Psychology 2550A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Knowledge Representation And Reasoning, Social Cognition, Object Relations Theory
Document Summary
Social cognition: large movement within social psychology; wealth of ideas and findings on social cognitive processes and personality. Mental representations with which people interpret the objects and social situation in their world (including themselves and their own psychology states, as well as other people) Important for understanding the mental functioning because they are basic units for organizing information they guide what we notice and remember. People categorize information about ideas and experiences that have such resemblance in order to organize and simplify vast amounts of information efficiently so it can be used to make inferences and decisions. Make sense of new events in terms of their similarity to schemas that already exist. Many schemas may be considered stereotypes to emphasize that theses cognitive representation often are inaccurate. Effects of schemas: directing attention/influencing memory. Schemas activated directs our attentions and affects our memory of events: making inferences.