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Chpt3: Social Cognition (how ppl think abt themselves & the world…
Chpt3: Social Cognition (how ppl think abt themselves & the world
Automatic Thinking
Schemas
Which do we use?
Accessibility
Accessible because related to a current goal (eg. studying for psych exam so you know some info abt abnormal behaviour)
Accessible due to recent experiences (eg. done through priming)
Accessible due to past experiences (eg. alcoholic/mentally ill bus passenger)
Priming
Process where recent experiences increase accessibility of a schema, trait or concept
Eg. Memorising list of +ve/-ve words & describing Donald's actions
Self-fulfilling prophecy
ppl have expectation abt another person->influences how they treat the person->the person behaves consistently with person's original expectations
Rosenthal & Jacobson's elementary school study
Mental structures that organise our knowledge of the social world
usefulness
Help us organise and make sense of the world, fill in gaps of our knowledge or else everything you encounter would be confusing
Help us figure out what is going on in ambiguous/confusing situations (eg. description of guest lecturer experiment)
Def
Thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless
Diff types of automatic thinking
Automatic Decision Making
Distraction helps make best choice
when ppl have a conscious goal
Best choice when spend time thinking consciously abt alternatives THEN distracting themselves
especially when decision requires integrating lots of complex info
should still use conscious thought if decision requires simple rules eg. solving math equations
Too much conscious reflection can hinder good decisions
Metaphors abt Mind & Body
scent of cleanliness increases trust, holding hot drinks make ppl perceive others as friendly
Physical sensations can prime a metaphor which influences ppl's judgements
Automatic Goal Pursuit
Our nonconscious minds choose the goal for us, deciding based on which goal has been recently activated or primed
eg. spiritual word scrambling task before economic game experiement
Judgemental Heuristics
Representativeness Heuristic
Eg. deducing where a foreigner came from
Base rate information
Classify smth according to how similar it is to a typical case
Availability Heuristic
Ppl judge base on how easily they can bring smth to mind
list 6 or 12 things experiment
Cultural differences in Social Cognition
content of our schemas is influenced by the culture we live in
Holistic Vs Analytic Thinking
East Asian cultures-->holistic thinking style (focus on overall context)
How do these differences originate?
diff philosophical traditions
Western thoughts rooted in Greek traditions of Aristotle and Plato which focus on laws governing objects, independent of context
Eastern thoughts shaped by Confucianism, Taoism, Budhism which emphasise connectedness and relativity of things
Showcased in phototaking study
Western cultures-->analytic thinking style (focus on objects instead of surrounding context)
People in all cultures are capable of thinking holistically/analytically but the environt where they live triggers a reliance on one of the styles
Controlled Thinking
Drawbacks
Counterfactual Thinking
ppl mentally change some aspect of the past to imagine what might have been
can lead to rumination which contributes to depression
or can also motivate ppl to work harder
Controlled thinking and Free will
underestimate amnt of control we have
Eg. communication facilitators unknowingly controlling what the impaired person wants to type
the more ppl believe they have free will, the more willing they are to help others and less likely to engage in immoral acts
sometimes we overestimate the amnt of control we have
eg. our conscious thought of getting ice cream could be due to unconscious desires
How to Improve Human Thinking
Teach ppl basic statistical and methodological principles on how to reason correctly
students in psych and medicine have better reasoning than law and chem students
Address Overconfidence Barriers
get ppl to consider possibility that they might be wrong
Def
Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary and effortful