Social Cognition- Errors, Biases, Heuristics

Question 1

automatic processing

Answer 1

fast, outside conscious awareness

Question 2

controlled processing

Answer 2

slower, effortful, within conscious awareness

Question 3

confirmation bias

Answer 3

tendency to seek and pay attention to information that confirms our attitudes and beliefs and ignore info against them

Question 4

illusory correlation

Answer 4

overestimate relationship we between two variables that are only slightly related

Question 5

base rate fallacy

Answer 5

tendency to ignore base rate info

Question 6

false consensus effect

Answer 6

overestimate extent to which other people share our opinions, values, beliefs

Question 7

gambler’s fallacy

Answer 7

people believe a particular chance event has affected previous events and chance will even out

Question 8

counterfactual thinking

Answer 8

imagine what might have happened but didn’t and could be better or worse

Question 9

illusory controls

Answer 9

people believe they can influence events outside their control (superstitious)

Question 10

heuristics

Answer 10

mental shortcuts

Question 11

representativeness heuristic

Answer 11

make judgements about frequency or likelihood of an event

Question 12

availability heuristic

Answer 12

base judgments on frequency of event (ex overestimate shark attacks)

Question 13

anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Answer 13

estimate on value at beginning, such as initial starting price at a garage sale