Chapter Three: Social Cognition Flashcards
Explain the 3 advantages of schemas
- helps organize and make sense of the world and fills in gaps of knowledge
- useful in confusing/ambiguous situations because it helps us understand what is going on
- influence what we notice, think about and remember
Explain the 2 disadvantages of schemas
- there can be dire consequences when we automatically apply schemas that aren’t accurate (ie. thinking a Black person’s cell phone is a gun)
- self fulfilling prophecy
Kunda, Sinclair, and Griffith Schema salesperson or actor Study
- students were either told that Michael was a salesperson or an actor
- both groups were told that Michael is extraverted
- both groups asked “ what kinds of behaviour do you suppose Michael has?
- Salesperson group said speaks loudly, monopolizes conversation
- actor group said life of the party and not afraid of the spotlight
- also did experiment with John the lawyer/John the construction worker. Told John is aggressive. Lawyer John more likely to argue, while construction John more likely to throw a punch
Harold Kelley Priming Study (students receive biographical info on teacher)
- students received biographical information on an instructor (age, baqckground, teaching experience, description of personality)
- one personality description said he’s cold, industrious, critical, practical, and determines
- the other pseronality description said warm person instead of cold person
- students asked to rate instructor. Those who got the warm person description gave higher ratings compared to those who got the cold person description
Pamela Wallen
News Anchor that accidently introduced someone’s last name as Shit instead of Schmidt. Thought career was over, turns out ppl’s schema’s changed the word in their head because they’re fans of hers so no one really noticed
List three instances in which schemas can become accessible.
- past experiences (constantly active and used to interpret ambiguous situations).
- can become accessible because they are related to a current goal
- can be accessible because of recent experiences (priming)
priming effects experience (Higgins, Rholes and Jones) (remember colours and words)
- two groups were given a perception study where they had to identify colours and remember words
- group one had words like adventurous, self confident, persistent
- group two had words like reckless, aloof, stubborn
- both groups were then given a brief description of a man named Donald.
- group one formed positive impressions of Donald, while group two formed negative impressions
When it comes to priming, thoughts have to be both ________ and ________ before they will act as primes
- accessible
- applicable
Why is priming a good example of autonomic thinking?
because it occurs quickly, unintentionally, and unconsciously
Callan study on priming (legal terms or neutral words)
- students read either legal terms (group one) or neutral words (group two) very quickly on a computer before they could be consciously perceived
- students then read an ambiguous description between two people exchanging opinions
- group one perceived the people as more competitive and less trustworthy compared to group two
- both groups then played a game. Those in group one were more competitive while playing than group two
self fulfilling prophecy IQ test experiment (Rosenthal and Jacobson)
- students did IQ test. some were randomly selected and teachers were told that these students would “bloom” in the upcoming year
- at the end of the year all students did the same IQ test. Those who were the “bloomers” had an increase in their scores
- teachers treated the bloomers different in 4 different ways (warmer emotional climate, gave them more material and more difficult material, gave more and better feedback on their work, gave them more opportunities in class to respond and more time to respond)
What are the types of automatic thinking?
- embodied cognition (eg. nice scent in room, or whether you’re holding a warm or cold beverage impacts interaction with person
- Judgmental Heuristics
- Availability Heuristics
- representativeness Heuristics
wobbly chair experiment
- group one sat in non wobbly chair, group two sat in wobbly chair
- both groups had to looks at pics of popular celebrity couples and say whether or not those relationships would last
- those in group two more often said couples wouldn’t last compared to group one
- groups were also asked about traits they’d want in a partner
- participants in wobbly chair were more drawn to a stable partner
Schwartz availability heuristic experiment (assertiveness)
- group one had to come up with six times they have been assertive
- group two had to come up with twelve times they acted assertively (it was harder for this group because they had to come up with more examples)
-all participants asked to rate how assertive they thought they were - those who had to come up with 12 examples rated themselves more unassertive (“hmmm this is hard to come up with this many examples, so I mustn’t be that assertive)
People who grow up in Western culture tend to have a more ________ thinking style, while those who grow up in Eastern culture tend to have a more ________ thinking style
- analytic
- holistic
