Psychology 2070A/B Chapter 3: Chapter 3 Social Cognition.pdf

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2070A/B
• Professor: Phills

Document Summary

Automatic thinking: thinking that is non-conscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless. People as everyday theorists: automatic thinking with schemas. Schemas: mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influenc e the information people notice, think about, and remember. Information relevant to a particular schema is processed more quickly than information unrelated to it. When applied to members of a social group such as one of gender or race, schemas are commonly referred to as stereotypes. Participants played a video game in which they were supposed to shoot a man if he was holding a gun and withhold fire if he was not. People were influenced by the race of the men in the pictures, and were more prone to make mistakes by shooting black men who were unarmed. Their responses were the result of automatic thinking that is rooted in the pervasive stereotypes in north american culture about black people and.