PSY 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Achievement Test, Stereotype Threat, Robert Sternberg
Document Summary
Thinking: the mental manipulation of information from our environment. When we think, we use: analogical representations images share characteristics of word, symbolic representations images do not share characteristics of word. Mental maps combination of analogical and symbolic. Sports car: fast, red, expensive, small, shiny. When we se a schema to group several things based on shared properties, we create a category. Concept: a mental representation of objects, events, or relations organized around common themes. Category: group that is based on knowledge of shared properties. Within each category, there is a best example -- a prototype -- for that category. All concepts in a category are examples (exemplars); together, they form the category. Cognitive schemas that allow for easy, fast processing of information about people, events, or groups, based on their membership in certain groups. The generalization people make can lead to sexist or racist behaviors, such as not hiring a person because she is female or a specific ethnicity.
