Social Cognition and Personal Perception (Pt1+Pt2)

What study had people rate each person’s traits based off their faces? What did it find?

Alex Todorov (2006). Two dimensions emerged: dominance and trustworthiness (valence). It also found that baby-faced features tend to have lower dominance but higher trustworthiness

what is the kernal of truth hypothesis?

the idea that stereotypes, despite being exaggerated generalizations, sometimes contain elements that accurately describe the qualities of the stereotyped group

what is pluralistic ignorance

the phenomenon that people mistakenly believe that their private beliefs or views are different from others’, even though others share the same beliefs or views. this leads to people conforming to norms no one truly supports

what is firsthand information and how can it be misleading?

its information gathered through direct experience.

it can be misleading by lack of attention, misinterpretation, unrepresentativeness of data, or intended inaccuracy (which is caused by pluralistic ignorance)

self fulfilling prophecies

the tendency for people to act in ways that bring about the very thing they expect

what factors reduce accuracy of secondhand information?

idealogical distortion and distortion for entertainment (overemphasis on bad news)

idealogical distortion?

if you have certain beliefs or behaviors you may distort information unintentionally or intentionally

order effects

how order of which items are presented can have influence on judgement

what are the types of order effects?

primacy effect: information presented first exerts most influence (occurs when information is ambiguous)

recency effect: phenomenon that the information presented last exerts the most influence (when last items come more easily to mind)

what experiment had people listen to characteristics of a person and asked people to form an impression of the person. what did it find?

Ash, 1946. intelligent to envious description gave people more positive impressions than the envious to intelligent description. it showed how the order of information affects our judgement of people.

what are the framing effects?

order effect: the frame of reference is changed by reordering the information (can i smoke while praying vs can i pray while smoking)

spin framing: the frame of reference is changed by changing the content or context of perception (undocumented immigrants vs illegal aliens)

positive vs negative framing: emphasizing good or bad aspects (90 lived vs 10 died)

temporal framing

how events in the distant future are viewed in broad and abstract terms, while events in the near future are viewed in narrower, concrete terms

what is confirmation bias (exam)

tendency to test a proposition by searching for evidence in support of it. we seek out and easily accept for evidence consistent with propositions, and explain away evidence that contradicts that perception

which study studied how people form impressions of each other? what did it find?

Asch (1946). It found that people identify fundamental personality traits, and based on these, consider how individual characteristics relate to each other and what kind of overall personality emerges, forming a holistic impression

what did asch (1946)’s research demonstrate?

some traits (central traits like warm-cold) have large impact, while some traits (peripheral traits like polite-blunt) have a smaller impact. it also showed that meaning of a trait can change depending on surrounding traits.

what study studied the impact of negative and positive information? what did it find?

Fiske (1980). it found that, when presented with negative and positive information about others, we give more weight to negative information

how does individual difference shape person perception?

cognitive accessibility: we attend to traits that come to mind easily (fashion, race, athleticism). reflects our focus.

need for cognition: high (thoughtful, situational attributions) and low (quick, trait based judgement)

implicit theories: entity theorists (traits are fixed) and incremental theorists (traits change; situational attribution)

bottom up vs top down processing

bottom up: takes in relevant stimuli from outside world

top down: filters and interprets stimuli in light of preexisting knowledge and expctations

how do schemas influence or judgement?

they direct our attention and influence interpretation

what was the study that showed how schema guides attention?

simon and chabris, 1999. showed that schemas guide attention

what study studied how schema affects memories?

cohen, 1981. showed participants could recall stereo-type consistent information more accurately than stereotype inconsistent information

what study showed how schemas affect interpretation? what did it show?

(Higgins, Rholes & Jones, 1977). More positive impressions are formed by exposure to positive accessible schema (different word set)

what determines which schemas are activated and applied?

recent activation (recent exposure to stimuli) and frequent activation (habit, role). consciousness of stimulus is not necessary.

intuition vs reason?

intuition: quick and automatic, based on associations, performs many operations simultaneously

reason: slower and more controlled, based on rules and deduction, performs its operations one at a time

what is heuristics?

mental shortcuts that provide serviceable, if rather inexact, answers to common problems

what are two most studied heuristics?

the availability heuristic: a mental shortcut where people judge frequency or likelihood based on how easily examples come to mind

the representativeness heuristic: a mental shortcut where people just the likelihood of an event based on how closely it resembles a typical case, rather than using statistical reasoning (ignore actual probabilities and match to stereotypes or similar situations)