Psychology 2070A/B Lecture Notes - Availability Heuristic, Planning Fallacy, Illusory Correlation
Document Summary
Categorization: the process of recognizing and identifying something. Social cognition: the study of how information about people is processed and stored. Much of a child"s early learning involves the formation of schemas. Basic function of schemas is to categorize objects in ways that impose meaning and predictability. When we encounter an object we must identify what it is (categorize) before we can behave effectively towards it. When we categorize something we assume that it possess the characteristics of the schema even if we cannot perceive those characteristics directly. Schemas also influence how information is processed. Schemas also influence the interpretation of information. Although ambiguous information will usually be interpreted as consistent with a schema, anything that obviously contradicts our expectancies will grab our attention. Assume that the object probably possessed the typical characteristics of the schema. Can decide quickly how to behave toward the object.