social cognition and biases Flashcards

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1
Q

what is social cognition?

A

how we process and store social information
how this affects our perceptions and behaviours

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2
Q

what is attribution?

A

assigning a cause to our own and others’ behaviour

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3
Q

what are social schemas?

A

knowledge about concepts
allows top down processing

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4
Q

what is a category?

A

organised hierachically
features organised around a prototype

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5
Q

what are prototypes?

A

cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category

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6
Q

what is causal attribution?

A

inference process, where the perceiver attributes an effect to one or more causes
-happens when we are trying to explain/justify a situation

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7
Q

what is the naive scientist?

A

people are rational
make cause and effect attributions

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8
Q

what is the biased/intutionist?

A

information is limited and driven by motivations
this leads to errors and biases

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9
Q

what is the cognitive miser?

A

people use cognitive short cuts for the least demanding processing

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10
Q

what is the motivated tactician?

A

think carefully and scientifically about certain things when they are important
think quickly and use heuristics for others

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11
Q

what are the four theories of attribution?

A

naive psychologist
attributional theory
correspondent inference theory
covariation model

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12
Q

who proposed the naive scientist?

A

Heider

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13
Q

what is the theory of the naive scientist?

A

analytical and logical
hypothesis testing
attribute causes to effects to make the world make sense

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14
Q

what are the three principles of the naive scientist?

A

-need to form a coherent view of the world
-need to gain control over the environment
-need to identify internal vs external factors

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15
Q

what did Heider and Simmel find out when investigating the naive scientist?

A

people were asked to watch a short film, of a circle and two triangles changing co ordinates
had to describe what they saw
instead viewers reported a story, eg) love story, chase etc
suggests how readily we perceive social intention all around us

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16
Q

what is attributional theory?

A

theory proposing that people attempt to understand the behaviour of others by attributing feelings, beliefs and intentions to them
causality of success or failure based on:
-locus (internal/external)
-stability (eg, natural ability, mood)
-controllability (eg, effort, luck)

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17
Q

who proposed attributional theory?

A

Weiner

18
Q

who proposed correspondent inference theory?

A

Jones and Davis

19
Q

what is correspondent inference theory?

A

judgement that a person’s personality corresponds to their behaviour

cues= act was freely chosen/act produced a non-common effect/not socially desirable/hdeonic relevance/personalism

correspondent inference- act reflects a true characteristic of the person

20
Q

who proposed the co variation model?

A

Kelley

21
Q

what is the co variation model?

A

use multiple observations to identify factors that co vary with behaviour
assign causal role to the factors
affected by whether behaviour is internal or external

22
Q

what are three features of the co variation model?

A

consistency
distinctiveness
consensus

23
Q

what is consistency?

A

does this behaviour always co occur with the cause
low= look for different cause eg) never failed exam after going out the night before
high= these are linked eg) always fail exam if gone out the night before

24
Q

what is distinctiveness?

A

is the behaviour exclusively linked to this cause or is it a common reaction
low= internal attribution eg) I normally fail exams
high= external attribution eg) I never normally fail exams

25
Q

what is consensus?

A

do other people react in the same way to the cause/situation
low= internal attribution eg) going out the night before an exam must just affect me
high= external attribution eg) realise not to drink before an exam

26
Q

what are the strengths and weaknesses of the naive scientist?

A

separated into internal/external
but is this a valid distinction?

27
Q

what are the strengths and weaknesses of the correspondent inference model?

A

infer behaviour due to internal attributes
but is this automatic/deliberate?

28
Q

what are the strengths and weaknesses of co variation model?

A

considers the role of consistent and deliberate behaviours
however, covariation doesn’t result in causation

29
Q

what are attributional biases?

A

systematic errors indicative of shortcuts/gut feelings/intuition

30
Q

what did Ross et al find out about attributional biases?

A

asked ppts if they would walk around the campus advertising the cafeteria
of those saying yes, 62% thought others would also say yes
of those saying no, 67% thought others would also say no

31
Q

what were the reasons given for attributional biases?

A

seek out similar opinions
salience of own opinion
self esteem maintenance

32
Q

what is fundamental attribution error?

A

people have a cognitive bias to assume that a person’s interactions depend on what kind of a person is, rather than the social/environmental factors influencing that person

this is because the internal attribution is most accessible, so we are more likely to forget situational causes

33
Q

what did Ross et al find out about fundamental attribution error?

A

investigated whether the allocated social roles in a quiz would affect the judgement of participants
contestants rated the general knowledge of the questioners as superior to the contenstants
ignored the fact that the reason for this advantage was not due to the social role, but was because questioners could choose the questions

34
Q

who proposed actor observer bias?

A

Jones and Nisbett

35
Q

what is actor observer bias?

A

tend to attribute internally for others, but externally for ourselves
due to perceptual focus and informational difference

36
Q

who proposed self serving bias?

A

Oslon and Ross

37
Q

what is self serving bias?

A

attribute success as internal, and failure as external

due to cognitive expectations and self esteem

operates at both personal and group level

38
Q

what are heuristics?

A

cognitive shortcuts

avoids effort

39
Q

who proposed heuristics?

A

Tversky and Kahneman

40
Q

what is the availability heuristic?

A

judge frequency/probability of events by how easy it is to think of examples

41
Q

what is the representative heuristic?

A

categorise based on similarity between instance and prototypical category members
allocate a set of attributes

42
Q

what are anchoring and adjustment heuristics?

A

starting point/initial standard influences subsequent judgements