Social Cognition Exam #1
What are the classic, probabilistic, and theory-based views of schemas? What is one problem with each of these views?
1. Classic view of schemas: Schemas can be defined by a list of necessary and sufficient attributes (librarians are quiet, female, tall, old, grumpy, etc.) a. Problems: It can be hard to specify defining features, members vary a great deal in their typicality, some cases are unclear 2. Probabilistic View of schemas: Categories are organized around attributes that are only characteristic of the category, but don't define the category a. There are two types (Membership in a category is determined by similarity) i. Prototype view: representation is abstracted from a list of most characteristic features (EX: Lawyers are smart, articulate, aggressive, wealthy, etc. You compare someone to these characteristics to see if they could fit in this category) ii. Exemplar view: Representation is set through examples of members and their characteristics b. Problems: Any two objects can be similar or dissimilar on an infinite number of dimensions, how do you weight feature in making similarity judgment (think about how a dog and a baby are similar and different) 3. Theory-based View of Schemas: Schemas create theories about how features go together and why, helps us to determine category membership a. Problems: Expertise affects the way we classify objects
What are the five functions of schemas? Be prepared with an example of each (the example does not have to be a study).
1. Classification a. We encounter people and behaviors as instances of particular schemas (this helps us to make sense of individual members of categories and intentions that may underlie behaviors) b. Example: When you wake up in the middle of the night to someone screaming and you see a man with an ax enter your bedroom you feel afraid (of that person), but if the man with the ax is dressed like a firefighter you are not afraid of that person - you feel that he is there to help you to safety. 2. Inferring additional attributes a. We can use schemas to go beyond the information given b. Example: When you hear "after weighing all of the circumstances, the CEO/Drug dealer decided that he would have to terminate a few employees" you assume terminate for the CEO means fire and terminate for the drug dealer means kill. 3. Guiding attention and interpretation a. Schemas help us to make sense of incoming information and behaviors (helping us to simplify the cognitive processing necessary to function in the world) b. Example: How we react to a person crying in the hallway is drastically changed by the fact that we know they either just lost a loved one or they just got into their top choice medical school. 4. Communication a. Schemes promote efficient communication by letting us leave out lots of details (we need to be careful of this because it can cause lots of misunderstandings because two people could have different understandings of one thing) b. Example: Most people have the same understanding of what occurs when someone wins the lottery (they celebrate, they become super rich, they go on a spending spree, etc.) so when we talk about the winning the lottery in normal conversations we don't go into greater detail about what winning the lottery entails. 5. Reasoning a. We can combine existing schemas to form new ideas (this helps you to imagine things that don't exist) b. Example: A Hendrix Hockey Player. We have schemas for what a Hendrix student is like and schemas for what an ice hockey player is and then we are able to alter them slightly to fit them together to create a new schema.
What are two areas in which these findings have been demonstrated? (Longer is better heuristic)
1. College requirements - you like the requirement (to graduate) more if it has existed for 100 years than you do if it has existed for 10 2. Art - you like the painting the longer it's been around 3. Acupuncture 4. Nature (trees that are older are liked better and are thought to be more aesthetically pleasing) 5. Chocolate
What are the five ways that schemas get activated? Be prepared with an example of each (the example does not have to be a study).
1. Stimulus features (thinks that you can physically see - wrinkles = old) a. Example: When you see someone wearing a cross/crucifix then you usually assume they are Christian and that schema gets activated. 2. Salience: A person who is different from everyone on a dimension will activate the dimension. a. Example: We understand that the one person standing in a class at the front is the teacher and not another student 3. Chronic accessibility: Things that matter to us or defines us are easier for us to remember which means that we can access those schemas more easily and quickly. a. Example: If someone else is from Colorado it connects to my schema (because I'm from Colorado) 4. Goals: Which affect what schemas are called to mind (this type of goal is not what we ordinarily think of as a goal, under this definition a goal could be not being prejudiced or feeling bad about yourself - this helps us to self regulate if we have goal not to be seen as something) a. Example: If you have the goal to not be seen a sexist then you have 5. Priming: Experiences or procedures that bring a particular schema to mind a. Example: When you pick up the vernacular of your friends
What is a heuristic?
A mental shortcut or rule of thumb used in judgment and decision making (this reduces uncertainty in a very uncertain world, but can lead to faulty beliefs and bad decisions)
What is an anchor? How is it used in the anchoring and adjustment heuristic?
An anchor is a initial starting point (it does not even have to be relevant for what we are making a judgment on) It is used in the anchoring and adjustment heuristic because people will use the anchor as their starting point and they will adjust up or down from that point when making decisions or guesses. (Example: Number of countries in the UN from Africa - in class demonstration)
How can counterfactual thought create meaning? How is counterfactual though connected to perceptions of fate?
Asking "what would my life be like if this pivotal experience had not occurred?" facilitates understanding of the event's significance in the big picture of life Mentally constructing counterfactual worlds actually increases, rather than decreases, the perception that life's actual path was "meant to be," lending significance to these critical events Reminding oneself that life could have turned out differently helps one not only to understand why events took one turn, rather than another, but also renders greater meaning to the turn that events did take
Why does Gilovich argue that probabilistic social sciences are more beneficial in overcoming errors in social cognition than training in the natural sciences?
Because the social sciences provide helpful practice in thinking clearly and rigorously about the phenomena of everyday life
Hypothesis confirmation of others can involve biased memory or biased evidence search. Be prepared to describe a study that describes how each process occurs.
Biased Memory: • They told Ps mixed (could go either way) information about "Jane's" level of extraversion/introversion. • IV: introversion or extraversion • They sent the Ps away and they came back two days later. • DV: Half were asked to test the hypothesis that she was extraverted and the other half were asked to test the hypothesis that she was introverted. • Results: Ps remembered more hypothesis consistent facts and found Jane more suitable for jobs consistent with hypothesis they were testing Biased Evidence Search (Snyder and Swann, 1978) Part 1 • Ps are instructed to conduct an interview to determine if another P is an introvert or an extrovert • IV: Ps are told to determine if the person is an extrovert or an introvert (they are only given one to prove not the option between the two) • DV: Given a list of 26 questions to ask and told to pick 12 to determine the targets personality • R: Ps chose questions that matched their hypotheses. They chose questions that were biased towards what they were told to look for (if they were looking for extroversion they chose questions that would prove someone was extraverted. Part 2 • The questions were actually asked of the second participant • Judges heard only the audio track containing the interviewee's answers and rated responses (judges were used because person asking question is already biased) • R: Inverviewees' in the extravert condition are judged to be more extraverted, confidant, poised, energetic, outgoing, and enthusiastic.
What are categories? What are schemas?
Categories: A class of objects that we believe belongs together (this is a subjective process) Schemas: (Concepts) Mental representation of a category. This includes attributes, theories about attribute connections, and exemplars (examples of these people - like the "person" you think of when you hear a lawyer). Also these range from very accurate to somewhat accurate.
What is confirmation bias and why is it cognitively easier? How can it make policies or decisions look artificially good?
Confirmation bias: the tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses o Non-confirmatory info can be harder to deal with because it is usually framed negatively and people sometimes have trouble conceptualizing negative assertions. o One would expect confirmatory information to be particularly influential whenever the disconfirmations are framed as negations Card experiment: this experiment if particularly informative because it makes it abundantly clear that the tendency to seek out information consistent with a hypothesis need not stem from any desire for the hypothesis to be true. They sought to find hypothesis-consistent information
What is egocentrism? Know an example and be prepared to explain several reasons why it happens.
Egocentrism is the tendency to assume that one has contributed more than their fair share to joint endeavors (Ross and Sicoly, 1979) Example: Students' assessments of their contributions in classroom discussions (together everyone's perceptions would be more than 100%) Why does this happen?: 1. Selective encoding (attention and rehearsal) 2. Differential retrieval ("how much did I contribute? - not thinking about how much other people contributed) 3. Informational disparities (We just didn't see it happening - you know what you put into your section but you don't see what others put into their sections) 4. Motivational influences (want to hit our estimate, motivated to see ourselves a certain way - we want to stay consistent)
What is Covariation detection? Give two examples of situations requiring covariation detection.
Examining relationships between two variables (our innate ability to detect correlations). Much of social perception is based on covariation. Examples: group membership and specific behavior, opinions of two different people, behavior in multiple situations. EX: Dr. Z is allergic to vinegar (just thought she was a pick eater and got sick a lot)
What are several examples of anchoring and adjustment in social judgment and why, specifically, do they involve this heuristic?
Fundamental attribution error o Focusing on the type of person someone is instead of the situation o You anchor on the personality traits of the person and adjust the situation from there o Example: Pumping gas at the first one with no one in front of them because that person left and we make judgments about the person's character Hindsight bias o You know something now and you can't forget you known it and you "see" the proof of it in the past o You anchor on the knowledge and adjust your past from there. o Example: Now that you know John and Jane are dating you can look back and see all the times they were flirting with each other. Anchoring on our own traits and attitudes o We use ourselves as the anchor and make decisions about others based off of us o Example: If someone is kinder than me, I think they're kind Anchoring on stereotypes when evaluating group members Jury sentencing o The order you tell the jury the possible sentencing becomes an anchor (if you go biggest punishment to smallest punishment jurors sentence more harshly and that flips for the other way)
What is the "hot hand" phenomenon and what are two reasons people believe in it, despite the fact that researchers have found that it doesn't exist?
Hot Hand: the tendency for people's preconceptions to bias their interpretations of what they see Two Reasons: o Because people have theories about how confidence affects performance, they may expect to see streak shooting even before watching their first basketball game • After making a couple of shots, players are thought to become relaxed, to feel confident, and to "get in a groove" such that subsequent success becomes more likely. • "Success breeds success" o People have faulty intuitions about what chance sequences look like
What is the longer is better heuristic? Why do the authors think longevity is associated with positivity?
It is that the longevity of something brings about a more positive evaluation of that thing. Why: 1. Status quo bias (we like doing things as they are now) 2. Loss aversion (don't want to loose what we have now) 3. Inference (it must be good to have survived for so long)
How do "judgment by representativeness" and "misperception of randomness" offer support for Gilovich's idea that people seek order and hate it when the world is unpredictable?
Judgment of Representativeness o People assume that "like goes with like" (things that go together should look as though they go together.) Additionally, we expect instances to look like the categories of which they are members thus, we expect someone who is a librarian to resemble the prototypical librarian o We expect effects to look like their causes; thus, we are more likely to attribute a case of heartburn to spicy rather than bland food and we are more inclined to see jagged handwriting as a sign of a tense rather than a relaxed personality o Many times, these are true; BUT the over-application of representativeness gets us into trouble Misperception of Randomness o Flipping a coin o Anything other than 50/50 is hard for people to expect
How do we use evidence-based judgments to make sense of disparate data? What is explanatory coherence and why is it important?
Many judgments use causal reasoning that links these single pieces of data together (EX: Jury decision making often involves creating a story of events - setting the facts of the case in a meaningful context) Explanatory coherence (explanation-based judgment must have explanatory coherence. o Explanatory breath: the explanation should explain multiple pieces of information o Simplicity: there are the fewest number of additional hypotheses required to account for all information o Consistency with other pieces of information
What effect does motivation have on hypothesis testing? And, what is one experimental demonstration (be prepared to discuss the "TAA deficiency" paradigm and two dependent variables)?
Motivation and hypothesis testing: if we want something to be true, we will dig harder to find evidence consistent with our beliefs (This affects which beliefs and rules we test. This affects the amount of effort we invest in searching for information to test the hypothesis.) Croyle and Ditto's TAA Enzyme Paradigm • Ps in study on relation between personality and physical health • Read about fictitious medical condition called TAA deficiency (No TAA enzyme leaves one susceptible to pancreatic disorders / TAA = good, no TAA = bad) • New developed saliva test involving specially coated test strips • Ps tests for TAA • Test strip is yellow construction paper (they give them a range of time when the test should change color (the paper will never change) Study 1 • IV: Ps are told either: o Deficiency condition - if TAA absent, no color reaction o No deficiency condition - if TAA present, no color reaction o In either case people are told the opposite will be represented by the color changing from yellow to green o Ps are videotaped while saliva testing o DV: Ps provide ratings of what they think on certain topics o Results: People that think they are TAA deficient: • think their condition is less serious • find pancreatic disease to be less serious • think disease is way more common • wait way longer for results and 3x more likely to test again (think test is less accurate; Ps with more positive news find test to be more accurate) Study 3 • All Ps are told they are "positive" and have the TAA enzyme o IV1 - Ps were told good (presence decreases risk) or bad (presence increases risk) • Ps are then told person-specific factors can affect test accuracy (i.e., irregularities in sleep, diet, stress, etc.) • IV2 - timing of identifying these factors (Pre-diagnosis or Post-diagnosis) o DV: How many of these irregularities do the Ps identify? o Results: For enzyme is bad • Pre-diagnosis - showed that Ps didn't think that the test was fine • Post-diagnosis - Ps rated the test as being not as good o AFTER: if told enzyme was bad, Ps find way more irregularities to point at
Are we typically accurate in detecting covariation? What can improve our accuracy?
No, we often fail to detect correlations/covariations. In the absence of prior theories, people may fail to see corrections that do exist. (People can detect extremely strong correlations, but we tend to underestimate correlations). This is particularly true for correlations that are based on social perception. Estimates of covariation can be very accurate when: • We are familiar with the domain (e.g., in a group of close friends) • The data in question is easy to code (e.g., academic ability or athletic ability)
What are one-sided and two-sided events? How are they related to focused and unfocused expectations? How can they contribute to our predisposition to remember consistent information?
One-sided events: Are events that only stand out in your memory if the outcome occurs. (EX: You only notice when your roommate doesn't take out the trash not when he/she does) Two-sided events: Are events that stand out in your memory no matter what outcome occurs because both outcomes make the event memorable. (EX: If you are betting on a race horse, if the horse wins or loose you will notice) Focused expectations: Are when relative outcomes happen at a given time or have a time frame that it will be completed in. Unfocused expectations: Are when relative outcomes do not have a time frame (they could happen at any time) They contribute to our predisposition to remember consistent information because
How does hypothesis confirmation work for ourselves? How is this related to the availability heuristic?
One-sided questions about the self can also influence our views of ourselves (the availability heuristic - how easily does a characteristic come to mind? We ask very specific questions of ourselves) Evidence for hypothesis confirmation regarding self: • Ps were asked if they were "happy" with their social life rated themselves as happier than those asked if they were "unhappy" with their social life o This only happens when memory or belief is inconsistent
Identify and describe two of the four asymmetries that Gilovich argues will influence memory and recall.
Pattern asymmetry: (numbers); because these events are so salient and memorable that they seem more common than they really are Definitional asymmetries: certain events are one-sided almost by definition (facelifts); if someone can detect, it supports the belief. If goes undetected → they are undetected and don't disconfirm the belief
What is a positive test strategy and how do we use it to test hypotheses?
Positive test strategy is testing a hypothesis by seeking out the cases that match the hypothesis (evidence that proves the hypothesis). It is only when we can find little or no evidence for our hypothesis do we believe that the hypothesis was false.
What is the processing fluency? How is processing fluency related to perceptions of risk? Describe the study about how the ease or difficulty of pronunciation is related to risk.
Processing fluency is the ease of processing stimuli (Ex: light on the power point make it harder to read). It is related to perceptions of risk because the more familiar something is the more positively it is thought of. Therefore thinks that are harder to process seem to be a greater risk. Hypothesis: Novel stimuli will be perceived as less risky when they are easy vs. hard to process. Ps read about food additives. IV: Easy (magnalroxate) or difficult (Hnegripitrom) to pronounce DV: Ps judge hazard pressed by food additives R: Hard to pronounce names are rated as more harmful Study 2 found this effect is mediated by novelty (if everyone knows what it is then it is not as scary)
Be prepared to explain one of the experiments in this paper. (Kray et al. 2010)
Ps were asked to write a short essay recounting how they met a close friend IV 1: counterfactual condition (instructed to describe all the possible ways you might not have meet this person and how things could have gone differently) vs. factual condition (instructed to describe any other details about the way you met determined how things ultimately turned out) IV 2: Meaning measure (scale from 1 to 7) about their relationship IV 3: Essay coding (judges coded thoughts that were counterfactual) DV: Meaning of the relationship and satisfaction with the relationship Results: o Counterfactual reflection → relationship seen as more meaningful and self-defining than did factual reflection o The number of thoughts generated between the counterfactual and factual conditions did not significantly differ • However, Ps in the counterfactual condition generated more significantly counterfactual statements than participants in the factual condition • Mentally subtracting a significant other from one's life increases satisfaction with the relationship
Describe the Schwartz et al. (1991) study that demonstrated the availability heuristic.
Ps were brought in to figure out how assertive or unassertive they were. IV 1: Ps were asked to think up examples of when they were either assertive or unassertive IV 2: Ps had to think up either 6 (easy for people to think of) or 12 examples (hard for people to think of) DV: Participants self ratings of assertiveness. R: (These results are the ratings of the Ps on how assertive they were) Ps with assertive, 6 examples rate themselves higher than Ps with assertive,12 examples. Ps with unassertive, 6 examples rated themselves lower than Ps with unassertive, 12 examples. Ps with assertive, 6 examples rate themselves as the same as Ps with unassertive, 12 examples.
What is regression to the mean (or, the "regression fallacy")? How can this phenomenon cause people to misperceive the effectiveness of punishments and rewards?
Regression to the mean: the tendency to fail to recognize statistical regression when it occurs, and instead "explain" the observed phenomena with superfluous and often complicated causal theories EX: a lesser performance that follows a brilliant one is attributed to slacking off Analogous to the clustering illusion: cases where people extract too much meaning from chance events By developing elaborate explanations for phenomena that are the predictable result of statistical regression, people form spurious beliefs about phenomena and causal relations in everyday life Thus, we tend to to punish undesirable behaviors even though rewarding desirable responses is more effective than punishing undesirable ones
What are self-fulfilled and seemingly fulfilled prophecies? What is an example of each?
Self-fulfilling prophesy: My behavior actively creates the thing we expect EX: Waiters think that college students tip less so they don't provide as good of services so the students tip less. Seemingly fulfilled prophecies: You never get the opportunity to disprove what you believe (but you didn't create the avoidance) EX: You think that someone is super mean because they frown a lot, but you have never talked to them. By never talking to them you never get the chance to see they are really nice.
What is the definition of social cognition?
Social cognition is the scientific study of how people perceive, represent, interpret, and remember information about themselves and about other individuals and groups.
What is the suspicion heuristic? How does the research about both heuristics and implicit racial bias contribute to this new heuristic (I'm looking for about a paragraph of explanation here)?
Suspicion Heuristic: non-conscious processes can lead to systematic and predictable errors in judgments of criminality o People often utilize heuristics to make decisions and predictions without any conscious awareness that they are doing so o Heuristics help us efficiently navigate the world, BUT they also produce errors in judgment called biases System 1: efficient, skilled, and often accurate, BUT the inability to suppress its operations can lead to systematic and predictable errors of judgment o We often adopt the intuitions of System 1 unquestioningly, unless something requires more cognitive thought, which then activates System 2 Implicit biases: automatic associations connected with a social group o The automatic association of "blacks" with "criminal" may cause someone to interpret ambiguous behavior by a black target as more criminal than identical behavior by a white target Representative Heuristic o What causes the mind to link ideas of circumstances, events, and actions, among others, is that these ideas regularly occur at the same time or within a relatively short interval • Once these links or associations are made, they are kept in memory and accessed unintentionally and without effort the next time any of these ideas are activated • Availability Heuristic
Describe the research about the benefits of science education.
Testing statistical and methodological reasoning in psychology, chemistry, medicine, and law students IV 1: Given the GRE IV 2: 1st and 3rd year students (compared to one another); 1st year students were reassessed two years later DV: (test comparison to original) Science and everyday-life contexts Results: no initial differences in test scores across 4 disciplines After two years: Psych - 70% increase in test scores Medicine - 25% increase Law and Chem - had no improvements
What is the Barnum effect?
The Barnum effect is the concept that people will believe and agree with vague descriptions of "themselves" as long as they believe that it has been created just for them or for a certain characteristic they carry. This is what happens with horoscopes and other personality quizzes - the descriptions are super vague and broad but everyone feels that they are described exactly. It is a multi-faceted description, which means that it describes both ends of the spectrum (overlap between concepts which means that you are both extraverted and introverted) and they are very general so as not to stop anyone from resonating with the description.
What is the availability heuristic? Why do we use this heuristic?
The availability heuristic is making judgments about the frequency or likelihood of an event based on the ease with which evidence or examples come to mind. There are two reasons we use their heuristic: 1. Ignoring biases in available samples (We hear or know of more examples of one than the other - biased media coverage) Example: It is 22 times safer to fly somewhere than drive but more people are afraid of flying because whenever there is a plane crash the media goes wild. 2. Ignoring biases in accessible cognition (one-sided question change what is accessible and ease or difficulty of thinking of examples)
What causes bias in the case of ambiguous information? How is this process different for unambiguous information?
The cause of bias in the case of ambiguous information is that the way we perceive the events is changed to fit our preconceptions about that event (this happens without us realizing that it is happening). Therefore, we see what we except to see (because we want to remain consistent - think black jerseys and hockey players aggression levels) This process is different for unambiguous information because it is not an automatic process. With unambiguous information individuals believe that they are able to fully examine the topic set before them, but the more research they do the more they become certain of their original perception.
What is the conjunction fallacy? Give an example.
The conjunction fallacy is the failure to recognize that the co-occurrence of two outcomes cannot be greater than the probability of each outcome alone. It is much rarer to find a bank teller feminist than it is to find a feminist or a bank teller. (Think about it has two circles overlaying in the middle). An example is it is more likely to find a Tae Kwon Do Master or a Coloradan than a Coloradan Tae Kwon Do Master. Ps thought it was more likely that a fictitious student chose Dartmouth because: • he wanted to attend a prestigious college AND because he liked the female to male ratio • rather than just the f/m ratio alone
What is the representativeness heuristic? What is an example of the representativeness heuristic in the context of medicine?
The representative heuristic involves classifying things according to how similar they are to the typical case. Also, the belief that effects should resemble the process that produced them (this is the random thing). The cure should resemble the disease. This is good when the similarity between an example and a category is a good indicator of category membership. Example: Ancient Chinese medicine - people with vision problems were fed ground bat (because bats can see really well therefore it should help). Example: American medicine - Short people need to eat corn to grow taller because corn is tall. Example: You are what you eat experiment: IV: the Chandorans either hunt turtles for their shells and boars for meat or hunt boars for tusks and turtles for meat. DV: The Ps rated what their perceptions of the Chandorans were. R: When they ate board they were rated as more irritable and aggressive and when they ate turtle they were rated as living longer and being better swimmers.
What are the four perspectives on the social thinker?
The social thinker states that individuals construct a subjective social reality based on their perceptions of reality. (Objective reality does not determine behavior). The four perspectives on the social thinker are: 1. Consistency seekers: We want consistency between prior beliefs about the world and our interpretation of new situations (This is how people only find sources that agree with what they already believe) 2. Naïve scientists: Individuals gather relevant information unselectively and construct social reality in an unbiased way (This is that people are totally rational and are in full control of all of their cognitive processes) 3. Cognitive misers: Individuals strive to simplify cognitive processes, particularly when under time pressure (For this one think Ebenezer Scrooge but with the use of our mental power - we don't want to spend anything we don't have to) 4. Motivated tacticians: Many strategies are used depending on the situation a. Important decisions we are the naïve scientists b. Less important decisions we are cognitive misers
What is the hierarchical organization of categories? Which level do we typically use?
There are three levels of hierarchical organization of categories: 1. Superordinate categories (Example: pets) 2. Basic level categories (Example: cats, dogs, birds, etc.) 3. Subordinate categories (Example: Poodle, Dalmatian, German Shepherd) We typically use the basic level because superordinate categories are too broad (it is difficult to talk about common attributes and hard to describe) and subordinate categories are too small (it requires too much cognitive energy to differentiate)
What information should be considered when detecting covariation? What information actually is used when detecting covariation?
We SHOULD use all four cells of the 2x2 matrix, BUT people tend to employ a positive test strategy; only looking and asking questions that will support or prove their hypothesis; o Asking one-sided questions provides an erroneous sense of confirmation o Only info that is consistent with the hypothesis is likely to be elicited o People tend to search their own memories for relevant evidence, rather than asking questions of another person • When people know more about something → better at finding more similarities • When people know less about something → better at finding more differences
Describe the Risen et al. study about one shot illusory correlations.
We are likely to over estimate the frequency of rare behaviors in small groups (EX: Asian Celebrities; more memorable because of few examples that stay salient) Risen et al. Study o IV1: Rare (growing up on a ostrich farm) vs Common (living in New York) Behavior o IV2: Rare (being a Jehovah Witness) vs Common (being Methodist) group o DV: Reading time (you read each paragraph describing each scenario - a rare behavior rare group, rare behavior common group, etc. o Results: • Ps spend longer processing rare behaviors performed by rare groups which leads to illusory correlation • Common/Common - least amount of time
How is the representativeness heuristic related to ignoring sample size? How is it related to misconceptions of chance and the perception of randomness?
We ignore sample size because we ignore prior probabilities and base based our perceptions off of one instance (EX: Stop and frisk in NY - racial profiling, they needed to pull over more white people) The representativeness heuristic makes us believe that effects should resemble the process that produced them (if something is random is should look random - so we think it should be THTTHHTHTHTHT not TTTTTHHTTHHHHHT).
What information do we need to detect covariation (the 2x2 matrix)? Even when we have all relevant information, why do we fail at covariation detection?
We need to use all 4 cells and compare the ratios, but we typically only use the diagonal cells (either yesxyes or noxno) with is an example of using positive test strategy. We often look for the presence rather than the absence of behavior. So even with the full set of data, we may not always correctly detect covariation because: • Social data unfolds over time (things change) • Social data can be influenced by errors in memory • Much social data is mixed
What are illusory correlations? Describe the three reasons they form.
When prior theories and expectations lead us to see correlations that are not actually present (EX: once they adopt, they are going to get pregnant) Why? • We use a positive test strategy (you only look for the event no the absence of the event) • If we expect a correlation, we pay more attention to cases with that correlation • We focus on distinctive information which → more processing and salience (Small groups, strange or infrequent behavior, etc.)
How does hidden data affect our ability to detect covariation?
Without information about how members of the "rejected" group would have performed had they not been rejected, the only way to evaluate the effectiveness of the selection test is to look at the success rate among those who are "accepted" o People who create bad impressions in interviews do not land jobs, those with low SAT scores do not go to elite colleges, and those with poor grant scores are confined to lower research
Why do the authors argue that the perception that something was fated does not decrease its meaningfulness? Is this adaptive? (Kray et al. 2010)
• Believing an event was "meant to be" elevates its significance o Not rendering reality a fluke: anchor reality with sense of destiny o Allows for people to construct positive life stories o Finding benefits in the face of adversity: well-established coping mechanism to which it is possible to attach starkly different value judgments • If fate perceptions driven by a desire to create structure or control in one's life, then individual differences in locus of control and need for closure may predict the use of fate as an explanatory device
How can confirmation bias result in thinking two things are both more similar and less similar?
• Judgments of similarity are primarily determined by featured that two entities share o i.e., Because people know more about East and West Germany than they do about Sri Lanka and Nepal, they can think of more things they have in common, and so they seem more similar • Judgments of dissimilarity are primarily determined by features that are not shared by the two entities (by those features that are distinctive to one or the other) o i.e., Because people know more about East and West Germany than Sri Lanka and Nepal, it is easier to think of ways in which they differ from one another, and so they are seen as more dissimilar as well
How does the suspicion heuristic play into decisions about self-defense?
• The suspicion heuristic gives us a basis for believing that non-Whites will be judged as criminal more often, regardless of whether they are actually engaged in criminal activity o In the self-defense context, individuals are entitled to defend themselves if their actions are "necessary and proportionate" from the perspective of the reasonable person o Although people are not aware of it, simply thinking about crime may automatically trigger the link between non-Whites and criminality below the level of conscious awareness • As a result, people's attention is more likely to be drawn to non-Whites present in the environment (a type of unconscious racial profiling)