Social psych exam 2

Controlled processes require effort

* conscious thoughts about our decision, behavior or response
* often times sequential - brain doing algebra problem - working step by step
* parts that are more consciously processed

Automatic processes occur automatically

* outside of consciousness
* relatively effortless - don’t have to put in effort to make these judgements
* parallel to other processes- going on around background
* uncontrollable - no opportunity to think about these

computer analogy - automatic

operating system - don’t know what mac is doing at any given time

computer analogy - controlled

walking into class, opening up powerpoint, opening up slides

social cognition

how do we process information around our social world

* can take active thinking processes
* can also be automatic
* **like to put in as minimal of effort as possible**

controlled vs automatic

are we actively thinking about it

Categorization - automatic processing

* we tend to categorize a smell , hearing sounds etc

Nelson (2005) - automatic processing

* automatically categorize race, gender age
* see someone on the street-automatically think they speak english

Stereotypes

* part of schemas
* specific believes that we hold about someone based on groups
* can be limiting and incorrect
* schemas about different genders
* ex: student vs professor

Schemas

* knowledge structures about something

person schema

schemas around genders, specifically around specific schema

role schemas

* have specific schema about a mother for example

self schema

* knowledge of myself and who i am

place or thing schema

* schemas about classroom, etc

event schema

* schema of a wedding and that entails, what kind of things you do

Schema perseverance

* once formed, a schema is **quite difficult to change** even when presented with opposing information

example of schema perseverance

* so hard to change gender stereotypes- when presented with stuff that doesn't fit our stereotypes, reject it or fit it to what we already believe

example of schema perseverance pt 2

* someone who doesn’t believe in climate change, change info to fit knowledge or reject it

Creating a schema - first impressions - primacy effect (kelley 1950)

* Asch tested this and found different impressions based on first traits
* the first piece of information we receive has more impact than information that we receive later
* influenced differently if first piece is different

example of creating a schema - first impressions - primacy effect (kelley 1950)

* I think someone is funny and nice but also annoying or if someone says this person is annoying but can be nice

Creating a schema - first impressions

* start a schema about people based on first initial impression of someone

Creating a schema - first impressions example

* somebody who doesn’t say hello when first meet them, impact them a lot more than someone who says hi

Creating a schema - first impressions- Bar, Neta, Linz (2006)

* gave people pictures of neural faces- random strangers and have them rate their impressions at 26 ms, 39 ms, 1700 ms
* pretty big change in impression between 26 ms and 39 ms
* somewhere between 26 and 39- you make a impression of someone

Carney, colvin and hall - creating a schema with first impressions - are they accurate

* had participants rate people based on personality, negative emotion, etc


* for major personality traits, people tended to be accurate

Todorov, Mandisodza, goren and hall (2005) - accurate first impression

* gave people pictures of political candidates in elections where they weren’t familiar
* rate which one is more competent
* found that percentage of people who picked one candidate over the other who was more competent tended to mirror ---
* issues: participants are probably influenced as well as the candidates
* competence- tend to ascribe more competence to men

impression formation

* Asch (1946) found that we don’t have similar impressions of alice and ally
* depends on what traits we are talking about
* have more judgements around certain types of traits than others

Central traits

* traits that we weigh more heavily in terms of formation of impression
* ex: warm vs cold

Negativity bias - impression formation

* be more influenced by negative than positive
* ex: find out someone is friendly - be mildly warm towards them

Negativity bias - impression formation example

* if someone says that person is really mean - tend to give more weight to negative information - focus on the negative information

Negativity bias - impression formation example pt 2

* find out someone is friendly - be mildly warm towards them

Peripheral traits

* traits that don’t really tell us a ton about the person

implicit personality theory

* Beliefs about what traits and characteristics go together
* can influence impression more than actual traits

Implicit personality theory- warm

* kind, generous, funny, caring
* think someone is warm at the beginning and then find out they are not so nice of a person

Implicit personality theory- cold

* mean, calculating, untrustworthy
* could be shy

Example of implicit personality theory - halo effect

* do we have positive feelings about someone or negative feelings


* when we have positive feelings about someone- we tend to assume that they have better traits than they actual do, tend to be more fogriving
* negative feelings - assume someone is a terrible person

* Example of implicit personality theory- what is beautiful is good effect

* the idea that we often assume that attractive people are nicer, funnier or more skilled
* find someone attractive, make better judgements about them

Van kleef et al 2011

had someone watch a video about someone being rude and had people rate where the person falls in personality

* found that norm violation viewed them as more powerful
* tended to be rated higher on anger

activates schema

viewing something and writing down as many things as you can and notice different things

Effects of schemas on information processing memory - attention

provides a filter

* see that it is there

schemas

give us a guideline for memories

Effects of schemas on information processing memory- encode

* commit to memory

Effects of schemas on information processing memory- recall

recall information

Effects of schemas on information processing memory- Bartlett’s war of ghosts (1932)

* read them a story about american indian folklore
* about ghosts having a battle, supernatural, etc.
* inconsistent with 1932 english folks
* based on cultural traditions
* each person had to recall the story and tell it for the next person
* found that several with the elements dropped out that were not consistent with english culture
* ex: ghost element disappeared at the end
* in 1932 england they don’t use canoes so they replaced it with boats in the story

example of encoding

i have noticed the colors of carpet but not important to schemas

* encode things that are relevant

retrieval example

when we leave the room we have to remember whats there

ex:

what happens when information is inconsistent

it depends on how inconsistent it is

ex: a banana does not go in a tool box

Gap filling

use it as a guideline to remember what may or may not be present

* relevant for episodic memory
* ex: having a wedding but not remembering dinner

confirmation bias

1. we often search for information that confirms our schemas


2. we also tend to notice information that is consistent with schemas
3. we often dismish information that goes against our schemas

Schemas and attention: Hastorf & Cantril (1954)

* used a video of particular brutal football game
* had students from princeton and dartmouth watch the game
* found that princeton students basically said dartmouth played dirty and vise versa
* not looking for what our team is doing wrong

example of confirmation bias

say you are going on vacation and grandma tells you everything negative about the place

Young et al (2011)

* increasing personal relevance

IV: emotional state (anger, sadness, or neutral emotions)

DV’s: choice of articles to read (confirming or non confirming), reported attitude change

* had them write about a memory
* people in angry state were far more likely to view articles that went away from their opinion

Schemas and encoding

* shape how we attend to and encode information

Schemas darley and gross (1983)

brought in people and randomly assigned them to four different variables

IV #1: expectations: told participants that hannah had hig socio economic

IV #2: video vs no video- high expectations watch the video

Found there was a slight difference with people who haven’t watched youtube

Schemas and retirveal

* schemas affect what we actually remember
* consistent with gap filling

Carli study:

* when the story outcome was a marriage proposal, people more likely were able to forget stuff
* when the story outcome was rape - people tended to view a lot of details

priming

involves activating different networks in brain

* not always conscious

example of priming

october- love to watch scary movies

* taking dogs out after scary movies it’s terrifying, hear everything
* primed to think about scary stuff, more likely to jump

schemas

schemas can influence what you expect in a situation and change behavior so that it is more likely

example of self schema

when a kid, always thought of being unathletic

* made more accurate because never signed up for sports
* never practice any athletics

self fulfilling prophecy

occurs when one holds an initially false \n belief that then influences behavior, which then in turn causes the belief to come true

Perceiver expectation

you’ve heard the new guy in class is unfriendly

* would have to go up to someone to spark a conversation

perceivers behavior towards target

you fail to introduce yourself after class

target behaviors towards the perceiver

he leaves without speaking to you

self fulfilling prophecy requires

1. Perceiver holds a false attitude and expectation about a target person (or situation).

\

2. Perceiver behaves in a way that elicits the expected behavior from the target/experience of the situation.

\

3. Others do in fact behave in a way that confirms the perceiver’s attitude and expectation.

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4\.Perceiver sees predicted outcome, thus believing the assumption was true in the first place.

Rosenthal & \n Jacobson (1968)- self fulfilling prophecy

* took elementary kids and administered IQ tests
* randomly selected a bunch of random kids from the group
* told kids teachers that those kids had high IQ’s “bloomers”
* at end of year, gave whole big group of kids another IQ test and looked at change of IQ
* compared to bloomers, 80% showed a 10 point IQ gain
* teachers tended to respond differently and educated kids who they thought were smarter

Snyder, Tanke, \n & Berscheid (1977)- self fulfilling prophecy

* took heterosexual men and women and paired them up
* half of men they gave pictures of women that they were talking to
* gave unattractive or attractive women
* had conversations where they couldn’t see each other
* took judges- who would see only the women’s side
* judged how attractive they thought the women was
* women who men thought were these attractive women, tended to smile more, more upbeat, laugh more - friendlier

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts that help us to estimate the likelihood of uncertain events

Strengths in heuristics

* saves times
* can be very accurate

weaknesses in heuristics

* can lead to errors

When do we use heuristics

1. when we don’t have a lot of mental energy - make more snap judgements
2. when we are in a positive mood- make shortcuts to thinking
3. when we perceive the question as unimportant

not examples of self fulfilling prophecies

i have a feeling my brother is going to call today, and then my brother actually does call

representativeness heuristic

judging how likely something is based on how well it seems to fit a particular category

* can lead to errors or slower reaction time

example of representativeness heuristics

david works long nights at the hospital while also playing golf, fishing, going to a country club

* automatically think of him being an doctor

Availability heuristic

judging the likelihood of an event based on how easil we can bring examples to mind

example of availability heuristic

if someone were to ask should i get a chevy or toyota

* tell them to avoid chevy if negative experience with it

When do we make errors- availability heuristic

* in the case of dramatic but rare events
* ex: shark attacks
* ease of memory not due to actual frequency or probability
* \

base rate fallacy

* The reason for the availability heuristic and the representativeness heuristic
* The tendency to underuse statistical base rate information and instead rely on particulars of the current situation
* ex: pick out one person and pick out that they are an art professor -relying on knowledge of knowing that art professor dress eccentrically

illusory correlation

* Another reason for the \\n availability heuristic
* Our tendency to see \\n certain things as related \\n when they actually aren’t
* Happens especially when \\n events are rare

example of illusory correlation

* lucky socks example- whenever you have an exam, put on socks with polka dots
* vaccines and autism - parents think vaccines give kids autism even though vaccines are received right before autism is diagnosed

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

* this is a strategy used when we have little experience with something
* pick an anchor to which we can base a response off of
* we typically fail to adjust far enough, creating under adjustment

example of Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

in grade school, guessing the right number of candy in a jar and someone guesses 1000 and you think that is too much, you adjust your guess based on the 1000

Englich, Mussweiler (2006)

* when they got info from a relevant source, they gave more sentencing recommended if it was a less judgement
* Judges are given sentencing recommendation from an experienced attorney/ journalist
* then asked to make their own recommendations
* when they got info from a irrelevant source, they gave a sentencing recommended if it was more harsh

Counterfactual thinking

We engage in this process when we can easily see how things could have gone differently which affects our affect and motivation

* focused on why negative events occur

upward counterfactual thinking

you are looking up at better outcomes → negative feelings

downward counterfactual thinking

you are looking down on worst outcomes → positive feelings

example of downward counterfactual thinking

Because I forgot my purse, I avoided getting into an accident

example of counterfactual thinking

For a bronze medalist- if i would have run a little bit slower, i wouldn’t have made it on the podium

For silver medalist- if i would’ve ran a little faster i wouldve been at gold

another example of counterfactual thinking

if i would had gotten another question right on that exam, I would have gotten an A

Kray et al (2010) - counterfactual thinking

* helps us make sense out of bad outcomes

example of counterfactual thinking helps us make sense out of bad outcomes

apply to school, don’t get in and go to my second choice school and meet soulmate

* thinking that if i never chose this college i would have not met my soulmate

Illusion of control

* we believe we have more control over events than we actually do


* we can see an outcome going differently and therefore we believe we could have controlled it
* we believe due to illusory correlation, that our actions can impact completely unrelated factors (superstition)

example of illusion of control

I am wearing my lucky socks so i will win my game

hindsight bias

* we tend to assume that we previously knew the outcome of a situation because it seems obvious in retrospect but often times we would have said the same thing about the opposite outcome
* “we knew it all along”

planning fallacy

* Our assumption that things will take less \n time/money/work, etc. than they actually do
* tend to assume that things will go perfectly

example for planning fallacy

get stuck on little things that add and add to amount of time and feel like nothing got done

positive attitude

* high positive reaction


* low negative reaction

example of positive attitude

Dogs are the best pet! I’ve \n never met a dog I didn’t like.

negative attitude

* low positive reaction


* high negative reaction

example of negative attitude

Dogs are slobbery and messy \n and gross. I hate them

indifferent attitude

* low positive reaction
* low negative reaction