Social Cognition: Thinking About the Social World Flashcards
how do social schemas guide the way you think about the world around you
schemas (mental maps, automatically created)
- cognitive frameworks
- organize thinking
automatically created
guide us to understand the world
can exist for people, places, events, or other stimuli
the confirmation bias (pay attention to information that supports our schemas
- activated schemas affect how we process incoming information
- information that supports a schema is attended to
- information that contradicts a schema may be filtered out
schemas and experience
schemas are developed and verified through experience
ex: first day of university
- first day overwhelming
- learn what to do after a few days
- now entering campus primes schemas
- previous knowledge is activated
- if something doesn’t fit your schema you ignore it or view it as unusual
stereotyping
- a stereotype assumes that all members of a group share some common feature
- perseverance effect (once a schema is formed, it is hard to change
- it may be difficult for people to “let go” og these types of schemas
selective filtering
- can lead to self fulfilling prophesies (you fail because you get messages that say you will)
- paying attention to sensory information that affirms a stereotype
- filtering out sensory information that negates a stereotype
exercise: count to 10
- count to 10 in your head
- now try to order each of the numbers alphabetically
- that’s automatic vs controlled processing
- another example:
learning to drive vs driving now
automatic vs controlled processing
automatic processing:
- unconscious
- effortless and on the fly
- the limbic system (the amygdala - emotional learning and fear conditioning)
controlled processing:
- takes careful thought and effort
- the prefrontal cortex (higher order thinking and evaluation)
how effective are mental shortcuts
heuristics:
- simple rules that reduce mental effort
- mental shortcuts
- allow to makes decisions or judgment quickly
Kahneman and Tversky
judgment under uncertainty: heuristics + Biases
- 3 mental shortcuts that often lead to mistakes
Eg. 22 year old university student loves to read, has a collection of rare books, very organized, and listens to classical music
- is Tom more likely to major in: law, library science*, humanities, or engineering
the representativeness of heuristics
our assessment of how likely an occurrence is based on how much it resembles our expectation for a model of that event
- ie: judge probability of event by resemblance to prototype
the gambling fallacy
if you flipped a coin 6 times, which outcome is most likely
1. HHHHHH
2. HHHTTT
3. THHTHT
all are equally likely, but most would pick 3.
gamblers fallacy: deviation from average outcome (ie 50/50) will correct itself in short term - even though events are independent
- representative heuristic: people have an idea of what randomness looks like - a sample of coin flips is supposed to appear random - have approximately half heads and half tales
(assume outcomes will correct themselves towards an average - eg. 4 tails in a row means heads are “due”)
the availability heuristic
our assessment of how likely an occurrence is based on how easily an example of that event can be recalled
- eg. do more words begin T or K (T - heuristic leads to correction well)
- eg. do more words begin with K or have K as third letter (3rd letter, 3X more, heuristic leads to wrong answer)
- eg. are you more likely to be killed by a shark or hippo (shark attacks portrayed more in TV and media so more likely to say sharks, but in reality you’re more likely to get killed by a hippo)
- information that is more familiar to you
death and the availability heuristic
- people are more likely to die of heart disease than homicide, but have greater fear of homicide
- why?: TV shows, news, influences how we think
- availability heuristic might help explain the lure of lotteries
beware of muggers
- what is the likelihood of getting mugged while in Toronto
- likelihood is less than 1% for any one person of getting mugged in a major Canadian city
- what happened to your estimate now: might go down, but will fall back on the anchor
- likely that your estimate is still anchored at high end
the anchoring and adjustment heuristic
- how much would you get from recycling depot for returning empties
- how many steps do you think you take per day
( what if I told you the average person takes 15,000 steps per day)
(what if I told you the average person takes 5,000 steps per day) - we make decisions quickly by starting with implicitly suggested reference point (anchor) and making adjustments to reach estimate
- once anchor is set, we’re based towards interpreting info around that anchor
negativity bias
- attending to and resembling only negative information, thus impacting future evaluations
- eg: Mary is told that her prof next year is very smart, has an annoying laugh, has fair tests, and stutters
(more likely to focus on 2 negative aspects)
optimistic bias
- believing that bad things happen to other people and that you are more likely to experience positive events in life (eg. how often do you think about being unemployed someday?)
- the over confidence barrier (the belief that our own judgment or control is better or greater that it truly it
- self serving
counterfactual thinking
- imagining different outcomes for an event that has already occurred
- usually associated with bad (negative) events
- can be used to improve or worsen your mood
- upward counterfactuals:
(if only I had bet on the Washington Capitals)
(if only I studied last night instead of going to the movies)
(I would have been rich if I went to med school instead of …) - downward counterfactuals:
(I got a C in the test, but at least I didn’t fail)
(he wont go out with me, but at least he didn’t embarrass me in front of my friends)
(my tram lost, but at least it was a close game)
