PSY220H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Confirmation Bias, Social Cognition, Pluralistic Ignorance
Document Summary
Our judgements are only as effective as the quality of the information on which they are based, yet the information available to us in everyday life is not always accurate or complete. The way information is presented, including the order in which it is presented and how it is framed, can affect the judgements we make. We don"t just passively take in information. We often actively seek it out, and a pervasive bias in our information-seeking strategies often distorts the conclusions we reach. Our pre-existing knowledge, expectations, and mental habits can influence the construal of new information and thus substantially influence judgement. 2 mental systems intuition and reason underlie social cognition, and their complex interplay determines the judgements we make. Field of social cognition is the study of how people think about the social world and arrive at judgements that help them interpret the past, understand the present, and predict the future.
