4-Social Cognition (Social Psyche)

Social cognition

The study of how people combine intuition and logic to process social information.

Dual processing

The ability to process information using both intuition and logic.

Intuition

The ability to know something quickly and automatically; a 'gut feeling' that takes little mental effort.

Logic

The ability of humans to use reason, think systematically, and carefully consider evidence about possible futures.

Cognitive load

The amount of information that an individual’s thinking systems can handle at one time.

Cognitive load shifting

When an individual’s two thinking systems interact by smoothly shifting back and forth between intuition and logic.

Schemas

Cognitive structures for organizing the world, labeling and categorizing information.

Scripts

A memory structure that guides common social behaviors and expectations for particular types of events.

Stereotype

An oversimplified and overgeneralized schema assuming all members of a group have the same traits.

Outgroup homogeneity

The perception that all members of a particular outgroup are identical to each other.

Cognitive miser

The tendency for humans to take mental shortcuts to minimize cognitive load.

Satisficing

A practical solution to information overload, where individuals take mental shortcuts in decision-making.

Maximizer

An individual who examines criteria exhaustively when making decisions, leading to heavier cognitive load.

Magical thinking

Beliefs based on assumptions that do not hold up to reality, like 'if only' thinking.

Planning fallacy

The unjustified confidence that one's own project will proceed as planned despite similar projects failing.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut that makes it easier to solve problems by facilitating mental accessibility.

Algorithm

A systematic, logical method of searching for a solution to a problem or question.

Confirmation bias

The tendency to search for evidence that confirms one's beliefs while ignoring contradicting evidence.

Hindsight bias

The belief that one could have predicted the outcome of a past event after knowing the outcome.

Negativity bias

The automatic tendency to notice and remember negative information better than positive information.

Priming

Initial activation of a concept that allows related ideas to come more easily to mind.

Semantic network

A collection of mental concepts connected by common characteristics.

Availability heuristic

The tendency to overestimate information based on how easily it comes to mind.

Representativeness heuristic

The tendency to classify observations according to a typical case, influencing decision-making.