Chapter 4: Social Cognition

Question 1

Anchoring and adjustment

Answer 1

a mental shortcut in which people rely on an initial starting point in making an estimate but then fail to adequately adjust from this anchor

Question 2

Automatic thinking

Answer 2

a type of decision-making process that occurs at an unconscious or automatic level and is entirely effortless and unintentional

Question 3

Availability heuristic

Answer 3

a mental shortcut in which people make a judgment based on how easily they can bring something to mind

Question 4

Base-rate fallacy

Answer 4

an error in which people ignore the numerical frequency, or base rate, of an event in estimating how likely it is to occur

Question 5

Behavioural confirmation/self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 5

the process by which people’s expectations about a person lead them to elicit behaviour that confirms those expectations

Question 6

Belief perseverance

Answer 6

the tendency to maintain, and even strengthen, beliefs in the face of disconfirming evidence

Question 7

Content-free schemas

Answer 7

rules about processing information

Question 8

Contrast effect

Answer 8

the relative difference in intensity between two stimuli and their effects on each other

Question 9

Controlled or effortful thinking

Answer 9

thinking that is effortful, conscious, and intentional

Question 10

Counterfactual thinking

Answer 10

the tendency to imagine alternative outcomes to various events

Question 11

Event schemas

Answer 11

scripts that people have for well-known situations that help them prepare for the expected sequence of events

Question 12

Field dependent

Answer 12

having more difficulty in identifying an embedded figure in a larger background but greater ability to perceive an image as one holistic figure

Question 13

Field independent

Answer 13

having the ability to identify an embedded figure and separate it from a larger background

Question 14

Framing

Answer 14

the tendency to be influenced by the way an issue is presented

Question 15

Heuristics

Answer 15

mental shortcuts that are often used to form judgments and make decisions

Question 16

Hindsight bias

Answer 16

the tendency of people to see a given outcome as having been inevitable once they know the actual outcome

Question 17

Illusory correlation

Answer 17

the tendency to see a correlation between two events when in reality there is no association between them

Question 18

Illusory superiority

Answer 18

an unrealistic positive view of the self

Question 19

Implicit personality theory

Answer 19

the theory that certain traits and behaviours go together

Question 20

Intuition

Answer 20

a decision-making shortcut in which we rely on our instinct instead of relying on more objective information

Question 21

Perceptual confirmation

Answer 21

the tendency for people to see things in line with their own beliefs and preconceptions

Question 22

Person schemas

Answer 22

beliefs about other people, their traits, and goals

Question 23

Primacy

Answer 23

the tendency for information that is presented early to have a greater impact on judgements than information that is presented later

Question 24

Priming

Answer 24

increase accessibility to a given concept or schema due to a prior experience

Question 25

Reconstructive memory

Answer 25

the process by which memories of a given event are altered after the event occurred

Question 26

Representativeness

Answer 26

the tendency to perceive someone or something based on its similarity to a typical case

Question 27

Role schemas

Answer 27

behaviours that are expected of people in particular occupations or social positions

Question 28

Schemas

Answer 28

mental structures that organize our knowledge about the world and influence how we interpret people and events

Question 29

Self-schemas

Answer 29

our memory, inferences, and information about ourselves

Question 30

Social cognition

Answer 30

how people think about the social world, and in particular how people select, interpret, and use information to make judgments about the world

Question 31

Trait negativity bias

Answer 31

the tendency for people to be more influenced by negative traits than by positive ones

Question 32

Unrealistic optimism

Answer 32

the tendency for people to see themselves as less likely than others to suffer bad events in the future