Social Cognition - Errors, Biases, & Heuristics

Question 1

Errors & Biases

researchers interested in social cognition have found that (automatic/controlled) cognitive processing can cause errors & biases that adversely affect decisions & judgment

Answer 1

automatic cognitive processes

Question 2

Errors & Biases

this refers to the tendency to seek & pay attention to information that confirms our attitudes & beliefs and ignore information that refutes them

Answer 2

confirmation bias

Question 3

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

Answer 3

self-verification theory

Question 4

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)

Answer 4

illusory correlation

Question 5

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)

Answer 5

base rate fallacy

Question 6

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

Answer 6

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

Question 7

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

Answer 7

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

Question 9

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

Answer 9

counterfactual thinking

Question 10

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)

Answer 10

illusory control

Question 11

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)

Answer 11

the spotlight effect

similar to the imaginary audience that Elkind (1981) identified as a characteristic of adolescence, which resulted from renewed egocentricism

Question 12

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

Answer 12

the illusion of transparency

Question 13

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

Answer 13

hindsight bias

aka “knew-it-all-along” effect

Question 14

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?

Answer 14

hindsight bias

Blank et al. (2003)

Question 15

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

Answer 15

the sunk-cost fallacy

aka the Concorder fallacy

Question 16

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?

Answer 16

sunk-cost fallacy

Question 17

Errors & Biases

list 2 possible explanation for the sunk-cost fallacy

Answer 17

1) people do not want to be wasteful
2) people do not want to admit that their initial actions were a mistake

Question 18

Errors & Biases

some evidence suggests that those in (early/middle/late) adulthood are less susceptible to the sunk-cost fallacy

Answer 18

late adulthood

Question 19

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

Answer 19

heuristics

Question 20

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)

Answer 20

representativeness heuristic

Question 21

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

Answer 21

representativeness heuristic

Question 22

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

Answer 22

the conjunction fallacy

Question 23

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

Answer 23

availability heuristic

Question 24

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

Answer 24

availability heuristic

Question 25

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

Answer 25

anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Question 26

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?

Answer 26

the anchoring & adjustment heuristic

Question 27

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)

Answer 27

the simulation heuristic

Question 28

Heuristics

how does the simulation heuristic differ from other heuristics?

Answer 28

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)

Question 29

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?

Answer 29

the simulation heuristic

Question 30

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

Answer 30

counterfactual thinking