Lecture 6 - Social cognition and social perception

Question 1

Social cognition

Answer 1

The ways in which people think about and make sense of other people, themselves, and social situations
- Involves cognitive processing

Question 2

Adaptive unconscious

Answer 2

Mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgments, feelings, or behavior

Question 3

Implication of adaptive unconscious

Answer 3

Consciously, we may have little or not direct introspection for our thoughts, feelings, or motivations

Question 4

Mental control

Answer 4

The ability to control one’s own thoughts

Question 5

Two Processes of Mental Control

Answer 5

1. Monitoring process

2. Operating process

Question 6

Monitoring process

Answer 6

Process of mental control

• An automatic process
• Searches for failures of mental control

Question 7

Operating process

Answer 7

Process of mental control

• A conscious process
• When mental control fails, the operating process provides replacement thoughts (distractors)

Question 8

Ironic effects of mental control

Answer 8

• The automatic monitoring process increases the accessibility of the unwanted thoughts
• If the controlled operating process fails, the result Is an increase in the unwanted thoughts

Question 9

The conscious, effortful operating process may fail if:

Answer 9

• heavy mental load (cognitively taxed)
• tired
• distracted
• Anytime you are not motivated or able to engage the operating process

Question 10

Chameleon Effect

Answer 10

The tendency to unconsciously mimic the behavior of an interaction partner

Question 11

Adaptive aspects of the chameleon effect

Answer 11

When others mimic your behaviors, you:

• Think that the interaction went smoothly
• Like the interaction partner

Question 12

Ideomotor Action

Answer 12

“Thinking” about a behavior increases the likelihood of that behavior occurring

Question 13

When is behavior automatically influenced by the context?

Answer 13

• The automatically activated behavior is applicable to the situation
• Effort is not made to consciously override that automatic influences

Question 14

Impression formation

Answer 14

Process by which a person integrates various sources of information of others into an overall judgment

Question 15

People tend to weigh information more heavily if it:

Answer 15

• Is learned first (The Primacy Effect)
• Is negative
• Describes unusual or extreme characteristics

Question 16

Expectations of a group or person influence:

Answer 16

o Attention – what we attend to
o Memory
o Information processing
o Behavior

Question 17

How do schemas infl our interaction w the social world?

Answer 17

• Confirmation Bias – Look for info that confirms that schema
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Primacy Effect

Question 18

Confirmation bias

Answer 18

The tendency to search for only expectancy-consistent information

Question 19

Belief perseverance

Answer 19

We act towards others in a manner that is consistent with what we already believe

Question 20

Causal attributions

Answer 20

The process by which people use information to make inferences about the causes of behaviors or events

Question 21

Heider’s (1958) Theory of Attribution

Answer 21

People act like “naïve scientists” in their attempt to explain behaviors or events
- Two types

Question 22

Types of attributions

Answer 22

1. Internal (personal)

2. External (Situational)

Question 23

Internal attribution

Answer 23

Personal

- An attribution that assigns the cause of behavior to an internal characteristic of a person

Question 24

External attribution

Answer 24

Situational

- An attribution that assigns the cause of behavior to a situation or event external to a person

Question 25

Jones’s Correspondence Inference Theory

Answer 25

When observing an actor perform a single behavior, people try to determine if the behavior corresponds to a stable personal characteristic of the actor

Question 26

People are likely to make a correspondent (dispositional) inference if the behavior:

Answer 26

o Is perceived to be freely chosen
o Is socially undesirable
o Results in unique (non-common) effects

Question 27

Discounting and Augmentation applies to situations in which

Answer 27

a person views an individual perform one behavior in one situation

Question 28

Discounting principle

Answer 28

• If there are multiple explanations for a behavior, each explanation is discounted
• An adjustment away from a dispositional attribution

Question 29

Augmentation principle

Answer 29

• If a behavior occurs despite the presence of inhibitory factors, the explanation for that behavior is augmented
• An adjustment toward an even more dispositional attribution

Question 30

Kelley’s (1971) Covariation Model

Answer 30

For something to be the cause of behavior:

1. It must be present when the behavior occurs
2. It must not be present when the behavior does not occur

Question 31

Kelley’s covariation model - When people make an attribution, they look for three kinds of information

Answer 31

1. Consensus info
2. Consistency info
3. Distinctiveness info

Question 32

Consensus info

Answer 32

• How would most people act in the situation?

- Less likely to make a dispositional attribution

Question 33

Consistency info

Answer 33

• How does the person act in the same situation, but at another time?
• More likely to ascribe that to some form of disposition

Question 34

Distinctiveness info

Answer 34

How does the person act in other situations?

Question 35

Attribution biases

Answer 35

Theories of attribution assume that people logically, rationally evaluate information to make an attribution - but # of biases

Question 36

Correspondence bias

Answer 36

The tendency to attribute behavior of others to internal causes rather than to external causes (“Fundamental Attribution Error”)

Question 37

Explanation for correspondence bias

Answer 37

1. Perceptual Salience
   - People stand out more as causes of events than situations
2. Dispositional inferences can be comforting
   - “Just-World Hypothesis”

Question 38

Actor-observer bias

Answer 38

People tend to attribute their own behavior to external causes
But tend to attribute others’ behavior to internal causes bc of perceptual salience

Question 39

Self-serving bias

Answer 39

People tend to attribute positive events to internal causes and negative events to external causes
- bc enhances and protects self-esteem

Question 40

Counterfactual thinking

Answer 40

The tendency to evaluate events based on what could have happened

Question 41

Factors affecting counterfactual thinking

Answer 41

Any factor that makes it easier to imagine an event not happening will lead to larger effect of counterfactual thinking

Question 42

Counterfactual thinking - what could have happened affects:

Answer 42

o Attributions
o Emotional Reactions
o Regret

Question 43

Positive psychology

Answer 43

Area of psychology that focuses on what makes people happy and how optimism and happiness affect how people think and act

Question 44

Cognitive heuristics

Answer 44

Area of psychology that focuses on what makes people happy and how optimism and happiness affect how people think and act

Question 45

Representative heuristic

Answer 45

Instances that resemble stereotyped expectations are judged to be likely

Question 46

Availability heuristic

Answer 46

How easily you can mentally draw images of something will influence how you in turn judge it
- How easy it is to think of examples of the event

Question 47

Causes of the availability heuristic

Answer 47

o Content of recalled information

o Ease of recalling information

Question 48

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Answer 48

• People begin with a rough estimation as the starting point fr a judgment (an anchor)
• People then adjust the estimate based on the characteristics of the situation

Question 49

False consensus effect

Answer 49

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others agree with us