament or optimistic outlook on life
Bottom-up- (external) situations factors outside the person that influences their SWB, such as good and bad events and circumstances like health and wealth
What are the three major types of happiness
High life satisfaction, infrequent negative feelings and frequent positive feelings
What is adaption
The fact that after people first react to good or bad events, sometimes in a strong way, their feelings and reactions tend to dampen down overtime and they return to their original level of SWB
What is Subjective well being scales
Report surveys or questionnaires in which participants indicate their levels SWB, by responding to items with a number that indicates how well off they fell
What is psychologically flourishing
Whether a person feels meaning in life, has close relationships, and feels a sense of mastery over important life activities
What is conformity
Changing ones attitude or behavior to match a perceived social norm
(Primarly caused by normative influence and informational influence)
What are descriptive norms
The perception of what most people do in a given situation
Who were Chart and Bargh
They found that mimicking the gestures, body posture, language, talking speed, and other behaviors increases the connection between people and allows our interactions to flow more smoothly
What is the difference between normative and informational influence
Infromational- conformity that results from a concern to act in a social approved manner as determined by how others act
Normative- conformity that results from a concern for what other people think of us (fitting in)
What is obedience
Responding to an order or command from a person in a position of high authority
Who was Solomon Asch
Through his studies involving presenting cards with lines and tasked with finding the card with same line length as the original card found that when faced with answers from other participants that opposed their answer, even when clearly wrong, they would change their answer to fit it
Who was Milgram
Set out to discover why so many otherwise decent German citizens followed the order’s of the nazi leaders. Through his lavatory investigation, involving learning and memory with a shock machine, discovered it was partly due to our need to conform to authority figures
What is persuasion
The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors
What are the two paths to persuasion
Central route- persuasion that employs direct, relevant, logical messages (encourages careful thought)
Peripheral route- persuasion that relies on superficial cues that have little to do with logic (discourages careful thought)
What are fixed action patterns (FAPs)
Sequences of behaviors that occur in exactly the same fashion, in exactly the same order, everything they are elicited (peripheral persuasion relies on FAPs)
(Cialdini compares it to a prerecorded tape that is turned on, and once it is, always plays to its finish) (turned on by trigger features)
What are trigger features
Specific, sometimes minute, aspects of a situation that activate FAPs
What are the three characteristics of trust needed for effective persuasion (triad of trustworthiness)
Authority, likeability and honesty
What are common psychological strategies to manipulate trust worthiness did Levine identity
Testimonials and endorsement- this technique employs someone who people already tryst to testing about the product or message being sold
Presenting the message as educated- the message may be fromed as objective information. Ex. Salespeople my try to convey the impression they are less interested in selling a product than helping you make the best decision. The implicit message is that being informed is in everyone’s best interest (they are confident you will want the product on e informed)
Word of mouth- surveys show we turn to people around us for many decisions
The maven- similar to word of mouth but involves peers face to face. Rather than over investing in formal advertising, businesses may plant seeds at grassroots level hoping that consumers themselves will spread the word to eachother.
What are the shortcuts that leave us suspectble to persuasion: reciprocity, social proof commitment and consistency
Reciprocity- whereby we feel compelled to repay. In equitable value, what another person has given
Social proof- if everyone is doing it, it must be right (derived from social comparison and conformity)
Commitment and consistency- once we have made an initial commitment the more likely we are to agree to subsequent commitments that follow (derived fromm fooot in the door and gradually escalating commitments)
What is foot in the door and gradually escalating commitments
Foot in the door- obtaing a small, initial commitment
Gradually escalating commitments- a pattern if small, progressively escalating demands Is less likely to be rejected than a single large demand all at once
What are the shortcuts that leave us suspectble to persuasion: a door in the face and and that’s not all
A door in the face- where the persuader begins with a large request they expect will be rejected, they want the door to be slammed in their face. Looking forlorn, they now follow this with a smaller request, which unknown to the consumer, was their target all along
And that’s not all- also begins with a salesperson asking a high price. Followed by several seconds of pause which the consumer is kept from responding. A better deal is then offered by either lower the price or added a bonus item. The that’s not all is a variation of the door in the face
What are the shortcuts that leave us suspectble to persuasin: the sunk cost Trap
The sunk cost trap- the trap occurs when a person’s aversion to loss, impulses them to throw good money after bad, because they don’t want to waste their investments. Sunk cost refers to nonrecoverable investments of time or money in economics
What are the shortcuts that leave us suspectble to persuasion: scarcity and psychological reactance
Scaricty-People tend to view things as more attractive when their availability us limited, or when they stand to lose the opportunity to aquire them on favorable terms
Psychological reactance- a reactions to people, rules, requirements, or offerings that are perceived to limit freedoms (do not respond well to pushy people
What is a way to defend against unwanted persuasion
Inoculation method- research has shown that people who are subjected to weak versions of a persuasive message are less vulnerable 5o stronger versions later on. (Almost like building your immunity)
What is attribution theory
We explain behavior with two types of attributions
Situational- factors outside the person
Dispostional- factors inside the person
What is fundamental attribution error
When we go to far in assuming that a person’s behavior is caused by their personality
What is hedonic motivation
When our desire for gratification and avoidance of pain influences our motivation
What are some influences on behavior when in a group
Social facilitation- when individuals perform better with an audience
Social loafing- the tendency for people in a group to show less effort when not held individually accountable
Deindividuation- when Anonymous and have high arousal, a loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurs
Group polarization- when people of similar views form a group and discussion occurs, leading to said views become more extreme
Groupthink- when people make decisions as a group in which discourages creatativry or individual thinking
What are stereotypes
Our general beliefs about traits or behaviors shared by a group of people (cognitive buas)
What is prejudice
An evaluation and or emotion turned toward people merely based on their group membership (emotional bias)
What is discrimination
Behavior that advantages or disadvantages people merely based on their group membership; based on stereotypes
(Behavioral bias)
What is the different between blatant (explicit) biases and subtle (implicit/automatic) biases
Blatant- conscious beliefs, feelings, and behavior that people are perfectly willing to admit (expressing hostility towards the outgroup and favoring the ingroup)
Subtle- unexamined, and sometimes unconscious, but just as real in their consequences. (They are automatic, ambiguous and ambivalent)
What is the difference between social dominance orientation (SDO) and right wing authoritarianism (RWA)
SDO- describes a belief that group hierarchies are inevitable in all societies, and even good, yo maintain order and stability; ingroup viewed as on top and outgroup on bottom; views outgroup as threatening ingroups economic resources
RWA- focuses on value conflicts but endorses respect for obedience and or conformity to authority; respects group unity over individual preferences; outgroup viewed as threatening the ingroups collective values
Are the three ambiguous biases in terms of implict biases
Social identity theory- the tendency to favor one’s ingroup over another’s outgroup (more neglecting than punishing) (outgroup dislike stems from ingroup like)
Self-categorization theory- coined by Turned, develops social identity theorys point that people categorize themselves along with eachother into groups, favoring their own
Averisve racism- coined by Dovidio and Gaertner, unexamined racial bias that the person does not intend and would reject, but they avoid inter-racial contact
What is the ambivalent bias for subtle biases
Stereotype content model- shows that social groups are views led according to their warmth and competence (Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick)
