Unit 1: Social Cognition

Question 1

What is the definition of social cognition?

Answer 1

• how we think about the social world
• general process we use to make sense out of the social events, which may or may not include other people

Question 2

how does information overload occurs?

Answer 2

Demands of the environment> capacity of the cognitive system
- we can only process a certain amount of info at a given time

Question 3

How do we deal with information overload?

Answer 3

• develop strategies to help deal with a lot of information, especially with uncertainty
• heuristics

Question 4

What are heuristics?

Answer 4

they are simple rules for making complex decisions/ inferences in a rapid and efficient manner

Question 5

What are the benefits and drawbakcs of heuristics?

Answer 5

they are shortcuts->
-save time and energy
- allow us to cope with a large amounts of information
BUT may lead to biases and inaccurate judgments

Question 6

What are the four heuristics?

Answer 6

• Representativeness
• availability
• anchoring and adjustment
• status quo

Question 7

What is the representativness heuristic? Provide example

Answer 7

Judging the likelihood of something belonging to a category based on how closely it resembles our prototype of that category
Eg person w/stethoscope is a doctor despite maybe being a nurse, or medical student

Question 8

What is the availability heuristic? Provide an example

Answer 8

Estimating the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easily we can recall examples
Eg overestimate shark attack due to media exposure

Question 9

In the availability heuristic what causes error?

Answer 9

“ease of retrieval”

Question 10

What is the availability heuristic influenced by?

Answer 10

Time, Attention, Amount of information, Emotions, Self-relevant

Question 11

What is the anchoring and adjustment heuristic?Provide Eg

Answer 11

Using an initial piece of information as a starting point and adjusting our judgments from there
“tug-of-war”
Eg used in sales, plate size with food, popcorn cinemas

Question 12

What is the status quo heuristic? Provide example

Answer 12

Favoring the way things are over alternatives, even without evidence that the status quo is better
Eg consumers stick to product due to familiarity despite others being cheaper and potentially better

Question 13

what can status quo heuristics be applied to? and what influences this heuristic?

Answer 13

Applied to Marketing and Society(traditions)
- Time influences it

Question 14

What are schemas?

Answer 14

mental frameworks that help us make sense of the world and are build upon past experience
Guide our interpretation of the world

Question 15

What are schemas for?

Answer 15

• organise info(old and new)
• guide our action
• process info relevant to specific contexts

Question 16

Drawbacks of schemas

Answer 16

Offer structure and efficiency but leads to resistance and rigidness

Question 17

how does schemas affect our social cognition?

Answer 17

a) attention; determines what enters our mind (more congruent= reduces cognitive load )
b) encoding; how we store info
more congruent= stored normally/inconsistencies =diff location)
c) retrieval; information stored and how easily recalled
inconsistencies stand out more BUT we report more when its consistent w/ our schemas

Question 18

How do we explain which schema is activated in overlapping situations?

Answer 18

First Explanation: Strength
Second Explanation: Priming

Question 19

Explain the first strength explanation

Answer 19

First Explanation: Strength
- stronger and better-developed=more likely activated and influence our thinking
- affects our memory for social info

Question 20

what makes a schema “strong”?

Answer 20

• quick activation
• difficult to deactivate

Question 21

Expand on the second explanation of priming?

Answer 21

recently activated schemas (availability) more accessible and influence our thinking (temporary increase->priming)

Question 22

You just talked with your friends about eating a burger. A few
moments later you start to feel like eating a burger. Possible options?

Answer 22

Schema is primed
1) fullfill the schema-> eat burger
2) Let it dissipate-> unprime(no longer influence)

Question 23

What was the experiment done with priming?

Answer 23

Participants: asked to give wrong answer
1. first group: one question
2. second group; two questions, first- correct ans. second- wrong ans
-> once schema is “satisfied” it is deactivated, unprimed

Question 24

Schemas advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 24

+ handle vast amounts of info, avoid overload, make decisions faster
- influence attention, misconstructs our memory, perseverance effect(contradictory information but opinion remains unchanged), self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 25

what is the self-fullfing prophecy?

Answer 25

influence from schemas, its when our pre-existing belief or expectation about a person or situation influence our behavior, leading to outcomes that confirm those initial expectation

Question 26

Reasoning by metaphor

Answer 26

• metaphors might prime certain schemas
• conditoning: interpretations, social judgments, behaviour
  eg feeling blue

Question 27

What are the two type of social processing?

Answer 27

1) Controlled processing; systematic, logical and highly effortful manner
2) Automatic processing; fast, relatively effortless and intuitive manner

Question 28

what are the neural systems used for social information processing?

Answer 28

Controlled processing; Prefrontal cortex
Automatic, emotional reactions: Limbic system; amgygdala

Question 29

What are the potencial sources of error?

Answer 29

• optimism bias
• overconfidence bias
• hindsight bias
• survey research

Question 30

which experiment showed that ppl act according to their schemas, unconsciously ?

Answer 30

Experiment; two groups with diff tasks that primed certain schemas
when participants come back they get ignored by researcher, diff reactions based on diff tasks done

Question 31

what is the optimistic bias?

Answer 31

“tendency to overlook risks and expect things to turn out well”
positive effects>negative effects

Question 32

Whats the overconfidence bias?

Answer 32

• more confidence in our judgement and abilities than warranted, especially in areas where we have limited knowledge
• lower competence-> increased perception of own performance
• see a golden future(based on desire not past)
• planning fallacy

Question 33

whats the planning fallacy

Answer 33

idea that we can get more things done in a short span of time than we actually can

Question 34

Whats the hindsight bias?

Answer 34

tend to believe events are more predictable than they actually are “I knew it all along”

Question 35

what are the consequences of the hindsight bias?

Answer 35

overestimate our own abilities
blaming ourselves for “stupid mistakes”

Question 36

What are potential sources of error in survey research?

Answer 36

• unrepresented sample
• order of questions
• response options
• wording of questions

Question 37

What is counterfactual thinking?

Answer 37

• “what if” thinking, imagining alternative outcomes to past events
• occurs in different situations and automatically
• more belief of free will= increases formation of this social thought

Question 38

What are mood congruence effects?

Answer 38

current moods influence what information we pay attention to and remember

Question 39

what is mood-dependent memory?

Answer 39

our mood can act as a retrieval cue, making it easier to recall information learned while in a similar mood

Question 40

What is affective forecasting?

Answer 40

tries to predict our future emotional states, often inaccurate as they reply on diff psychological process than the actual emotional experience