PSYC 231 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Social Cognition

• School: George Mason University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 231
• Professor: Shulman

Document Summary

How people think about themselves and the social world. How people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions: two kinds of social cognition, automatic thinking. Quick, no conscious deliberation of thoughts, perceptions, and assumptions. Thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless: controlled thinking. Carefully selecting the right course of action: automatic thinking. We often size up a new situation very quickly. We use automatic thinking by relating new situations to past experiences. Schemas: mental structures that organize our knowledge of the social world. Influences the information people notice, think about, and remember: encompasses our knowledge and impressions of things like: other people, ourselves, social roles, specific events, schemas are used to organize what we know, and interpret new situations. Korsako(cid:448)"s s(cid:455)(cid:374)dro(cid:373)e: a (cid:374)eurological disorder (cid:449)here the i(cid:374)di(cid:448)idual ca(cid:374)"t for(cid:373) (cid:374)e(cid:449) memories; each situation is new: schemas as memory guides.