Social Psychology Exam 1; Ch. 5 Flashcards

Front 1

Cognitive Misers

Back 1

-we often use mental shortcuts (heuristics) to form judgements & make decisions

-saves us time, but can also bias how we think a/o the social world (social cognition)

Front 2

Cognitive Biases

Back 2

include:

-availability heuristic

-counterfactual thinking

-representative heuristic

-The Hot-Hand effect

-Regression to the mean

-Effort heuristic

-role of motivation

Front 3

Availability Heuristic

Back 3

-what is it fundamentally? (a cognitive bias)

-estimating the likelihood of an event occurring by how easily instances of it come to mind

-factors influencing the availability heuristic include:

-recency

-vividness

-distinctiveness

Front 4

Recency

Back 4

*factor influencing the availability heuristic:

-how frequently did we hear about something in the past?

Front 5

Vividness

Back 5

*factor influencing the availability heuristic:

-how much detail you remember something; the more vivid, the more of an effect it has

Front 6

Distinctivenesss

Back 6

*factor influencing the availability heuristic:

-how different or unique it appears

-may also play a role in the false consensus effect: we overestimate how much others share out opinions, attitudes, and behaviors

Front 7

Counterfactual Thinking

Back 7

-what is it fundamentally? (a cognitive bias)

*tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes to various events

-leads to emotional amplification

*what factors influence counterfactual thinking?

-near>far miss(distance or time) (ex.missing a train by 1 min vs. 20 min)

-deviations>routines

-negative>positive outcomes

Front 8

Representative Heuristic

Back 8

-what is it fundamentally? (cognitive bias)

-the tendency to classify someone/something based on its similarity to a typical case

Front 9

Representative Heuristic ex. (Linda)

Back 9

*Linda:given ambiguous info a/o her..is she a)bank teller or b) bank teller & feminist?

-more probability of "a" b/c it only requires 1 thing to be true, vs. "b" which requires 2 things to be true

-likelihood of "a" is higher than the likelihood of (a+b) being true

-we fall victim to the conjunction fallacy in this case (if you chose "b")

Front 10

Conjunction Fallacy

Back 10

-association: Representative Heuristic

-def: occurs when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probably than a single, general one

-fall victim to this w/ Linda ex.

Front 11

Representative Heuristic ex.( John)

Back 11

*John:given ambiguous info a/o him...must decide if he is a)a truck driver or b)Ivy League classics professor

-typically people choose that he is an ivy league professor(remember he likes poetry) over being a truck driver

-base rates are ignored...in this case, there are 16 ivy league classics professor, versus 42,000 truck drivers (this ignorance is why we assume he's a professor based off of the info we fit to social biases)

Front 12

Base Rates

Back 12

-association: Representative Heuristic

-def: base rate fallacy occurs when a person judges than an outcome will occur w/o prior knowledge of the probability that it will occur

-we ignore base rates w/ John ex.

Front 13

The Hot-Hand Effect

Back 13

-what is it fundamentally? (cognitive bias)

-def: playing really well over multiple games--cant miss a basket; idea that success breeds success

*S1:100 bball fans from Cornell&Stanford

-91% believed player had better chance of making shot after making previous 3 than after missing previous 3;in reality:person has 50% success rate, and 61% success rate after having made a shot, 42% after missing previous

*S2: examined 76ers FGs from 1980-81;found that the differences b/w shot % depending on success rate of prev. 3 has no impact

*S3: examined free throws of 76ers in 1980-81 (accts. for increase risk of shooting if your "hot")-no evidence of hot-hand effect found

*S4: examined Cornell bball players in gym; sense of "being hot" didn't predict this @ all

Front 14

Regression to the Mean

Back 14

-what is it fundamentally? (cognitive bias)

-statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return towards one's average

-ex. Madden cover jinx: this is not true at all, people just ignore the phenomena that is the regression to the mean

Front 15

Effort Heuristic

Back 15

-what is it fundamentally? (a cognitive bias)

-idea that the more effort we put into something, the better we should do; effort equates to quality tendency

Front 16

The Role of Motivation

Back 16

-what is it fundamentally? (a cognitive bias)

-motivation can affect how we view statistically independent events

-"good" streaks are likely to continue b/c we're "on a role"

-"Bad" streaks are likely to end b/c "we're due"

-BUT the universe doesn't have a memory for random events!

Front 17

Confirmation Biases

Back 17

tendency to seek, interpret, and remember info that verifies existing beliefs

-examples...

-Confirmatory Hypothesis testing

-Beliefs &Memory

-Belief Perseverance

-Self-Fulfilling Prophesies

Front 18

Interpreting Ambiguous Information

Back 18

Hannah ex. (ex. of Confirmation bias)

-Group1: told her fam=educated/white collar,

-Group2: told her fam=semi-edu./blue-collar,

-watched a video of Hannah in class which presented ambiguous info a/o her intelligence

Results:

-when you don't see the video, there isn't a huge diff. b/w those who rated her as higher/lower level to be placed

-huge diff. when we see ambiguous video-we pull info that supports our hypothesis/ignore what doesn't fit our initial bias

Front 19

Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing

Back 19

-type of confirmation bias

-once we have a hyp. a/o our social world, we look for ways to support it

-when do we seek info objectively vs. confirm our pre-existing expectations?

--uncertainty(no initial prediction)

--high motivation to be accurate

--have time & cognitive capacity

Front 20

Beliefs and Memory

Back 20

-a heuristic influencing confirmation bias

-subfactors associated with beliefs/memory are:

1.Sharpening

2.Leveling

Front 21

Sharpening

Back 21

-assoc. with the factor of beliefs and memory which impacts the use of confirmation biases

-def. we often add details to a memory that are consistent w/ our prior beliefs

Front 22

Leveling

Back 22

-assoc. with the factor of beliefs and memory which impacts the use of confirmation biases

-def: we often forget details of a memory that are inconsistent w/ our prior beliefs

Front 23

Belief Perserverance

Back 23

-a heuristic influencing Confirmation biases

-def: maintaining beliefs even after they have been discredited

-can be reduced by thinking of why alternatives may be true

Front 24

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Back 24

-a heuristic influencing confirmation biases

-def: tendency for one's expectations to evoke behavior that confirm the expectations

Front 25

Rosenthal's Study

Back 25

-Some kids labeled "bloomers" vs. others (randomly selected)

-RQ:could teachers' expectations actually influence student performance?

-teachers were told some pupils were on the verge of "intellectual growth spirt"(random)

-8months later, bloomers scored 30 pts higher on standardized tests

-must understand the process chart

Front 26

Behavioral Confirmation

Back 26

-a heuristic influencing confirmation biases

-people's social expectations (rather than personal beliefs) can create a self-fulfilling prophesy

-ex. attractiveness study-males believe female partner is attractive vs. unattractive

--attractive female partner rated as more friendly, confident, sociable (based on social vs personal)...woman's acts reflect our stereotypes of attractive people b/c of how men interacts w/ her

Front 27

When Will We Use Heuristics?

Back 27

1.when we're happy (why spend time thinking when things are good?

2.when we're working during "off-peak" hours(morning vs. evening people..if you work during your off-peak hrs. your not thinking as critically, rely more on heuristics)

3.when the situation is complex (1st day of college)

4.when there is time pressure

Front 28

When Will We Think Critically?

Back 28

1.when we're sad(mild-moderate sadness triggers thoughtfulness)

2. when events are unexpected(when control goes away, we think more)

*w/ #1/2-once something bad happens, we look for a way to change it

3. when our outcomes depend on others (we tend to be self-centered animals)

4. if we have a high need for cognition

Front 29

How Can We Avoid Biases?

Back 29

-being one's own devil's advocate

-using attributional logic

--looking for dispositional and situational causes

--considering the covariation principle: consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency

ex. tripping over your dance partner's feet; yours or your partner's fault?