social cognition and biases

Question 1

what is social cognition?

Answer 1

how we process and store social information
how this affects our perceptions and behaviours

Question 2

what is attribution?

Answer 2

assigning a cause to our own and others’ behaviour

Question 3

what are social schemas?

Answer 3

knowledge about concepts
allows top down processing

Question 4

what is a category?

Answer 4

organised hierachically
features organised around a prototype

Question 5

what are prototypes?

Answer 5

cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category

Question 6

what is causal attribution?

Answer 6

inference process, where the perceiver attributes an effect to one or more causes
-happens when we are trying to explain/justify a situation

Question 7

what is the naive scientist?

Answer 7

people are rational
make cause and effect attributions

Question 8

what is the biased/intutionist?

Answer 8

information is limited and driven by motivations
this leads to errors and biases

Question 9

what is the cognitive miser?

Answer 9

people use cognitive short cuts for the least demanding processing

Question 10

what is the motivated tactician?

Answer 10

think carefully and scientifically about certain things when they are important
think quickly and use heuristics for others

Question 11

what are the four theories of attribution?

Answer 11

naive psychologist
attributional theory
correspondent inference theory
covariation model

Question 12

who proposed the naive scientist?

Answer 12

Heider

Question 13

what is the theory of the naive scientist?

Answer 13

analytical and logical
hypothesis testing
attribute causes to effects to make the world make sense

Question 14

what are the three principles of the naive scientist?

Answer 14

-need to form a coherent view of the world
-need to gain control over the environment
-need to identify internal vs external factors

Question 15

what did Heider and Simmel find out when investigating the naive scientist?

Answer 15

people were asked to watch a short film, of a circle and two triangles changing co ordinates
had to describe what they saw
instead viewers reported a story, eg) love story, chase etc
suggests how readily we perceive social intention all around us

Question 16

what is attributional theory?

Answer 16

theory proposing that people attempt to understand the behaviour of others by attributing feelings, beliefs and intentions to them
causality of success or failure based on:
-locus (internal/external)
-stability (eg, natural ability, mood)
-controllability (eg, effort, luck)

Question 17

who proposed attributional theory?

Answer 17

Weiner

Question 18

who proposed correspondent inference theory?

Answer 18

Jones and Davis

Question 19

what is correspondent inference theory?

Answer 19

judgement that a person’s personality corresponds to their behaviour

cues= act was freely chosen/act produced a non-common effect/not socially desirable/hdeonic relevance/personalism

correspondent inference- act reflects a true characteristic of the person

Question 20

who proposed the co variation model?

Answer 20

Kelley

Question 21

what is the co variation model?

Answer 21

use multiple observations to identify factors that co vary with behaviour
assign causal role to the factors
affected by whether behaviour is internal or external

Question 22

what are three features of the co variation model?

Answer 22

consistency
distinctiveness
consensus

Question 23

what is consistency?

Answer 23

does this behaviour always co occur with the cause
low= look for different cause eg) never failed exam after going out the night before
high= these are linked eg) always fail exam if gone out the night before

Question 24

what is distinctiveness?

Answer 24

is the behaviour exclusively linked to this cause or is it a common reaction
low= internal attribution eg) I normally fail exams
high= external attribution eg) I never normally fail exams

Question 25

what is consensus?

Answer 25

do other people react in the same way to the cause/situation low= internal attribution eg) going out the night before an exam must just affect me high= external attribution eg) realise not to drink before an exam

Question 26

what are the strengths and weaknesses of the naive scientist?

Answer 26

separated into internal/external but is this a valid distinction?

Question 27

what are the strengths and weaknesses of the correspondent inference model?

Answer 27

infer behaviour due to internal attributes but is this automatic/deliberate?

Question 28

what are the strengths and weaknesses of co variation model?

Answer 28

considers the role of consistent and deliberate behaviours however, covariation doesn't result in causation

Question 29

what are attributional biases?

Answer 29

systematic errors indicative of shortcuts/gut feelings/intuition

Question 30

what did Ross et al find out about attributional biases?

Answer 30

asked ppts if they would walk around the campus advertising the cafeteria of those saying yes, 62% thought others would also say yes of those saying no, 67% thought others would also say no

Question 31

what were the reasons given for attributional biases?

Answer 31

seek out similar opinions salience of own opinion self esteem maintenance

Question 32

what is fundamental attribution error?

Answer 32

people have a cognitive bias to assume that a person's interactions depend on what kind of a person is, rather than the social/environmental factors influencing that person this is because the internal attribution is most accessible, so we are more likely to forget situational causes

Question 33

what did Ross et al find out about fundamental attribution error?

Answer 33

investigated whether the allocated social roles in a quiz would affect the judgement of participants contestants rated the general knowledge of the questioners as superior to the contenstants ignored the fact that the reason for this advantage was not due to the social role, but was because questioners could choose the questions

Question 34

who proposed actor observer bias?

Answer 34

Jones and Nisbett

Question 35

what is actor observer bias?

Answer 35

tend to attribute internally for others, but externally for ourselves due to perceptual focus and informational difference

Question 36

who proposed self serving bias?

Answer 36

Oslon and Ross

Question 37

what is self serving bias?

Answer 37

attribute success as internal, and failure as external due to cognitive expectations and self esteem operates at both personal and group level

Question 38

what are heuristics?

Answer 38

cognitive shortcuts avoids effort

Question 39

who proposed heuristics?

Answer 39

Tversky and Kahneman

Question 40

what is the availability heuristic?

Answer 40

judge frequency/probability of events by how easy it is to think of examples

Question 41

what is the representative heuristic?

Answer 41

categorise based on similarity between instance and prototypical category members allocate a set of attributes

Question 42

what are anchoring and adjustment heuristics?

Answer 42

starting point/initial standard influences subsequent judgements