Chapter 3

Question 1

What is social cognition?

Answer 1

Social cognition is how people think about themselves and the social world, specifically how they select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions.

Question 2

What are the two types of thinking in social cognition?

Answer 2

1. Automatic thinking (low-effort)
2. Controlled thinking (high-effort)

Question 3

What is automatic thinking?

Answer 3

Unconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless thinking.

EX. recognizing a common object (table) or situation (birthday party)

→ Helps us understand new situations by relating them to our prior experiences

EX. new style of table vs old plain table

→Relies on schemas for this information

Question 4

What are schemas?

Answer 4

Mental structures that help organize knowledge about the social world.

Question 5

How do schemas influence thinking?

Answer 5

They affect what we notice, think about, and remember.

Question 6

What are some functions of schemas?

Answer 6

-> Help us organize and make sense of the world.

->Provide continuity and relate new experiences to past schemas.

->Guide behavior in ambiguous situations.

Question 7

What was Harold Kelly’s (1950) study on schemas?

Answer 7

He tested how a single word (“warm” vs. “cold”) influenced students’ opinions of a guest instructor.

Question 8

What is schema accessibility?

Answer 8

The extent to which schemas are at the forefront of the mind and likely to be used in making judgments.

Question 9

What are three reasons schemas become accessible?

Answer 9

1. Chronically accessible due to past experience.
   → green/yellow bananas - someone who has experienced racism or microaggressions is more likely to label other incidents as racist
2. Temporarily accessible due to a current goal.
3. Temporarily accessible due to priming.

Question 10

What is priming?

Answer 10

A recent experience increases the likelihood of accessing a particular schema.

EX. shown list of words (house, queen, tire etc) and show a word u need to fill in (k_ _ _), most said king as royal schema activated - priming

Question 11

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 11

When people’s expectations about someone influence their behavior, causing the expectation to come true.

→ careful, conscious attention can address self- fulfilling prophecy

EX. smile at someone in hall but they don’t = ‘oh that person’s unfriendly/rude’, next time you see them you don’t smile but they do and they now think the same about you and won’t smile at you again reaffirming that they are rude in your brain

Question 12

What was Rosenthal & Jacobson’s (1968) study?

Answer 12

Teachers were told certain students were “gifted,” and those students performed better, showing the effects of teacher expectations.

Question 13

What is embodied cognition?

Answer 13

->a type of automatic thinking

->The idea that bodily sensations activate mental schemas.

EX. a lemon scent can prime people to help others - Cleanliness - morality schema

EX. Walking upright can make people feel more confident; Posture - self-assurance schema

EX. Wearing formal attire can make people feel more powerful; Clothing - power schema

Question 14

What are heuristics?

Answer 14

->Kahneman and Tversky

Mental shortcuts people use to make judgments and decisions quickly.

do not always lead to accurate conclusions, heuristics are, for the most part, quite useful

Question 15

What is the availability heuristic?

Answer 15

-> “Off the top of my head” heuristic

-> Judging based on how easily something comes to mind.

->something easily accessible in your brain = more likely to use that info to make a decision

EX. When there was a bunch of plane crashes in news recently people are more likely to use cars to travel or cancel their flight

EX. mom worried as kid is 20 min late getting home so freak out and call all her friends as lots of missing kids but kid just missed the bus

Question 16

What is the representativeness heuristic?

Answer 16

-> a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case/group

-> can desensitize use to important info about people

EX. a man in a suit holding a briefcase = lawyer, someone likes rock music and has tattoos = band member

Question 17

What is base rate information?

Answer 17

→ Information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population

→ When faced with base rate information and contradictory representativeness information, people will rely more on the representativeness heuristic

Question 18

What is base rate fallacy?

Answer 18

Ignoring general statistics in favor of specific stereotypes

(e.g., someone in a suit and briefcase we think lawyer even though we don’t have a lot of lawyers but lots of people work in offices).

Question 19

How does culture influence schemas?

Answer 19

People pay attention to and remember information most important in their culture.

Question 20

What is an analytic thinking style?

Answer 20

Focusing on objects without considering context (common in Western cultures).

Question 21

What is a holistic thinking style?

Answer 21

Focusing on the entire picture, including context (common in East Asian cultures).

Question 22

What is controlled thinking?

Answer 22

Conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful thinking.

People can only think in a controlled conscious way about one thing at a time

Question 23

Describe the relationship between controlled thinking and free will

Answer 23

→ Sometimes an unconscious desire can lead to a conscious thought, leading us to believe we are exerting more conscious control over events than we really are

→sometimes we underestimate the conscious control

EX. you want a burger so go get it, maybe you were watching a show and saw a burger so that unconscious thought made you crave and go get it

→ What matters most is not how much free will we actually have but rather how much we believe we have = important consequences

EX. Academic performance

Question 24

What is counterfactual thinking?

Answer 24

Mentally changing past events to imagine what could have happened.

→ If only I had done something differently……..

→ Usually conscious and effortful, but not always voluntary and intentional

Question 25

When is counterfactual thinking more likely?

Answer 25

->when they can easily imagine having avoided a negative event → The easier to imagine a tragedy having been avoided, the more distressed people feel EX. miss flight by 5 min = could have made it on time and start counterfactual thinking vs miss flight by 5 hours = couldn’t have done anything to make it on time

Question 26

How can counterfactual thinking be useful?

Answer 26

It can help people plan for better outcomes in the future.

Question 27

What is social perception?

Answer 27

The study of how people form impressions and make inferences about others. EX. first day of classes, was teacher friendly, rude?

Question 28

What is a key source of information for social perception?

Answer 28

Nonverbal communication.

Question 29

What is nonverbal communication?

Answer 29

Communication without words, including facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice.

Question 30

What are the primary uses of nonverbal communication?

Answer 30

1. Expressing emotion and eliciting empathy ->mirror neurons: - these neurons respond when we perform an action and when we see someone else perform the same action EX. certain neurons fire when your eating and also fire when we see someone else eating EX. friend got hurt and looks in pain and person caring for them will have similar facial expressions to the person who is hurt as empathetic 2. Conveying attitudes EX. in convo with someone you don’t like = not looking at them, arms crossed, rolling eyes → Substitution for verbal messages (hand gestures like a thumbs up or wave)

Question 30

Describe facial expressions

Answer 30

→ Facial expressions are the most significant channel of nonverbal communication. → Charles Darwin believed that the primary emotions conveyed by the face are universal. →species-specific, not culture-specific = facial expressions are universal ->has two diff processes

Question 31

What are the 2 process involved in facial expressions?

Answer 31

1. Encode: to express or emit nonverbal communication, such as smiling or patting someone on the back. 2. Decode: to interpret the meaning of the nonverbal communication others express. EX. deciding that a pat on the back is an expression of condescension and not kindness

Question 32

Describe the universality of facial expressions

Answer 32

→ Both context and culture influence how facial expressions are interpreted EX. photo of man who looks angry but has a jersey on, widen photo = celebration not anger EX. photo of woman crying and looks sad but widen photo and she’s at a concert = joy

Question 33

What are the six universal facial expressions identified by Paul Ekman?

Answer 33

1. Anger 2. Happiness 3. Surprise 4. Fear 5. Disgust 6. Sadness

Question 34

What are some cultural differences in the perception of facial expressions?

Answer 34

→ Analytical and holistic thinkers →Masuda and colleagues (2008): →Japanese participants were more influenced by the expression of the group members surrounding the target figure then the Americans were (cartoon)

Question 35

What are some difficulties in decoding facial expressions?

Answer 35

→Facial expressions may sometimes be hard to interpret: → Affect blends EX. surprise and joy

Question 36

What's an affect blend?

Answer 36

one part of a person’s face registers one emotion while another part registers a different emotion.

Question 37

Cultural norms can also influence...

Answer 37

...display of emotions

Question 38

What are display rules?

Answer 38

are culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display EX. happy so laugh loudly but in some cultures being loud like that is considered disrespectful EX. Western cultures = can show (-) and + emotions but in collectivistic cultures = can’t express (-) emotions → Display rules also differ depending on gender, age, and other rules EX. it may be more acceptable for men to display anger than it is for a woman, and more accepted for women to talk about her fears and emotions

Question 39

How does culture affect nonverbal communication?

Answer 39

->Western cultures encourage open expression of emotions. ->Collectivist cultures discourage expressing negative emotions to maintain group harmony.

Question 40

What are some other forms of nonverbal communication that are also influenced by culture include?

Answer 40

1. Eye contact and gaze EX. in our culture it’s encouraged as shows your interested but in others if u maintain eye contact can be seen as hostility/aggression EX. in collectivistic cultures when reprimanding your child child can’t look them in the eye or very disrespectful 2. Personal space (proxemics = our bubble) and touching →influenced by culture and relationship with other person →someone gets close to you = step back EX. middle eastern cultures want to touch noses and feel the breath of others on their face 3. Hand gestures EX. ok sign, thumbs up, wave etc.

Question 41

What are emblems?

Answer 41

Nonverbal gestures with specific meanings within a culture (e.g., thumbs up).

Question 42

How quickly are first impressions formed?

Answer 42

Within milliseconds ->usually based on facial expressions

Question 43

When can people infer what people are like based solely on facial appearance?

Answer 43

as early as 3 yrs old

Question 44

What are first impressions influenced by?

Answer 44

schemas about the personality qualities believed to accompany certain features: EX. What is beautiful is good EX. bearded men are trustworthy

Question 45

What's implicit memory theory?

Answer 45

->A schema that links certain personality traits together (e.g., "kind people are generous"). → Research shows that people tend to attribute less positive characteristics to individuals described as having low self-esteem