PSY BEH 104S Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Confirmation Bias, Anti-Abortion Movements, Face Perception
23 Oct 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Thursday July 16—Lecture 7
Guest Lecturer: Kevin Cochran
Social Cognition: How we perceive and think about ourselves and each other; how we progress and
make meaning of our social encounters
Thinking: Fast and slow
• Sometimes people make snap judgments that are very accurate, sometimes very biased
o Face perception research: People can perceive trustworthiness, competence, likeability,
aggressiveness, and attractiveness within first 100ms
o Snap judgments of politician photos: predicts winners of election 68% of the time
Information Presentation
• Primacy effect: being disproportionately influenced by items at beginning of a sequence
• Recency effect: being disproportionately influenced by items at the end of a sequence
• Framing effects: Influence on judgment due to how information is presented, or framed
o Ex: Pro choice vs. pro life
o Ex: Terrorists vs. freedom fighter
• Asian Disease Problem
o Framing options in terms of losses and gainnegative information has more influence
▪ Rather prevent loss
Confirmation Bias: Tendency to test a proposition by searching for evidence that supports it
• But people can find supportive evidence for almost anything
Biased assimilation: a form of confirmation bias in which people find and accept assimilate
information that confirms their views, and ignore information that doesn’t
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Processing
• People usually think they perceive the world as it is: they take in formation, and construct more
complex ideas based on that information
o Bottom-Up Processing: Cognitions are constructed based on external stimuli00often
refereed to as data driven
• But in reality, people often complex pre-existing ideas, and selectively filter and interpret new
information to be consistent
o Top-down Processing: New information is selectively accepted based on pre-existing
cognitions—often referred to as theory driven
o Schema: mental representation
▪ Ex: stereotype, belief
Priming: Activating schemas stereotypes, beliefs, attitudes without another person’s awareness to
influence their judgment and behavior
Dual Process Thinking
• People capable of both types of thinking (sometimes at the same time)
o System 1: intuitive, reactive, emotional associative, quick, effortless, slow-learning,
automatic, primitive
o System : Systematic, deliberate, cognitive, rational, slow, effortful, flexible, controlled
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
