Cognitive Biases, Framing Effects, and Personality Theories in Thinking & Language - Prof., Study notes of Psychology

Download Cognitive Biases, Framing Effects, and Personality Theories in Thinking & Language - Prof. and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! T h i n k i n g Geons and "impossible figures": Like the impossible staircase or the three prong thing. Prototype theory of meaning: Cognition: thinking, gaining knowledge and using knowledge. How people organize their thoughts into language. Spreading activation: Process by which the activation of one concept also activates or primes other concepts that are linked to it We think of words or concepts with links to related concepts Stroop effect and automatization: Stoop effect: The interference between automatized (what you’re used to and what has become automatic to you) and deliberate ways of thinking. I.e. shouting out words that are colored but are nonsense (shb). But when there is a color word (i.e. brown) that is colored red, it is harder to call out the colors. The interference part is reading. - The tendency to read the word, instead of saying the color of ink as instructed. Mental rotation and map image-scanning studies Mental rotation is when you see two shapes that are the same and rotate the two in your head until they are aligned in space in your mind. Change blindness: The frequent failure to detect changes in parts of a scene i.e. those puzzles that ask you “find 10 differences between these two pictures” Attentional blink: During a brief time after perceiving one stimulus, it is difficult to attend to something else. It takes time to shift attention from one item to another Nature of expertise: Even if someone is born with a certain talent, they still need years of hard work to develop expertise. Brain anatomy: developing expertise expands the axons and dendrites in the brain areas relevant to a skill Algorithms and heuristics: Algorithm: a mechanical, repetitive procedure for solving a problem or testing every hypothesis Heuristics: are strategies for simplifying a problem and generating a satisfactory guess Representativeness heuristic An item that resembles members of a category probably belongs to that category When only a few instances are taken in to represent the entire category – i.e. if something looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it must be a duck. Category Being able to focus on something and determine what it is (categorization) Categories are best described by familiar or typical examples called prototypes We decide whether an object belongs to a category by determining how well it resembles the prototypes of that category Some categories cannot be described by prototypes- we can think about “bug-eyed-monsters from outer space” without ever encountering a prototype of that category Base-rate information How common the two categories are Availability heuristic The more easily we can think of members of a category, the more common the category is. i.e. are there more words that start with K or more with K as the third letter? It is easier to think of words that start with K than with those with K as the third letter Although it is easier to recall words that begin with K, it does not indicate how common words with K are. Overconfidence Believing your estimate is more accurate than it is Confirmation bias The tendency to accept one hypothesis and then look for evidence to support it, instead of considering other possibilities Framing effects and “spinning effects” Framing effect: the tendency to answer a question differently when it is framed (phrased) a certain way Framing bias: “Spinning” or “Scientific Catastrophism” When the wording of a problem leads us to a decision I.e. Asian disease out break: Positive framing: if you choose option A then it will save 200 lives Negative framing: if you choose option A then 400 people will die Reframing: Our attitudes and feelings depend strongly upon the context in which they are framed. Changing the context in which our attitudes and feelings are solicited can change those attitudes and feelings. Stockholm syndrome: Affection of hostages toward captors regardless of the danger they are in. Effects of abuse on attachment and resilience: Abuse by caretaker leads to greater attachment; Loyalty of abuse victims to perpetrators; clinging of children to abusive parents; effects of poor attachment can be overcome somewhat by later remedial experience. Effects of divorce on children: Regression in young children; sense of vulnerability; abandonment panic – grief at loss of intact family; anger intermixed with powerlessness; adolescence – overburdened child syndrome, taking on responsibility for caretaking of parent. N a t u r a l S e l e c t i o n a n d M o t i v a t i o n Natural selection Those with better genes will reproduce more because they are fitter. Evolution through natural selection, survival of the fittest. Requirements for natural selection: Variability of traits: Among organisms; traits can be structures or behavior Selection pressures: the combined effect of all selection pressures at various levels determines the overall fitness of an individual, and hence the outcome of natural selection. Inheritance mechanism: genes, which are segments of chromosomes, control heredity. Vestigial structures and importance to Darwin: anatomical, behavioral and biochemical structures that have lost their original function but remain their because of evolution. I.e. the appendix, the tailbone, muscles in the ear. Neoteny: juvenile features in adults. i.e. humans have flat faces throughout their entire life, but monkeys get longer faces as they get older. We prefer the “baby” look. Personal vs. inclusive fitness: Personal fitness: direct reproductive prowess. Inclusive fitness: assistance of kin’s reproduction; leads to cooperative behavior; genetic self-interest. Kin selection: organisms that tend to exhibit strategies that favor the reproductive success of their relatives Vervet monkeys and calls: these monkeys let out calls to warn of danger, even if it means attracting the danger to them. Taxis: movement toward or against a simple stimulus. Fixed action patterns & releasing stimuli: the releaser is a signal from one individual to another. Fixed action patterns triggered by releasers, they are instinctive behavioral sequences such as the egg retrieval by a herring gull. Imprinting & critical (sensitive) periods: social bond that is formed immediately or during the first few days of life. i.e. ducklings; newborn babies with mothers. Tryon behavior-genetics study: genetic influences apparent by crossing strains of DNA in rats so that they could work the mazes better. Types of mating systems: Monogamy: one male and one female Polygyny: Male and two or more females Polyandry: Female with two or more males Promiscuity: Any male within the social group can mate with any female Rationale for sexual reproduction: maybe to repair DNA damage. Advantage of sexual reproduction: variation of genes; can evolve and species can fight mutation. Sexual dimorphism: the differences in the male and female within the same species. I.e. in most species, the male is larger than the female. Evolutionary explanations of altruism: Altruistic behavior is accepting some cost or risk to help others. People want a reputation for being fair and helpful so that they will be offered help when they need it. Evolutionary explanation of sex roles: traits that help men win in competition with one another and ornaments that help them win the attentions of females Sexual selection: a type of natural selection in which members of one sex compete for reproductive access to members of the other sex. Male displays resulting from sexual selection "Female choice" in mating: Female selection of males: resources; height; muscular, angular appearance (especially during ovulation); predictability; gifts; caring during illness; intelligence, sense of humor Kinsey survey: Alfred Kinsey, who conducted the first extensive survey of human sexual behavior, found that sexual activity varies more widely than most people realize Gender identity: the sex an individual regards themselves as or identifies with. Most people with male genitalia have a male identity. Intersexes: people with anatomy that appears intermediate between male or female. Due to hormone releases during prenatal development. Sexual orientation and possible determinants: genetic influences and prenatal environment are possible influences. A small percentage of men and women claim to be exclusively homosexual. James-Lange theory of emotion: your interpretation of a stimulus directly evokes autonomic changes and sometimes muscle actions. Your perception of those changes is the feeling aspect of the emotion. The situation gives rise to an action and your perception of the action is the emotion. Cognitive (Schachter-Singer) theory of emotion: The arousal you perceive in yourself determines the intensity of the emotion, although not the identity of the emotion itself. The intensity of the physiological state determines the intensity of the emotion, but a cognitive appraisal of the situation identifies the type of emotion. "Positive psychology": the study of the features that enrich life, such as happiness, hopes, creativity, courage, spirituality, and responsibility. Effects of wealth on well-being: your well-being depends on how you spend you time, if you have more leisure hours, you will be happier. Wealth does not necessarily increase happiness, but poverty produces unhappiness. Effects of crying: while crying, sympathetic nervous system arousal and other signs of tension visibly increase. Relaxation occurs when you stop crying. However, you will probably have just as much tension after crying as you did before crying. Crying can often make you feel more depressed. How the polygraph works: simultaneously records several indications of sympathetic nervous system arousal, such as blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, and electrical condition of the skin (sweating). The assumption was that when people lie, they feel nervous and therefore increase their sympathetic nervous system arousal. S o c i a l I n t e r a c t i o n Primacy effects on social impressions: if your first impression of someone is unfavorable you may not spend the time to get to know them and change your opinion. Methods of assessing prejudice: through the implicit association test. It measures your reactions to combinations of two categories, such as flower and pleasant. The fact that one word primes the other indicates that you see the two words as related. Results of Implicit Association Test: the results were that even well- meaning people have prejudices that operate without their awareness because we are influenced by stereotypes and prejudices that we don’t recognize. Internal vs. external attributions: Attributions: set of thought processes we use to assign causes to our behaviors and that of others. Internal: explanations based on someone’s attitudes, personality traits or abilities. i.e. your brother walked to work because he wanted the exercise External: explanations based on the situation, including events that presumably would influence almost anyone. I.e. you assume he walked to work because his car wouldn’t start. "Fundamental attribution error" and culture: the tendency to assume a strong similarity between someone’s current actions and his or her dispositions. I.e. if a student writes an essay defending Castro, you’d assume they were pro-Castro. Actor-observer effects: You are an actor when you try to explain the causes of your own behavior and an observer when you try to explain someone else’s behavior. Self-serving attribution bias: you vary your attributions to try to present yourself in a favorable light. i.e. you credit to your good grades to hard work but your bad grades to unfair tests. Self-handicapping strategies: intentionally put yourself at a disadvantage to provide an excuse for possible failure. I.e. partying the night before a test and blaming your bad grade on that. Factors affecting persuasiveness of messages: Influence based on similarity, if the person can relate to the message they are more easily persuaded. Influence of group endorsement, if a group of individuals endorse a message you changes according to a certain situation. Personality traits exert a larger influence when the situational influence is less powerful. Interactionism Psychodynamic personality theories: relates personality to the interplay of conflicting forces within the individual, including unconscious ones; we are being pushed and pulled by internal forces that we don’t understand. Psychoanalysis – Sigmund Freud – method of explaining and dealing with personality, based on the interplay of conscious and unconscious forces. Catharsis: a release of pent up emotion. The Unconscious: the repository of memories, emotions, and thoughts, many of them illogical, that affect our behavior even though we cannot talk about them. Oedipus complex: when a boy develops a sexual interest in his mother and competitive aggression toward his father; no evidence supports this. Stages of psychosexual development: Oral Stage: psychosexual pleasure from stimulation of the mouth – birth to 2 yrs. Anal Stage: psychosexual pleasure from sensations of bowel movements. – begins at 2 years Phallic Stage: children begin to play with their genitals – at around 3 years Latent Period: from 5 to 6 years, they suppress their psychosexual interest Genital Stage: beginning at puberty, young people take a strong sexual interest in other people. Components of personality (Ego, Id, Superego): Ego: the rational, decision-making, aspect of personality ID: consists of all our biological drives, such as sex and hunger, that demand immediate gratification Superego: contains the memory of rules and prohibitions we learned from our parents and the rest of society. *Sometimes the id produces sexual motivations that the superego considers repugnant, this evoking feelings of guilt. Defense Mechanisms (know types): The ego defends itself against conflicts and anxieties by relegating unpleasant thoughts and impulses to the unconscious. Repression: motivated forgetting; banishing unacceptable thoughts, desires and memories to the unconscious. Denial: the refusal to believe information that provokes anxiety. i.e. alcoholics will say they can stop at any time. Rationalization: when people attempt to prove that their actions are rational and justifiable and worthy of approval. Displacement: diverting a behavior or thought away from its natural target toward a less threatening target causes less anxiety. If your mad at your boss you won’t yell at him, but instead take it out on someone less scary. Regression: return to a more immature level of functioning. Projection: the attribution of one’s own undesirable characteristics to other people Reaction Formation: to present themselves as the opposite of what they really are in an effort to hide the truth from themselves or others. Sublimation: the transformation of sexual or aggressive energies into culturally acceptable, even admirable, behaviors. i.e. a painting may represent a sublimation of sexual impulses. Overall evidence on validity: there is not much evidence—many psychologists believe Freud decided on conclusions and then looked for evidence to fit them instead of the other way around. There has been a huge decline in Freud’s influence. Jung's collective unconscious and archetypes: Collective unconscious: present at birth, represents the cumulative experience of proceeding generations Archetypes: vague images that we that we inherited from the experiences of our ancestors – believed that the similarities in artworks throughout the world indicated that people inherited images or archetypes for those shapes. Adler and "social interest": Social interest: a sense of solidarity and identification with other people; an interest in the welfare of society. Inferiority complex: an exaggerated feeling of weakness, inadequacy, and helplessness. – this is part of his legacy. Striving for superiority: a desire to seek personal excellence and fulfillment. Personality and criminal profiling: some psychologists try to aid police investigators by constructing personality profiles of the kind of person who would commit a certain crime. Research has been limited, and so far, it suggests low accuracy of personality profiles. Heredity and personality: heredity seems to play a role in personality. Monozygotic twins tend to have high correlations in personality even if they were separated at birth.