Cognitive processes and social knowledge 2

Question 1

Who introduced the concept of schemas and what was his contribution?

Answer 1

Frederic Bartlett introduced schemas in 1932, showing that memory is reconstructive. In his** “War of the Ghosts” study**, participants changed story details to fit their cultural expectations.

Question 2

How did Jean Piaget contribute to the understanding of schemas?

Answer 2

Piaget showed that children develop schemas and **update them **through:
1.assimilation (adding info to existing schemas) and
2.accommodation (changing schemas based on new info).

Question 3

What do Fiske & Taylor mean by “cognitive misers”?

Answer 3

Fiske & Taylor (1991) argued that people conserve cognitive energy by relying on schemas and shortcuts rather than analyzing every situation deeply.

Question 4

What is the contribution of Bargh & Chartrand to automatic processes?

Answer 4

Bargh & Chartrand (1999) showed how behavior can be influenced by unconscious priming—exposure to certain words or concepts can change our actions without our awareness.

Question 5

What is Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 theory?

Answer 5

System 1 is automatic, fast, and emotional;
System 2 is controlled, slow, and logical.
Most of our daily judgments rely on System 1 unless we are motivated to think deeply.

Question 6

What did Tversky & Kahneman discover about heuristics?

Answer 6

They identified heuristics like:

Availability heuristic: judging likelihood based on how easily examples come to mind.

Representativeness heuristic: judging based on similarity to a stereotype or prototype.

Question 7

What is Chaiken’s Heuristic-Systematic Model?

Answer 7

Chaiken proposed that in persuasion, people either use heuristics (e.g., trusting a celebrity) or process arguments systematically (e.g., analyzing logic) based on:
1.motivation and
2. cognitive resources.