Social Cognition

Question 1

What is social cognition?

Answer 1

People construct their understanding of reality and their mind actively selects pieces of information and organizes these into a knowledge network

Question 2

What are the 3 motives behind thinking?

Answer 2

• Need for accurate knowledge
• Need for closure
• Need to confirm what one already believes

Question 3

What are 2 ways to think about the social world?

Answer 3

Cognitive system
Experiential system

Question 4

What is a cognitive system?

Answer 4

a conscious, rational, and controlled system of thinking

Question 5

What is an experiential system?

Answer 5

an unconscious, intuitive, and automatic system of thinking
- uses heuristics

Question 6

What is the dual process theory?

Answer 6

theories that are used to explain a wide range of phenomena by positing two ways of processing information

Question 7

What are heuristics?

Answer 7

mental shortcuts, or rules of thumb, that are used for making judgments and decisions

Question 8

What are the 2 ways of evaluating something good or bad?

Answer 8

implicit attitudes: automatic associations that make up the experiential system
Explicit attitudes:
Attitudes people are consciously aware of through the cognitive system

Question 9

What is automaticity?

Answer 9

performing behaviour without much conscious effort

Question 10

What is controlled reasoning process?

Answer 10

overriding the experiential system to solve unexpected problems and attain goals

Question 11

What are the conditions necessary for an experiential system override? (3)

Answer 11

• awareness
• motivation
• ability

Question 12

What are the two types of schemas?

Answer 12

scripts:
represent knowledge about events
Impressions:
represent knowledge about people

Question 13

where do schemas come from?

Answer 13

directly
indirectly

Question 14

What is accesibility?

Answer 14

the ease with which people can bring an idea into consciousness and use it in thinking

Question 15

What is salience?

Answer 15

An aspect of a schema that is active in ones mind and, consciously or not, colors perceptions and behaviours

Question 16

what is priming?

Answer 16

The process by which exposure to a stimulus in the environment increases the salience of a schema

Question 17

What are associative networks?

Answer 17

models for how pieces of information are linked together and stored in memory

Question 18

what are the results of priming and behaviour?

Answer 18

largely inconclusive
more rational system may be forced to relinquish to experiential processing when situation is ambiguous or requires quick action

Question 19

what is the confirmation bias?

Answer 19

we tend to seek out and evaluate new information so that it confirms what we already believe or feel

Question 20

can schemas lead to biased efforts to gather information?

Answer 20

yes

Question 21

what is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 21

the phenomenon whereby initially false expectations cause the fulfillment of those expectations
- schemas can create the social reality that one expects

Question 22

when does the confirmation bias not occur?

Answer 22

• when observations dramatically conflict with initial expectations
• when awareness of or concern about the bias exists

Question 23

what is the correlation between priming and motivation?

Answer 23

1. primed ideas do not automatically cause behaviours
2. priming might make some ideas more accessible than others
3. existing motives, goals, and other context matters

Question 24

when are peoples cognitions biased?

Answer 24

• when their motivations to maintain preferred beliefs and attitudes

Question 25

how are moods important to social judgment?

Answer 25

• provides information about the status of things in the immediate environment
• influences motivation level to think about occuring people and events

Question 26

what are good moods associated with?

Answer 26

more heuristic or automatic forms of processing