Social Cognition & Decision-Making

Question 1

What is social cognition?

Answer 1

Social cognition is the study of how people think about and interpret themselves and others in social contexts. It involves understanding how individuals perceive, remember, and interpret social information, such as impressions of people, groups, and events.

Question 2

Snap judgements

Answer 2

Rapid, automatic decision-making based on minimal information, often occurring in milliseconds.
Characteristics
* Unconscious & Fast – Often based on intuition rather than deliberate thinking.
* Based on Heuristics – Uses mental shortcuts to assess people or situations quickly.
* Can Be Inaccurate – Prone to biases and stereotypes.
* Evolutionary Purpose – Helps assess threats or opportunities quickly for survival.

Question 3

Accuracy of snap judgements

Answer 3

Snap judgements predict rather well more considerate consensus opinion.
e.g., participants were showed for 1 seconds pictures of a Democrat or Republican and asked to evaluate which seems more competent. those judges as more competent by most participants won 69% of the races in the U.S. congressional elections.

Question 4

Covariation principle

Answer 4

the idea that behaviour should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with the observed behaviour

Question 5

Consensus

Answer 5

a type of covariation information - whether most people would behave the same way or differently in a given situation

Question 6

Cognitive bias

Question 7

Distinctiveness

Answer 7

a type of covariation information - whether a behaviour is unique to a particular situation or occurs in many or all situations.

Question 8

Discounting principle

Answer 8

the idea that people will assign reduced weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other plausible causes might have produced the same behaviour

Question 9

Counterfactual thinking

Answer 9

thoughts of what might have, could have or should have happened “if only” something had occured differently

Question 10

Emotional amplification

Answer 10

an increase in an emotional reaction to an event that is proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening

Question 11

Self-serving attributional bias

Answer 11

the tendency to attribute failure and other bad events to external circumstances and to attribute success and other good events to oneself

Question 12

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 12

the failure to recognize the importance of situational influences on behaviour, along with the corresponding tendency to overemphasize the importance of dispositions on behaviour.

Question 13

Actor/observer difference

Answer 13

a difference in attribution based on who is making the causal assessments:
- the actor, relatively inclined to make situational attributions
- the observer, relatively inclined to make dispositional attributions.

Question 14

Primacy effect

Answer 14

a type of order effect whereby the information presented first in a body of evidence has a disproportionate influence on judgement.

Question 15

Recency effect

Answer 15

a type of order effect whereby the information presented last in a body of evidence has a disproportionate influence on judgement.

Question 16

Framing effect

Answer 16

the influence on judgement resulting from the way information is presented, including the words used to describe the information or the order in which it is presented.

Question 17

Construal level theory

Answer 17

a theory about the relationship between temporal distance (and other kinds of distance) and abstract or concrete thinking:
* psychologically distant actions and events are thought about in abstract terms
* actions and events that are close at hand are thought about in concrete terms

Question 18

Confirmation bias

Answer 18

the tendency to test a proposition by searching for evidence in support of it

Question 19

Heuristic

Answer 19

intuitive mental operation, performed quickly and automaticslly that provide efficient answers to common problems of judgement.

Question 20

Availability heuristic

Answer 20

the process whereby judgements of frequency or probability are based on how readily pertinent instances come to mind

Question 21

Representativeness heuristic

Answer 21

the process whereby judgements of likelihood are based on assessments of similarity between individuals and group prototypes or between cause and effect

Question 22

Illusory correlation

Answer 22

the belief that two variables are correlated when in fact they are not.

Question 23

Spotlight effect

Answer 23

The spotlight effect is a term social psychologists use to refer to the tendency to overestimate how much other people notice about us. In other words, we tend to think there is a spotlight on us at all times, highlighting our mistakes or flaws for all the world to see.

Question 24

Halo effect

Answer 24

The halo effect refers to the tendency to allow one specific trait or our overall impression of a person, company or product to positively influence our judgment of their other related traits. The halo effect refers to the tendency to allow one specific trait or our overall impression of a person, company or product to positively influence our judgment of their other related traits.

Question 25

Minimal Group Paradigm

Answer 25

Henri Tajfel created groups based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria, then examined how their members behaved towards one another. Participants first performed a trivial task and were then divided into groups, on the basis of their responses (estimating the number of dots projected on a screen -> overestimators vs underestimators). They were actually randomly assigned to them, and then asked to allocate points transferable with money to two people they did not know nor see. The more points they gave to their in-group member, the less the out-group member received. The MGP has been instrumental in demonstrating that mere categorization into groups is enough to trigger discriminatory behavior. Moreover, discriminatory behavior may occur without the need for conflict or competition between groups. These findings have profound implications for understanding social prejudice and intergroup relations.

Question 26

In-Group Bias (In-Group Favoritism)

Answer 26

🔹 Definition: Preference for one’s own group over others, leading to favoritism. 🔹 Example: A hiring manager favors a job candidate who went to their alma mater. 🔹 Impact: Strengthens group identity but leads to discrimination and exclusion.

Question 27

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Answer 27

Definition: People with low ability overestimate their competence, while experts underestimate theirs. 🔹 Example: A beginner chess player believes they could beat a grandmaster. 🔹 Impact: Leads to poor decision-making and resistance to learning.

Question 28

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 28

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict causes unpleasant feelings of unease or discomfort.1 American Psychological Association. Cognitive dissonance. The inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates them to engage in actions that will help minimize feelings of discomfort. People attempt to relieve this tension in different ways, such as by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding new information.