Social Cognition - Errors, Biases, & Heuristics Flashcards
Errors & Biases
researchers interested in social cognition have found that (automatic/controlled) cognitive processing can cause errors & biases that adversely affect decisions & judgment
automatic cognitive processes
Errors & Biases
this refers to the tendency to seek & pay attention to information that confirms our attitudes & beliefs and ignore information that refutes them
confirmation bias
Errors & Biases
this theory predicts that regardless of whether people have positive or negative self-concepts, they seek feedback from & prefer to spend time with others who confirm their self-concepts
self-verification theory
Errors & Biases
this occurs when we overestimate the relationship between two variables that are not related or are only slightly related (e.g., the tendency to overestimate the frequency of behaviors that are consistent with negative stereotypes of members of certain minority groups)
illusory correlation
Errors & Biases
this is the tendency to ignore or underuse information about most people (base rate) and instead to be influenced by the distinctive features of the case being judged (e.g., juries are more likely to be persuaded by anecdotal case histories than by probabilistic base-rate information)
base rate fallacy
Errors & Biases
this is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people share our opinions, values, & beliefs and has been found to affect judgments in a variety of situations
false consensus effect
e.g., in one study, students were told they either passed or failed a bogus social sensitivity test - those who “failed” believed most other students also failed; those who “passed” believed most other students had passed
Errors & Biases
this occurs when people believe that a particular chance event is affected by previous events and that chance events will “even out” in the short run
gambler’s fallacy
e.g., a person is exhibiting gambler’s fallacy when, after 5 coin tosses come up with heads, the person is certain the next toss will be tails
Errors & Biases
this is the tendency to imagine what might have happened but didn’t, can involve imagining either better or worse outcomes, and is most likey to occur when the outcome is personally significant & it’s relatively easy to imagine an alternative outcome
counterfactual thinking
Errors & Biases
this occurs when people believe they can influene events that are outside of their control and has been used to explain superstitious behaviors that people believe will maximize thier probablility of success (e.g., a gambler’s belief that blowing on the dice before throwing them will help him get desired numbers; a person’s belief that they’re more likely to win the lottery if they choose certain “lucky” numbers)
illusory control
Errors & Biases
this occurs when people believe that more people take note of their actions & appearance than is actually the case and is especially common in people who have social anxiety (e.g., thinking everyone is looking at them when they arrive late to a meeting or eat dinner at restaurant alone)
the spotlight effect
similar to the imaginary audience that Elkind (1981) identified as a characteristic of adolescence, which resulted from renewed egocentricism
Errors & Biases
this is similar to the spotlight effect in that both occur when people overestimate the extent to which other people notice them, but this concept applies to thoughts & feelings rather than actions & appearance and occurs when people overestimate the extent to which others can discern their internal states
the illusion of transparency
Errors & Biases
this refers to people’s judgments after an event occurs and is the tendency of people to inaccurately believe they predicted the event would occur or to overestimate the likelihood that they could have predicted the event would occur
hindsight bias
aka “knew-it-all-along” effect
Errors & Biases
after a political election, study participants’ memories of their own pre-election predictions about the percent of votes for the different political parties were closer to the actual percentages than their original predictions is an example of which concept?
hindsight bias
Blank et al. (2003)
Errors & Biases
this is the tendency of people to continue investing resources (e.g., time, money) in an endeavor when they have already invested significant resources that have not produced desired outcomes and/or are not recoverable
the sunk-cost fallacy
aka the Concorder fallacy
Errors & Biases
the French and British governments continuing to fund a supersonic plan long after it was clear they would never recover the money that had alteady been spent developing it is an example of which concept?
sunk-cost fallacy
Errors & Biases
list 2 possible explanation for the sunk-cost fallacy
1) people do not want to be wasteful
2) people do not want to admit that their initial actions were a mistake
Errors & Biases
some evidence suggests that those in (early/middle/late) adulthood are less susceptible to the sunk-cost fallacy
late adulthood
Heuristics
this refers to mental shortcuts that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of unceratin events, which may be useful when necessary but making quick judgments can lead to inaccurate conclusions
heuristics
Heuristics
when using this type of heuristic to make judgments about the frequency or likelihood of an event, we ignore base rates & other important information and focus, instead, on the extent to which the event resembles a prototype (typical case)
representativeness heuristic
Heuristics
the following situation is an example of which type of heuristic:
you’re being asked to judge whether a woman is more likely to be a librarian or elementary school teach, and after being told she’s friendly but a little shy, tends to speak very softly, is a conservative dresser, and keeps her house very neat, you’ll most likely say she’s a librarian because of her personal characteristics
(even though there are fewer librarians than elementary school teachers in the population)
Yoe (2019) noted that people tend to rely more on representativeness than on logic or probability when making probability judgments
representativeness heuristic
Heuristics
the representativeness heuristic is used to explain this concept, which occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone
the conjunction fallacy
Heuristics
when using this heuristic, we base out judgments about the frequency or likelihood of an event on how easy it is to recall relevant examples of the event
availability heuristic
Heuristics
the fact that people tend to overestimate the frequency of deaths due to shark attacks & plane crashes because, even though they’re actually uncommon, they’re highly memorable is an example of which heuristic
availability heuristic
Heuristics
when using this heuristic, we estimate the frequency of an event or other value by beginning with a starting point & then making upward or downward adjustments
anchoring and adjustment heuristic
Heuristics
when negotiating the price of a used bicycle at a garage sale, the seller’s initial price is the starting point & determines the size of the purchases counteroffer is an example of which heursitic?
the anchoring & adjustment heuristic
Heuristics
we use this heuristic when we judge the likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to imagine (mentally simulate) the event happening to us or others (i.e., events that are more easily imagined are judged to more likely to occur)
the simulation heuristic
Heuristics
how does the simulation heuristic differ from other heuristics?
it affects both our judgment about the probability that an event will occur and how we feel or think others feel about the event (other heuristics only affect our judgment about the probability that an event will occur)
Heuristics
when a negative event (e.g., missing a flight) can be easily undone in imagination, a person is likely to have - or predict that another person will have - a more extreme emotional reaction to that event describes which heuristic?
the simulation heuristic
Heuristics
the simulation heuristic requires this type of thinking, which is also known as “what if” and “if only” thinking and invovles imagining alternative actions or events that would have led to different outcomes
counterfactual thinking
