Social Cognition Exam #2 with complete verified solutions

How can expectancies affect encoding? How can expectancies affect attention? Know one example of each from class. Ecpectancies affect how we encode ambiguous infomration. They distort what we pay attention to and what judgements we make about things EX: The study that told participants if the new teacher was "warm" or "cold" and then this one description changed how those individuals saw the exact same teacher. Attention: (think positive test strategy) because we are more likely to remember both expectancy-congruent information and expectancy-incongruent information best. For congruent information it comes down to the fact that we remember things that fit what we are looking for (this follows positive test strategy) and the fact that this information fits better with our existing schemas. For incongruent information it is because events are unexpected may be more memorable. EX: Hannah is a little girl that either has a low or high SES and how people expect her to perform on tasks How can goals affect encoding? When you goal is to remember an overall impression of someone you can remember more than if you focus on the little details (think of the blink face thing) How can event significance affect encoding? What has research demonstrated about flashbulb memories? The more significant an event the more likely we are to remember it because we encode the event differently Flashbulb: Is a memory that happens when you where in a heightened emotional state with vivid details (9/11, etc) Research shows there is no correlation between acuracy and confidence. When Ps were asked where they were during 9/11 then two weeks later 50% got the entire memory wrong (because we fill in the blanks of our memories using schemas - I probably would have done this...) How can expectancies affect retrieval? What is the misinformation effect and what is an experimental demonstration of this effect? Expectancies can make us add details that were not true to our memories because of the schemas we have surrounding the other events or sircumstances. Misinformation effect: Is a memory distortion where existing memories are altered by misleading (incorrect) information that is introduced at the time they are being retrieved. Experiment: Loftus and Palmer (1974) Ps showed a video of a car accident (fender bender type of thing). They are asked to estimate how fast the cars where going when they... • IV: Smashed into each other? Hit each other? DV: Ps estimated the speed the car was going. R: When the word was more violent (like smashed) - Ps average speed was much greater. Smashed - 41mph vs hit 34mph - One week later Ps asked whether or not there was broken glass in the video. 15% of those in the "smashed" condition answered yes, but only 5% answered yes in the "hit"/control conditions How can implicit theories affect retrieval? What are the two implicit theories we discussed in class? Retrieval is after it has been incoded. It is the same as expectations. An simplicity theory will cause us to retrieve information in a way that is consistent Writing ability with a stability theory makes you think that you aren't improving - you retrieve information in a way that conforms to what We assess current standing → consults implicit theory about relation between past and present → reconstruct past by integrating these 2 pieces of info Theories about stability and change Stability - we tend to think we are stable on many dimensions and so are others (see it as the same over time) i.e., how funny we are What is hindsight bias? Hindsight bias is the tendency to exaggerate the extent to which we could have predicted currently known outcomes. (when you learn about/know something now and you can't forget that you know it and you "see" the proof of it in you past memories.) EX: Now that you know John and Jane are dating you can look back and see all the times they were flirting with each other. How can goals influence retrieval? Information that fits with desired conclusion is more likely to be recalled; motivated to be consistent If Ps told extraversion leads to success, able to recall more extraverted events, and vice versa for introversion You think of all the times you matched that goal What does the Source Monitoring Framework suggest about memories? Memories are NOT stored with their source Having trouble distinguishing between 2 external sources, also between something that actually occurred vs. what you imagined You know it happen but don't know who said it or when. Or you aren't really sure it happened at all How can our memories influence source monitoring? If we imagine something, the more real it feels and more often it seems like it occurs IV 1: Ps view pictures 2x, 5x, or 8x (told in advance) IV 2: Ps imagined pictures as well either 2x, 5x, or 8x Task isn't hard, but inviting brain to get confused about what Ps saw and imagined DV: estimate of how many times they ACTUALLY saw the pictures Results The more times they imagined or saw the picture, the more times they thought they had seen the picture Kinda why when waking up from a dream that feels really real where you had a fight with someone close with you, no matter how irrational it is, you can be super upset about it when you wake up What is a pseudomemory? How can memories be created in the lab? Describe a study that demonstrates this. Pseudomemories are false memories that, although fictional, are experienced as if they were real. Meories can be created in the lab through implantation (especially under hypnosis), by telling Ps about the memories' framework and saying that it comes from a trusted source, through showing Ps photoshopped photos, or by using unrelated pictures then telling Ps about false memories. Ps saw 4 photos: 3 were real and one was a fake photo of a hot air balloon ride (photoshopped) (a family member verified that the Ps had never been on a hot air ballon ride. After reviewing the photos 3 times over 2 weeks 50% of Ps remember details about the ride (typically these memories were rich with details) And, why is it important to try to plant an impossible memory? Describe research that involves planting an impossible memory. It is important to plant an impossible memory because that takes out any other variables that could be the cause of the causation. There is no way to know 100% that the target false event never happened because the family members could have forgoten or it that event happened with another family member. Experiment: To make Ps remember meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland IV: Showed Ps two ads for Disney, one of which had Bugs Bunny, and asked what ad they prefer. DV: Later Ps asked about personal experiences at Disneyland R: 16% of Ps said that they met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland with 62% remembering shaking his hand and 46% remembring giving him a hug. What is a self-schema? What is something influenced by self-schemas? How does the environment create a working self-concept? Self-schema: A conceptual structure that organizes information about the self along with a particular dimension. How we process and recall information about the self and how we process information about others is impacted by the self-schema. The environment factors/situation creates a working self-concept by making certain parts of your self-concept more salient in those different