Social Cognition

Question 1

Cognition

Answer 1

1. how we acquire, store, retrieve and use information

2. cognitive processes and structures that influence and are influenced by others behavior

Question 2

gestalt psychology

Answer 2

social behavior = function of peoples perception of their world and their how they manipulated their perceptions

Question 3

cognitive consistency

Answer 3

maintaining their cognitive consistency.
reducing discrepancies between their different believes
- discrepancies are unpleasant

Question 4

Cognitive miser

Answer 4

people using the least complex and demanding cognitions to develop generally adaptive behavior

Question 5

motivated tactician

Answer 5

people have different cognitive strategies

use depends on goal, motives and needs

Question 6

Asch’s gestalt based configural model

Answer 6

central traits= traits that have an higher influence on the final impression making
peripheral traits= traits have less influence on the final impression making result

e.g. warm/cold - central trait dimension
polite/blund - peripheral traits

two main dimension
1. good/bad (social) 2. good/bad (intellectual)

Question 7

Primacy effect

Answer 7

traits that are presented first influence the final impression making
- presenting positive information first - favorable evaluation

Question 8

recency effect

Answer 8

later information has more than the earlier presented one (e.g. overload, tiered, to many stimuli)

Question 9

Positivity and Negativity

Answer 9

Absence of information - assuming the best of others = positive impression
! Biased towards negativity

Question 10

Physical appearance

Answer 10

primacy effect: appearance gives us an accurate first impression of someone

Question 11

schema

Answer 11

cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus including it attributes and the relation among these attributes

tendency to fill in gaps with prior knowledge and preconceptions, rather than seeking new information

Question 12

personal construct

Answer 12

Personal way of characterizing people and

Question 13

Types of schema

Answer 13

1. persons schema (structures about a specific person
2. role schema (structures about specific occupants e.g pilot)
3. scripts( schemas about an event (e.g. eating out in an restaurant
4. content frees schemas ( A likes B, P likes A, B also should like a - balance theory
5. self-schemas (about yourself, representing and storing information about yourself)

Question 14

Category

Answer 14

based on religion, nationality, occupants

- referring through prototypes and exemplars

Question 15

Prototype

Answer 15

most representative example of category

• attributions varying in instances = some overall fit better than others
• more prototypical of a category
• simple classification of people

Question 16

Fuzzy set

Answer 16

different instances within a category centered around a prototype
e.g. teacher; existing prototype (glasses)
other instances; young dynamic teacher
- both fitting in one category

Question 17

Exemplars

Answer 17

specific instances of a member of a category (e.g. Americans =Barack Obama)

Question 18

How do we get schemas?

Answer 18

• prior knowledge (modified/constructed -encounters with category instances
• more abstract - more linked /encountered instances
• higher complexity - linked to more instances
• higher complexity - more organized/ links
• higher organization- compact schemas (single- mental construct

Question 19

What is social encoding?

Answer 19

social stimuli are represented in the mind of the individual

1. Pre- attentive analysis (scanning )
2. Focal attention (identification and categorization of stimuli)
3. Comprehension (giving meaning - how to behave)
4. Elaborative reasoning (linking to other knowledge

Question 20

What captures attention?

Answer 20

1. Salience (outstanding stimuli to other stimuli)
   e. g. men in a group of only women
2. vividness: (emotionally interesting, provoking, proximity
3. Accessibility ( automatic primed - how we process new information)

Question 21

Organization of memory

Answer 21

social memory divided in

1. person memory: more accurate person memory
   - easier to recall (familiar people)
2. Group membership: encounters with strangers
   - stereotypical attributes (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity)

Question 22

What is Social inference ?

Answer 22

inference process = identifying, sampling, combining information to form impressions

Question 23

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 23

overestimate internal attributions

underestimate situational/external factors

Question 24

Kelley’s attribution theory/ covariation model

Answer 24

combination of internal/external factors
Types of information
1. Consistency: Does harry smile at the blond cashier or only today ?
2. Distinctiveness: Does Harry smile at all cashiers or only the blond one
3. Consensus: Does everyone smile at the blond cashier or just harry

Question 25

Correspondent inference theory (Keith)

Answer 25

certain behavior is connected to certain personality - internally attributions - dispositional traits - not considering situational factors (external attributions) -preference for internal attributions 1

Question 26

Reasons for correspondent attribution

Answer 26

- freely chosen behavior - exclusive behavior - highly personalized behavior - low in social desirability - hedonic relevance

Question 27

outcome bias

Answer 27

outcomes of behavior were intended by the person who chose the behavior

Question 28

Hedonic relevance

Answer 28

Behavior has important consequence of our self

Question 29

Personalism

Answer 29

Appearance of behavior- directly intended to benefit or harm oneself rather than others

Question 30

self perception theory

Answer 30

gaining knowledge about ourself only by making self attributions - getting idea form our own behavior

Question 31

Affect infusion model

Answer 31

different judgement of people based on current mood e. g. meeting each other; you=friendly ; me = bad mood - thinking that you are annoying - mood congruence

Question 32

actor-observer effect

Answer 32

attribution of other's behavior internally to dispositional factors own behavior externally to environmental factors

Question 33

perceptual accentuation

Answer 33

employing peripheral (e.g. welsh, English) information to making judgments when one is not familiar with the central dimension (singing ability) - using peripheral information for assistance - based on stereotypes

Question 34

self-serving bias

Answer 34

attributing negative outcomes to others/ situations (external) and positive outcomes internal

Question 35

self-protecting bias

Answer 35

perceiving our negative behavior as situational dependent - ego serving

Question 36

self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 36

that if you tell yourself a specific attitude towards an object, that it will become real.

Question 37

Heuristics

Answer 37

Cognitive shortcuts

Question 38

reasons for using heuristics

Answer 38

limited capacity for short term memory | - storing schematically information in long-term memory

Question 39

Principles of heuristics

Answer 39

1. Representativeness heuristics: How well an instance represents its assigned category (based on similarities) 2. Availability heuristic: frequency or likelihood of an event based on how quickly instances come to mind 3. Anchoring/ Adjustment: inferences are connected to initial standards/schemas e.g Information about other people - anchored in beliefs about our self (self-schema)

Question 40

Ethnocentrism

Answer 40

Prefer the own in-group in all aspects over an out-group (in-group serving bias) + positive behavior/ in-group member( internally) - negative behavior/ out-group member (internally) +positive behavior/ out-group member (externally) - negative behavior/ in-group member (externally)

Question 41

ultimate attribution error

Answer 41

bad out-group/ good in- group behavior = internally