Social Cognition Study Guide PDF

Here are the answers to your study guide questions, based on the provided excerpts: **Chapter 5: Social Cognition** - **Describe Social Cognition.** - Social Cognition became an important area of study in the **1970s**. - **Social Cognition** is the study of how we select,...

Here are the answers to your study guide questions, based on the provided excerpts: **Chapter 5: Social Cognition** - **Describe Social Cognition.** - Social Cognition became an important area of study in the **1970s**. - **Social Cognition** is the study of how we select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions. It explores how people think about themselves and the social world, including other people. - Early research in social cognition focused on **attribution theory**, which examines how people explain the causes of behavior. - **What is a cognitive miser? Why does this occur?** - A **cognitive miser** is someone who is reluctant to engage in extra thinking and prefers to rely on mental shortcuts. - This occurs because the human brain, despite its size, tends to be lazy or careless about thinking. People generally try to conserve their cognitive energy and avoid effortful thinking unless it\'s about something they find interesting. - **What is the difference between deliberate thinking and automatic thinking? Describe the five elements that distinguish these two types of thinking.** - **Deliberate thinking** is a conscious, effortful process that requires more mental energy. It involves carefully considering information and weighing different options. **Automatic thinking**, on the other hand, is unconscious, unintentional, and effortless. It relies on mental shortcuts and schemas to quickly process information. - **Five elements that distinguish automatic and deliberate thinking:** - **Awareness:** We are aware of engaging in deliberate thinking but often unaware of automatic thoughts. - **Intention:** Deliberate thinking is goal-directed, while automatic thinking is not. - **Control:** We have more control over deliberate thoughts than automatic ones. - **Effort:** Deliberate thinking requires more mental effort. - **Efficiency:** Automatic thinking is more efficient, allowing for quick judgments and decisions. - **What is priming? Understand the findings in the Higgins et al. (1977) study mentioned in the textbook and in lecture.** - **Priming** is the process of activating an idea in someone\'s mind so that related ideas become more accessible. It works by \"wakening\" associations between concepts. - The **Higgins et al. (1977) study** demonstrated how priming can influence judgments. Participants were primed with either positive or negative words before reading an ambiguous description of a person named Donald. Those primed with positive words rated Donald more favorably, while those primed with negative words rated him less favorably. This showed that even subtle primes can shape our interpretations of others. - **What is framing? What is the difference between gain-framed appeal and loss-frame appeal? What can be primed?** - **Framing** refers to how information is presented, specifically whether it emphasizes potential gains or losses. - **Gain-framed appeals** highlight the positive outcomes of a choice, while **loss-framed appeals** focus on the negative consequences of not choosing a particular option. For example, a gain-framed message about sunscreen might emphasize its ability to prevent skin cancer, while a loss-framed message might emphasize the risk of wrinkles and premature aging from sun exposure. - A wide range of things can be primed, including: - Feelings and emotions - Personality traits - Behavioral intentions - Thoughts and ideas - Words - Attitudes - Suggestions - **What is so important about automatic and deliberate processes in thought suppression? Define and apply both.** - **Thought suppression** is the attempt to keep unwanted thoughts out of mind. It involves both automatic and deliberate processes, which can sometimes work against each other. - **Automatic process:** This initial, unconscious process monitors for unwanted thoughts and attempts to distract you from them. - **Deliberate process:** If the automatic process fails, a more conscious and effortful process kicks in to actively suppress the thought. - The interplay of these processes can be counterproductive. The automatic monitoring for the unwanted thought can actually make it more accessible, leading to a rebound effect where the thought intrudes more frequently. This is called the **ironic process of mental control**. - **The Stroop test can be thought of as a demonstration of what?** - The Stroop test demonstrates the **conflict between automatic and deliberate thinking**. In the Stroop test, participants must name the color of ink in which a word is printed, but the word itself is a color name that is different from the ink color (e.g., the word \"red\" printed in blue ink). - The automatic tendency to read the word interferes with the deliberate task of naming the ink color, causing slower response times and more errors. - **What is a schema? Schemas and scripts are both examples of what? Why are they so beneficial? What are some of the problems?** - **Schemas** are mental frameworks that organize our knowledge about the social world. They help us: - Determine what information we attend to. - Interpret information. - Make judgments. - Remember information. - Both schemas and scripts are examples of **mental representations** that simplify complex information and make it easier to process. - **Benefits of schemas:** - Increase the speed of understanding people and events. - Help us sift through a vast amount of information for key pieces. - Allow us to go beyond the information given and make inferences. - Provide structure in ambiguous settings. - Facilitate rule generation, generalization, and categorization, which are necessary for learning. - **Problems with schemas:** - They can distort what we attend to, remember, and our judgments. - They can lead to **confirmation bias**, the tendency to search for information that confirms our preconceptions. - We may over-rely on schemas and fail to consider relevant information. - Schemas can persist even after they are discredited (**perseverance effect**). - **Why are attributions so important in the field of Social Psychology? Define attribution. Attribution theory is most concerned with how people explain \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_.** - **Attributions** are inferences people make about the causes of events in their lives. They are important because they help determine behavior. - Attribution theory is most concerned with how people explain **the causes of behavior**. - **What did Fritz Heider and Bernard Weiner contribute to attributions and attribution theory? Review two-dimensional attribution theory.** - **Fritz Heider** is considered the father of attribution theory. He proposed that people are naive scientists who try to understand the causes of behavior. He distinguished between **internal attributions** (caused by the person) and **external attributions** (caused by the situation). - **Bernard Weiner** expanded on Heider\'s work by developing a **two-dimensional attribution theory**. He proposed that attributions can be classified along two dimensions: **internal-external** and **stable-unstable**. - **Internal-external:** Refers to whether the cause is located within the person (internal) or outside the person (external). - **Stable-unstable:** Refers to whether the cause is likely to remain the same over time (stable) or change (unstable). - For example, if a student fails a test, they could attribute it to an internal, stable cause (lack of intelligence), an internal, unstable cause (lack of effort), an external, stable cause (the test was too hard), or an external, unstable cause (bad luck). - **What is self-serving bias?** - **Self-serving bias** is the tendency to attribute our successes to internal, stable causes (e.g., our ability) and our failures to external, unstable causes (e.g., bad luck). This bias helps protect our self-esteem. - **Explain the Actor/observer bias.** - **Actor/observer bias** is the tendency for actors to make external attributions for their own behavior (e.g., \"I was late because of traffic.\") while observers tend to make internal attributions for the same behavior (e.g., \"He was late because he\'s inconsiderate.\"). This bias occurs because actors have more information about the situational factors that influenced their behavior. - **What is the fundamental attribution error? What is the difference between Actor/Observer Bias and Fundamental Attribution error?** - The **fundamental attribution error (correspondence bias)** is the tendency for observers to overestimate the influence of internal or dispositional causes and underestimate the influence of situational causes when explaining other people\'s behavior. - The key difference between the actor/observer bias and the fundamental attribution error is that the **actor/observer bias applies to explanations of both our own behavior and the behavior of others**, while the **fundamental attribution error applies only to explanations of other people\'s behavior.** - **Define heuristics. Be able to describe and apply representative, availability, simulation, and anchoring and adjustment heuristics.** - **Heuristics** are mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently. They are useful when we don\'t have the time or motivation to engage in more deliberate thinking. However, heuristics can also lead to biases and errors in judgment. - **Common heuristics:** - **Representativeness:** Judging the likelihood of an event based on how well it resembles the typical case. - **Availability:** Judging the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easily relevant instances come to mind. - **Simulation:** Judging the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easily you can imagine or mentally simulate the event. - **Anchoring and adjustment:** Judging the frequency or likelihood of an event by starting with a specific value (the anchor) and then adjusting up or down from that value. - **Review the Common Cognitive Errors slides.** - Unfortunately, the \"Common Cognitive Errors slides\" were not included in the provided materials. To review common cognitive errors, you may need to consult your lecture notes or textbook. **Chapter 6: Emotion and Affect** - **Define the following terms:** - **Mood:** A feeling state that is not clearly linked to a specific event. Moods are more general and longer-lasting than emotions. - **Affect:** The automatic response that something is good (positive affect) or bad (negative affect). - **Conscious emotion:** A powerful and clearly unified feeling state, such as anger or joy. - **Automatic affect:** A quick, often unconscious, evaluative response to something. This is similar to the concept of \"affect\" defined above, but the term \"automatic affect\" emphasizes the unconscious nature of this response. - **Describe the following theories/hypotheses:** - **Affect-as-Information Hypothesis:** This hypothesis suggests that people often use their current feelings as a source of information when making judgments. If they feel good, they\'re more likely to judge something positively, and if they feel bad, they\'re more likely to judge it negatively. - **Appraisal Theory of Emotion:** This theory states that emotions are based on our interpretations of events. Different appraisals of the same event can lead to different emotions. For example, encountering a bear in the woods might be appraised as dangerous and lead to fear, while encountering a bear in a zoo might be appraised as safe and lead to curiosity. - **Broaden-and-build theory:** This theory proposes that positive emotions broaden our thoughts and actions, leading to more creativity, exploration, and social connection. This, in turn, helps build our resources and resilience, allowing us to cope better with future challenges. - **Catharsis theory:** This theory, which is not well-supported by research, suggests that expressing anger (e.g., by yelling or hitting a punching bag) can reduce aggressive feelings. However, research has shown that expressing anger in this way can actually increase aggression. - **Facial feedback hypothesis:** This hypothesis suggests that feedback from the muscles in our face can influence our emotional experiences. For example, smiling can make us feel happier, while frowning can make us feel sadder. - **James-Lange-Theory of emotion:** This theory proposes that our emotional experiences are a result of our physiological responses to events. For example, we see a bear, our heart races, and then we feel fear. In other words, we feel afraid because our body is aroused. - **Risk-as-feeling hypothesis:** This hypothesis suggests that people rely on their emotional responses to evaluate risk. If something feels risky, they\'re more likely to avoid it, even if the actual risk is low. Conversely, if something feels safe, they\'re more likely to engage in it, even if the actual risk is high. - **Schachter--Singer theory of emotion:** This theory, also known as the two-factor theory of emotion, proposes that emotion has two components: a physiological state of arousal (e.g., increased heart rate) and a cognitive label that explains the arousal. The cognitive label we apply to the arousal determines the specific emotion we experience. - **What is the difference between guilt and shame? How does guilt influence motivation and relationships?** - **Guilt** is a moral emotion associated with a specific instance in which one has acted badly or wrongly. It\'s focused on the action, not the person. **Shame**, on the other hand, is a moral emotion that spreads to the whole person. It\'s a feeling of being fundamentally flawed or unworthy. - **Guilt can motivate us to make amends for our wrongdoings**, such as apologizing or making reparations. It can also lead to **behavior modification** as we try to avoid repeating the same mistake. - In relationships, **guilt can prompt us to repair damaged relationships and strengthen bonds**. However, **using guilt to manipulate others can damage relationships**. - **Define emotional intelligence. Understand the components the textbook goes over that make up emotional intelligence (e.g., perceiving emotions, facilitating thoughts, etc.).** - **Emotional intelligence (EI or EQ)** is the ability to: - **Perceive emotions:** Accurately recognize and understand your own emotions and the emotions of others. - **Facilitate thoughts:** Use emotions effectively to enhance thinking and problem-solving. - **Understand emotions:** Comprehend complex emotional dynamics, such as how emotions blend together and how they evolve over time. - **Manage emotions:** Regulate your own emotions and influence the emotions of others in a healthy and adaptive way. - **What are some basic emotions found across cultures?** - Research suggests that there are six basic emotions that are universally recognized across cultures: - - - - - - **Chapter 7: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Consistency** - **Define what an attitude is. Why do humans have attitudes? What are the characteristics of an attitude?** - An **attitude** is a learned, enduring evaluation, positive or negative, of people, objects, or ideas. A more complex definition is: \"a learned evaluative response, directed at specific objects, which is relatively enduring and influences and motivates our behavior toward these objects\". - **Humans have attitudes because they help us**: - Make sense of the world. - Make decisions. - Save cognitive energy. - Express our values and beliefs. - Connect with others who share our attitudes. - **Characteristics of attitudes:** - **Evaluative:** Involves a like or dislike. - **Directed at an object:** Focused on a specific person, object, or idea. - **Relatively enduring:** More stable than emotions and relatively consistent over time. - **Influence behavior:** Attitudes can, but don\'t always, predict behavior. - **Motivational:** Attitudes can motivate us to approach things we like and avoid things we dislike. - **Mostly learned:** Attitudes are primarily formed through our experiences and interactions with others. - **Describe the Tripartite Model and its different components.** - The **Tripartite Model** proposes that attitudes are composed of three components: - **Cognitive:** Our thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions about the attitude object. - **Affective:** Our feelings and emotions associated with the attitude object. - **Behavioral:** Our intentions and actions toward the attitude object. - **What is the difference between explicit and implicit attitudes?** - **Explicit attitudes** are those we are consciously aware of and can easily report. They are often measured through self-report surveys. **Implicit attitudes**, on the other hand, exist outside of our conscious awareness. They are often measured through indirect measures, such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT). - **Dual attitudes consist of what? What has research stated about people who say they are not racist?** - **Dual attitudes** occur when we hold two different evaluations of the same attitude object. For example, we might have a conscious, explicit attitude of being non-racist, but an unconscious, implicit attitude that reflects racial bias. - Research has shown that **people who claim to be non-racist can still exhibit implicit racial bias**. This is because implicit attitudes are often formed early in life and are influenced by cultural stereotypes and prejudices, even if we consciously reject these biases. - **How can attitudes be measured?** - Attitudes can be measured using both **direct** and **indirect** methods: - **Direct measures** assess attitudes directly through self-report. This includes: - **Self-report measures:** Asking people to report their attitudes on a scale (e.g., from strongly disagree to strongly agree). - **Written responses:** Asking people to write about their attitudes toward an object or issue. - **Interviews:** Asking people open-ended questions about their attitudes. - **Indirect measures** assess attitudes indirectly by observing behavior or physiological responses. This includes: - **Behavioral measures:** Observing how people behave toward the attitude object, such as seating distance, nonverbal behaviors, and product choice. - **Physiological measures:** Measuring physiological responses to the attitude object, such as heart rate, pupillary dilation, electromyography (EMG), and electroencephalography (EEG). - **Implicit measures:** Using tasks like the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or sequential priming to assess unconscious attitudes. - **What is the mere exposure effect? Be able to apply this concept.** - The **mere exposure effect** is the tendency for people to develop a preference for things simply because they are exposed to them repeatedly. This effect occurs even if the initial exposure is neutral or slightly negative. For example, you might start to like a song after hearing it a few times on the radio, even if you didn\'t think much of it at first. - **How does Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, and Social Learning influence one's attitude about something? Describe gamification and its role in operant conditioning.** - **Classical conditioning** can lead to the formation of attitudes through the repeated pairing of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus that elicits a positive or negative response. For example, if you repeatedly see a product advertised with attractive people, you might develop a positive attitude toward the product. - **Operant conditioning** can influence attitudes by rewarding or punishing certain attitudes or behaviors. For example, if you are praised for expressing a certain attitude, you are more likely to continue expressing that attitude. - **Gamification** is a technique that applies principles of game design to non-game contexts. It can be used to motivate people to engage in desired behaviors by incorporating elements of fun, challenge, and reward. For example, a fitness app might use badges and leaderboards to encourage users to exercise more. This is an example of operant conditioning because it uses rewards to increase the likelihood of a desired behavior. - **Social learning** occurs when people learn by observing the behavior of others. We are more likely to adopt attitudes and behaviors that we see others rewarded for, and we are less likely to adopt attitudes and behaviors that we see others punished for. For example, if you see a friend being ridiculed for expressing a certain political opinion, you might be less likely to express that same opinion. - **What is attitude polarization? How can this concept be applicable to sports fans?** - **Attitude polarization** occurs when people\'s attitudes become more extreme as they reflect on them. This can happen because: - We tend to seek out information that confirms our existing attitudes (**confirmation bias**). - We may generate new arguments or justifications for our existing attitudes. - **Attitude polarization is often seen in sports fans.** For example, if you are a fan of a particular team, your positive attitude toward that team might become even more positive as you watch them play and talk about them with other fans. You might start to see your team as even more skilled and the opposing team as even worse. This can lead to increased rivalry and conflict between fans of opposing teams. - **Why do people feel the need to be consistent? What are three things in common for theories that involve consistency?** - People feel the need to be consistent because **inconsistency creates psychological discomfort, known as cognitive dissonance**. We strive for consistency in our thoughts, beliefs, and actions to reduce this discomfort. - **Three commonalities in most theories about consistency:** - - - - **Cognitive dissonance states that inconsistencies produce what? Review the Festinger and Carlsmith study mentioned in the textbook.** - **Cognitive dissonance theory** states that inconsistencies between our cognitions (thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors) produce psychological discomfort, which motivates us to reduce the inconsistency. - **The Festinger and Carlsmith study (1959)** is a classic demonstration of cognitive dissonance. Participants were asked to complete a boring task and then were paid either \$1 or \$20 to tell another participant that the task was enjoyable. Later, participants who were paid \$1 rated the task as more enjoyable than those who were paid \$20. - This is because the participants who were paid \$1 experienced greater cognitive dissonance. They had to justify lying for only \$1, so they convinced themselves that the task was actually enjoyable to reduce the dissonance. The participants who were paid \$20 had an easy justification for lying (the money), so they did not experience as much dissonance. - **Describe effort justification.** - **Effort justification** occurs when people suffer, work hard, or make sacrifices to achieve something, they will try to convince themselves that it is worthwhile. This is a way to reduce cognitive dissonance by justifying the effort they put in. For example, if you go through a difficult initiation to join a group, you might value your membership in the group more because you worked hard to get in. - **Describe post-decision dissonance. Be able to apply this concept to a real-world setting.** - **Post-decision dissonance** is cognitive dissonance experienced after making a difficult choice. It occurs because we inevitably focus on the positive aspects of the chosen alternative and the negative aspects of the rejected alternatives, leading to feelings of regret and anxiety. - **Real-world example:** Imagine you are choosing between two cars to buy. Both cars have their pros and cons, and you spend a lot of time researching and test-driving both options. After you make your decision, you might experience post-decision dissonance, especially if you start to second-guess your choice. To reduce this dissonance, you might focus on the positive features of the car you chose and downplay the positive features of the car you rejected. - **Describe the difference between Gordon Allport and Alan Wicker's view on attitudes and behavior. What is the A-B problem?** - **Gordon Allport** believed that attitudes are a central concept in psychology and that they play a major role in guiding behavior. - **Alan Wicker**, on the other hand, argued that attitudes are a \"trivial, peripheral phenomenon\" and that they have little or no predictive power for behavior. - The **A-B problem** refers to the problem of inconsistency between attitudes (A) and behaviors (B). Although we might expect attitudes to predict behavior, research has shown that the relationship between attitudes and behavior is complex and often weak. - **Understand the Theory of Planned Behavior and its different components.** - The **Theory of Planned Behavior** is a model that attempts to explain the relationship between attitudes and behavior. It proposes that behavior is determined by: - **Behavioral intentions:** The person\'s intention to perform the behavior. - **Attitude toward the behavior:** The person\'s overall evaluation of the behavior. - **Subjective norms:** The person\'s perceptions about whether significant others think they should perform the behavior. - **Perceived behavioral control:** The person\'s belief about their ability to perform the behavior. - **What is the difference between an attitude and a belief?** - **Beliefs** are pieces of information about something. They can be facts or opinions. - **Attitudes**, on the other hand, are evaluations of something. They reflect whether we like or dislike something, approve or disapprove of it. - **What is belief perseverance? What can reduce it?** - **Belief perseverance** is the tendency for beliefs to persist even after the evidence on which they were based has been discredited. This is because once we form a belief, we tend to seek out information that confirms our belief and ignore information that contradicts it (confirmation bias). - **To reduce belief perseverance, people can be encouraged to:** - Consider the opposite viewpoint. - Think about why their beliefs might be wrong. - Generate alternative explanations for the evidence. - **Describe cognitive coping. What is downward and upward comparison?** - **Cognitive coping** involves using our thoughts and beliefs to help us deal with stressful situations. It\'s the idea that our beliefs play a central role in helping us cope with and recover from misfortunes. - **Downward comparison** is a cognitive coping strategy where we compare ourselves to others who are worse off than us. This can make us feel better about our own situation. - **Upward comparison** is a cognitive coping strategy where we compare ourselves to others who are better off than us. This can be motivating, but it can also make us feel worse about ourselves if we don\'t believe we can achieve the same level of success. - **What are some assumptions about reality that people like to live in when dealing with the social world? Describe each of them. What happens when those assumptions are broken?** - **Assumptive worlds** are beliefs about reality that help us feel safe and secure. When these beliefs are challenged, it can lead to psychological distress. - **Common assumptive worlds:** - **The world is benevolent:** People are generally good, and good things happen to good people. - **The world is fair and just:** People get what they deserve, and bad things happen to bad people. - **I am a good person:** I am worthy of love and respect, and I have control over my life. - **When these assumptions are broken** (e.g., when a good person experiences a tragedy), it can be very difficult to cope. People might: - Question their beliefs about the world. - Experience a loss of meaning and purpose. - Feel anxious, depressed, and hopeless. - **How can religion be helpful when coping?** - Religious beliefs can be helpful in coping with stress and trauma for several reasons: - **Social support:** Religious communities can provide a sense of belonging and support during difficult times. - **Meaning and purpose:** Religious beliefs can offer a framework for understanding the world and finding meaning in suffering. - **Hope and optimism:** Religious beliefs often include a belief in an afterlife or a higher power that can offer comfort and hope. - **Ritual and practice:** Religious rituals and practices can provide a sense of structure and routine, which can be helpful during times of uncertainty. - **Why might people engage in irrational belief when coping?** - People may engage in **irrational beliefs** when coping with stress and trauma because these beliefs can provide a sense of: - **Control:** Irrational beliefs can give people a false sense of control over uncontrollable events. For example, believing in a lucky charm might make someone feel like they have more control over their chances of winning a lottery. - **Predictability:** Irrational beliefs can make the world seem more predictable and less chaotic. For example, believing in a conspiracy theory might make someone feel like they have a better understanding of why bad things are happening. - **Meaning:** Irrational beliefs can provide a sense of meaning and purpose in the face of suffering. For example, believing that a loved one\'s death was part of a larger plan might make the loss feel more bearable. I