Exam 2 must knows

Schema consistent memories

LTM (especially when recall prior experience trough the lens of a cultural schema)

Schema inconsistent memories

Specific LTM (especially when motivated to make sense of the info and have the cognitive resources to do so)

Rosy recollection bias

Remembering events more positively than they actually experienced them

Mood concurrent memory

Tendency to remember positive info when in positive mood and vice versa

Dialecticism

A collective preference of thinking that acknowledges and accepts inconsistencies (influences how memory biases construct stable and consistent schemas of the world and the people in it)

Misinformation effect

A process in which cues given after an event can plant false information into memory —> false memories

Availability heuristic

Tendency to assume that information that comes easily to mind is more frequent or common

Ease of retrieval effect

People judge how frequently an event occurs on the basis of how easily they can retrieve a certain number of instances of that event only if the person puts cognitive effort into trying to retrieve the requested number of instances

Common sense / naive psychology

Humans act as "naive scientists" who constantly observe, analyze, and assign causes to people's behaviours

Causal attributions

People organise their perceptions of action in the social world in terms of causes and effects, specifically tending to explain events in terms of particular causes

2 dimensions of causal attributions

1. Locus of causality = either internal to some aspect of the person engaging in the action (the actor) or external to some factor in the environment (situation)

2. Stability = either stable or unstable

Stable attributions

Future outcomes in similar situations are likely to be similar

Unstable attributions

Future outcomes could be different in similar situations

Incremental mindset

We believe an attribute is a malleable ability that can increase or decrease

Causal schema

A theory we hold about the likely cause of that specific kind of view

2 sources of causal schemas

1. Own personal experience

2. General cultural knowledge

3 conditions of correspondent inferences

1. Individual seems to have a choice in taking an action

2. The person has a choice between two courses of action and there is only one difference between one choice and the other

3. Someone acts inconsistency with a particular social role

Crorrespondent inferences

Judgments where an observer concludes that a person's personality, beliefs, or stable traits directly match (or "correspond to") their observed behavior

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency to draw correspondent inferences attributing behaviour to internal qualities of the actor and underestimating the causal role of situational factors (not common when making attributions about one’s self)

Actor observer effect

As observers we are likely to make internal attributions for the behaviour of other but as actors, we are likely to make external attributions for our own behaviour

Dispositional attribution

Assigning the cause of a person's behaviour to their inherent, internal characteristics such as personality, intelligence, or beliefs rather than outside circumstances

3 steps for dispositional attribution

1. A behaviour is observed and categorised (e.g. ‘that was helpful’)

2. Observers automatically make a correspondent dispositional inference

3. If observers have sufficient motivation and cognitive resources, they correct that inference to account for situational factors

Covariation principle

The tendency of the occurrance of a potential causal factor and an outcome to lead to causal hypothesis

3 kinds of information for causal attributions

1. Consistency (across time) → does this person always behave this way in this situation

2. Distinctiveness (across situations) → does this person behave this way in other contexts too or only this one

3. Consensus (across people) → do other people behave the same way in this situation

When all 3 are high = external attribution

When consistency is high but distinctiveness and consensus are low = internal attribution

Just world beliefs

People are motivated to believe the world is fair → good things happen to good people and vice verca

To preserve just world beliefs

1. Blame victims for their misfortune

2. Favour those who endorse just-world beliefs and view those who claim the world is unfair as less likely to succeed

Counterfactual thinking

After making a causal attribution, people imagine how changing that causal factor could have changed the outcome

Upward counterfactuals

• Alternative that is better than what actually happened

• Make us feel worse

Downward counterfactials

• Alternative that is worse than what actually happened

• Make us feel better

2 routs to forming impressions

1. Bottom up → gather individual behavioural observations and integrate them into an impression via attribution processes

2. Top down → relies on preexisting ideas and schemas rather than observed behaviours

Negativity bias

Negative behaviours are weighed more heavily than positive ones

Thin slice accuracy

People can form accurate personality impressions from very breif behavioural samples

Theory of mind

A set of ideas about other’s thoughts, desires, feelings and intetions based on context and behaviour

Transference

Forming impressions of strangers based on their resemblance to known individuals

False consensus

Assuming that others share our own attitudes, opinions and preferences (projecting)

Causes for false consensus

1. Own views are most cognitively accessible

2. Believing others agree with us is validating

3. We tend to associate with similar people

Implicit personality theories

Intuitive theories about which traits go together, shaping how we intemperate new info about a person

Halo effect

A general positive impression of a person biases all specific trait assessments upward

Representativeness heuristic

We overestimate the probability that a target belongs to a category if their features match our prototype of that category

Primacy effect

A cognitive bias where people remember and weigh the first pieces of information they encounter better or more heavily than items that follow

Social identity theory

People define themselves largely in terms if the social groups with which they identify

Social role theory

Due to biological differences in body type and childbearing ability, across cultures men take phsyically demanding tasks and women have more control over child rearing and managing communal relationships

Self schema

An integrated set of memories, beliefs and generalisations about an attribute that is central to one’s self concept (can change)

Working self concept

The portion of a persons self-schema that is currently activated and influences the individual’s behaviour

Solo status

A sense that one is unique from those in the current environment

Symbolic interactionism

People use their understanding of how other people view them as the primary basis for knowing themselves

Looking glass self

Others reflect back to the individual who she is by how they behave towards her

Appraisals of you

First you observe how others view you

Generalised other

Mental image of most people in society

Reflected appraisals

What we think people think about us

Social comparison theory

People don’t have an objective way of knowing where they stand on an attribute, therefore they compare themselves with others to figure out who they are

Downward compariosn

Comparison with others who are worse off in the dimension at hand

Upward comparison

Comparison with others who are better off

Better than average effect

Tendency to rank themselves higher than most other people on positive attributes

Self perception theory

Discover who we are in the same way that we form impressions of other people (impressions of ourselves)

Facial feedback hypothesis

We became so accustomed to expressing our emotional states trough facial expressions that changes in our facial movements become a signal of the emotion we might be feeling

Two factor theory of emotion

Level of arousal determines the intensity of an emotion but the specific type of emotion they experience is determined by the meaning they give to that arousal

Misattribution theory

When we ascribe arousal resulting from one source to a different source and therefore experience emotions that we wouldn’t normally feel in responce to a stimulus

Excitation transfer theory

Misattribution happens when an individual is psychologically aroused by an initial stimulus and then a short time later encounters a second, potentially emotionally provocative stimulus (first becomes misattributed)

Self regulation

How people decide what goals to pursue and how they attempt to guide their thoughts, feelings and behaviour to reach those goals

3 key capabilities of self regulation

1. People are self-aware

2. People can imagine abstract goals and hypothetical outcomes

3. People are able to mentally travel in time

Self awareness theory

At any moment, attention is focused either inward on some aspect of the self or focused outward on some aspects of the enviornment

Self discrepency theory

Build on the freudian notion of superego which posits that during childhood we internalize a set of standards and goals regarding ourselves

2 clusters of self discrepancy theory

1. Conscience → focuses on how you should be (ought self)

2. Ego ideal → how you want to be or what you’d like to accomplish (ideal self)

Automotive theory

Goals are strongly associated with people, objects and contexts in which the person pursues them

Action identification theory

How people convince of action in ways that range from very concrete to very abstract

Concrete interpretation

How (lower level)

Abstract interpretation

Why (higher level)

Construal level theory

When people imagine events in the distant future, they focus more on the abstract meaning of those events than concrete

Affective forecasting

People are often bad at predicting their emotional reactions to potential future events

Willpower

The capacity to overcome the many temptations, challenges and other obstacles that could impede pursuit of long-term goals

Ironic processing

The more we try not to think about something the more those thoughts enter our mind

2 mental processes of thought supression

1. Monitor → is on the lookout for signs of the unwanted thought

2. Operator → actively pushes any signs of the unwanted though out of consciences

Rebound effect

The unwanted though becomes even more accessible than it was before suppression

Ego depletion

By extended bouts of effortful control making it difficult to regulate our behaviour even when we are trying to regulate

Growth mindset

Believe that self control is a malleable trait that can be developed with practice

Cognitive reappraisal

Built on cognitive appraisal theory of emotion → reexamining the situation so that you don’t feel such a strong emotional reaction in the first place

Implementation intentions

Mental rules that link particular situational cues to goal-directed behaviours

Self regulatory preservation theory of depression

The way that people can fall into depression, building on theory of self awareness

Cognitive dissonance theory

People have such desire for perceiving inconsistencies with their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that they will bias their own attitudes and beliefs to try to deny those inconsistencies

3 ways to reduce dissonance

1. Change one of the cognitions

2. Add a third cognition that makes the original 2 seem less inconsistent with each other

3. Trivialise the cognitions that are inconsistent

Dissonance paradigm

Free choice paradigm and induced compliance paradigm

Free choice paradigm

Any time people make a choice between 2 alternatives, there is likely to be some dissonance

Induced compliance paradigm

Participants are induced to comply with a request to engage in a behaviour that runs counter to their true attitudes

Factors that affect the magnitude of dissonance: Choice

• reduces dissonance

Factors that affect the magnitude of dissonance: Commitment

• higher the commitment to choose a course of action, the more dissonance and concequantely the more one’s beliefs and attitudes are likely to change to justify their actions

Factors that affect the magnitude of dissonance: Foreseeable aversive consequences

The more aversive the foreseeable consequences of an action are, the more important the inconsistent cognitions are and thus the more dissonance

Induced hypocrisy paradigm

Using cognitive dissonance to promote positive behavioural changes

Effort justification

Reducing dissonance by convincing themselves that what they suffered for is actually quite valuable

Minimal deterrence

Reducing a child's desire to misbehave, by using the minimal level of external justification whilst giving the child a feeling of choice to behave better

Dissonance as motivation

• Engaging in counterattitudinal actions under high choice conditions elevates ratings of discomfort, levels of psychological arousal and neurological signs of motivation to exert control

• This also predicts the degree to which people will change their attitudes

• Misattribution of arousal = when we are given an alternative explanation for why we are experiencing tension and discomfort, we no longer adjust our attitudes after engaging in inconsistent behaviour

Self concept clarity

A clearly defined, internally consistent and temporally stable self concept

Self-verification

Tendency to seek out others and social situations that confirm the way they view themselves

Self-complexity

The degree to which the self-conept is made up of many distinct aspects including social roles, relationships and activities

Self-narrative

Life story in which they are the protagonist in a continuously unfolding drama of life, complete with characters, setting, plot, motivation, conflicts and their resolution

Possible selves

Images of what the self might become in the future

Self-esteem

The level of positive feelings you have about yourself, the extent to which you value yourself

Self serving attributional bias

Make external attributions for bad things that one does but internal attributions for good things one does

Self-handicapping

Setting up excuses to protect their self-esteem from a failure that may happen in the future

Projection

To avoid seeing themselves as having negative characteristics they view others as possessing those traits