Social Cognition and Schemas

social cognition

area of social psychology that examines how people perceive and think about their social world and others

schema

mental model or representation of any of the various things we come across in daily life, a mental blueprint for how we expect something to be

person schema

schemas about individual people

self schema

schemas about ourselves

event schema

schemas about recurring events

heuristics

mental shortcuts that reduce complex problem-solving to more simple, rule-based decisions

representativeness heuristic

heuristic in which the likelihood of an object belonging to a category is evaluated based on the extent to which the object appears similar to one’s mental representation of a category

availability heuristic

heuristic in which the frequency or likelihood of an event is based on how easily instances of it come to mind

planning fallacy

cognitive bias in which one underestimates how long it will take to complete a task

affective forecasting

predicting how one will feel in the future after an event or decision

impact bias

tendency to overestimate the intensity of their future feelings

durability bias

tendency to overestimate how long positive and negative events will affect them

hot cognition

mental processes that are influenced by desires and feelings

directional goals

the motivation to reach a particular outcome or judgment

motivated skepticism

form of bias where one is skeptical of evidence despite its strength because it goes against what one wants to believe

need for closure

desire to come to a decision that will resolve the problem and conclude an issue

mood-congruent memory

tendency to recall memories similar to our mood, the mood we were in when a memory was recorded becomes a retrieval cue

automatic

a behavior or process has one or more of the following features: unintentional, uncontrollable, occurring outside of conscious awareness, or cognitively efficient

chameleon effect

tendency for individuals to nonconsciously mimic postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of their interactional partners

primed

process by which a concept or behavior is made more cognitively accessible or likely to occur through the presentation of an associated concept

stereotypes

our general beliefs about the traits or behaviors shared by a group of people

attitude

psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor

explicit attitude

attitude that is consciously held and can be reported on by the person holding the attitude

implicit attitude

attitude that a person cannot verbally or overtly state

implicit measures of attitudes

researchers infer the participants attitude rather than having the participant explicitly report it

implicit association test

implicit attitude test that assesses a persons automatic associations between concepts by measuring the response times in pairing the concepts

evaluative priming task

implicit attitude task that assesses how quickly the participant labels the valence of the attitude object when it appears immediately after a positive or negative image

social psychology

scientific study of how we feel about, think about, and behave toward the people around us and how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are influenced by those people

social situation

the people whom we interact with everyday

social cognition

mental activity that relates to social activities and that helps us meet the goal of understanding and predicting the behavior of ourselves and others

mood

positive or negative feelings that are in the background of our everyday experiences

emotions

brief but often intense mental and physiological feeling state

social exchange

sharing of goods, services, emotions, and other social outcomes among people

social rewards

positive outcomes that we give and receive when we interact with others

social costs

negative outcomes that we give and receive when we interact with others

other-concern

motivation to affiliate with, accept, and be accepted by others

reciprocal altruism

mutual and generally equitable exchange of benefits

empirical

based on the collection and systematic analysis of collected data

hindsight bias

tendency to think that we could have predicted something that we probably would not have been able to predict

operant learning

principle that experiences that are followed by positive emotions are more likely to be repeated, where experiences followed by negative emotions are less likely to be repeated

associational learning

learning that occurs when an object or event comes to be associated with a natural response such as an automatic behavior or emotion

observational learning

learning that occurs through exposure to the behavior of others

prefrontal cortex

social part of the brain

accomodation

process that occurs when existing schemas change on the basis of new information

assimilation

process that occurs when existing knowledge influences new info in a way that make the conflicting info fit with existing knowledge, thus reducing the likelihood of change

confirmation bias

tendency for people to favor info that confirms their expectations, regardless of whether the info is true

self-fulfilling prophecy

an effect that occurs when our expectations about others lead us to behave towards those others in ways that make those expectations come true

processing fluency

the ease with which we can process info in our environment

cognitive accessibility

some schemas and attitudes are more accessible than others

salience

some stimuli, such as those unusual, colorful, or moving, grab our attention

anchoring/adjustment

although we try to adjust our judgments away from them, our decisions are overly based on the things that are most highly accessible in memory

counterfactual thinking

we may “replay” events such that they turn out differently, especially when only minor changes in the events leading up to them make a difference

false consensus bias

we tend to see others as similar to us

overconfidence

we tend to have more confidence in our skills, abilities, and judgments than is objectively warranted