Social Psychology Exam 2- social cognition

Leo Tolstoy

"The white bear" informal experiment. "Do not think of a white bear." suppressing unwanted thoughts typically backfires

- Anchoring and Adjustment happiness example

- Tendency to be influenced by a starting point (anchor) and make adjustments up or down - Happy now is the anchor, and determines how happy they will be in 20 days. - How happy are you right now? yes - In 20 days, how happy will you be? it will be based off of the anchor response.

List the 5 elements that distinguish automatic from deliberate processes

Awareness (Might not even be aware they're thinking), intention (Automatic thinking just happens), control (Not subject to deliberate control), effort (Automatic thoughts don't require effort), and efficiency (automatic=efficient, deliberate= slow/cumbersome)

Conjunction Fallacy

Believing the combination of two events is more likely than one event itself.

Brinol & Petty (2003)

Controlled: P's heard argument for carrying personal identification cards - P's told to nod/shake head while listening - Another variable: Strong argument quality vs. Weak argument quality - Did they agree with argument? nod=likely, shake= not likely Negative thoughts with the argument, and by nodding their head up and down, they reinforce their beliefs in the negative connotation of the argument.

Sedikides et al., (1998) what were the conditions? Results?

Do we always attribute our own behavior to external causes? Participant's worked in groups on a creativity task Success Condition: "You're in the 93rd percentile!" Failure Condition: "You're in the 31st percentile..." How much of your group's success/failure is due to you? • Group Success: "I was a major player in my group" • Group Failure: "blame external factors"

Loss-framed appeal Ex

Focuses on how doing something will subtract from your health. "not flossing daily keeps particles of food in your mouth thereby causing bad breath."

upward counterfactuals

Imagining alternatives that are better than actually

Tversky & Kahneman (1983)

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. She's deeply concerned with discrimination and social issues, and participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Rate probability of each being true. Bank Teller- (Just one thing that has to be true. ) Teacher Bank Teller in a feminist movement- - (2 things that has to be true.)

False Consensus Effect Reasons 3

Overestimating number of people who share one's opinions and beliefs, (Influenced by personal bias) Reasons: Anchor and Adjustment, self-esteem, and availability

Anchoring and Adjustment Jacowitz & Kahneman (1995) What was the question they asked? The results?

P's asked two questions: Is the distance from San Francisco to NY more or less than (insert value)? What is distance? Value = 1500 or 6000 miles - Those who were asked 1500 miles, their average was closer 2500 miles. - 3000, the average to 4000 miles.

Bargh et al. (1996) What did it test? Experiment. results

Priming. P's completed scrambled sentence task "he it wrinkled finds instantly" "he it clean finds instantly" How quickly did they walk down hallway? - Those who were in the elderly group primed condition did walk slower than the neutral

Dispositional

Related to personality and internal traits

simulation Heuristic

Tendency to be influenced by the ease with which you can imagine (or mentally simulate) an event Imagine that you missed your flight to Munich by two hours. Would you be more or less upset if your flight by five minutes?

Availability Heuristic

Tendency to estimate the likelihood of event by how easily instances of it come to mind Fear of airplane crashes

Actor-Observer Bias:

Tendency to make internal attributions for others (negative) behaviors "Jon kicked the dog because he's an $%#@$" Tendency to make external attributions for our own (negative) behaviors "I kicked the dog because it had rabies and was about to bite me

What is the difference between the fundamental attribution error and the actor-observer bias?

The fundamental attribution error is a part of the actor-observer bias. The fundamental attribution error is about how we attribute other people's behavior. The actor-observer bias is the larger concept that explains both how we attribute other people's behavior and how we attribute our own behavior.

Automatic and Deliberate Thinking Examples of tests

The human mind is a duplex system relying on both automatic and conscious means of thinking. The Stroop test

Polarization

The pattern of shifting toward more extreme opinions

Actor/Observer Bias Student example

The tendency for actors to make external attributions and observers to make internal attributions. ex. A student does poorly on a test, they blame external factors (the teacher, the room, etc.) but if they watch another student fail, they can see the true reasons why they failed (Skipped class, didn't study).

Fundamental Attribution Error (Correspondence Bias)

The tendency for observers to attribute other people's behavior to internal or dispositional causes and to downplay situational causes. the "observer role in actor/observer bias)

Gambler's Fallacy

The tendency to believe that a particular chence event is affected by previous events and that chance events will "even out" in the short run. Ex. Roulette

False Uniqueness Effect reason

Underestimating number of others who share positive characteristics. Reason: self-esteem

Framing

Whether messages stress potential gains (positively framed) or potential losses (negatively framed). "10% fat or 90% lean"

Schwarz, Bless, Strack, et al. (1991) What was the experiment? Variables? Results?

Write down examples of how assertive you are Some P's told to write down 6 examples Some P's told to write down 12 examples How assertive are you? Assertiveness goes down with an increase in examples asked for

Concept of attribution

a causal explanation why we or others engaged in a certain behavior

social Cognition

a movement in social psychology that began in the 1970s that focused on thoughts about people and about social relationships

Stroop test

a standard measure of effortful control over responses, requiring participants to identify the color of a word (which may name a different color). It takes conscious effort to override the automatic response.

Priming

activating an idea in someone's mind so that related ideas are more accessible

One- shot illusory correlation

an illusory correlation that occurs after exposure to only one unusual behavior performed by only one member of an unfamiliar group

the tendency to pay more attention to confirming than dis-confirming evidence has long been regarded

as typical of how human thought is sabotaged by bias leading to error.

Gain-framed appeal Ex

focuses on how doing something will add to your health "Flossing daily removes particles of food promoting fresh breath"

downward counterfactuals

imagining alternatives that are worse than actually

Counterfactual thinking

imagining alternatives to past or present events or circumstances

heuristics

mental shortcuts that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of events Efficient and often lead to correct answer Prone to predictable types of errors

Theory Perseverance

proposes that once the mind draws a conclusion =, it tends to stick with that conclusion unless there is overwhelming evidence to change it.

First instinct fallacy

the false belief that it is better not to change one's first answer on a test even if one starts to think that a different answer is correct.

Illusion of control

the false belief that one can influence certain events, especially random or chance ones.

Statistical regression (regression to the mean)

the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to be followed by others that are less extreme and closer to average

hot hand

the tendency for gambler's who get lucky to think that their luck will continue

base rate fallacy

the tendency to ignore or underuse base rate information and instead to be influenced by the distinctive features of the case being judged.

representativeness heuristic

the tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the extent to which it resembles the typical case. Ex coin toss, HTTHTTH looks more likely to happen than HHHHHH even though they have an equal chance of happening. 1st one looks more random.

Confirmation Bias

the tendency to notice and search for information that confirms one's beliefs and to ignore information that dis-confirms one's beliefs

Illusory correlation

the tendency to overestimate the link between variables that are related only slightly or not at all.

Holland, Hendricks, & Aarts (2005) Name of the experiement: Groups results?

• "Smells Like Clean Spirit" - Some Participants come into lab that smells of citrus scent all purpose cleaner - Some P's come into lab with no scent - Given a pastry to eat - Did they clean up crumbs? Yes, the ones in the scent condition were more likely to clean up afterwards • Mind influences Body • Body can influence Mind!

self- serving bias

• Taking credit for successes (internal attributions) • Blaming other people/factors for failures (external attributions)

Strack, Martin, & Stepper (1988) Groups experiment results

•P's read comics - Held pencil with teeth or lips - Told to read a comic strip while holding a pen between their lips (sad) or teeth (happy). People who held it in their teeth perceived the strip as more entertaining than the other variable.