Topic 3 - Social Cognition

Question 1

What will robots (likely) never be better than you at?

Answer 1

They will not be better than you at social cognition and social perception

Humans are better prepared than anyone else to understand and interact with any other humans

Question 2

What is social cognition?

Answer 2

how people think about themselves and the social world

how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions in social situations

Question 3

What are the 2 kinds of social cognition? Describe them.

Answer 3

1) Automatic thinking (auto-pilot - automatic analyses of people and personal environments)
- quick, non-conscious, involuntary, and effortless
- using past experience and our generalized knowledge of the world as a guide

2) Controlled thinking
- effortful, slow, deliberate thinking about self and environment
- carefully selecting the right course of action

Question 4

Are first impressions largely based on automatic or controlled thinking?

Answer 4

Automatic thinking

Question 5

How do we do automatic thinking?

Answer 5

we relate new situations to past experiences - make generalizations

we use schemas

Question 6

What are schemas and how do they relate to automatic thinking?

Answer 6

schemas are mental structures that organize our basic social knowledge and impressions

influences the information people notice, think about, and remember in social situations

used to interpret new situations or people

influenced by the way we come to understand things through experience and observations

Question 7

The term schema encompasses our knowledge and impression of what?

Answer 7

• other people
• ourselves
• social roles
• specific events

Question 8

What are the different types of schemas?

Answer 8

Person schemas (ex. behaviour, appearance, personality, preferences)

Social schemas (ex. be respectful, pay for movie tickets, don’t eat garlic on date)

Self-schemas (ex. future doctor, smart, hates broccoli)

Event schemas (ex. professionalism, portfolio, handshake, business suit)

Question 9

How are schemas related to stereotypes?

Answer 9

When we apply schemas to members of social groups, such as a fraternity, gender, or race, schemas are commonly referred to as stereotypes.

• often applied rapidly and automatically when encountering others

Question 10

What is the function of schemas?

Answer 10

they are used to:
1) organize what we know, and
2) interpret new situations

Question 11

What is Korsakov’s Syndrome?

Can be caused by what severe deficiency?

Most common cause?

Answer 11

‘Wet Brain’
People with this disorder lose the ability to form new memories. They are basically approaching every situation as if they were encountering it for the first time, even if they actually experienced it many times before.

Chronic memory disorder caused by severe deficiency in thiamine (vitamin B1)

Most commonly caused by alcohol misuse, but other conditions can cause the syndrome

Question 12

What are the 3 ways in which we might interpret things?

Answer 12

Priming, chronically accessible schemas, or current goals

Question 13

What is the difference between accessibility and priming?

Answer 13

Accessibility: the extent to which schemas are at the forefront of people’s minds
- chronically accessible due to history of past experience

Priming: the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept; temporarily accessible

Question 14

Can schemas of two different things have overlap?

Answer 14

Yes, some things have multiple overlapping elements from their schemas
ex. schema for diabetes has some overlap with alcohol inebriation

Question 15

What is the self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 15

schemas and expectations about self or other that come true because the person holding these expectations acts in ways that bring about the anticipated results

Question 16

The study about the ‘bloomers’ and intellectual expectancy effects is related to what psychological phenomenon?
Describe what happened.

Answer 16

the self-fulfilling prophecy (intellectual expectancy effect)

• kids that were alleged by their teachers to be showing intellectual gain actually did show greater intellectual gains - power of positive expectations.

Question 17

Automatic thinking on the teachers’ part caused them to treat “bloomers” differently in what 4 ways?

Answer 17

1 - climate
2 - feedback
3 - challenge (input)
4 - response (output)

Question 18

What are social expectancy effects?

Answer 18

the way in which we perceive other people alters how we act towards them and how they act back to us

(ex. study where they looked at how the females on the phone reacted based on the male expectations)

Question 19

What is the Pygmalion Effect?

Answer 19

the self-fulfilling prophecy

Others beliefs about us cause other people to act towards us in a particular way, and the way they act can reinforce our own beliefs about ourselves, influence our own actions, and impact again how other think about us.
(it’s a cycle)

Question 20

When is self-fulfilling prophecy or expectancy effects especially strong?

Answer 20

When the same positive or negative expectations are held by more than one important person for a long period of time.

ex. children living up or down to parental expectations
ex. teen alcohol abuse

Question 21

Is it true that in social settings we often live up or down to others’ expectations

Answer 21

yes, due to SFP

Question 22

What are the types of automatic thinking?

Answer 22

automatic goal pursuit
- we are often moving towards goals without thinking about them too much
- prime goals to see if it influences behaviour

automatic thinking and bodily metaphors
- physical sensations can prime metaphorically related schemas
- ex. scent of cleanliness: associated with morality

Question 23

What are implicit goals?

Answer 23

refers to things we aspire to even though we don’t necessarily phrase or think about them in explicit terms

Question 24

Can you metaphorically prime a related schema?

Answer 24

Yes; ex. metaphor of weight for the significance or seriousness of human events.

Question 25

What are mental shortcuts and how do they work?

Answer 25

• efficient, usually lead to good decisions with minimal time/energy
• use schemas
• judgemental heuristics

balances acceptable outcome with time and energy

Question 26

What are judgemental heuristics?
What is a common example of a judgemental heuristic?

Answer 26

mental shortcuts that people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently
ex. “you get what you pay for”

Question 27

What is an availability heuristic?

Answer 27

Determined by how available it is in the mind.

How often throughout the day have we accessed that solution for example

Causes you to make judgements that often align with the same judgements you made in the past.

Question 28

Do doctors use the availability heuristic?

Answer 28

several studies show that yes, they do.
The more easily a certain diagnosis comes to mind, the more common it is from their experience and the easier it is to bring to the mind, the more likely you are to get that diagnosis.

Question 29

What is the availability bias?

Answer 29

Tendency to confuse how easy something is to remember with how common it is (or how difficult it is to recall with how uncommon it is)

ex. availability bias of a shark attack

Question 30

When asked level of helpfulness and asked to give 5 examples versus asked to give 10 examples, what heuristic came up?

Answer 30

Those asked to provide 10 examples rate themselves as lower on helpfulness.
They use availability heuristics when making judgements about themselves and other people.

Question 31

What is the representativeness heuristic?

Answer 31

a mental shortcut whereby someone would classify something or someone according to how similar it is to a typical case (‘seems like…’)

• Compare the instance of individual with how related or how similar you think they are to a typical case.
• Can be some problems with this logic - how similar something is to your typical case could lead you to a very erroneous decision.

Question 32

What is the base rate information shortcut?

Answer 32

Used to make sense of ambiguous situations - based on information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population (probabilities).

Base rate information refers to what we know about how common it is to be a member of a particular group in a certain situation. A more logical, statistical assessment in your head.

Question 33

What happens when we get conflict between representativeness heuristic and base rate information?

Answer 33

Conflicting information - people tend to form their impressions of people in situations and to base their decisions off of representativeness over base rate information.

We tend to be guided more by our ideas about whether someone fits within a particular category or case compared to what we know logically about how many people would fit within a particular category/case.

Question 34

When the fortune we get from a fortune cookie feels really accurate and personally relevant, what effect is playing out?

Answer 34

the Barnum effect - which exploits the representativeness heuristic

Question 35

What is the Barnum effect?

Answer 35

when individuals believe that personality descriptions apply specifically to them despite the fact that the description actually applies to everyone or many people.

we tend to not think about counter-factual examples that come to mind - focus on things that support the prediction.

exploits representativeness heuristic - statements are so vague that almost anyone can relate

Question 36

Is it multi-tasking or task-switching?

Answer 36

We are actually task-switching. Because we cannot think in a conscious effortful, deep way about more than one thing at once.

Question 37

Describe the question of free will.

Answer 37

If automatic thinking leads to automatic behaviour, does controlled thinking indicate free will?

forces outside of awareness may influence behaviour and conscious thought

humans may overestimate or underestimate amount of control

Question 38

What is counterfactual reasoning?

How can it influence emotions?

Answer 38

mentally changing some aspect of the past in imagining what might have been

can have a big influence on our emotional reactions to events

the easier it is to mentally undo an outcome, the stronger the emotional reaction to it

Question 39

Describe how counterfactual reasoning can occur among people who have suffered the loss of a spouse or child.

Answer 39

The more people spend time imagining ways in which the tragedy could have been averted by ‘mentally undoing’ the circumstances proceeding it, the more distress they report

Question 40

Does counterfactual reasoning impact emotions towards negative and positive events?

Answer 40

Also true for positive events
The more they think they could have done a little bit better, the more distress they report.
ex. winning silver :(

Question 41

Is silver sadness a thing? Why?

Answer 41

surprisingly, research shows that silver medalists are often less happy than bronze medalists, because they can more easily imagine how they might have come in first and won a gold.
DUE TO COUNTERFACTUAL REASONING

Question 42

What is the ‘Ricky Bobby’ Effect?

Answer 42

‘if you ain’t first, you’re last”

During interviews with reporters, silver medal winners engage in more counterfactual reasoning by saying things like “I almost pulled it off”, “it’s too bad” - if you are going to lose it’s best not to lose by a slim margin - you would likely be happier if you weren’t as close to winning.

Question 43

What is the “thank you Jesus” effect?

Answer 43

another interesting consequence in engaging in counterfactual reasoning about positive events is that it can increase your belief in God.

Question 44

What are the differences between automatic and controlled thinking? Which is more reliable?

Answer 44

Automatic: fast, unconscious, everyday decisions, error prone

Controlled: slow, conscious, effortful, complex decisions, reliable