Lecture 2 - Categorization and Cognition

Question 1

what is gestalt

Answer 1

Organisation of the whole. Imagine a piece of music you could describe each note by pitch and volume and length but when you listen to the music you hear the melody - you don’t analyse it in that way. your listening to the piece as a whole

Question 2

1950’s of social cognition

Answer 2

turings mind as computer theory

Question 3

1970’s of social cognition

Answer 3

social cognition emerges when social psychologists apply the methods of cognitive scientists to their own field

Question 4

Social cognition emerges when social psychologists apply the methods of cognitive scientists to their own field

Answer 4

1970

Question 5

Category is

Answer 5

a group of objects that belong together

Question 6

Concept is

Answer 6

the mental representation of this category

Question 7

Categories are useful for (short)

Answer 7

determining what to do with an object depending what category it fits into (e.g. eat it/play with it)

Question 8

Rosch 1978

Answer 8

categories of categorisation:
superordinate category - furniture
basic level - chair
subordinate category -dining room chair

Question 9

Turings theory of mind a computer wheN

Answer 9

1950’s

Question 10

Who developed hierarchical categorisation?

Answer 10

Rosch 1978

Question 11

Explain a ‘classical’ or ‘defined features’ account of an object

Answer 11

Needs to answer a series of questions. If it can’t fulfil the criteria then it is not that object.
E.g. is it fruit shaped?
is it fruit sized?
is it metal? - if all yes the so far it is a fruit

Question 12

Explain the ‘fuzzy’ or ‘probabilistic model’ or the theory of prototypes

Answer 12

Where the criteria are fuzzy - the thing to consider is there is no prototype game - there is no game that will satisfy every question/criteria.

Question 13

What are the problems with the defined features account

Answer 13

Some things are impossible to provide a list for. e.g. games - could be that games need to be competitive or fun or have a winner. not all games will satisfy every the criteria.

Question 14

What are the things that make up the probabilistic model

Answer 14

prototypes - abstract, never actually exists
exemplars - examples brought to mind from life

An objects belonging to a category is determined by how much it shares with the prototype

Question 15

How do you determine an objects belonging to a category in terms of the fuzzy model

Answer 15

An objects belonging to a category is determined by how much it shares with the prototype

Question 16

Do the same principles apply to social categorisation and object categorisation

Answer 16

• people perceive themselves as members of social groups
• this can skew your perception of people
• is it fair when we make judgements of groups we are not members of
• being a member of a categorised group affects your perception of others

Question 17

Categories are useful because

Answer 17

they allow us to break the world into meaningful chunks that we are able to process. - we only have a certain PROCESSING CAPACITY. break it down for me fellas. they give meaning to things and allow us to make successful predictions (sometimes) and therefore take appropriate action.

Question 18

Tafjel and Wilkes (1963)

Answer 18

Interested by whether judgement could be skewed by categorisation. Presented subjects with a series of lines varying in lengths but all A lines happened to be shorter than the B lines. This skewed peoples perception of line length when later on presented with a line labelled A or B

Question 19

Line length - A or B

Answer 19

Tafjel and wilkes 1963

Question 20

What was Tafjels principle

Answer 20

the accentuation principle

Question 21

What was the line length perception thingy called

Answer 21

tafjels accentuation principle

Question 22

Hogg and vaughn 2005

Answer 22

tafjels accentuation principle was later applied to a social situation…welsh men are better singers.

Question 23

Welsh men are better singers

Answer 23

Hogg and Vaughn 2005

Question 24

Sherif et al. (1961)

Answer 24

Well brought up middle class boys put into two groups at summer camp (rattlers vs eagles). They are put into competition against each other which causes rivalry between the group to escalate. can they bring them back together through co operation tasks? yes conflict decreased.

Question 25

Boys at summer camp experiment

Answer 25

sherif et al 1961

Question 26

Realistic conflict theory

Answer 26

When two groups are in competition for a resource or prize, conflict emerges and this is where prejudice and poor intergroup categories come from

Question 27

Which theory: When two groups are in competition for a resource or prize, conflict emerges and this is where prejudice and poor intergroup categories come from

Answer 27

Realistic conflict theory

Question 28

The minimal group paradigm

Answer 28

Tafjel et al. 1971

Question 29

Tafjel et al. 1971

Answer 29

The minimal group paradigm

Question 30

What is the minimal group paradigm?

Answer 30

Does group membership inevitably lead to prejudice even when the groups are meaningless?

Question 31

How was the minimal group paradigm tested?

Answer 31

Primary school boys were split into two categories based on their preference for modern abstract art. Boys were then shown a series of numbers corresponding to the reward in pence that would be given to each if two boys. the only info they were given about the other boys was their group. They all tended to favour ingroup members. even if they had to sacrifice ingroup profit to ensure the outgroup boy got less than

Question 32

Asch’s configural model:

Answer 32

peripheral and central traits -e.g. warm and cold are central traits and have more sway on a persons perception of someone else than others.

Question 33

Name the 4 social thinking models:

Answer 33

cognitive consistency
naive scientist
cognitive miser
motivated tactician

Question 34

motivated tactician

Answer 34

you’re goals are taken into account to decide when to minimise cognitive resources and when to put effort into processing information

Question 35

cognitive miser

Answer 35

refers to taking shortcuts in cognition as humans cannot in fact process information like a computer. bias and errors be thought to be natural in this model

Question 36

naive scientist

Answer 36

model where people are thought to make cause and effect analysis of events attributing any errors or biases as departures from normality due to limited/incorrect information or self interest

Question 37

cognitive consistency

Answer 37

thought people strove for this because they couldn’t handle discrepancies between their cognitions. actually people are pretty tolerable if inconsistency.

Question 38

Name 7 things that effect the opinions we form of people

Answer 38

Primacy/Recency effects
Asch’s configural model
Appearance
Stereotypes
Positivity or negativity - negative traits have more weight but people are positive until proven negative
Implicit personality theories - which traits go together (warm and generous)
Personal constructs - different traits carry different weightings to different people