Cognitive: Key concept 5 Flashcards
Cognitive scripts
Information stored in memory that describes the behaviours typical in a given situation.
Memory scripts
Contains knowledge of how a social situation ‘plays out’ - includes what we can usually expect to happen in a situation, how we should behave and what the consequences could be.
Person perception
Information stored in memory about which personality characteristics often go together, which guides our impressions of other people.
Features of memory scripts
- Broken down into scenes ordered by time.
- Concern multiple goals.
- Dynamic and evolve with experience.
- Influence by culture.
- Influence memory.
Person perception: Making assumptions
There are gaps in our knowledge of someone new to us. But once we have categorised them, we fill in the gaps with information from memory about that category, even if it is wrong.
Person perception: Stereotyping and biases
Knowledge can be wrong because it is partly based on stereotypes - we assume the person in front of us is representative of a group.
Why is person perception not always accurate?
Affected by our own cognitive biases.
What is the danger of person perception?
We may later recall information about the person that matches the category we put them in.
Practical applications evaluation
Strength is that we may be able to make person perception more accurate an objective. For example, when meeting someone new, we may find it easier to make inaccurate judgements about their personality. Instead we can make sure we take time to properly know someone without making instant ‘snap’ judgements about them. Therefore, by knowing how person perception works, we can resist the tendency to negatively stereotype others.
Research support evaluation
Strength is evidence to support the role of memory scripts. For example, a ‘getting ready for college’ script might be presented as: ‘get dressed, get out of bed, wake up’ but it is recalled as ‘wake up, get out of bed, get dressed’ - the correct order is familiar and consistent with the script stored in memory. This finding supports the argument that cognitive scripts strongly influence how we remember everyday events.
Cannot explain all behaviour evaluation
Weakness is that we may assume a script is guiding behaviour when it is not. For example, someone eating a meal in a restaurant might be imitating those around them and thus following external cues rather than an internal memory script. The same issue arises with person perception - on meeting a stranger, my impressions of them may be guided more by how other respond than by information stored in memory. Therefore, scripts and internal processes are not always important influences on behaviour.
