social h2

Social cognition

The study of how individuals process, retain, and use information related to social situations and other people. It involves cognitive processes such as attention, perception, memory, and judgment

Social schemas

Mental frameworks that help people organize and interpret social information

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts used to make quick judgments about people and social situations

Attribution theory

Explains how people determine the causes of others' behavior, distinguishing between dispositional (internal) and situational (external) factors

The fundamental attribution error

The tendency to overestimate dispositional factors and underestimate situational factors when explaining others' behavior

Example of the fundamental attribution error

Assuming someone who yells at a waiter is rude, without considering situational factors like a mistake in their order

The actor-observer bias

The tendency to attribute one’s own behavior to situational factors but others' behavior to dispositional factors

Example of the actor-observer bias

Blaming traffic when you're late, but assuming someone else is irresponsible when they are late

The self-serving bias

The tendency to attribute successes to dispositional factors and failures to situational factors

Example of the self-serving bias

Doing well on a test and attributing it to intelligence, but blaming a bad score on distractions

Social categorization

Classifying people into groups based on shared characteristics like race, gender, or occupation

First impressions

Can be enduring but may change with new information

The primacy effect

Refers to remembering information encountered first

The recency effect

Refers to remembering information encountered last

Saliency

How noticeable or prominent information is in a given context

Attributional ambiguity

Uncertainty about the cause of another person's behavior, which may lead to reliance on stereotypes

Example of attributional ambiguity

Assuming someone's behavior is based on stereotypes rather than individual factors

Stereotypes

Generalized beliefs about members of a group based on race, gender, age, etc.

Prejudice

An attitude towards a group or individual based on their group membership, which can be explicit or implicit

Discrimination

Negative behavior towards a group or individual based on group membership

Cognitive dissonance

The discomfort from holding conflicting beliefs or attitudes, which can motivate schema change

Social encoding

The process of perceiving and paying attention to social stimuli

Priming

The process by which exposure to one stimulus influences the response to another stimulus, often subconsciously

Accentuation principle

The tendency to exaggerate differences between categories and enhance similarities within categories

Accessibility

How easily a concept comes to mind and influences perception and behavior

Affect–infusion model

The idea that emotions influence cognitive processes and guide judgments and decisions

Anchoring and adjustment

A heuristic where initial information (the anchor) influences later judgments, even if the anchor is arbitrary

Associative meaning

The connection between concepts based on past experiences and learning

Associative network

A cognitive structure where related ideas and concepts are interconnected

Attribution

The process of assigning causes to behavior, either to internal (dispositional) or external (situational) factors

Availability heuristic

A cognitive shortcut where the likelihood of an event is judged based on how easily examples come to mind

Base-rate information

General statistical information about how often something occurs, often ignored in individual judgments

Behavioural decision theory

The study of how people make decisions, often deviating from rational models

Behaviourism

A psychological approach that focuses on observable behavior rather than internal mental processes

Bookkeeping

The gradual adjustment of schemas by collecting new, inconsistent information

Central traits

Characteristics that have a major influence on the overall impression of a person

Cognitive algebra

A model where information about others is combined through summation, averaging, or weighting

Cognitive consistency

The motivation to keep thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors consistent with each other

Cognitive miser

The idea that people minimize cognitive effort by using simple thinking strategies

Configural model

A model of impression formation where some traits have more influence than others and can change the perception of other traits

Conversion

A sudden and drastic change in a schema based on compelling new evidence

Exemplars

Concrete examples that represent a category and influence thinking about that category

Family resemblance

The idea that category members share similarities but are not necessarily identical

Fuzzy sets

Categories with vague boundaries where membership is based on a gradual rather than absolute criterion

Gestalt psychology

A psychological approach stating that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that perception and cognition are processed contextually

Illusory correlation

The tendency to perceive a relationship between two variables that are not (strongly) correlated in reality

Implicit personality theories

Beliefs about how certain personality traits are related to each other

Motivated tactician

The idea that people flexibly switch between thinking strategies depending on motivation and needs

Naive psychologist (or scientist)

The idea that people try to explain behavior rationally and logically, even though they are often biased

Normative models

Theories about how decisions should ideally be made based on logic and rational thinking

Paired distinctiveness

The tendency to associate rare behaviors with rare groups, contributing to stereotypes

Peripheral traits

Traits that have little influence on the overall impression of a person

Personal constructs

Individual interpretation frameworks that people use to understand the world and others

Primacy

The effect where earlier-presented information has a greater influence on judgments and memory than later information

Prototype

The most typical example of a category, used as a reference point for other instances

Recency

The effect where recently presented information has a greater influence on judgments and memory than earlier information

Reductionism

The tendency to explain complex phenomena by breaking them down into simpler components

Regression

The statistical tendency for extreme scores or behaviors to move closer to the average on a second measurement

Representativeness heuristic

A heuristic where the likelihood of something is judged based on how well it matches a prototype

Roles

Socially defined behaviors and expectations linked to a particular position in society

Salience

The degree to which a stimulus stands out and attracts attention in a given context

Schema

Mental structures that help organize and interpret information about the world and social interactions

Script

A type of schema that describes appropriate behaviors and expectations for a specific situation

Self-categorisation theory

The theory that people categorize themselves into social groups, influencing their self-image and behavior

Social identity theory

The theory that people derive part of their self-concept from the groups they belong to, affecting intergroup behavior

Social judgeability

The process where people assess whether a social situation justifies making a judgment about someone

Social neuroscience

An interdisciplinary field that examines how biological and social processes interact

Subtyping

The process of viewing exceptions to a stereotype as separate subgroups, preserving the overall stereotype

Summation

A model of impression formation where all available information is summed up to form a judgment

Vividness

How striking or memorable information is, affecting how strongly it is retained in memory and influences judgments

Weighted averaging

A method of impression formation where information is combined based on the relative importance of different traits