PSYC 260 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Counterfactual Thinking, Thought Suppression, Group Cohesiveness
14 Dec 2016
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Name and explain both course themes
- Power of the situation: how people think/feel/behave is driven by large extent of the social
situatio/otet the’re i
- Subjective construal: how someone sees a situation can sometimes matter more than the
actual objective details of the situation
Groups
• What is a group? collection of 3+ people who interact and are interdependent, their needs and goals
cause them to rely on each other
• Why are groups important? Source of information, sense of belonging, part of identity, innate need to
belong to group, fulfills emotional/evolutionary basic human needs for survival
• Ho do goups ifluee ehaio?
– Social Facilitation: Tendency for individuals to perform better on simple tasks but worse on
complex tasks when watched by others, because their performance is being evaluated
– Social Loafing: individuals perform worse on simple tasks and better on complex ones when
around others, their effort is’t ealuated ad rel o group effort
• Deisio akig
– Benefits: large pool of knowledge provided and vetting system can check errors
– Pitfalls Social Cognition: failure to share unique info (concentrate on one info that was shared
but not on others), group polarization (extreme decisions made), and group think (maintain group
cohesiveness rather than make realistic decisions)
• What are the two types of thought, how are they characterized?
- Automatic thinking: happens quickly/effortlessly
o Schemas:
o Heuristics: mental shortcuts we take when processing information
- Controlled thinking: deliberate/slower/more effortful thinking
o Counter factual thinking: create possible alternatives to life events that already
happened (if I did this differently, then this)
o Thought suppression: try to not think about something
• What is a schema and how do they influence social perception? Schema is a helpful guide that helps
us make sense of the world, has predictable outcomes (ie the script u follow when eating in fancy
restaurant). Sometimes has bad outcomes (such as stereotypes)
• What is a self-fulfilling prophecy? Expectations about someone influence the way we treat them
which leads that person to act in the way we expected all along (we think our roommate is shy we then
do’t talk to the, ad the the thik that e do’t like to talk, so the do’t talk to us
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• Ho ae sheas seleted? Easil haged? When we are exposed to ambiguous info and then
analyze it, then apply your analysis to all other similar types of information. Schemas are pretty resistant
to change
• What ae heuistis? Nae the ad suppl evidence of heuristics at work: mental shortcuts people
use to make judgements quickly/efficiently (small quick decisions, not as huge as schemas which help us
through whole situations through schema assumption)
- Availability: make judgements on how easily something comes to mind (ie shark attacks more
common than deer attaks, sharks see sarier ad that’s h people assue that.
- Representative: mental shortcut where we classify something by how similar it sounds to a
typical case.
- Anchoring and adjustment: mental shortcuts where we start with a figure in mind and adjust
from that point. We often fail to adjust them properly (ie josh eats more than billy, josh orders
food for the oth ad ill sas he ol ats a little it of hike, he order thikig it’s a
little it for hi, ut i ill’s id a little is loser to piees.
• What is outefatual thinking? Example. Research: occurs after a close call with negative events, u
mentally change aspects of the past and imagine hat ould hae happeed if I did’t forget the fish
other ould’t kill e r. Best eaple is siler edalists are alas outer fatuall thikig
they could have gotten gold and bronze winner are like ye im amazing.
• What is thought suppessio? Eaple. Reseah? Soial Peeptio : attempt to avoid thinking
about something a person wants to forget (failed exam)
- Phenomenon: by consciously trying to not think about something, it makes us think about it
• What ae the 6 uiesal faial epessios? Cultue o speies speifi? What ae displa ules?
- 6 basic emotions, happiness, anger, surprise, disgust, sadness, fear, people all around the world
can recognize them. These are species specific but not culture specific.
- Display rules: culturally determined rules about which non-verbal behaviours are appropriate
(Asians cover their mouths to not display strong emotions, americans have specific personal
bubble radiuses)
• Ho uikl do e pik up o o-verbal information? How well? What study makes this case? : we
can recognize them pretty quickly, proven through the study where subjects were showed 6 seconds of
silent videos of teachers teaching a class and the predited the teaher’s ealuatios, the ere prett
accurate to the evals that their students gave irl.
• What is a ipliit pesoalit theo? Tpiall, ho do e desie the ehaiou?
- Implicit personality theory: schemas used to group various personality traits, we fill in the
blanks in our understanding by referencing schemas/stereotypes
• What is the correspondence bias (or FAE)? Why does it occur? Can we override- evidence? Is it
universal?
- Cores. Bias/FAE: tendency to infer that soeoe’s ehaiours reflets persoalit
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Document Summary
Power of the situation: how people think/feel/behave is driven by large extent of the social situatio(cid:374)/(cid:272)o(cid:374)te(cid:454)t the(cid:455)"re i(cid:374) Subjective construal: how someone sees a situation can sometimes matter more than the actual objective details of the situation. Social facilitation: tendency for individuals to perform better on simple tasks but worse on complex tasks when watched by others, because their performance is being evaluated. Social loafing: individuals perform worse on simple tasks and better on complex ones when around others, their effort is(cid:374)"t e(cid:448)aluated a(cid:374)d rel(cid:455) o(cid:374) group effort: de(cid:272)isio(cid:374) (cid:373)aki(cid:374)g. Benefits: large pool of knowledge provided and vetting system can check errors. Automatic thinking: happens quickly/effortlessly: schemas, heuristics: mental shortcuts we take when processing information. Schema is a helpful guide that helps us make sense of the world, has predictable outcomes (ie the script u follow when eating in fancy restaurant).
