,
, Schemas help us make sense of the social world and process information efficiently, but
they can also lock us into acting in ways that create the world we expect.
REASONING BY METAPHOR: HOW SOCIAL ATTITUDES AND
BEHAVIOUR ARE AFFECTED BY FIGURES OF SPEECH
Metaphor: A linguistic device that relates or draws a comparison between one abstract
thought and another dissimilar concept.
Because metaphors can activate different kinds of social knowledge, they can influence
how we interpret events.
Social cognition: The manner in which we interpret, analyse, remember, and use
information about the social world.
Heuristics: Simple rules for making complex decisions or drawing inferences in a rapid
and seemingly effortless manner.
Affect: our current feelings and moods.
When we are subjected to more information than what we are capable of processing at
one time, this results in information overload.
Processing capacity can be diminished by stress levels.
We rely on heuristics because they allow us to do more, with less effort.
REPRESENTATIVENESS: JUDGING BY RESEMBLANCE
Prototype: Summary of the common attributes possessed by members of a category.
Representativeness heuristic: A strategy for making judgements based on the extent to
which current stimuli or events resemble other stimuli or categories.
Decisions based on the representative heuristic can be wrong, because they tend to
ignore base rates.
Base rates: the frequency with which given events or patterns occur in the total
population.
Cultural groups differ in the extent to which they rely on the representative heuristic and
expect “like to go with like” in terms of causes and effects.
Compared to North Americans, Asians rely less on the representative heuristic.
AVAILABILITY: “IF I CAN RETRIEVE INSTANCES, THEY MUST
BE FREQUENT”
Availability heuristic: A strategy for making judgments on the basis of how easily
specific kinds of information can be brought to mind.
,
, Schemas help us make sense of the social world and process information efficiently, but
they can also lock us into acting in ways that create the world we expect.
REASONING BY METAPHOR: HOW SOCIAL ATTITUDES AND
BEHAVIOUR ARE AFFECTED BY FIGURES OF SPEECH
Metaphor: A linguistic device that relates or draws a comparison between one abstract
thought and another dissimilar concept.
Because metaphors can activate different kinds of social knowledge, they can influence
how we interpret events.
Social cognition: The manner in which we interpret, analyse, remember, and use
information about the social world.
Heuristics: Simple rules for making complex decisions or drawing inferences in a rapid
and seemingly effortless manner.
Affect: our current feelings and moods.
When we are subjected to more information than what we are capable of processing at
one time, this results in information overload.
Processing capacity can be diminished by stress levels.
We rely on heuristics because they allow us to do more, with less effort.
REPRESENTATIVENESS: JUDGING BY RESEMBLANCE
Prototype: Summary of the common attributes possessed by members of a category.
Representativeness heuristic: A strategy for making judgements based on the extent to
which current stimuli or events resemble other stimuli or categories.
Decisions based on the representative heuristic can be wrong, because they tend to
ignore base rates.
Base rates: the frequency with which given events or patterns occur in the total
population.
Cultural groups differ in the extent to which they rely on the representative heuristic and
expect “like to go with like” in terms of causes and effects.
Compared to North Americans, Asians rely less on the representative heuristic.
AVAILABILITY: “IF I CAN RETRIEVE INSTANCES, THEY MUST
BE FREQUENT”
Availability heuristic: A strategy for making judgments on the basis of how easily
specific kinds of information can be brought to mind.
,
