SOC 345 Lecture 3: Social Psychology Ch.3
Document Summary
Schemas: automatically created cognitive frameworks that organize and guide how people think about and understand the world. (a type of way of looking at stimuli) Can exist for people, places, events, or other stimuli. Automatic: effortless and instantaneous, schema used as a shortcut (i"ve seen this before and this means ) Controlled: effortful and requires careful deliberation and thought, decisions and actions are carefully considered (e. g. , what graduate school should i go to?) Negative: people tend to remember negative information which influences their evaluation or people and events. Optimistic: bad things happen to others and the actor believes they are more likely to experience good things. A stereotype is a type of schema. A stereotype assumes that all members of a group share some common feature. Can be a problem because schemas are resistant to change. Allow people to make decisions or judgements quickly.
