Social Cognition: Lecture 6 Overview

These flashcards cover key concepts in social cognition, including definitions of important terms and ideas discussed in the lecture.

Social Cognition

A research approach founded in the early seventies that applies cognitive methods to understand how people think about themselves and the social world.

Social Categorization

The tendency to group people into discrete groups based upon shared characteristics.

Stereotypes

Generalizations about a group of people in which certain traits are assigned to virtually all members of that group, often regardless of actual variation among them.

Schemas

Mental structures that organize knowledge about the world and influence what information people notice, think about, and remember.

Illusionary Correlations

The phenomenon where observers overestimate the frequency of co-occurrence of two statistically infrequent events, which can contribute to the formation of stereotypes.

Out-group Homogeneity

The tendency to perceive and cognitively represent out-group members as very similar to one another.

Automatic Thinking

A fast, non-conscious, unintentional, uncontrollable, and effortless mode of thought.

Controlled Thinking

A slow, conscious, intentional, and effortful mode of thought.

Priming

The process of activating an idea in a person's mind, which can influence their subsequent behavior without them being consciously aware of the cue.

Dual Process Models

Theories that distinguish between automatic and controlled processes in social cognition.

Costs of Being Wrong

The potential negative outcomes that result from making inaccurate judgments or decisions in social situations.

Perceptual Accentuation

The process that emphasizes similarities within groups and differences between groups during categorization.

Cognitive Representation

A mental depiction of the typical or ideal features defining a category, often similar to a schema.