Social Psychology - Chapter 4: Social Cognition

Social Cognition

the study of how people combine intuition and logic to process social information

dual processing

the ability to process information using both intuition and logic

Intuition

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

Logic

the ability of humans to use reason

Cognitive load

the amount of information that an individual's thinking systems can handle at one time

Cognitive Load shifting

when an individual's two thinking systems interact by smoothly shifting back and forth between intuition and logic

Memory structures

The cognitive structures that form the mind and organize and interpret social information

Schema

a cognitive framework that places concepts

Script

A memory structure or type of schema that guides common social behaviors and expectations for particular types of events; provide individuals with an order of events for common situations and expectations for others' behavior.

Stereotype

A type of oversimplified and overgeneralized schema that occurs when an individual assumes that everyone in a certain group has the same traits. (also- representativeness heuristic)

Outgroup homogeneity

the perception that all members of a particular outgroup are identical to each other

Cognitive miser

the tendency for humans to take mental shortcuts to minimize cognitive load

Satisficing

A practical solution to the problem of information overload that occurs when an individual takes mental shortcuts to make decisions; criteria are not exhaustively examined but are deemed "good enough" under the circumstances.

Maximizer

an individual who engages a heavier cognitive load by exhaustively examining criteria when making decisions

Magical thinking

Beliefs based on assumptions that do not hold up to reality

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

imagining alternatives that are worse than actuality

upward counterfactuals

imagining alternatives that are better than actuality

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

principal of parsimony

the tendency for individuals to prefer the simplest answer that explains the most evidence

mental accessibility

the ease with which an idea comes to mind

mental availability

the information already salient in one's mind

semantic network

a collection of mental concepts that are connected by common characteristics

priming

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

Heuristic

mental shortcut or rule of thumb that helps us to streamline our thinking and make sense of our world. Fast- but sometimes wrong

Algorithm

a systematic, logical method of searching for a solution to a problem or question. Step by step- slow but often correct.

anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Occurs when an individual makes a decision using information within a problem that unduly influences his or her final answer. The tendency to adjust little when a plausible estimate, or anchor, has been provided, despite not knowing whether the information is reliable

availability heuristic

the tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind. Occurs when an individual makes a decision using the most easily available information.

representativeness heuristic

occurs when individuals make a decision based on how closely their observations resemble the "typical" case. The tendency to classify observations according to a preexisting typical case and using that process to come to a conclusion (see stereotype).

confirmation bias

occurs when an individual searches for only evidence that will confirm his or her beliefs instead of evidence that might contradict them

hindsight bias

occurs when individuals believe they could have predicted the outcome of a past event but only after they already knew what happened; the false belief that they "knew it all along"

negativity bias

the automatic tendency to notice and remember negative information better than positive information