Week 4 - Social Cognition Flashcards
What is social cognition?
Encompasses all processes of perception, belief, interp., and memory that we use to understand…
1) ourselves
2) other people
“____mili seconds” is the time needed to make an emotional judgment on someone’s face
“___” tenth of a second we have already made a judgement on whether we find them attractive or we like them
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1
What is the “danger” of first impressions?
May be wrong or inaccurate
BUT they can be influential and enduring
Do we hold stereotypic first impressions?
Yes
Assumptions about males and females
^^ regarding attractiveness and likeability
Differ on perceiver
True or false. Men who have higher facial width to height are typically more prejudiced
Women who desire“______- ______” relationships prefer men with this higher facial width to height ratio
“______ ______” is seen as more desirable in leaders (politics)
True
We also tend to like and trust men more with narrow faces
Short-term
Wide mouth
Try to form an image an impression of someone who is…
- Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, intelligent
VS
- Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious
Same thing (describing using the same words)
The order MATTERS, primacy effect where we judge on the first few words
In one experiment participants were judging a 4th grade girl on her test-talking abilities and some were told she was rich and some were told she was poor
What were the results?
Participants assumed she has better scores if she was rich and worse scores if she was poor
What is confirmation bias?
VS
Overconfident?
We tend to seek out information that will prove us RIGHT than information that will prove us wrong
—————————————————————————-
We are often overconfident in our assumptions about others and end up making more MISTAKES than we think
What is the study about accuracy and over confidence ability relationships?
At the beginning, they felt they knew more about their partners than they really did
Over time, they thought they were familiar with all the facts, when in truth their ACCURACY did not improve
What is positive illusion in a relationship?
We often portray our partner in the BEST possible way
Combo of realistic knowledge and idealized perceptions
NOT necessary ignoring the faults, just reconstructing them in a different way
Tend to be people with a happier relationship
What’s an approach we can take to stay happy with our partners?
Constructing GENEROUS perceptions of them
Minimize faults, maximize virtues
True or false. We idealize our partner more over time and revise our opinions on them
True
Allows our standards to fit with the partner we chose
If reciprocated, everyone tends to be more satisfied
What is the attributional process (attributions)?
The EXPLANATION on why we come up for why the things occur in the ways they do (or why did they not occur)
CAN EMPHASIZE: external(situation/circumstances)/internal(personality/effort) impacts
CAN ATTRIBUTE: stable(abilities)/unstable factors
CAN IDENTIFY: controllable/uncontrollable causes
What are the 3 patterns that emerge in studies addressing attributions in relationships?
- Actor/observer effect
- Self-serving bias
- Relationship attributions
What is the actor-observer effect?
We often make EXTERNAL attributions for ur OWN behaviour & INTERNAL attributions for the behaviour of OTHERS
Effect gets smaller when we make a conscious effort to understand the others perspectives
What is self-serving biases?
Take CREDIT for our successes and AVOID blame for our failures
LOVING partners tend to be LESS self-serving toward each other in comparison with others
What are relationship attributions? (2 types)
- Relationship- enhancing attributions (happy & secure attach style):
(+) behaviour/action by partner are deemed intentional, habitual and character defining
- Distress-maintaining attributions (dissatisfied & insecure attach style):
(-) behaviour/action are viewed as deliberate
(+) ^^^ are viewed as accidental and unintended
What is reconstructive memory?
Our memories are continually REVISED and REWRITTEN as we obtain new info
CURRENT feelings affect this (whether happy and unhappy in the moment) might affect recall of the past
What is romanticism?
View that LOVE should be the critical element for choosing a partner
We tend to enter our partnerships bases on “________ ________” that we develop (strong beliefs)
Martial paradigms
True or false. Some beliefs can be dysfunctional and as a result may have adverse impacts upon relationship quality
If true, what are some of these beliefs?
True
————————————————————————————-
’ - Disagreements are destructive
- “Mind reading” is essential
- Partners cannot change
- Sex should be perfect every time
- Men & women are different
- Great relationships just happen
What is a destiny belief?
Assume that 2 individuals are either WELL-SUITED for each other and DESTINED to live HAPPILY or NOT
INFLEXIBLE view of intimate relationships
What are growth beliefs?
Beliefs that HEALTHY/POSITIVE relationships develop gradually as partner work at addressing CHALLENGES/OBSTACLES
With enough EFFORT, most relationships can succeed
Tend to be adaptive
What are self-fulfilling prophecies?
FALSE predictions which end up being TRUE since they lead individuals to act in ways that FUFILL the expectations
People who have a tendency to worry about rejection often behave in a manner which makes the rejection “______ ______” to occur
More likely
What are self-perceptions?
VS
What are self-concepts?
Judgements that we form about ourselves
————————————————————
Encompass our beliefs and feelings about ourselves
(Self-knowledge, self-esteem etc…)
What are the 2 important functions self-concepts fufill during social interactions?
- Self-enhancement (seek feedback from others, help to feel desirable)
- Self-verification (feedback that sustains our current self-concepts)
What is impression management?
Trying to impact the impressions that others form of us
Because these impressions are IMPORTANT
We typically try to control the info that others receive about us
——————————————————————————————
Ex) women tend to eat less when at dinner with an attractive man vs them w/ friends
Ex) men take greater risks during dates, don’t act scared with horror movies, display more expensive goods etc…
What are the 4 general impression management strategies people use?
- Ingratiation (seeking acceptable and liking from others, give lots of compliments, charming)
- Self-promotion (really want to be respectable and liked by others, talk about accomplishments/skills), seen in workplace (may be unladylike)
***COMBO OF 1/2 SEEN AS IDEAL IN JOB INTERVIEW
—————————————————————————————- - Intimidation (portrays themselves as dangerous, intimidating, ruthless, in attempt to get others to do what they want)
- Supplication (present oneself to be inept or sick to get others to support and help them, pity)
***TYPICALLY DON’T RESORT TO 3/4, BUT THE ODD TIME INDIV WILL
Individuals who score HIGH on the trait of self-monitoring tend to what?
Adjust their behaviour readily in order to FIT with a variety of norms/different contexts
Tend to have MORE friends, but LESS in common with these friends
Individuals who score LOW on the trait of self-monitoring tend to what?
Be LESS attentive to social norms/less flexible
Behave more CONSISTENTLY across situations
Make STABLE impressions
Tend to have LESS friends, but these friends are more SIMILAR to themselves
What are 6 different factors that determine the accuracy of judgement about our partners?
- Knowledge
- Motivation
- Partner legibility
- Perceiver ability
- Threatening perceptions
- Perceiver influence
Factor 1.
Knowledge
We don’t know our partners as well as we BELIEVE we do
However, we know quite a bit about our intimate partners
Ex) married partners tend to know each other more compared to dating partners
Factor 2.
Motivation
Spouses who have been married for DECADES don’t seem to understand one another any more than spouses that have been dating for 1-2 years
INTEREST/MOTIVATION has an impact on our intimacy
Women tend to be better judges than men
Men tend to not try/care as much
Factor 3.
Partner legibility
The more OBVIOUS a trait is, the more ACCURATELY it will be perceived
Individuals who are SOCIABLE/EXTRAVERTED are likely to be perceived as ^^^
Neuroticism is harder to identify/detect
Ex) in one study it was much easier to see interest that a man had with extroversion vs a women
Factor 4.
Perceiver ability
People with good SOCIAL SKILLS excel at judging others accurately
These individuals often score high on assessments of EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Ex) women tend to have higher emotional intelligence than men
Factor 5.
Threatening perceptions
When ACCURATE perceptions are worrisome, intimate partners can be motivated to develop INACCURATE judgements in order to REDUCE feelings of worry and REDUCE doubts regarding their relationship
Ex) parter has anger issues, even tho these perceptions are accurate we might might inaccurate judgments to help reduce our anxiety of this
Factor 6.
Perceiver influence
People can sometimes act like SCULPTORS by attempting to CONSTRUCT the partners they would LIKE to have
