Social Psychology Social Cognition – Errors, Biases, and Heuristics

Question 1

Errors and Biases: Researchers interested in _________cognition distinguish between ___________and __________cognitive processing.

Answer 1

Social
Automatic
controlled

Question 2

_____________processing is fast and efficient and operates outside conscious awareness, while ___________ processing is slower and effortful and operates with conscious awareness. Researchers have also found that automatic cognitive processing can cause ____________that adversely affect ____________.

Answer 2

Automatic
Controlled
errors and biases
decisions and judgments

Question 3

These include the following:
(a) The _____________ is the tendency to seek and pay attention to information that confirms our attitudes and beliefs and ignore information that refutes them. The role of the confirmation bias in maintaining one’s self-concept is addressed by _________________ (Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989). It predicts that, regardless of whether people __________________, they seek feedback from and prefer to spend time with others who their self-concepts.

Answer 3

confirmation bias
self-verification theory
have positive or negative self-concepts
confirm

Question 4

(b) ____________ occurs when we overestimate the relationship between two variables that are not related or are only slightly related. An example is the tendency to overestimate the frequency of behaviors that are consistent with negative stereotypes of members of certain minority groups (Hamilton & Gifford, 1976).

Answer 4

Illusory correlation

Question 5

(c) The ____________ is the “tendency to ignore or underuse _____________(information about most people) and instead to be influenced by the ______________of the case being judged” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2013, p. 176). As an example, juries are more likely to be persuaded by ________________than by probabilistic base-rate information (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973).

Answer 5

base rate fallacy
base rate information
distinctive features
anecdotal case histories

Question 6

(d) The ________________ is the tendency to ___________the extent to which other people share our opinions, values, and beliefs and has been found to affect judgments in a variety of situations. In one study, students were told they had either passed or failed a bogus social sensitivity test. When asked to estimate how other students would do, those who were told they had failed said most other students would fail the test and those who were told they had passed said most other students would pass (Alicke & Largo, 1995).

Answer 6

false consensus effect
overestimate

Question 7

(e) The ______________ occurs when people “believe that a particular chance event is affected by ____________and that chance events will _____________” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2013, p. 178). A person is exhibiting the gambler’s fallacy when, after five coin tosses come up with heads, the person is certain that the next toss will be tails.

Answer 7

gambler’s fallacy
previous events
‘even out’ in the short run

Question 8

(f) ________________ is the tendency to imagine what might have happened but didn’t and can involve imagining either better or worse outcomes. It’s most likely to occur when the outcome is personally significant and it’s relatively easy to imagine an alternative outcome (Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Roese & Hur, 1997).

Answer 8

Counterfactual thinking

Question 9

(g) __________________is also known as the illusion of control and occurs when people believe they can influence events that are outside their _______. It has been used to explain superstitious behaviors that people believe will __________their probability of success. A gambler’s belief that blowing on the dice before throwing them will help him get desired numbers and a person’s belief that she’s more likely to win the lottery if she chooses certain “lucky” numbers are examples of illusory control.

Answer 9

Illusory control
Control
maximize

Question 10

Heuristics are “_____________that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of_____________” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2013, p. 164). Although heuristics can be useful when it’s necessary to make quick judgments, they can lead to inaccurate conclusions. Kahneman and Tversky (1974) distinguish between __________, _________, ________________:

Answer 10

mental shortcuts
uncertain events
representativeness, availability, and anchoring and adjustment heuristics

Question 11

When using the ________________ to make judgments about the frequency or likelihood of an event, we ignore ___________and other important information and focus, instead, on the extent to which the event resembles a __________(typical case). For example, assume that you’re asked to judge whether a woman is more likely to be a librarian or elementary school teacher 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. Most likely, you’ll say she’s a librarian because of her personal characteristics even though there are fewer librarians than elementary school teachers in the population.

Answer 11

representativeness heuristic
base rates
prototype

Question 12

When using the ___________, we base our judgments about the ________________of an event on how easy it is to _____________of the event. For instance, people tend to __________ the frequency of deaths due to shark attacks and plane crashes because, even though they’re actually uncommon, they’re highly__________.

Answer 12

availability heuristic
frequency or likelihood
recall relevant examples
overestimate
memorable

Question 13

When using the _______________, we estimate the frequency of an event or other value by beginning with a ____________and then making ______________adjustments. When negotiating the price of a used bicycle at a garage sale, for example, the seller’s initial price is the starting point and determines the size of the purchaser’s counteroffer.

Answer 13

anchoring and adjustment heuristic
starting point
upward or downward

Question 14

(d) When we use the _______________, we judge the likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to ___________(mentally simulate) the event happening to us or others: Events that are more easily imagined are judged to be more ______to occur. The simulation heuristic differs from other heuristics because, in addition to affecting our judgment about the probability that an event will occur, it affects how we feel or think ________about the event.

Answer 14

simulation heuristic
imagine
likely
others feel

Question 15

For example, in regards to simulation heuristic, _____________(1982) told subjects that two men arrived at the airport 30 minutes late for their flight. However, one missed his flight by 30 minutes because it left on time, while the other missed his flight by only 5 minutes because it was delayed for 25 minutes. When subjects were asked which man would feel worse about missing the flight, nearly all of the subjects said it would be the man who missed the flight by __ minutes. According to Kahneman and Tversky, this was because it was easier for subjects to imagine that the man who missed his flight by only 5 minutes could have made the flight by doing things a little differently than it was for them to imagine that the man who missed his flight by 30 minutes could do so. In other words, when a negative event (e.g., missing a flight) can be easily in imagination, a person is likely to have – or predict that another person will have –______________to that event. Note that the simulation heuristic requires __________thinking, which is also known as __________thinking and involves imagining alternative actions or events that would have led to different outcomes.

Answer 15

Kahneman and Tversky
5
Undone
a more extreme emotional reaction
counterfactual
“what if” or “if only”