PSYCH 13 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Georg Simmel, Anthropomorphism, Cognitive Bias
Document Summary
Hit right knee when word is positive; hit left knee when word is negative. Hit right knee when name is anglo; hit left knee when name is arab. Much easier to associate positive characteristics with ingroup & negative characteristics with outgroup (showed by all groups) Separate cognitive processes (cannot control these) from explicit behaviours. Best way to control stereotypes is to control explicit prejudiced behaviours & to encourage people to base judgements on individual characteristics, not group stereotypes. Problem with multiculturalism emphasise group features & stereotypes. Human minds are biased to search for causality to understand the world. Causality is a human construct; is in the eye of the beholder. Participants see 2 geometric shapes moving around, but they constructa story: a small circle hiding from a triangle . 1) illustrated that humans use causal reasoning to make sense of what they see. 2) humans interpret the world in anthropomorphic terms: see shapes as though they were people.
