Social cognition Flashcards
define social cognition
Describes the way people encode, process, remember, and use information in social contexts to make sense of other’s behaviour
what motives influence choice
- Need for accurate knowledge
- Need for closure
Need to confirm what one already believes
what is a cognitive system
A conscious, rational, and controlled system of thinking
Think critically, plan behaviour, and make deliberate decisions
what is an experiential system
An unconscious, intuitive, and automatic system of thinking
Guided by automatic “gut reactions” or implicit associations
what system uses heuristics
experiential system
what are dual processing theories
Theories that are used to explain a wide range of phenomena by positing two ways of processing information
what are heuristics
- Mental shortcuts, or rules of thumb, that are used for making judgments and decisions
Influence judgment in certain situations
what is myopia in social psychology
self-preservation is prioritised
what is an availability heuristic
The tendency to judge the frequency or probability of an event in terms of how easy it is to think of examples of that event
what is availability heuristic related to
the concept of accessibility
what is the representativeness heuristic
the tendency to overestimate the likelihood that a target is part of a larger category if it has features that represent category
what is related to representativeness heuristic
stereotypes and prototypes
what is base rate fallacy
tendency to ignore statistical and relevant info in favour of representativeness information
what is prototypicality
Extent features of an object, place, or person match the expectations of the “typical” exemplar in your mind
benefits of using heuristics
No time constraints
Limits cognitive overload
define attitudes
Emotional reactions to people, objects, and ideas - often hold emotional valence
what are explicit attitudes
Attitudes people are consciously aware of through the cognitive systems
how are explicit attitudes typically measured
self report measures e.g. questionnaires
what are implicit attitudes
Automatic associations that make up the experiential system
learnt from culture and media
how are implicit attitudes typically assessed
Implicit and behavioural measures
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Naturalistic observation
how do we measure attitudes
- Self-report on attitude scales
- Observation of behaviour
- Physiological measures e.g. EEG
-Accuracy and reaction times e.g. implicit association test
why do implicit measures yield different results from self -reports
Due to social desirability bias playing a role
what is an implicit association test
- Captures associations in memory
- Assumption these are automatic
- Interpreted as implicit preferences or attitudes
what results are seen in implicit association tests
When two concepts are associated it is easy to respond quickly and correctly when categorizing
When two concepts are not associated it is difficult to respond quickly and correctly when categorizing
what are automatic processes
Performing behaviour without much conscious attention
what do control processes involve
Overrides experiential system/automatic processes when appropriate
Cognitive processing
Explicit attitudes
why is automaticity not always bad
-Unconscious mind wandering can help generate creative ideas
-Intuition can facilitate sound decisions without much effort
control process failing in PFC damage patients
During a gambling game with high and low-risk deck of cards, most learn to avoid these risky choices.
damage to the PFC do not learn to avoid the risk
what conditions are necessary for an experiential system override
Awareness
Motivation
Ability
example of error in facilitated communication
Initially seemed to provide children with severe autism with a method for communicating with others
Eventually discredited after it was discovered that the adult facilitators were unconsciously shaping messages that the children typed out
what is a schema
A mental structure, stored in memory, that is based on prior knowledge; pattern of learned associations
define categories
Mental “containers” in which we place things that are similar
what is a script
Schemas that represent knowledge about events
what is an impression
Schemas that represent knowledge about people
are schemas universal
Concept of schemas is culturally universal - however content and structure is determined by culture
impacts of schemas - accessibility
The ease with which people can bring an idea into consciousness and use it in thinking
impacts of schemas - salience
The extent a schema is active in one’s mind which may consciously or unconsciously alter their perceptions and behaviour
impacts of schemas - priming
The process by which exposure to a stimulus in the environment increases the salience of a schema
what are associative networks
Models for how pieces of information are linked together and stored in memory
define semantic associations
Mental links between two concepts that are similar in meaning or that are parts of the same category.
define experimental associations
Mental links between two concepts that are experienced close together in time or space.
what does priming do
Activates information to change behaviour
Conscious or unconscious
impacts of schemas on memory
When recalling events, we may rely on schema to fill in gaps
While typically accurate… it may lead to inaccurate memories
what did Loftus find
prime impacts recall of EWT e.g. crash vs bump
effects of negative moods
self-focused, less interested in others
effects of positive moods
other-focused, more interested in others
