Lecture 2- Social cognition/Bias Flashcards
What is Social cognition?
How we process and store social info and how it affects perceptions and behaviour.
What is social psychology?
Perceptions and behaviour and how influenced by others
What is Attribution?
Process of assigning a cause to our own and others behaviour
What are social schemas?
Knowledge about concepts, making sense of info w/ limited context, facilitates top down (theory driven) processing
What is a category?
Organised hierarchically ( association network).
What are prototypes?
Cognitive representation of typical defining features of category
What is causal attribution?
An inference process through which perceivers attribute an effect to one/more than one cause
What is motivated tacticians?
Only thinking deeply when required
-Think carefully and scientifically when personally important/necessary. -Think quickly and heuristically when less important to get it done
Describe the Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)?
(Theory of attribution)
-Using multiple observations to identify factors covarying w/ behaviour
-Assigning causal role to factor
-Is behaviour internal/external?
What are the 3 aspects of the Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)?
(Theory of attribution)
Consistency
Distinctiveness
Consensus
What is CONSISTENCY in the Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)
(Theory of attribution)
Does behaviour always co-occur w/ cause?
-Low= Internal attribution eg generally failing exams -High=External attribution eg never failed other exams
What is DISTINCTIVENESS in the Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)?
(Theory of attribution)
Is behaviour exclusively linked to cause or common reaction?
-Low= Internal attribution eg generally failing exams -High=External attribution eg never failed other exams
What is CONSENSUS in the Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)?
(Theory of attribution)
Do people react same way to cause/situation
-Low= Internal attribution (affect only me) -High= Strengthens attribution to external cause (realise not drink before exam)
What are the MH aspects involved in the Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)?
(theory of attribution)
People w/ depression attribute negative events to internal/global/stable causes > internal attribution
What are the psychotherapy aspects in the Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)?
(Theory of attribution)
Needing to stop explaining events in an overly pessimistic, self-defeating way (Ebeck et al, 1979)
What are the critiques of the Covariation model (Kelley, 1967)?
(Theory of attribution)
Salience of prior information and considered actually poor way of assessing covariation
-Covariation = Correlation ≠ Causation
Describe the Naïve psychologist (Heider, 1958) theory
(Theories of attribution)
-Attribute causes to effects to create stable world that makes sense
-Homo rationalis- Analytical, balanced and logical hypothesis testing
What are the 3 principles of the Naïve psychologist (Heider, 1958) theory?
(Theories of attribution)
-Need to form coherent view of world so search for motives in other behaviours
-Need to gain control over environ so search for enduring properties
-Need to identify internal (personal) vs external (situational) factors
Describe the Attributional theory (Weiner, 1979)
(Theories of attribution)
Causality of success or failure
-Locus (internal vs external) -Stability (natural ability vs mood) -Controllability (effort vs luck)
What is attributional retraining in the Attributional theory (Weiner, 1979)?
(Theories of attribution)
-People are encouraged to make more optimistic attributions. -Outcomes are controllable and success are attributed to internal causes
Describe the Correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis, 1965)
In attribution heuristics, what are heuristics considered as (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) ?
-Cognitive shortcuts to avoid effort and resource expenditure -Uses rule of thumb not complex mental judgement
What are the 3 types of heuristics?
Availability
Representative
Anchoring/adjustment
What is the Availability heuristic?
Judge probability/frequency by how easy it is to think of examples (memory accessibility).
What is the representative heuristic?
Categorise based on similarity between instance and prototypical category members by allocating set of attributes.
What is the Anchoring/adjustment heuristic?
Starting point/initial standard influences subsequent judgements.
Describe the Correspondence inference theory (Jones & Davis, 1965)
Uses 5 cues to determine if behaviour is internally or externally caused
-Does the act reflect the true characteristics of a person
What are 5 cues of the Correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis, 1965)?
-Act was freely chosen
-Act produced a non-common effect
-Not socially desirable
-Hedonic relevance
-Personalism
What is a criticism of the Correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis, 1965)?
It is overly focused on internal attribution
What are the 3 thinking/rationalising types?
Naive scientist
Biased/Intuitionist
Cognitive miser
How does a naive scientist think?
They are rational and scientific like in making cause and effect attributions
How does a biased/intuitionist think?
Info is limited so driven by motivations which leads to errors and biases
How does a cognitive miser think?
Use the least complex and demanding information processing so leads to cognitive short cuts
