Social psych Representativ e heuristic

Chap 3: Social Beliefs and Judgments - The tendency to presume, sometimes despite
contrary odds, that someone or something
System 1
belongs to a particular group if resembling
- The intuitive, automatic, unconscious, and fast (representing) a typical member
way of thinking
Av ailability heuristic
System 2
- A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of
- The deliberate, controlled, conscious, and slower things in terms of their availability in memory. If
way of thinking instances of something come readily to mind, we
presume it to be commonplace
Prim ing
Counterfactual thinking
- Activating particular associations in memory
- Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes
E m bodied cognition that might have happened, but didnt
- The mutual influences of bodily sensations on Illusory correlation
cognitive preferences and social judgments
- Perception of a relationship where none exists, or
Intuition perception of a stronger relationship than
- Immediately knowing something without actually exists
reasoning or analysis - Perceiving stronger correlations when there is
Autom atic processing weaker to no correlation

- implicit thinking that is effortless, habitual, and Regression tow ard the av erage
without awareness; roughly corresponds to - The statistical tendency for extremes scores or
intuitions extreme behavior to return toward ones average
- Aka system 1 - Extreme scores / behaviors tend to regress to the
Controlled processing average

- explicit thinking that is deliberate, reflective, Mood and judgments

and conscious - Moods easily affect peoples judgments
- Aka system 2 Political perception
Schem as - There is bias on both sides
- Mental concepts or templates that intuitively Belief persev erance
guide our perceptions and interpretations
- Persistence of ones initial conceptions, such as
Blindsight when the basis for ones belief is distracted but
- Partial loss of vision in some areas of their field of an explanation of why the belief might be true
vision survives

Limits of intuition Constructing memories of ourselves and our worlds

- Intuition does not necessarily make us smart Misinform ation effect

Ov erconfidence phenom enon - Incorporating misinformation into ones memory

of the event, after witnessing an event and
- The tendency to be more confident than receiving misleading information about it
correctto overestimate the accuracy of ones
beliefs Reconstructing our past attitudes

Confirm ation bias Rosy retrospection

- A tendency to search for information the confirms - They recall mildly pleasant events more
ones preconceptions favorably than they experienced them

Remedies for over confidence Underestim ating earlier liking

Prompt feedback Reconstructing our past behavior

Be wary - We have the tendency to underreport bad

behaviors and overreport good behaviors
Why it might be wrong
Misattribution
Heuristics
- Mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong
- A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient source
judgments
Attribution theory
- The theory of how people explain others
behaviorfor example, by attributing it either to
internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and
attitudes) or to external situations
Dispositional attribution
- Attributing behavior to the persons disposition
and traits
Situational attribution
- Attributing behavior to the environment
Spontaneous trait inference
- An effortless, automatic inference of a trait after
exposure to someones behavior
F undam ental attribution error
- The tendency for observers to underestimate
situational influences and overestimate
dispositional influences upon others behavior
Why do we make the attribution error?
Perspective and situational awareness
Cultural differences
Self-fulfilling prophecy
- A belief that leads to its own fulfillment

Experimenter bias
Teacher expectations and student performance
Getting from others what we expects
Behav ioral confirm ation
- A type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby
peoples social expectations lead them to behave
in was that cause others to confirm their
expectation
Chap 4: behavior and attitudes Insufficient justification
Attitude - Reduction of dissonance by internally justifying
ones behavior when external justification is
- Beliefs and feeling related to a person or an
insufficient.
event (often rooted in ones beliefs, and
exhibited in ones feelings and intended Self-perception theory
behavior)
- The theory that when we are unsure of our
ABC of attitudes attitudes, we infer them much as would someone
observing usby looking at our behavior and
- affect (feelings); behavior tendency; cognition
the circumstances under which it occurs
(thoughts)
F acial feedback effect
MORAL HYPOCRISY
- The tendency of facial expressions to trigger
- appearing moral while avoiding the costs of
corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or
being so
happiness
Im plicit association test ( IAT)
E MOTIONAL CONTAGION
- A computer-driven assessment of implicit
- helps explain why its fun to be around happy
attitudes. The test uses reactions times to
people and depressing to be around depressed
measure peoples automatic associations between
people
attitude objects and evaluative words. Easier
pairing (and faster responses) are taken to Ov erjustification effect
indicate stronger unconscious associations
- The result of bribing people to do what they
AMYGDALA already like doing; they may then see their see
their actions as externally controlled rather than
- enter for threat perception
the intrinsically appealing
- Active as we automatically evaluate stimuli
Self-affirm ation theory
PRINCIPLE OF AGGRE GATION
- A theory that
- the effect of an attitude become more apparent
a. People often experience a self-image threat
when we look at a persons aggregate or
after engaging in an undesirable behavior;
average behavior
and
THE ORY OF PLANNE D BE HAV IOR
b. They can compensate by affirming another
- I knowing peoples intended behaviors and their aspect of the self.
perceived self-efficacy and control
- Threaten peoples self-concept in one domain,
Role and they will compensate either by refocusing or
by doing good deeds in some other domain
- A set of norms that defines how people in a
given social position ought to behave
SE LF - PRE SE NTATION THE ORY
- assumes that for strategic reasons we express
attitudes that make us appear consistent
Cognitiv e dissonance
- Tension that arises when one is simultaneously
aware of two inconsistent cognitions/ for
example, dissonance may occur when we realize
that we have, with little justification, acted
contrary to our attitudes or made a decision
favoring one alternative despite reasons favoring
another
Selectiv e exposure
- The tendency to seek information and media
that agree with ones views and to avoid
dissonant information
DISSONANCE THE ORY
- pertains mostly do discrepancies between
behavior and attitudes
- Explains attitude change