Lesson 4: Automaticity

Question 1

What is the humonculus?

Answer 1

People believed there was a little person in the head that governed our decisions

Question 2

What is automaticity?

Answer 2

Control of one’s internal psychological processes by external stimuli and events in one’s immediate environment, often without knownledge or awareness of control

Question 3

What are two features of automatic processes?

Answer 3

1. Skill acquisition
   - intentional but without effort. Requires an act of will
   - practice over time (ex: driving a car)
2. Preconscious or low conscious processing
   - without effort but also without intention or awareness

Question 4

What is ideomotor action?

Answer 4

Merely thinking about an action increases its likelihood of occurring

Question 5

What are dual process models?

Answer 5

Automatic and controlled processes
- even when we know prime is irrelevant we can still have an effect biasing our judgment

Question 6

What is the covariation principle?

Answer 6

We try to determine what causes - internal or external - “covary” with what we’re trying to explain

Question 7

What is the discounting principle?

Answer 7

Our confidence that a particular cause is responsible for a given outcome will be rediced if there are other plausible causes that might have produced the same outcome

Question 8

What is emotional amplification?

Answer 8

When an emotion reaction tends to be more intense if the event almost didn’t happen

Question 9

What is the self-serving attributional bias?

Answer 9

People are inclined to attribute their fialures and other bad events to external circumstances, but to attribute their successes and other good events to themselves

Question 10

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 10

The tendency to attribute people’s behavior to their character or personality even when powerful situational forces are acting to produce that behavior

Question 11

What is the primacy effect?

Answer 11

When the information presented first exerts the most influence
- occurs most when the information is ambiguous

Question 12

What is the recency effect?

Answer 12

When the information presented last has the most impact

Question 13

What are the types of framing?

Answer 13

1. Spin framing: using particular vocabulary to influence people
2. Positive and negative framing: 25% fat vs 75% meat
3. Temporal framing: abstract ideas seem more attainable than concrete ideas

Question 14

What is the confirmation bias?

Answer 14

When people seek confirming information rather than information that would contradict the proposition

Question 15

What is the overconfidence bias?

Answer 15

The tendency for individuals to have greater confidence in their judgments ad decisions than their actual accuracy merits

Question 16

What is motivated confirmation bias?

Answer 16

Information that supports what a person wants to be true is readily accepted, whereas information that contradicts what the person would like to believe is subjected to critical scrutiny and often discounted

Question 17

What is top-down processing? Down-up processing?

Answer 17

Top-down: filters and interprets bottom-up stimuli in light of preexisting knowledge and expectation
Bottom-up: takes in relevant stimuli from the outside world

Question 18

What are heuristics?

Answer 18

Mental shortcuts that provide serviceable, if usually rather inexact, answers to common problem of judgment

Question 19

What are explanations for habits?

Answer 19

1. Direct context cueing (repeated coactivation)
2. Motivated contexts
3. Implicit goals

Question 20

How do we lessen habits?

Answer 20

Effortful inhibition to change patterns & alter or avoid exposure to cues

Question 21

What is mimicry?

Answer 21

Involuntarily mimicking someone else
- perceptions of the behavior of one’s interaction partner leads directly to tendencies to behave that way oneself

Question 22

Why do we nonconsciously mimic?

Answer 22

Creating affiliation and rapport
- being mimicked has similar effects: promoting closeness, rapport, liking, helping

Question 23

What is the auto-motive model?

Answer 23

Goals can be activated or triggered by environmental stimuli
- without consciously intending, choosing, or being aware of the operation of the goal within the situation
- because the individual has frequently and consistently chosen that goal within that situation
- the more often the situation/environment triggers the goal, the more automatic it will become

Question 24

How does a relationship influence goal commitment?

Answer 24

By thinking of the person (priming), you will continue goal
- stronger effect if few goals are associated with that person

Question 25

What is a private audience?

Answer 25

Different people in our lives that we think about from time to time during our every day lives that can influence our train of thought and behavior

Question 26

Does subliminal persuasion operate in the context of having a goal to be satisfied?

Answer 26

Yes, if you are in a state that you are receptive to subliminal persuasion
- things in the environment matter, but it helps if they are in accord with our current goals

Question 27

Why is automaticity important in our every day lives?

Answer 27

Lightens the load: saves mental energy
- but it can be applied inappropriately (not thinking about things = bias)