Chapter 4 - Social Cognition

Algorithm

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

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Our tendency to be influenced by a starting point when making numerical guesses about something, even if the starting point is unreliable.

Availability heuristic

Our tendency to overestimate the frequency of something based on how easily it comes to mind.

Cognitive load

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

Cognitive load shifting

When we can smoothly shift back and forth between intuition and logic, as needed.

Cognitive miser

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

Confirmation bias

Our tendency to notice and remember only evidence that confirms our beliefs and expectations.

Counterfactual thinking

The tendency to imagine alternative facts or events that would have led to a different future; imagining “what might have been.”

Downward counterfactuals

Imagined outcomes that are worse than reality; they can be comforting after things go wrong.

Dual processing

The ability to process information using both intuition and logic.

Heuristic

Any mental shortcut that makes it easier to solve difficult problems. While fast, these shortcuts can sometimes lead to mistakes.

Hindsight bias

Our tendency to believe we could have predicted the outcome of a past event, but only after we already know what happened; the false belief that we “knew it all along.”

Intuition

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

Logic

The ability to use reason, think systematically, and carefully consider evidence when making a decision.

Magical thinking

Beliefs or perceptions that do not hold up to reality, such as counterfactual thinking, optimistic bias, and the planning fallacy.

Maximizer

Engaging in high cognitive load when making decisions by exhaustively examining every option

Memory structures

Cognitive frameworks that help us organize and interpret social information. They include schemas, scripts, and stereotypes.

Mental accessibility

The ease with which an idea comes to mind.

Mental structures

See memory structures.

Negativity bias

Our tendency to notice and remember negative information better than positive information.

Optimistic bias

The unrealistic expectation that things will turn out well.

Planning fallacy

The unjustified confidence that one’s own project, unlike similar projects, will proceed as planned.

Priming

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

Principle of parsimony

The tendency for individuals, especially scientists, to prefer the simplest answer that explains the most evidence.

Representativeness heuristic

Our tendency to make decisions based on what appears to be “typical,” even when that goes against statistical likelihood.

Satisficing

Making “good enough” decisions to avoid cognitive overload.

Script

A memory structure that shapes expectations for how particular social events will occur.

Semantic network

A collection of mental concepts that are connected by common characteristics.

Social cognition

The study of how we process social information using a combination of logic and intuition.

Stereotype

An oversimplified belief describing all members of a certain group.

Upward counterfactuals

Imagined outcomes that are better than reality; they can help us learn from mistakes.

Parallel processing

The brain's ability to simultaneously analyze and process multiple, distinct streams of incoming information—such as color, motion, shape, and depth in vision—rather than handling them sequentially.

Schemas

Cognitive memory structures used to help understand/organize the world. Help us to label and categorize.

Scripts

A cognitive framework that guides common social behaviors, order of events for common social situations (expectations for a particular event and how things will proceed).

Stereotypes

Simplified overgeneralized schema about a person based on his or her group membership. A set of beliefs that associates a whole group of people with certain traits.

The segmentation effect

Break the task into subtasks and get an estimate for the time needed for each task - this will help give you a more accurate prediction of the total time needed.

Semantic Networks

Related mental concepts are linked or connected to one another in some way.

Heuristics

Any mental shortcut to make it easier to solve a problem or make a decision.

The framing effect

A cognitive bias where people decide based on whether options are presented as positive gains or negative losses, even if they are logically identical