Exam 2 Flashcards
What is subliminal perception?
Perception of or reaction to a stimulus that occurs without awareness or consciousness; when we are attending to a stimulus and something flashes quickly that we can’t consciously perceive
Identify some examples of ads that attempted to leverage subliminal perception
Sex in the ice of the glass of gin; dollar sign in the 99 cent KFC snacker
What are three examples of how subliminal perception works?
- Presentation of a word will lead you to recognize that word more quickly later on
- Exposure to adjectives can influence judgments of later targets
- Exposure to a stimulus can lead to increased liking for the stimulus (mere exposure)
What is the “mere exposure” effect, and how does it work?
The repeated presentation of a stimulus enhances the subjective feeling of fluency (ease) when the stimulus is encountered again (ex: set of polygons)
What are the limitations of subliminal persuasion?
Hard to make the stimulus subliminal for everyone…
- May make the stimulus too weak or too strong
- Need to get people to attend to the stimulus location
- Need the presentation be to just at the right distance
- Can only prime a word or two—not too much info
What do the “Super-Quencher” and “Lipton Ice” studies tell us about the limitations of subliminal persuasion?
When participants who were thirsty were subliminally primed with these drinks, they were more likely to want that specific drink when asked
What is priming, and how does it work?
Exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus
Provide an example of visual, auditory, and olfactory priming.
Olfactory: Room primed with citrus cleaning product, primed participants more likely to be clean
Auditory: Grocer playing French vs. German music and measured the sales of the French/German wine
Visual: Quickly showing the picture of Lipton Ice Tea to thirsty participants
Describe three examples of how priming certain social groups can lead people to assimilate their behavior to fit the stereotype of that group.
Primed with “politicians” = wrote longer political essays
Primed with words related to the elderly: participants walked slower than control group
Primed with Professors and Soccer Hooligans: asked trivia questions, those primed with Professors answered more questions correctly
Are people likely to have stronger or weaker responses to primes with which they have a lot of previous contact?
Stronger responses to primes that they have had more contact with
Under what circumstances would you get people to do the opposite of a prime, rather than the same?
Contrast: Using stereotypes or extreme exemplars (ex. professors or supermodels v. Einstein and Schiffer) those with the exemplar of Einstein answered less questions correctly than those primed with Schiffer, the supermodel
What is metaphor priming? How is it different from other forms of priming? Provide an example.
Primed with a stimulus that is “metaphorically” related; ex. Cold room and socially included/exclusion; two dots on a plane, asked about strength of bonds with siblings and parents)
What are thin slice judgments?
People can make surprisingly accurate judgments quickly and automatically
Describe three examples of the power of thin slice judgments.
Dorm Room and judgements of personality; Love Lab and analysis of 15-minute convo and predictions of whether they will be married; Lie to Me: we unconsciously judge others’ thoughts in a matter of seconds by analyzing facial emotions
First impressions are powerful – describe an example of the power of first impressions
Analyzing politicians’ faces and making judgment calls on their trustworthiness, attractiveness, liking, etc.
What point does the “bat-and-ball” problem illustrate?
Most judgments and decisions are based on impressions generated by our intuitions
What are the characteristics of “System 1” and “System 2” processing?
System 1: “Intuitive”, Automatic, Effortless, Concrete, Associate
System 2: “Reflective”, Controlled, Effortful, Slow & often serial, Rule-based
What is a heuristic?
A “mental shortcut” used in judgment and decision making
What is the difference between special-purpose heuristics and general use heuristics?
Special purpose: use restricted to specific domains (height as a guide for ability as basketball player)
General use: Affect, Availability, Representativeness
What is the affect heuristic? Provide three examples.
People make judgments based on their current feelings and/or subjective impressions of goodness or badness.
Examples: Correlation between happiness and # of dates; birds and willingness to pay for life-saving nets
What is the availability heuristic? Provide three examples.
Making judgments about the frequency or likelihood of an event based on the ease with which evidence or examples come to mind.
Ex. Overclaiming (people claiming more responsibility for collective endeavors), married couples and responsibilities; product quality and safety perceptions
What underlies availability? Is it the number of examples that people can call to mind? Or is it the ease by which people can call examples to mind? How did Schwarz tease apart these potential mechanisms?
- Number – amount of information generated
- Ease – the ease with which information can be generated
- Participants asked to evaluate their own assertiveness by providing six or twelve examples = ease influences judgments sometimes in spite of number