Exam 5: Social Cognition

People who have severe brain damage sometimes approach objects in the world as if they are seeing them for the first time. That is, instead of seeing a "chair," for example, these people see "a wooden object with four legs." Similarly, instead of seeing two dogs, such people might see "a small tan animal with fur and a large brown object with its tongue hanging out." One might conclude that people with this kind of brain damage ____.

The tendency for people to overestimate the link between variables that are related only slightly or not at all is known as the ____.

Kelly runs by the bank to check her balance and get cash before visiting her grandparents. Normally when she visits her grandparents, she walks with them slowly, at their pace. Today, though, after her earlier visit to the bank, she finds herself walking faster than them. This is because the visit to the bank probably produced a(n) ____.

Within the field of social cognition, scripts can be thought of as ____.

What sorts of cognitive biases do people engage in that help them to feel better about themselves (i.e., what cognitive biases work to satisfy the motivation for self-enhancement)?

Suppose that Dorothy and Tim are out to lunch together, and both are on restricted-calorie diets. Which of the following would be the best example of counterregulation?

Research on conformity and attribution reveals that people are ____.

Research suggests that the basic distinction people make in attributions is between ____.

A knowledge structure that contains information about a concept and its relationship to other concepts (e.g., a structure that contains information about judges and how judges relate to lawyers, criminals, the general public, and so forth) is known as a ____.

Suppose that you are trying to guess how much money a co-worker of yours makes. You have no idea how much she makes off-hand. To try to guess, you start with your own salary and then add on a few dollars since she has been at your workplace longer than you have. That is, you make use of the ____________________ heuristic.

People might very well overestimate the likelihood for celebrity marriages to end in divorce, since celebrity divorces tend to be highly publicized (while happy celebrity marriages do not make front page news as easily). The overestimation could be explained in terms of ____.

The longer people think about something, the more ____ their opinion becomes.

Even though Vlad never actually exercises, you have always assumed that he is an athlete because he hangs around at the gym (like other athletes), drinks bottled water nonstop, and wears sweat suits everywhere. Your (false) assumption that Vlad is an athlete is most clearly an example of the ____.

Priming people with money can ____.

Describe how one might reduce cognitive errors in processing social information.

Elenita is from a relatively sheltered background. When she goes to college, she meets a Hispanic student. This student is the only Hispanic person she has ever known. The student is very independent and outspoken on their first meeting. After that meeting, Elenita decides that Hispanics in general must be independent and outspoken. Elenita's reaction illustrates the ____.

Although some social psychologists might argue that the cognitive errors discussed in this chapter stem from laziness and motivational biases, there is another perspective that puts a more positive spin on this. Articulate the two main parts of this other, more positive, perspective.

People who receive extremely low scores on IQ tests almost always perform better the second time around. This pattern can be attributed to statistical regression.

Suppose that you meet someone who is smart, adventurous, and highly knowledgeable about rockets and outer space. Even though there are not many astronauts in the world, you might immediately assume that this person is an astronaut just because he or she fits your image of what an astronaut is like. That is, you might ____ and rely on the ____.

The so-called "self-serving bias" refers to the tendency for people to ____.