unit 2

• Define social cognition 


  involves how we perceive, think about and use information to understand and make judgement about ourselves and others in different social situations
• What is person perception

  the mental processes we use to think about and evaluate or make judgements about other people
• What is the halo effect 


  the tendency to allow overall positive impression of a person, or our positive impression of a specific quality to influence our beliefs and expectations about the person in other qualities
• The reverse halo effect

  involves incorrect assumptions that positive characteristics indicate the presence of negative characteristics
• The horn effect involves

  incorrect assumptions that a negative characteristic indicates the presence of one or more other negative characteristics
• What is salience 


  any personal characteristics that is distinctive, prominent, conspicuous or noticeable in its context and attracts attention.
• What is social categorisation

  when we classify each other into groups based on common characteristics
• What is attribution?


  the process that we explain the cause of our own or another person's behaviour
• define Attitude 


  an evaluation about an object, person, place or event generally based on our experiences. It must be consistent and lasting.
• Describe an internal attribution 


  an explanation due to the characteristics of the person involved such as their personality, ability or mood
• Describe an external attribution

  an explanation of behaviour due to factors associated with the situation the person is in such as the action of others, environment ( weather) or the task.
• External attribution is also known as...

  situational or environmental attribution
• The just world belief

  belief that the world is just a place in which people get what they deserve and deserve what they get
• The just world belief leads us to...

  blame people for their misfortunes
• Fundamental attribution 


  the tendency to overestimate the influence of personal factors and underestimate the situational factors on other people's behaviour
• Actor- observer bias 


  tendency to attribute our own behaviour to external or situational fa tors yet attribute other's behaviour to internal factors
• Self serving bias 


  When we judge ourselves we tend to take credits for our successes and deny responsibility on failure and blame it on external factors
• What is the tri-component model

  this theory claims we need all 3 components to have an attitudes: affective, behavioural and cognitive
• Affective component 


  refers to the emotional reactions or feelings an individual has towards an object, person, group or issue
• Behavioural component 


  refers to the way in which an attitude is expressed through our actions
• The cognitive component 


  refers to the belief we have about an object, person, group or issue, this is linked to what we know about the world as a result of our life experiences
• What are stereotypes 


  A generalisation about the personal characteristics of members of a social group
• Social stigma 


  negative labels and attitude associated with disapproval or rejection by others who are not labelled in that way
• What is cognitive dissonance 


  an unpleasant psychological state that occurs when people become aware that there is inconsistency among their various belief, attitude or that their behaviour conflicts with their cognition.
• Dissonance 


  lack of agreement or harmony between people or things
• ways to change our dissonant cognitions 


  change our cognition by convincing ourselves our thinking is faulty, involve changing the behaviour to suit the dissonant cognition, add new cognition or supportive elements to justify the behaviour
• What is cognitive bias 


  a systematic error of judgment and faulty decision making, mistaken way of thinking that leads to inaccurate conclusions
• What is anchoring bias 


  tendency to rely heavily on the very first piece of information (anchor) received when making decisions and not modifying this anchor
• Attentional bias 


  the tendency to prioritise attention to certain information ( other stimuli) over other information, this means we may not weigh up all the pros and cons
• Confirmation bias 


  Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek, recall or interpret information in a way that confirms existing beliefs or expectation while dismissing or failing to seek contradictory evidence
• False- consensus bias 


  the tendency to over estimate the extent to which other people are like them in terms of sharing belief, personal characteristics or behaviour
• Hindsight bias 


  hindsight is the tendency only after an event has occurred to overestimate the extent to which the outcome could have been foreseen
• Misinformation effect 


  the tendency for information acquired after an event to influence the accuracy of the memory of the original event
• Optimism effect 


  optimism effect is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of experiencing positive events and underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events in the future
• The Dunning- Kruger effect 


  a type of cognitive view where people overestimate their knowledges or ability particularly in areas where they have little to no experience or knowledge.
• Heuristic 


  a strategy for solving a problem or making a decision that is based on experience with similar types of problems but cannot guarantee a correct outcome
• What is availability heuristic?


  Availability heuristic involves making a judgment based on how easy or difficult it is to bring specific examples to mind
• What is representative heuristic?

  Representative heuristic involves categorising a person, object or event by judging how closely it matches with our idea of a typical member of the category
• What is affect heuristic?


  The affect heuristic involves making judgment that is influenced by the emotion being experienced at the time
• What is prejudice?


  prejudice is a negative attitude towards another person or social group formed from any experience with that person or group