Psych Week 9: Attitudes and Social Cognition

What is social cognition?

What is social cognition?

The process by which people make sense of themselves, others, social interactions, and relationships. It involves how people perceive and think about themselves and others.

What is an attitude?

(blank) is an association between an act or object and an evaluation, involving positive or negative impressions and consisting of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components.

What are the components of attitudes?

Cognitive: 'Exams assess knowledge.' Emotional: 'I get anxious about exams.' Behavioral: 'I studied hard for my exam.'

When are attitudes likely to predict behavior?

When the attitude and behavior are specific, environmental reinforcement matches the attitude, important others share the same attitude, attitudes are implicit, attitudes are strong, and attitudes have developed from personal experience.

What is persuasion?

(blank) refers to the deliberate attempt to change an attitude held by another.

What are the components of effective persuasion?

Credible, attractive, likeable, powerful, and similar sources; messages matching the recipient's level of consideration; personal channels of delivery; appropriate context; and the receiver's weaker attitudes or attention to the message.

What is cognitive dissonance?

(blank) refers to a perceived discrepancy between an attitude and a behavior that results in psychological tension, motivating the individual to reduce the tension by changing the behavior, attitude, or perception of inconsistent information.

What factors influence first impressions?

Physical appearance, cognitive schemas, and stereotypes.

What is the halo effect?

Our tendency to assume that positive qualities clump together.

What are schemas?

Patterns of thought that organize our experiences/knowledge, allowing us to enter new situations with an idea of how we and others are to act.

What are the types of schemas?

Person, role, situation, and relationship.

What are stereotypes?

Characteristics assigned to persons based on their membership in a specific group. They often underpin prejudice but are not necessarily negative.

What is prejudice?

Negative beliefs about people based on their group membership

What is discrimination?

Acting negatively toward a person based on prejudice.

What is the difference between explicit and implicit racism?

(blank) involves conscious use of stereotypes and expression of prejudice. Implicit racism involves unconscious influence of stereotypes.

What is the ingroup/outgroup distinction?

Prejudice requires a distinction between (blanks) (people who belong to your group) and outgroups (those who do not). Social identity theory suggests people favor ingroups and express negative attitudes toward outgroups.

What is the self?

Includes the person, mental processes, body, and personality characteristics. Self-concept guides our thinking and memory relevant to ourselves, and self-esteem is our evaluation of ourselves.

What is identity?

(blank) encompasses social and cultural identity, personal experiences, roles held in everyday life, and how these perceptions vary according to context.

What is the cognitive view of the self?

(blank) is a cognitive structure comprised of mental representations of oneself, responsible for integration and processing of self-related information.

What are the psychodynamic components of the self?

(blank) (biologically driven self seeking immediate gratification), the Ego (realistic part making compromises), and the Superego (moral part adhering to societal rules).