Social Psychology Test 1 Flashcards
(44 cards)
What is Cognitive Bias?
Inferences about people or situations that are drawn in an illogical fashion
ex: Conformation bias or Hindsight bias “I knew it all along”
What are attributions?
An explanation of why yourself or others are engaged in a certain behavior
ex: dancing at a party vs. dancing on a dinner table
What is an Internal attribution?
An attribution based on stable traits about the person.
ex: personality… being crazy for dancing on a table.
What is an External attribution?
An attribution based on situational/ environmental factors
ex: location (party)
What is the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)?
Tendency to make dispositional attributions for others’ behavior, even when plausible situational explanations exist
ex: ignoring the fact that people didn’t choose to write about Castro.
What is Actor- Observer Bias?
Tendency to make internal attributions for others behaviors
ex: They are an ass
Tendency to make external attributions for our own behaviors
ex: The dog had rabies
What is Sedikides study of attributing credit?
People who were in the better group attributed the success to internal reasons & people in the poor group attributed it to external reasons.
What is the Self- Serving Biases?
Taking credit for successes (internal attributions) OR blaming other people/factors for failures (external attributions)
What is a Heuristics?
Mental shortcuts that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of events.
What is the Availability Heuristic?
Tendency to estimate likelihood of event by how easily it comes to mind
ex: only having to come up with 3 examples vs. 6
What is the Simulation Heuristic?
Tendency to be influenced by the ease with which you can imagine (or mentally simulate) an event
ex: missing a flight by 2 min (almost there)
What is the concept of Anchoring & Adjustment?
When people anchor on to what was suggested and then adjust it accordingly
Tendency to be influenced by a starting point (anchor) when making decisions
ex: 3000mil vs. 6000mil
ex: How happy will you be in 20 days?
ex: Drinking
What is the Conjunctive Fallacy?
Believing the probability of 2 events being true is more likely than just 1 being true
ex: specifics make it easier to believe
What is the Representativeness Heuristic?
Tendency to estimate the likelihood of event by how well it matches your expectations
ex: flipping all heads vs. heads and tails
What is False Uniqueness?
Underestimating the number of people who share our positive characteristics
What did Thomas Malthus believe about population?
If things are left unchecked populations grow exponentially ex:rabbits
But there are checks and balances on population.
What did Charles Darwin believe?
Proposed evolution by natural selection. Not natural selection but the means of it
What is a Gene?
A section of DNA on a specific location of a chromosome.
Ex: gene for hair color
What are Alleles?
A version of a gene that codes for specific protein
ex: Blonde or brunette hair color
What is humility?
Being humble and admitting you don’t know everything
What is the Naturalistic Fallacy?
It occurs in nature so it must be good
ex: eating placenta after birth
What is the Moralistic Fallacy?
If it is terrible, it is not true.
Immoral things dont happen in nature.
What is the Confirmation Bias?
The tendency for people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.
What is Operationalization?
To make something measurable.
Define a concept in a way that other researchers can use in their studies.
Tell people how you measured the concept.
