Social Beliefs and Judgements - Week 2 Ch3 Flashcards
system 1 vs system 2
System 1
○ Automatically and out of our awareness (intuition/gut feeling)
○ Influences more actions than we realize
occasional error
System 2
○ Requires conscious attention and effort
controlled
Priming
a part of system 1 thinking
awakening/activation of certain associations in memory systems
how our prejudgements affect thoughts - how we perceive and interpret information
how we think about X influences judgements regarding X
ex. subliminal stimuli (frowning Pope at Catholic women)
change blindness
our brain processes very little of what comes through the eye
miss large changes to our visual world easily
likely due to attention to features
schemas
mental structures that organize knowledge
guides perception and interpretation of information
examples of automatic thinking
schemas
emotional reactions
expertise (skills can start as controlled but make their way to automatic)
routine cognitive functions
why are schemas important
they reduce amount of info to process
they reduce ambiguity
faster recall and understanding of info
guide our attention and encoding (what we notice, speed, and what we remember)
embodied priming/cognition
the influence on body sensations on cognitive preferences or social judgements
talk to someone with a cold personality, the room feels colder
Overconfidence Basics
Cognitive Systems & Errors: System 1 makes quick, intuitive judgments but can be wrong, leading to overconfidence.
I-Knew-It-All-Along Phenomenon: We tend to believe we knew the outcome all along and overestimate future success, even after past failures.
Consequences of Overconfidence: Overprecision can lead to mistakes, missing opportunities, or underestimating risks, even among experts.
Causes of Overconfidence
ncompetence Feeds Overconfidence: Those with less skill tend to be the most overconfident.
Dunning-Kruger Effect: Beginners overestimate their abilities due to lack of knowledge.
Perception Gaps: Others’ perceptions of us are often more accurate than our own.
Overconfidence & Future Events: Confidence is higher for distant events (e.g., exams) but becomes more accurate as the moment approaches.
Confirmation Bias:
We seek information that supports our beliefs and avoid contradicting info, leading to overconfidence.
combat overconfidence by
Avoiding Overconfidence: Slow down, seek feedback, and critically think of why judgments might be wrong.
-system 2
Feedback: Regular, clear feedback (like weather forecasts) can reduce overconfidence.
heuristic
Mental shortcuts: simple-efficient thinking strategies
Representativeness heuristic
To judge something by intuitively comparing it to our mental representation of a category is to use the representativeness heuristic
○ Typicalness
§ Tends to reflect reality, but not always (don’t assume!)
Availability heuristic
If knowledge is readily available in our memory, we tend to presume that the event or concept is commonplace
People are slow to deduce particular examples from a general truth, but are very quick to infer general truth from a vivid example
easy to picture events seem more likely than harder to picture events
what is counterfactual thinking
happens when we are thinking of what could have been
- feelings of regret, frustration and relief
-may act differently next time
occurs when we can easily picture a different outcome
more significant and unlikely the event, the stronger this is
Illusory correlation
perception of a relationship/correlation of some kind where there isnt (we think of a friend and they call)
perceive the relationship as stronger than it is - easily associate random events
people act as if they can control/predict chance events
how do judgements/preconceptions affect how we process/interpret events
before-the-fact judgments bias our perceptions and interpretations, so, too, after-the-fact judgments bias our recall
what is an example of the illusion of control
regression to the average
-performance whether good or bad will regress towards the mean
Belief perseverance
the phenomenon in which people cling to their initial beliefs and the reasons why a belief might be true, even when the basis for the belief is discredited.
can memories change?
yes
as we recall them, they are vulnerable to information and judgements we have in the moment
misinformation effect: incorporate misinformation into memories to suit current knowledge
attribution theory
a group of theories that describe how people xplain causes of behaviour
- typically include situational and dispositional
situational attribution
attribute behaviour to the situation - external
dispositional attribution
attribute behaviour to who you are as a person - internal
Gilberts 2 stage model of attribution
behaviour -> Stage 1: internal attribution -> if we have enough motivation/attention we go to -> Stage 2: consider the situation
