Social cognition and perception Flashcards

Question

what is the actor-observer effect (Jones & Nisbett, 1971)

Answer 1

- Tendency to make dispositional attributions for others and situational attributions for ourselves. *Differences in salience (the quality of being particularly noticeable or important; prominence) *Differences in historical information about actor. *Can be reversed by perspective taking.

Answer 2

- Differences in attribution of victims and transgressors. - Participants offered a choice of tasks: *Choosing an attractive task means next participant has to complete a boring task. *Information provided on consent form – often not read carefully. So participant would choose the desirable task not realising consequences. *Subsequent participant knows initial participants choice has resulted in their boring task.

Answer 3

- Victims – see transgression as intentional: Believe transgressors feel less guilty then they actually do. Underestimate how much transgressors want to be forgiven. - Perspective taking – victims asked to take the perspective of the transgressor reduce effects

Answer 4

- Tendency to take credit (make dispositional attributions) for successes but not for failures (make situational attributions). *Protects self esteem. *Also cognitive reasons – focus on own efforts and information.

Answer 5

- Ultimate Attribution Error. * Cognitive reasons – activates schemas, don’t think further. * Motivational reasons – social identity theory.

Answer 6

- Relationships between perceptions and knowledge - Deficit in knowledge about the topic? - People don’t understand and fall back on irrational beliefs. - If people knew more then they’d change their minds.

Answer 7

- Risks more acceptable if natural and familiar

Answer 8

- dread risk = uncontrollable, severe consequences, involuntary - unknown risk = Unobservable, Unfamiliar, delayed effects

Answer 9

Signal potential – the idea that a risk occurring would have further impacts beyond immediate shocks.

Answer 10

Judgements of risk and benefit theorised to stem from an overall affective feeling about the behaviour.

Answer 11

- Psychologically close = low level construct = concrete unstructured, contextualised - Psychologically distant = high level construal = abstract schematic, decontextualised

Answer 12

- evolution - development of human capacity for abstract mental representation - Commonality in way psychological distance is traversed - Guide predictions, evaluations and planning for near and distant situations - Considering distance (e.g. thinking about the future, taking another persons perspective) activates the same neural substrates (prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe)

Answer 13

- Picture – Word Stroop Task - Classify spatial distance of words presented - Irrelevant stimuli can slow or speed responses. Words either: * Close or Distant Spatially * Low or High Uncertainty (e.g. Sure / Maybe) * Close or Distant Socially (e.g. Friend/ Enemy) * Close or Distant Temporally (e.g. Tomorrow or Year).

Answer 14

- Temporal, Spatial, Social Distance and Uncertainty are related. – One gets activated, all get activated (automatically). – Words were irrelevant to the task but still interfered with task performance. – Manipulating one aspect of distance can influence other aspects of distance.

Answer 15

- Geographical distance – actually seen as affecting both local and distant áreas. - Social distance – perceived that disproportionate effects on developing countries. - Temporally – primarily seen as happening now. - Some uncertainty around CC, primarily over extent of effects.

Answer 16

- Objects considered at a distance will be considered in more abstract terms and will be formed into fewer groups - We will be more confident about events in the distant future -Desirability concerns should be valued more with distance (Desirability concerns are a high level construal whereas feasibility concerns are a low level construal)