Lecture 4: Social Cognition Flashcards
What is a concept/schema?
Unit of knowledge /belief about a category (stored in long-term memory).
What are the evolutionary advantages of having concepts/schemas? (3)
- Reduce the amount of processing we have to do when there is too much information
- It can add information when there isn’t enough available
- It can guide our attention and interpretation
Explain the Bransford Laundry Experiment.
Three groups of Ps, a third were asked to read a passage, 1/3 told the passage was about laundry before they read it, 1/3 told the passage was about laundry after they read it.
Results: Those given prior information about laundry recalled ~5.8 of the ideas, whereas those that weren’t recalled 2.7 ideas.
Meaning: The activation of category guides our interpretation and aids in its comprehension (encoding in our brain)
What is the homebuyer vs burglar experiment”
Ps primed with either homebuyer or burglar mentalities remembered different things about the space (how nice the furniture was vs the accessibility of windows)
What was Duncan’s experiment on race perception?
Caucasian males watched a video of two men in an argument where the shover was either Black or White. Ps rated the act as more aggressive when the shover was Black, consistent with race stereotypes which disambiguated the situation.
Define the concept of assimilation.
Disambiguation of ambiguous stimuli in the direction of the activated concept. The perceiver retains advantage as they are conserving cognitive resources. Can be detrimental; when applied to marginalized groups.
What was McCrae’s experiment about assimilation and cognitive resources? (don’t talk about results)
Ps were brought into the lab and watched a video. 1/2 of Ps were shown a video with just names flashing on screen and their occupation. 1/2 Ps shown a video where name + occupation was also followed by 10 traits (5 stereotypes, 5 neutral). At the same time, both groups listened to audio about the Indonesian economy. After, Ps were asked to remember info about Indonesia and match names with traits.
What were the results of McCrae’s experiment about stereotyping and cognitive resources?
People in the stereotype condition remembered more information that was stereotypic than neutral AND scored higher on the task of recalling audio about Indonesia. Ps in condition #2 remembered an equal amount of information. This implies that we have cognitive resources and when we stereotype we are able to conserve them and focus on something else.
How are concepts activated? (2)
- Salience (how much the object stands out)
2. Accessibility: how quickly are we able to retrieve our disambiguating concept?
How does the Donald Story tell us about the effect of accessibility?
When participants were primed with either the word “reckless” or “adventurous”, that concept was more accessible for them. And so when asked to disambiguate a passage about Donald, they chose to describe him with the word that was most accessible. Assimilation then occured.
Contrast chronic and temporal accessibility.
Chronic accessibility is an individual’s disposition to certain judgements vs temporal accessibility which is facilitated by priming.
What is compound stereotyping?
When we are presented with compound stereotypes (e.g. Harvard educated carpenter), we tend to reconcile the oxymoron by adding more terms to explain it. New information makes sense of the conflict.
What is the non-replicable quarter study by Jerome Bruner?
Poor children asked to draw a quarter drew it bigger than richer children, since it played a larger role in their life? Meaning our desires influence accessibility?
Describe the Colin Fenton experiment about accessibility?
Ps in phase 1 pronounce 40 novel names. In phase 2 (after 24 hours) asked which names were famous from a different list. Result: In phase 2, people often mistook a non-famous name for a famous name IF that name had been part of a list they had read in phase 1.
What is the representative heuristic? Give an example.
People often judge the likelihood of an event based on prototypicality not actual probability and discounting base rates. Subject’s presented with Bill’s profile (a man who loves aeronautics), said that he is most likely an astronaut, despite the base rate of astronauts being so low.
What did the a-political Jack experiment show about people’s accounting for base rate?
Ps given profile of Jack, a person not interested in politics. In condition #1, people were told that the group he was in has 30% lawyers and 70% engineers. In condition 2, it was the reverse. In both conditions, people said he was much more likely to be an engineer, regardless of base rate.
What is the conjunction fallacy? Examples?
When people place too much weight on a person’s attributes vs the actual base rate to make a decision about some other attribute of theirs. Doctors tend to overestimate the prototypicality of symptoms vs the base rate occurrence of some illness. Sports announcers saying a person is “on fire”.
What is a representative heuristic?
When people think that few events are part of a larger pattern, when in reality they were just as likely to occur. Estimating the likelihood of an event by comparing it to an existing prototype that already exists in our minds
What is the Gambler’s fallacy?
The belief that the past has a bearing on the future.
What are four ways that we can improve probability judgements?
- Invite an expert
- When problems are re-stated in a more interactive/fun way
- When problems are relevant to the person (domain specific)
- When the base rate is made more salient (bolding)
What is the accessibility/availability heuristic? Example?
People tend to state that outcomes that come to mind more readily and frequently occur more frequently. Like words that start with the letter R are more numerous than R in the 3rd position. Just because it is easier to retrieve.
What are egocentric biases? Experiment?
People tend to overestimate their own impact because people have easy access to their own actions/heuristics. Sitting behind a person in a conversation, you are more likely to say that the person they were interacting with contributed more.
What is the illusory correlation phenomenon?
When people mistakenly correlate a behavior as typical because that is more available.
What is the experiment that shows the illusory correlation phenomenon.
Group A and Group B were presented with the same ratio of behavior (Group A - 19 positive traits, 8 negative, Group B given 9 positive and 4 negative). The expectation is the Group A and Group B will have a similar attitude about then. In reality, Group A was rated more positively. This is because the RARE negative behaviors of B left a stronger impression and were easier to remember. Thus people mistake how easy it is to remember something for the likelihood that it is a fact.
