ucsb social cognition 152 exam 1 with 100% correct answers

social cognition (theory) an approach in social psychology that uses cognitive psychology principles to study social psychology phenomena. HOW PEOPLE PROCESS, use, and store information to make sense of and interact with the social world. what is social psychology scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. emphasis on social nature of individuals ABC's of social psychology Affect (feelings) Behavior (actions) Cognition (thoughts) memory glue that connects past to present. important for us to be able to develop and maintain social relationships. cognitive structures aka schema. mental representations of the accumulated knowledge, beliefs, and expectancies the individual has developed in various domains of life (ex: classroom setting, people) clive anterograde amnesia example cannot form new memories. how he perceives Joe Biden will be different than how we do. may have past opinions on him, and/or know he went to Syracuse but not his up to date facts. sine wave speech tells us how our perception is influenced by memory. object cognition NO people. ex: trees blowing in wind, trash cans, washing machine, Alexa, interactive baby toys. do not have the necessary specific characteristics needed to be social. social cognition (vs obj) interaction with other people/animals. ex: cops, dogs, animals interacting with one another. characteristics to being social (what makes it social cognition, people are and objects mostly are not) intentional causal agents, perceiving back, similar to self, self-conscious targets, holders of crucial but non-observable traits, changeable, complex, require explanation key questions in social cognition 1. how do we categorize people? 2. how are memories organized and retrieved? 3. how does knowledge influence perception? 4. how automatic are our thoughts and behavior...how much control over perception? 5. motivation in cognitive processing 6. judgements under uncertainty 7. assigning blame replication crisis only about 35% replication rate (can't replicate about 65% of findings) William james principles of psychology (stream of consciousness, emotions, habit, will) Sigmund Freud psychoanalysis (therapist makes a patient's unconscious goals and thoughts conscious) Wilhelm Wundt psychology as a science (reaction time, introspection) reaction time manipulate a stimulus and record the amount of time it takes for an individual to respond to the stimulus (ask if something is a dog, show a dog, parrot, cat. objects with more similar characteristics between the two will be slower at differentiating whether or not it's different. animals/colors) introspection the process of examining operations of one's own mind with the goal of discovering how the mind works. see a dog with 4 legs, classify as dog. see dog with 3 legs, still know it's a dog. see polar bear, has 4 legs and furry but know it's not a dog. focus on hue and luminance for differentiating colors. critiques of introspection 1. whole is greater than the sum of its parts (together elements create a different experience) 2. the act of introspection could influence how a person processes a stimulus 3. we do not have conscious access to many psychological processes 4. introspective reports are biased an unreliable (ask same question different times you'll likely give two different responses) biased introspection life satisfaction higher on sunny days than rainy days. if interviewer mentions weather first, there is no different in the life satisfaction report. elemental approach break down stimulus or process into the component parts and analyze theses parts separately before figuring out how they combine (features of dog/Joe Biden) holistic approach the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. a stimulus or process is understood best by focusing on the entire configuration of the parts. "gestalt psychology" kurt koffka figure-ground perception (cube with brown and orange looking squares are actually the same color) behaviorism idea that study of psychology should only be based on observed behavior. behavior is objective bc it's observable, mind is not observable & analyzing it would be a waste of time. all behavior can be reduced to a stimulus-response association. John Watson behaviorism theory Kurt Lewin Behavior is a function of the Person and their Environment B = f(P,E) personality psychology correlates traits, attitudes, emotions, motives, and values with what people do in the real world B = f(P). environment is noise social psychology manipulation manipulate the social environment to see how people react B = f(E). person is noise Milgram experiment American citizen (with the supervision and instruction of a doctor at a prestigious university) is told to administer shocks to a person when they give the wrong answer. shock intensifies with each wrong response. most people will administer the sick, with 40% of citizens doing it to a fatal level. Mischel's critique of personality low correlation between traits and behaviors, more evidence to the power of the situation. we question why people don't behave the way their traits say they will and it could be bc of self reported traits, cognitive dissonance, or social norms BF Skinner verbal behavior (book) stimulus response theory of language