Social Cognition and Schemas

Automatic Thinking: Aids in understanding new situations by relating them to prior experiences using existing knowledge in memory.
Categorization: The automatic process of grouping information about the same subject; helps place new experiences into existing categories.
Schema: A mental framework derived from past experience containing beliefs, feelings, and expectations (e.g., self-schemas, social roles, specific events).
Function: Schemas reduce ambiguity and fill gaps in knowledge, especially when previous experience is lacking.
Schema as Prophecy: Expectations (e.g., being told a person is "warm" vs. "cold") influence how individuals are rated or perceived.

Reconstructive Memory: Human memory is not a hard drive; we fill in gaps using schemas to reconstruct events.
The Mandela Effect: A large-scale phenomenon where collective memories are shaped by expectations rather than reality (e.g., misremembering the line "Luke, I am your father" in Star Wars).

Accessibility: The extent to which a schema is at the forefront of the mind. - Chronic: Readily available due to remote past experience. - Temporal: Availability due to recent experience or current cues.
Priming: Improving the accessibility of a trait or concept using recent experience; occurs automatically and unintentionally.
Controversy: While some early priming studies (e.g., Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996) faced replication issues, the concept remains relevant in tasks like the Weapons Identification Task, IAT, AMP, and Go/No-Go.

Perseverance Effect: The tendency for beliefs about the self or the world to persist even after evidence discrediting them is provided.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A cycle where an initial expectation about a person influences behavior toward them, causing that person to act in a way that confirms the original expectation.

Conscious Thinking: Used to correct automatic thinking or handle novel challenges.
Requirements for Controlled Processing: 1. Awareness that controlled processes are necessary. 2. Motivation to exert control. 3. Ability/capacity to consider actions at a conscious level.

In-Class Activity: Students were tasked to create a team name and motto for the semester on Canvas. Examples provided included "Pavlov's Puppies" ("That rings a bell.") and "The Manipulators" ("We never said that."). Top five favorites receive a bonus point.