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PSY2110: Social Psychology > Week 3: Social Cognition > Flashcards

Week 3: Social Cognition Flashcards

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1
Q

What is social cognition?

A
  • How people think about themselves and the social world
  • specifically, how they select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions
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2
Q

What 2 thinking processes make up social cognition?

A
  1. Automatic
  2. controlled
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3
Q

What is automatic thinking? provide an example

A

thought that is…
- nonconscious,
- unintentional
- involuntary
- effortless (low-effort)

ex: if you see a picture of sunglasses, from past info you have gathered in your life you can automatically analyze the object in the photo and be able to recognize that in the photo there is a pair of sunglasses

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4
Q

We form impressions of people quickly and effortlessly based on past experiences and knowledge of the world, without much conscious analysis of what we are doing. this is called automatic anaylsis
true or false

A

true

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5
Q

What are mental structures called that organize our knowledge about the world?

A

Schemas

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6
Q

what are schemas helpful for?

A
  • helps us “fill in the blanks” –> when we are trying to figure out what is going on in confusing or ambiguous situations

ex: Ex: “warm” vs “cold” instructor was rated differently by students
- warm –> gave a better rating and participated more
-cold –> less likely to engage in the course, and rated prof power
Overall, they used what they were told (schemas) to decide what that person is like

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7
Q

What does it mean when our schemas are affected by “accessiblity”?

A

extent to which schemas are at the forefront of the mind and are therefore likely to be used when making judgments about the social world.

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8
Q

What are 3 reasons that schemas become accessible?

A
  1. They are CHRONICALLY accessible because of past experience
  2. They are TEMPORARILY accessible because they are related to a current goal
  3. They are TEMPORARILY accessible because recent experiences (aka PRIMING)
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9
Q

What does reason 1:” They are CHRONICALLY accessible because of past experience” mean with an example.

A
  • schemas are constantly active and ready to use to interpret ambiguous situations

ex: a sketch guy sits beside you on the bus and tries talking to you. Because of your schema of family experience with mental illness you are able to make a decision on how to interact with them

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10
Q

What does reason 2:” They are TEMPORARILY accessible because they are related to a current goal” mean with an example.

A

ex: studying for an abnormal psych course exam

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11
Q

What does reason 3:” They are TEMPORARILY accessible because of recent experience” mean with an example.

A

ex: saw or read something recently that was applicable to the event and so you were able to use that schema

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12
Q

What does it mean when our schemas are affected by “priming”?

A

process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept.
- increases the accessibility of a schema

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13
Q

We interpret ambiguous situations differently depending on accessibility and priming.
true or false

A

true

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14
Q

Our schemas can inadvertly come true by the way we treat others. This is the “self-fulfilling prophecy”. What is this concept?

A
  • expectations about another person influence your behaviour towards that person, causing the person’s behaviour to become consistent with your original expectation.

-ex: Met someone and decided they are not a nice person and so you are not nice to them –> so the person will then to continue with not-nice behaviour because you are not nice to them.

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15
Q

What are the 4 steps of the Self fullfilling Prophecy?

A

(1) You have an expectancy or theory about the target person
Ex: you (a police officer) believe a suspect is lying because…

(2) You behave towards the target in a way that is consistent with that expectancy/theory
Ex: you treat them like a criminal

(3) The target responds to the behaviour in a similar manner
Ex: the suspect might call for a lawyer, be apprehensive to tell you things

(4) You see the target’s behaviour as proof that you were right – Not seeing how you played a role in their behaviour
Ex: “only guilty people would ask for a lawyer”

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16
Q

The self-fulfilling prophecy cannot make schemas more resistant to change. true or false

A

false –> they do!

17
Q

How can we reduce the self-fulfilling prophecy?

A

pay attention and form an accurate impression of someone.

18
Q

What are two other types of automatic thinking?

A
  1. Embodied Cognition
  2. Heuristics
19
Q

What is Embodied cognition?

A
  • bodily sensations (smells, feelings, physical sensations) activate mental structures such as schemas.

ex: : temperature of coffee can influence your impression of a stranger (warm= triggered schema of a warm friendly person, cold=triggered the schema of having a colder or more negative view of someone)

20
Q

What are the 3 types of heuristics?

A
  1. judgemental
  2. Availability
  3. representative
21
Q

What are judgemental heuristics of automatic thinking?

A

“mental shortcuts” used to make judgements and decisions quickly and effectively

ex: deciding what uni to go to in canada (well I know uottawa is better than carelton so rule out carelton, Dal feels like home more than UBC s orule out UBC, etc..)

22
Q

What is one downside to using judgemental heuristics?

A

do not always lead to accurate conclusions

23
Q

What is availability heuristic?

A

mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgment on the ease with which they can bring something to mind

ex: how assertive is your friend? –> do you have a schema? , No? You might try to think about their behaviour and base it on that (“well i remember this one time…”)

24
Q

What was the study done by Schwarz et al., on availability heuristic?

A
  • wanted to see if people used availability heuristic to make judgements about themselves
  • IV –> seeing how easy it was to bring to mind examples of their own past behaviours (based on either recalling 6 or 12 examples) , and type of act to recall (levels of assertive vs unassertive)

DV–> self-rated assertiveness

25
Q

What were the results of the study by Schwarz et al on Availability Heuristic being used to judge ourselves?

A
  • people do use availability heuristic when judging themselves
  • the more examples they had to recall, the more they thought and self-rated as if they were not an assertive person
  • less examples they had to recall, the more they thought and self-rated as if they were an assertive person
26
Q

What is representative heuristic?

A
  • a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case
  • Does not use outside or contextual information

ex: guessing that someone is a Taylor Swift fan based on how similar they look to one’s prototype of a “swiftie” (wearing bracelets, concert shirts)

27
Q

What is “base-rate information” ?

A
  • approach to rapid categorization
  • contrasts with the representativeness heuristic
  • information about the relative frequency of members of different categories in the population
  • all based on the context of where you are

ex: guessing that someone is a Taylor Swift fan because there is a Taylor Swift concert in the area

28
Q

When faced with base rate information and
contradictory representativeness information, people will rely more on which one more?

A

representative heuristic

29
Q

What is controlled thinking?

A
  • high effort thinking
  • Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary and effortful
    -Requires mental energy
  • Provides checks and balances for automatic thinking.
  • Can only use it to think of one thing at a time

ex: solving a math problem uses controlled thinking

30
Q

Sometimes an unconscious desire can lead to a conscious thought, leading us to believe we are exerting more conscious control over events than we really are.
true or false

A

true

31
Q

What is free will?

A

choosing what we do

32
Q

What is an example of free will disconnect with controlled thinking?

A

While watching TV a commercial about ice cream pops up, you want to have ice cream
- you thinking you had more conscious control over choosing to get ice cream but sometimes there is a prime in an unconscious way that lead to a conscious thought

33
Q

What is Counterfactual thinking in Controlled thinking?

A
  • when people mentally change some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been
  • “if only…”
  • not always voluntary or intentional

ex: failing a test –> you might start to use this thinking and start thinking ”if only I had studied harder and went to bed earlier and asked for help I could’ve done better”

34
Q

Why would people more likely engage in counterfactual reasoning?

A
  • when they can EASILY imagine having AVOIDED a negative event
  • the easier to imagine a tragedy having been avoided, the more distressed people feel
  • people also tend to feel more sympathy for others in near-miss situations (plane crash)
35
Q

What are 2 ways that counterfactual thinking could be useful?

A
  1. Focuses people’s attention on ways that they can cope better in the future.
  2. Motivates them to take steps to prevent similar outcomes from occurring in the future.
36
Q

What is 1 ways to improve human thinking?

A
  1. overcome the overconfidence barrier
37
Q

What is the “overconfidence barrier” in controlled thinking?

A

when people tend to be too confident about the accuracy of their judgements

“positive that you’re right”

38
Q

How can we overcome the overconfidence barrier?

A
  • have people consider that they may be wrong
  • have them consider the opposite point of view
  • teach people how to reason correctly (through statistics and methodological principles)
39
Q
A

PSY2110: Social Psychology (13 decks)

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