Social Cognition

Question 1

social cognition

Answer 1

• how we make sense of the world around us
• Our subjective perception of the world can be very different than what’s actually happening (ex. Gorilla switch)
• Predicting behaviour involves figuring out the way people perceive situations

Question 2

2 systems of thought

Answer 2

reason and intuition

Question 3

schemas

Answer 3

• Mental maps
  Organized set of expectations about the way the world works
• Can shape our perceptions of other people (ex. Guest lecturer warm vs. Cold)
• Can alter reality (self-fulfilling prophecy… ex. “bloomers” study) and lead us astray (ex. Map misprints)

Question 4

heuristics

Answer 4

• Mental shortcuts for quick judgments

- ex. Availability heuristic, anchoring and adjustment, representativeness

Question 5

availability heuristic/bias

Answer 5

• making judgments based on how easily something comes to mind/how easy it is to recall (ex. Feeling like sharks are more dangerous because vivid examples of shark attacks easily come to mind; graph showing MOP failures)
• Sometimes correct and helpful, but sometimes wrong; we fail to consider what info may be missing (ie. when is MOP successful)

Question 6

anchoring and adjustment

Answer 6

• starting with a number in mind and adjust (up or down) from this point
• gives us an approximate idea of what the correct answer is, but we often fail to adjust as much as needed
• ex. Putting limits on number of soup cans you can buy increases the amount they purchase -> that limit provides an anchor
• ex. Random dice rolls anchored sentences judges gave out

Question 7

representativeness

Answer 7

• When people make predictions based on the degree event A resembles/represents event B
• If A is highly representative of B, the probability that A originates B is judged to be high (and vice versa)
• • Ex. If you hear that Steve is shy, meek, orderly, and detailed, and then you had to guess what his career was (either librarian, salesman, or farmer), most would choose librarian
• • This is because we assess how similar he is to the stereotype of a librarian

Question 8

potential issues with representativeness

Answer 8

• insensitivity to sample size: larger the sample size, the more average the result (many people don’t realize this)
• misconceptions of chance: Believing that a randomly-generated sequence of events will represent the essential characteristics of that process
• • Ex. Believing that if there’s a long run of red on a roulette wheel, most people believe black is now due -> would create a more representative sequence & restore “equilibrium”
• misconceptions of regression: People tend to regress towards the mean, but we either don’t expect it or tend to come up with alternative explanations for it