Week 2

Question 1

Why do we study cultural factors?

Answer 1

• causal thinking differs
• cognitive beliefs differ
• perception of self differs

Question 2

Morling’s article is

Answer 2

Cultural psychology

Question 3

Cultural psychology highlights the importance of cultures at two levels

Answer 3

1. Natural selection pressure that shapes humans as species: external agents that affects organism’s ability to survive in a given environment. Ex: geographic locations, predators
2. Diverse set of social rules: they shape human cognitive functioning. Ex: social norms

Question 4

WEIRD demographic

Answer 4

Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic
- they even perceive line lengths differently (Muller-Lyer illusion)
- categorized the words “rabbit, eggplant, and carrot” as vegetables / non-weird said as relationally

Question 5

Allied focus

Answer 5

Fields of social cognition and cultural psychology overlap in studying the same phenomena. There are just different levels of analysis

Question 6

Evolutionary social transmission

Answer 6

A highly adaptive process

Question 7

Self-construal

Answer 7

Way a person understands the world or a situation
- asian-canadians: report in 3rd person
- european-canadians: report in 1st person

Question 8

Independent self-construal

Answer 8

Encourages the idea that we are the centre of our own social worlds

Question 9

Interdependent self-construal

Answer 9

Encourages us to see ourselves from others’ eyes in a specific setting. Third person perspective

Question 10

Holistic thinker

Answer 10

• interdependent
• considers context or areas as a whole
• placing focus on relationships

Question 11

Analytic thinkers

Answer 11

• independent
• focus on individual
• detachment from objects and context

Question 12

Can dominant cultural values be copied into the minds of cultural participants?

Answer 12

No, because people can be “primed” with individualistic or collective mindsets.
- highly debated

Question 13

Dual models

Answer 13

• automatic or controlled
• one is selected during action, when dealing with people, depending on motivation/goals
• typically, not a conscious process

Question 14

Mindlessness (automaticity mindlessness)

Answer 14

Automatic response
Not thinking too much about it
Mentally disengaged

Question 15

Full automaticity

Answer 15

Unintentional, uncontrollable, unconscious, efficient, goal-independent, purely stimulus-driven, fast responses
- when behaviour becomes over-learned, like walking or driving

Question 16

Subliminal priming

Answer 16

• subconscious
• response is activated from something in the environment that is below conscious awareness
• some examples: priming of emotions and pattern-matching
• studies are difficult to run

Question 17

This part of the brain is responsible for priming of emotions

Answer 17

Amygdala

Question 18

Conscious priming

Answer 18

Conscious perception of the prime, but no awareness of its effect on subsequent reactions

Question 19

Supraliminal priming

Answer 19

Like conscious priming
Ex: german wine and french wine experiment

Question 20

Chronic accessibility

Answer 20

• particular traits stick out to form impressions
• can lead to prejudice and stereotyping
• habitually labeling others by their traits

Question 21

Goal-driven automaticity

Answer 21

• intentional and conscious but partly automatic
• like when answers come easy to you because it is something you know very well.

Question 22

Goals

Answer 22

Mental representations of desired outcome

Question 23

Goal-inconsistent automaticity

Answer 23

When you can’t think what you want
- white bear study

Question 24

Rumination

Answer 24

• repetitive, often harmful thinking
• stemming from goal-directed thinking when goals are not met
• associated with depressive symptomology

Question 25

Intent

Answer 25

• a controlled process
• linked to responsibility
• thinking with intent when one considers “other options”, yet maintains thinking
• most obvious when a person makes the harder choice (among easier ones)

Question 26

Conscious

Answer 26

Being aware of cognition or mental process
It troubleshoots after automaticity processes fail