Chapter 3. Lecture 5

Question 1

The theory of lay epistemoloy

Answer 1

a framework for understanding how people form and modify their knowledge and beliefs about the world.

Question 2

The need to be accurate

Answer 2

sometimes thinking is guided to achieve an accurate, truthful understanding of a given person, idea, or event.
Happens when being accurate could result in undesired outcomes.

Question 3

The need to reach closure quickly

Answer 3

We reach closure in our decision making when we stop the thinking process.
When thinking is effortful or unpleasant.

Question 4

Meaning maintenance model

Answer 4

want to make sense of the environment when exposure to a stimulus is out of place with the expectations. I want to quickly restore meaning.

Question 5

How menng maintenance interacts with TMT

Answer 5

Having a clear interpretation of reality provides a buffer against thoughts of death.

Question 6

The need to confirm what one already prefers to believe

Answer 6

reach a conclusion that fits our beliefs and attitudes.
When prior beliefs are brought to mind.
Biased. If the information is relevant to their own health, analyze it more accurately, otherwise fail to engage in sound reasoning.

Question 7

What is social cognition

Answer 7

studies how people think about themselves and the social world- how they select, interpret, remember and use social information to make judgements and decisions.

Question 8

Social cognition and information

Answer 8

examines how we take information from the outside world and encode it. How this interpretation of the information is stored in memory. And how this information is retrieved from memory and used.

Question 9

What are schemas

Answer 9

Mental structures that represent knowledge about a concept of type of stimuli. Include attributes and the relationship among those attributes.
Include associations with other mental structures.

Question 10

What are categories

Answer 10

mental containers where we place similar things. Part of schemas

Question 11

What are scripts

Answer 11

Schemas about events that involve temporal sequence. Helps fill in missing info.

Question 12

What are impressions

Answer 12

knowledge about other people. Like physical traits, personality traits, and other beliefs. Kind of like a stereotype.

Question 13

3 reasons schemas are important

Answer 13

They reduce the amount of information to process. Stores the important stuff efficiently.
They reduce ambiguity as we can react quicker and more accurately.
They guide attention and encoding, memory, judgements and behaviour.

Question 14

Associative networks

Answer 14

models for how pieces of information are linked together and stored in memory. They result from semantic association (learning) and experiential associations.

Question 15

How do schemas work: accessibility

Answer 15

The ease with which people can bring an idea into consciousness and use it in thinking. Highly salient makes it more accessible.

Question 16

Salience

Answer 16

an aspect of a schema that is active in one’s mind, and consciously or not, colors perception and behaviour. When it is highly accessible, the salience increases.

Question 17

Priming

Answer 17

the process by which exposure to a stimulus in the environment increases the salience of a schema.

Question 18

Chronically accesible schemas

Answer 18

schemas that represent info that is important to the person or relevant to how they think of themselves, or is used frequently. I like fashion, so I will notice fashion stuff more often.

Question 19

Judging and schemas

Answer 19

Judge other people in terms of our own chronically accessible schemas. If honesty is really important to me, I will remember instances that pertain to honesty.

Question 20

Novel information and schemas

Answer 20

At odds with new info since it doesn’t readily fit or directly conflict. Causes anxiety as we are uncomfortable with new info.

Question 21

Assimilate

Answer 21

use an existing schema to interpret the novel information.

Question 22

Accommodate

Answer 22

change existing schema to incorporate the novel information.

Question 23

Schemas from culture

Answer 23

Direct contact with people, events, and ideas, form direct learning through others. Indirect contact with people and whatnot forms indirect learning.

Question 24

Social narratives

Answer 24

information about people is passed around, and reinforce schemas. Like stereotypes, stories are simplified to fit our schema.

Question 25

Mass media and schemas

Answer 25

reinforces schemas as it shows ideals like romantic ideals in movies. The news does the same by reporting what and how they want to report.

Question 26

Example of priming and schemas

Answer 26

Primed with good or bad words, and read a story about David. When negative concepts were primed, saw David as more negative, and the opposite.

Question 27

Insensitive to schema inconsistent information

Answer 27

Confirmation bias, self-fulfilling prophecy, stereotypes and prejudice.

Question 28

# Insensitive to schema inconsistent information Confirmation bias

Answer 28

seeking out information that confirms what we already believe.

Question 29

Pros+cons of confirmation bias

Answer 29

Helps us feel more secure, but makes us interpret new info wrong. It can be so strong it distorts the meaning of objective information. Make ambiguous information fit into our schemas. Pay more attention to schema consistent information.

Question 30

When do we revise our judgements

Answer 30

If the gap is extreme between what is observed and believed,

Question 31

Need for accuracy vs need for closure

Answer 31

The cognitive system kicks in to correct the feared bias when people are fearful about being biased. Need for accuracy can trump the need for closure. Can lead people to bend over backwards in the opposite way.

Question 32

Self-fulfilling prophecies

Answer 32

having an expectation about a person makes you act a certain way towards them. These actions cause them to then act a certain way towards you, being consistent with our schemas.

Question 33

Example of self fulfilling prophecies

Answer 33

Told kids they would have an intellectual growth spurt and they actually did. Even though they were randomly selected. If students expect teachers to be excellent they perform better.

Question 34

Metaphors

Answer 34

Cognitive tool people use to understand abstract social ideas in terms of other types of ideas that are more concrete and better understood.