social psych 3-4

System 1 vs system 2 processing of information

Daniel Kahneman: We have two brain systems • System 1, automatic processing: the intuitive, automatic, unconscious, and fast way of thinking—also known as "intuition" or "gut feeling" • System 2, controlled processing: the deliberate, controlled, conscious, and slower way of thinking System 1 influences more of our actions than we realize

Heuristics- representativeness and availability

Heuristic: a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments- usually adaptive but haste makes waste • Representativeness heuristic: the tendency to presume, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member ie lawyer vs engineer • 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- ie flying vs driving

Overconfidence phenomenon and remedies for overconfidence

Overconfidence phenomenon: the tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate theaccuracy of one's beliefs • Incompetence feeds overconfidence• Ignorance of one's incompetence occurs mostly on relatively easy-seeming tasks • Overconfidence may persist in part because we admire confidence in others

Confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions, i.e Wason's card task

Priming

activating particular associations in memory • Can influence another thought or even an action • Things we don't even consciously notice can subtly influence how we interpret and recall events

Counterfactual thinking

imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened,but didn't • Imagining worse alternatives helps us feel better i.e gold vs bronze • Imagining what could have been occurs when we can easily picture an alternative outcome • More significant and unlikely the event, the more intense the counterfactual thinking

Embodied cognition

mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments Brain systems that process our bodily sensations communicate with the brain systems responsible for our social thinking i.e., depressed people seeing darker rooms

Illusory and regression towards the mean

perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists • Example: success and moving on a whim• People easily misperceive random events as confirming their beliefs, ie lucky numbers • Gamblers attribute wins to their skill and foresight; losses are "near misses," "flukes," or a bad call by a referee • Regression toward the average: the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward their average

Automatic thinking

• Automatic processing: "implicit" thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness; roughly corresponds to "intuition"—also known as System 1 • Controlled processing: "explicit" thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious—also known as System 2 Automatic thinking often involves schemas, emotional reactions, the effects of expertise, and snap judgments