Social Psychology Ch. 3

Counterfactual thinking

Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn't.

Controlled processing

"Explicit" thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious

Automatic processing

"Implicit" think that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness, roughly corresponds to "intuition"

Misattribution

Mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source

Nature operates in such a way that we feel ______ for rewarding others and _______ for punishing them.

PUNISHED for rewarding; REWARDED for punishing

People often exhibit rosy retrospection. What does this mean?

People recall mildy pleasant events more favorably than they experienced them. When memories are hazy, current feelings guide our recall.

Illusory correlation

Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists

Illusion of control

Perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are. The idea that chance events are subject to OUR influence.

Belief perseverance

Persistence of one's initial conceptions, as when the basis for one's belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.

Regression toward the average

The statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward one's average

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior (also called correspondence bias, because we so often see behavior as corresponding to a disposition).

Overconfidence phenomenon

The tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs

Representativeness heuristic

The tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling a typical member. To judge something by intuitively comparing it to our mental representation of a category.

Attribution theory

The theory of how people explain others' behavior- for example, but attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to external situations.

What is the purpose of subliminal stimuli?

To prime our thinking and reacting

An example of priming

Watching a scary movie alone at home can activate emotions that, without our realizing it, cause us to interpret furnace noises as a possible intruder

What are some examples of automatic processing?

-Schemas- mental concepts or templates that intuitively guide our perceptions and interpretations -Emotional reactions- often nearly instantaneous, happening before there is time for deliberate thinking -Expertise -Unconscious thinking

Give some examples of the overconfidence phenomenon.

-The "planning fallacy"- most of us overestimate how much we'll be getting done, and therefore how much free time we will have. -"Stockbroker overconfidence" -"Political overconfidence"

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A belief that leads to its own fulfillment

Availability heuristic

A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory. If instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace. The more easily we recall something, the more likely it seems.

Self-awareness

A self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions.

Confirmation bias

A tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions

Heuristic

A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments

Behavioral confirmation

A type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations

Priming

Activating particular associations in memory

Spontaneous trait inference

An effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior

Dispositional attribution

Ascribes behavior to the person's disposition and traits

Situational attribution

Attributing behavior to the environment

Dispositional attribution

Attributing behavior to the person's disposition and traits

Experimenter bias

Bias introduced by an experimenter whose expectations about the outcome of the experiment can be subtly communicated to the participants

What is the Kulechov effect?

Filmmakers control people's perceptions of emotion by manipulating the setting in which they see a face. Viewers' inferences are guided by their assumptions being manipulated.

Misinformation effect

Incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of the event, after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it.