Social Beliefs and Judgements Flashcards
What is priming?
Activating associations in memory
* Major part of classical conditioning
* Stimulus primes the response
- Pavlov: The bell primes the dog to salivate
* Priming can work at subconscious levels…
What is subliminal messaging?
Sensory stimuli (PRIMING) below an individual’s threshold for conscious perception (subconscious)
* Subliminal PERCEPTION is a evidenced thing
* Subliminal advertising doesn’t have evidence to support change in consumer behaviour
However: research has shown that subliminal priming can influence behaviour but only when already motivated (eg. ‘thirst’ primes when already thirsty)
What is categorical thinking (how do we perceive events)
Using social cues to categorise - this is how we understand social cues:
Receive information –> categorisation of event –> event is understood
Fallibilities of our perception: What is belief perseverance?
When we create beliefs in our mind they can be really strong - they can outlast contradictory follow-up information that we receive
* MUCH STRONGER evidence needed to correct our false belief/the false explanation that we give ourselves
Fallibilities of our perception: constructing and reconstructing memories !
- Reconstructing memories
We reconstruct our past by using our current feelings to combine memory fragments- We are constantly reinterpreting our memories based on what is going on around us
- Constructing memories
We are highly susceptible to influence.
* Can lead to constructing false memories
Given what we know about unreliable memories, how should investigations incorporate witnesses? If so, how?
Interview ASAP away from other witnesses
Context dependency
Non-leading questions
–> remember: Loftus and Palmer, and Memon and Higham
Compare automatic v controlled processing
Automatic Processing
–> Maybe rooted in subconscious bias
–> Controls majority of behaviour - BUT it can make some errors
–> Typically for routine/well-learned behaviours
Controlled Processing
–> Slow and effortful deliberate way of thinking
–> Requires conscious attention
–> Important in second-guessing a lot of our initiations (instinct feelings) - eg. these automatic biases
–> Is this thought/feeling rooted in some subconscious bias?
–> Beware: Implicit Bias
Outline the following schemas: self, person, role, event
Schemas are cognitive frameworks that help us organize and interpret information based on past experiences.
Role Schemas: Mental structures about how individuals in specific SOCIAL roles (e.g., teacher, doctor) are expected to behave, based on societal norms.
Self Schemas: Representations of one’s OWN traits, behaviors, and characteristics that shape how we perceive and evaluate ourselves.
Person Schemas: Frameworks about specific INDIVIDUALS or types of people, including their traits, behaviors, and relationships (e.g., a “friendly neighbor” schema).
Event Schemas (Scripts): Cognitive guides for understanding how EVENTS typically unfold in specific CONTEXTS, like dining at a restaurant or attending a meeting.
What is overconfidence (include: remedies)
The tendency to be more CONFIDENT than correct
* Incompetence feeds overconfidence - people who are less likely to know about something, are more likely to be confident that they are right
* Our ignorance of our ignorance sustains our self confidence
–> We can’t know what we don’t know
Remedies for overconfidence
1. Seek immediate FEEDBACK - update your know
2. BREAK tasks down into smaller parts
3. Play devils’ advocate - come up with ALTERNATIVE explanations - what might happen if?
What are heuristics (include: representativeness, recognition and availability)
Heuristics: thinking strategies that enable quick and efficient judgements
–> Heuristics produce schemas (cognitive frameworks for information organisation)
Representative - people judge the likelihood of an event based on how similar it appears to a prototype (often ignores statistics)
Availability - the assumption that what comes to mind most easily is more commonplace
Recognition - to assume that what is easily recognised is important
What are biases (including: priming, belief perseverance, misinformation, intuition, overconfidence, confirmation)
Bias: when our assumptions and prejudgements guide our perceptions of the social world
Priming - the activation of learned or experienced associations in memory
Belief Perseverance - the persistence of one’s initial conceptions
Misinformation effect - the incorporation of false information into memory, guided by assumed relevance/appropriateness
Intuition - when past learning/experiences can cause us to process information automatically
Overconfidence - to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and memory
Confirmation Bias - to search for information that confirms preconceptions (and ignoring disconfirming information)
What is attribution theory (and how does it work) !
Attribution Theory: How people explain others’ behaviour; by attributing it to internal dispositions or external situations.
Explanations for Attribution Theory
- Fritz Heider’s (1958) ‘theory of naïve psychology’
* We assume people’s behavior is motivated and intentional, not random (people are always doing things on purpose)
– Leads to more internal attributions - Jones and Davis’s (1965) ‘theory of correspondent inference’
* We assume people’s actions are the result of their intentions and dispositions (stems from who they are as people not external circumstances) - Harold Kelley’s (1973) ‘covariation model’
* We assume internal or external causes based on 3 factors:
a) Consistency: How consistent is the person’s behaviour in this situation?
b) Distinctiveness: How specific is the person’s behaviour to this situation?
Consensus: To what extent do others in this situation behave similarly?
Outline the Fundamental Attribution Error including: !
- actor-observer difference
- false consensus
FAE: Tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others’ behaviour.
Actor-Observer Difference: when you are looking at anothers’ behaviour, we look at the PERSON, whereas when we’re considering our own behaviour we are focused on the environment
False consensus effect: assuming that people behave/have the same perspective like we do
What is the Just World Hypothesis !
Just World Hypothesis is the belief that the world is FAIR and individuals get what they deserve, leading people to attribute outcomes (positive or negative) to others’ behavior, often reinforcing a sense of personal responsibility or blame.
Our Just World Hypothesis is affected by
– Proximity - if we’re close to people, we’re less likely to think that bad things happen for a reason
– Empathy - less judging of a person’s circumstance
– Personality characteristics
* Value security, conformity, & conscientiousness - more likely to buy into the just world hypothesis
– Locus of control - whether you have an internal v external locus
Attributional Complexity - how do we avoid attributional error !
SUMMARY
- get an interest in behaviour, look to be complex, think about cognition, consider geography and time, consider chains of reasoning as to why things occur
- Level of interest or motivation.
- People with higher motivation or interest in understanding behavior are more likely to consider situational factors when attributing causes.
- Have a preference for complex rather than simple explanations
- Individuals who prefer complex explanations are more likely to recognize multiple causes (e.g., environmental, situational) rather than simplistic internal traits.
- Presence of metacognition concerning explanations.
- People who reflect deeply on their attributions are more likely to recognize the role of situational factors and avoid simplistic internal explanations (look to the deeper reasons)
- Awareness of the extent to which people’s behaviour is a function of interaction with others.
- Higher attributional complexity involves an understanding of how behavior is influenced by social interactions and external contexts.
- Tendency to infer abstract or causally complex internal attributions.
- Associated with a greater likelihood of linking cause chains together (eg. someone’s shy, which may mean they’re anxious, which may mean they have insomnia, which explains why they may be irritable and tired)
- Tendency to infer external causes operating at a spatial distance
- Understanding that events occurring in different geographic locations can influence behavior, highlighting broader contextual factors.
- Tendency to infer external causes operating at a TEMPORAL distance.
*Recognizing that past events, even if distant in time, can still influence current behavior through long-term effects.
Fletcher and his colleagues (1986) found that psychology students explained behaviour less simplistically than natural science students
