Exam 3: Social Cognition: Thinking About the Social World

As your textbook mentions,advertisements on television often try to sell products based on presenting alternative outcomes for a situation.For instance,an advertisement might claim "If you bought this brand of beer,you and your friends would have had more fun at the party." In this example,advertisers are taking advantage of what social psychological concept?

Once they are formed,schemas are easy to change.

Which of the following is the most reasonable explanation for why people rely on mental shortcuts and schemas even though they can lead to biases?

John likes to read books and spends a great deal of time in the library.The tendency to conclude that John is more likely to be a college professor than a mechanic is an example of using the _____________ heuristic.

According to information presented in your textbook,which of the following best describes why the anchoring and adjustment heuristic lead to problems when making decisions or judgments?

Andrew is in a very bad mood.According to the mood congruence effect,what information from his day will Andrew be more likely to remember?

Although assuming you will experience positive outcomes in life is healthy in many ways,the optimistic bias also has drawbacks.Describe one potential drawback to the optimistic bias.Be sure to include a definition of this concept in your answer.

Tversky and Kahneman (1974)provided participants with personality descriptions of engineers or lawyers and asked them to choose whether the individual was a 'lawyer' or 'engineer.'Out of a supposed sample of 100 engineers and lawyers,half of participants were told that there were 70 engineers and 30 lawyers while the other half were told that there were 30 engineers and 70 lawyers.What was the main finding of this study?

You have developed a new medical device that can diagnose a deadly disease with 80% accuracy.According to information on the framing heuristic,which of the following is the LEAST effective way to present this new device to doctors?

In a study done on counterfactual thinking,what did researchers find with respect to the satisfaction level of Olympic medalists?

Information processing that requires careful thought and effort is referred to as____________.

Which concept refers to the tendency to notice and remember negative information,which then influences the evaluation of people and situations?

What is the perseverance effect? Provide an example and explain how it relates to stereotyping.

When you arrive at your first college class you find a seat,take out your notebook,and being to record information the professor writes on the board.Previous experience of being a high school student helped you determine what to do in this situation.In social psychological terms,the cognitive structure that guided your behavior is commonly known as ______________.

What we remember when in a given mood is influenced in part by what we learned when previously in that mood.This is known as _____________.

Research on the negativity bias suggests what about how we process negative information compared with positive information?

The ____________ is a small structure found in the medial temporal lobe of the brain and is believed to be involved in automatic processing.

The belief that picking your own lottery numbers will result in a much better chance of winning the lottery reflects the illusion of control.

Which of the following best represents an evolutionary explanation for the negativity bias?

Heuristics are useful mental shortcuts but they also have drawbacks.What could be considered one disadvantage of using the availability heuristic?