lecture 3 Flashcards
what is regression toward the average?
rare things that occur will return to baseline
ex: if mama births a 7 foot man, its likely her next child will only be like 5’5 (average)
differentiate base rate fallacy and availability heuristic using examples
fear of flying vs driving:
we are more afraid of flying because of plane crashes, despite the fact that the base rate of car crashes is much higher (so that is the base rate fallacy, we be wrong)
why do we think that though? because the image and intensity of a plane crash is much more available in our minds, as they are always on the media (car accidents are not) and extremely devastating (so this is availability heuristic, its more available to our brains)
what is an example of illusion of control?
gamblers fallacy:
you flip a coin a bunch of times, it keeps giving you tails. what do you think it’ll be next?
you would likely say it’ll be heads
thus, illusion of control is the perception of uncontrollable events as subject to our control
what is an illusory correlation? give an example.
finding relationships where none exist
ex: finding coincidences (like I brought a rabbit foot to my bingo game and I won so it must be goodluck, ima bring it again)
what is counterfactual thinking? give an example.
imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that may have happened, but did not
ex: in Olympics, the gold medalist is obvi happiest, but bronze is 2nd happiest. the silver guy is upset about “what could have been” and the bronze guy is just happy he got a medal lol
what is the difference between representativeness heuristic and availability heuristic?
rep heuristic is a snap judgement if someone/something fits into a category
availability heuristic is a snap judgement of the likelihood of an event based on how available it is in our memory
what is belief perserverance?
persistence of belief even in the face of disconfirming evidence
what is the misinformation effect?
incorporating misinformation into ones memory of an event after receiving misleading info
can lead to false memories
example: did you see “the knife” vs “a knife”, if u hear the first one you are more likely to have a false memory bc they r implying a knife existed on the crime scene (even if it didn’t)
what is unconscious transference? describe it using an example discussed in class.
an example of this is seen in wrongful convictions due to misidentification, aka memory construction!
- woman got raped and had to pick from a line up of men who were potential suspects
- she couldn’t pick anyone, wasn’t sure, but a guy named Ronald was in that lineup
- some weeks later, she had another line up to pick from, and Ronald was in this lineup again
- since she saw him before (in the line up) she said he was the rapist (bc she remembered the face, but she was not aware it was from the lineup)
- it wasn’t him tho! when she did finally meet her real rapist + he got convicted, she was like damn i dont even recognize this dude (its kinda crazy, but it was confirmed w DNA)
give an example of priming
you watch a scary movie, and now that the movie is over you interpret random household creaks and noises as an intruder (you are primed for this fear spooky stuff)
describe the steps of self fulfilling prophecy using the teacher and smart student example.
- teachers expectation: Rena’s older brother was super smart, so Rena must be smart too.
- teachers behaviour: smiling more at Rena, calling on her more, etc
3: student’s behaviour: Rena responds enthusiastically to this attention, is given more chances to give answers (so naturally ‘seems’ smarter than others even if she isnt)
- this confirms the teachers expectations and reinforces them
how do attributions impact our reactions? explain this using the example diagram from lecture slides
negative reaction (a man is rude to colleague)
DIRECTION OPTION ONE:
- distributional attribution (the man is a hostile person)
- unfavorable reaction: (i dont like this man)
DIRECTION OPTION TWO:
- situational attribution (the man was given an unfair evaluation)
- symptomatic reaction (i can understand)
