PSYC 260 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Counterfactual Thinking, Unconscious Mind, Representativeness Heuristic
23 Oct 2017
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How people select, interpret, and use information to make decisions and judgments about the social world: automatic thinking, controlled thinking. Thinking that is non-conscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless (fast, based on past experience, often useful/correct/efficient, sometime fails) Mental structure people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people notice, think about and remember. To groups/ specific people: helpful guide (how to act in restaurant, shape what we see. Whe(cid:374) situatio(cid:374) is a(cid:373)(cid:271)iguous, (cid:449)e (cid:373)a(cid:455) (cid:858)fill-in-the-(cid:271)la(cid:374)ks(cid:859) (cid:449)ith i(cid:374)fo that see(cid:373)s to fit: stereotypes. Participants were faster when rating the stereotypical characteristics of each group than non-stereotypical characteristics (pros) (cid:858)shooter (cid:271)ias(cid:859): gu(cid:374)-black. Thoughts have to be both accessible and applicable before they will act as primes, exerting an influence on our impressions of the social world. Priming can operate outside of conscious awareness, and can influence not only how we perceive others but how we behave ourselves: self-fulfilling prophecy.
