PSYC-2400 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Counterfactual Conditional, Thought Suppression, Cognitive Load
9 Dec 2013
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Social cognition: how we think about the social world. Two types of social cognition: automatic. Effortless classification of something, i. e. , chair: controlled thinking. Pause and think about environment; contemplate what is going on around you, i. e. , major decision. You do not stop to analyze a new road before driving on it, and you do not analyze whether or not you like a new friend for 15 minutes. Automatic thinking is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless. People as everyday theorists: automatic thinking with schemas. Slow: irreligious, artistic, impolite: we fill in the blanks with schema-consistent information; sometimes to our demise. Described as life of the party, not afraid of the spotlight, centre of attention. Schemas are known as stereotypes when applied to members of a social group such as race/gender: ex. 2005: study on whether stereotypes of black people influence perception of whether a person is holding a weapon. Rapid succession of pictures on computer screen; first faces, then either tools/guns.
