Lecture 11

Question 1

What is perception?

Answer 1

It is the process by which sensations are selected, organized and interpreted.

It is influenced by the perceiver (individual
differences), target (eg. stimuli perceptors), and situation (Time, place).

Question 2

Attribution theory

Answer 2

Theory seeks to explain how and why people make these causal attribution.

There are two general types of attributions that people make:

• Internal/ Personal attributions
• External/ Situational attributions

Question 3

Attribution theory: Three factors for determination

Answer 3

• Distinctiveness: Whether an individual displays different behaviors in similar situations.
• Consensus: The similarity between the actor’s behavior and the behavior of other people in similar circumstances.
• Consistency: whether someone acts the same way in a given situation each time it occurs.

Question 4

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 4

When judging others, we tend to underestimate the influence of external facotrs and overestimate the influence of internal factors.

The situation is not salient when making attributions for behavior of others, but it is salient, when making attributions for one’s own behavior.

Question 5

Self-serving Bias

Answer 5

When judging ourselves, we attribute our own successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.

Question 6

Halo Effect

Answer 6

Drawing a general impression based on a single characteristic.

eg. Attactiveness -> positive characteristic (kind)

Question 7

Contrast effect

Answer 7

We do not evaluate a person in isolation.

Our reaction to one person is influenced by other persons we have recently met.

Question 8

Stereotyping

Answer 8

• Judging someone on the basis of the group to which the person belongs. (i.e. nationaly, gender, etc)
• This is a mean of simplifying a complex world, and it permits us to maintain consistency.
• Involves making generalizations.

Question 9

Three Models of Decision‐Making: Rational Decision-making

Answer 9

• Have complete information
• Base decisions on facts & objective information

• Able to identify all the relevant options in an
unbiased manner

• Choose the option with the highest utility

Question 10

Three Models of Decision‐Making: Bounded rationality

Answer 10

Most people respond to a complex problem by reducing the problem to a level at which it can be readily understood

Question 11

Three Models of Decision‐Making: Intuition

Answer 11

the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

Likely from instinctive feeling than from conscious reasoning.

Question 12

Individual Cognitive Biases Limiting Rational Decision-Making:
Representativeness Heuristic

Answer 12

it is a cognitive bias in which an individual categorizes a situation based on a pattern of previous experiences or beliefs about the scenario.

It can be useful when trying to make a quick decision but it can also be limiting because it leads to stereotypes.

Question 13

Individual Cognitive Biases Limiting Rational Decision-Making:
Wishful thinking (Confirmation Bias)

Answer 13

What we want to happen influences our judgments about what will happen.

People overestimate the probability of success of entities with which they feel associated.

eg. people who do not want to vacunate their babys (my baby will nnot be infected by viruses)

Question 14

Individual Cognitive Biases Limiting Rational Decision-Making:
Escalation of commitment (Sunk costs)

Answer 14

Escalation of commitment happens when someone continues to dedicate resources, including time and money, to a failing course of action.

Rationally, should make decisions based on prospects and should not be influenced by sunk costs

Question 15

Individual Cognitive Biases Limiting Rational Decision-Making:
Selective Attention/ Perception

Answer 15

Attention is a limited resource; we selectively attend to features of a person, object, or event that stand out.

It enables us to focus on something without being distracted by what is in the background

Question 16

Individual Cognitive Biases Limiting Rational Decision-Making:
Availability Bias/ Heuristic

Answer 16

• Readily available images make us fear extremely rare events.
- We fear swimming in the sea beacuse we replay JAWS in our heads.

Question 17

Individual Cognitive Biases Limiting Rational Decision-Making:
Overconfidence

Answer 17

• Individuals tend to overestimate their performance and ability.
eg. males overestimate their attractiveness

Question 18

Individual Cognitive Biases Limiting Rational Decision-Making:
Anchoring bias

Answer 18

Anchoring bias occurs when people trust too much on pre-existing information or the first information they find when making decisions. For example, if you first see a T-shirt that costs $1,200 – then see a second one that costs $100 – you’re prone to see the second shirt as cheap.

Question 19

Individual Cognitive Biases Limiting Rational Decision-Making: Other errors/ biases

Answer 19

• Risk aversion – Preferring a sure thing over a risky outcome
• Hindsight bias – Believing that we could have predicted the outcome of an event after the outcome is already known

Question 20

Schemas

Answer 20

• A pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.
• Allow us to understand/interact with the world

Question 21

Consequences of Stereotype Threat

Answer 21

• Underperformance
• Domain avoidance
• Increased anxiety
• Reduced working memory
• Deciding that the domain does not matter
for views of the self.

Question 22

Stereotype threat solutions

Answer 22

• Teaching about stereotype threat
• Having role models
• Believing the negatively stereotyped characteristic is improvable
• Improve Cross-Group Interactions

Question 23

Prejudice

Answer 23

• Negative attitudes about a group or its members that includes feelings such as contempt, dislike, or loathing.
• Implicit associations and attitudes are revealed in situations where it is difficult to control one’s response.

Question 24

Discrimination

Answer 24

• Negative behaviors directed toward people
based on their group membership:

• Formal discrimination: discrimination in hiring, promotion, etc
• Interpersonal discrimination: more subtle discrimination that appears in social interactions. (can be (non) verbal).