Social Cognition Flashcards
Are our friends better or worse than us at predicting whether relationships will last?
Better.
What is the relationship between confidence and accuracy when assessing parters?
There is none.
Is believing partnerships are destined adaptive for relationships?
No.
Within the first 5 seconds of meeting someone, what can we determine? (5)
If they are angry, attractive, smart, extroverted, conscientious, etc.
What supplies us with preconceptions about what people are like?
Stereotypes.
When researchers put students together in conversations, how long after did first impressions have an effect?
9 months
What is the primacy effect?
The bias for the information one receives first.
What effect will people hearing about someone’s good traits before their bad ones have?
It will cause them to rationalize their negative characteristics because their first impression is the good traits.
What evidence is there for how perceptions control our interpretation of information?
Participants were shown a video of a girl answering hard questions but getting easy ones wrong. They were told she was either rich or poor, and their preconceived notions about the intelligence of rich/poor people affected how their viewed the girl’s intelligence.
What is confirmation bias?
Seeking information that will prove us right and disregarding information that would prove us wrong.
What study on confirmation bias (confirmatory hypothesis testing) did Snyder and Swann conduct?
Told participants to interview someone and determine if they were extraverted/introverted. They asked questions that would confirm what they were asked to look for.
Why are first impressions so important?
Because the first information both directs our attention to new information, as well as influences our interpretations of new facts.
Where do the most accurate predictions regarding the future of a heterosexual relationship often come from?
The friends of the woman involved.
What explanations are there for why partners cannot accurately judge their relationships?
Because of their busy cognition and romantic frame of mine. Social interaction prevents them from carefully critiquing and correcting their erroneous impressions.
What common bias is present in people’s perceptions of their partners?
Cherrypicking. They judge lovers by positive illusions and consider their faults to be less important.
What are 4 benefits of positive illusions?
You judge partner behaviour in positive ways, are more willing to maintain the relationship, experience higher self-esteem, and revise our ideals of the ideal partner.
What are attributions?
The explanations we generate for why things happen.
What are the 6 characteristics of attributions?
Internal or external, global or specific, and stable or unstable.
What kind of attributions do we make for our partners positive behaviour in a satisfied relationship?
Relationship enhancing attributions: Internal, stable, global.
What kind of attributions do we make for our partners negative behaviour in a satisfied relationship?
Relationship enhancing attributions: External, unstable, specific.
What kind of attributions do we make for our partners positive behaviour in an dissatisfied relationship?
Distress-maintaining attributions: External, unstable, specific.
What kind of attributions do we make for our partners negative behaviour in an dissatisfied relationship?
Distress-maintaining attributions: Internal, stable, global.
What type of attributions do securely attached people tend to make?
Relationship-enhancing attributions.
What type of people are more likely to make distress-maintaining attributions?
Those high in neuroticism.
What is reconstructive memory?
The manner in which our memories are continually raised and rewritten as new information is obtained.
What are joint memories?
Memories that couples typically work together to construct, setting the stage for joint reactions to new events.
What do relationship schemas often include?
Romanticism.
What is romanticism?
The view that love should be the most important basis for choosing a mate.
What are 5 beliefs in romanticism?
Love will be perfect, each person only has one “true” love, true love will overcome any obstacle, and love is possible at first sight.
What are 6 examples of dysfunctional beliefs?
Disagreements are destructive, “mind reading” is essential, parters cannot change, sex should be perfect every time, men and women are different, and great relationships just happen.
What are destiny beliefs?
When partners assume that two people are either well-suited for each other and destined to live happily ever after, or they’re not.
What are growth beliefs?
Partners assume that happy relationships are the result of hard work.
What are the two functions that our self-concepts try to fulfill during social interaction?
Self-enhancement and self-verification.
What is self-enhancement?
People seek feedback from others that will enhance their self-concepts and allow them tot think of themselves as desirable, attractive, competent people.
What is self-verification?
We want feedback that sustains and is consistent with our existing self-concepts.
How do self-concepts affect our choice of partners?
People seek intimate partners who support their existing self-concepts, good or bad. I.e., people with negative self-concepts would rather have a roommate that dislikes them.
Why do people seek to confirm their self-concepts?
Because it helps them ward off anxiety and believe that the world is a predictable place.
What does impression management involve?
Selective revealing to others.
What ar the 4 strategies of impression management?
Ingratiation, self-promotion, intimidation, and supplication.
What is ingratiation?
Doing favours, paying compliments, mentioning areas of agreement, and acting charming in order to get others to like us.
What is self-promotion?
Recounting our accomplishments or strategically arranging public demonstrations of our skills.
What is intimidation?
Portraying oneself as dangerous or menacing so that others will do their bidding. May damage relationships.
What is supplication?
Presenting oneself as inept or infirm in order to avoid obligations and to elicit help and support from others.
What are the general preferences for impression management strategies?
People will not use intimidation or supplication if ingratiation or self-promotion would work. But almost everyone uses intimidation and supplication at some point.
What are three reasons for why intimate partners put less effort into their impression management around each other?
Less motivation to be charming and win approval, less we can do to affect what they think, or people get lazy.
When in intimate relationships, how do people treat their partner’s images?
As part of their own.
Which sex is better at judging their partners? Why might this be?
Women. Possible because they have more motivation to want to understand their relationships.
What can affect a woman’s motivation to understand others?
Her menstrual cycle.
What is emotional intelligence?
A set of abilities that describes a person’s talents in perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions.
Men who are better able to interpret women’s emotions are also more likely to what?
Be more satisfied with their marriage.
Men who more often read hostility and criticism are more likely to what?
Beat their wives.
Which attachment style is most accurate at judging their partners?
Preoccupied attachment.
