Week 4 - Social Cognition Flashcards
automatic thinking
a type of decision-making process that occurs at an unconscious or automatic level and is entirely effortless and unintentional
heuristics
mental shortcuts that are often used to form judgements and make decisions
controlled or effortful thinking
thinking thats effortful, conscious, and intentional
social cognition
how people think about the world, and in particular how people select, interpret, and use info to make judgements about the world
intuition
a decision-making shortcut in which we rely on our instinct instead of relying on more objective info
availability heuristic
a mental shortcut in which people make a judgement based on how easily they can bring something to mind
schemas
mental structures that organize our knowledge about the world and influence how we interpret people and events
person schemas
beliefs about other people, their traits, and goals
self schemas
our memory, inferences and info about ourselves
role schemas
behaviours that are expected of people in particular occupations or social positions
event schemas
scrips that people have for well-nown situations which help them prepare for the expected sequence of events
content-free schemas
rules about processing info
priming
increase accessibility to a given concept or schema due to a prior experience
representativeness
the tendency to perceive someone or something based on its similarity to a typical case
base-rate fallacy
an error in which people ignore the numerical frequency, or base rate, of an event in estimating how likely it is to occur
anchoring and adjustment
a mental shortcut in which people rely on an initial starting point in making an estimate but then fail to adequately adjust from this anchor
counterfactual thinking
the tendency to imagine alternative outcomes to various events
contrast effect
the relative difference in intensity between two stimuli and their effect on each other
framing heuristic
the tendency to be influenced by the way an issue is presented
implicit personality theory
the theory that certain traits and behaviours go together
primacy effect
the tendency for info that is presented early to have a greater impact on judgement than info that is presented later
trait negativity bias
the tendency for people to be more infused by negative traits than by positive ones
illusory correlation
the tendency to see a correlation between two events when in reality there is no association between them
unrealistic optimism
the tendency for people to see themselves as less likely than others to suffer bad events in the future
illusory superiority
an unrealistically positive view of the self
hindsight bias
the tendency of people to see a given outcome as having been inevitable once they know the actual outcome
belief perseverance
the tendency to maintain, and even strengthen, beliefs in the face of disconfirming evidence
behavioural confirmation/self-fulfilling prophecy
the process by which peoples expectations about a person lead them to elicit behaviour that confirms those expectations
field dependent
having more difficulty in identifying an embedded figure in a larger background but greater ability to perceive an image as one holistic figure
field independent
having the ability to identify an embedded figure and separate it from a larger background
