chp 2

how we think about other persons and the social world

we have a limited capacity to process information, and when we get too overwhelmed we fall back on our existing schemas

simple rules of thumb for making decisions in a quick and relatively effortless manner

making judgements based on typicality (prototype). make a generalized judgement on someone based on how similar they are to your existing stereotype in mind

a generalization categorizing a group

making decisions based on the information that comes to mind. we assume that the events that come to our mind more vividly are events that frequently occur

the tendency to deal with uncertainty in situations by using something we do know as a starting point ("anchor") and then making adjustments to it

tendency to eat more when a larger portion of food is received than a smaller portion

mental frameworks that we formed through experience that help us to organize social information. we rely on these when we enter new social situations, they help us make sense of them

we learn information better that can easily fit into our already existing schemas

we have to adjust our existing schemas based on new information

what we pay attention to (we pay more attention to what fits into ur schemas), encoding (information that agrees with our schemas is stored in our brains), retrieval (we retrive information consistent with our existing schemas)

predictions/expectations that make themselves come true (a downside of schemas)

activation of an idea by memory

a decrease in influence of information obtained from priming from following a behavior that expressed that knowledge

our schemas persist despite disconfirming information

relate an abstract concept to another dissimilar one

thinking in a systematic, logical, and highly effortful manner. thinking at a concious level

thinking in a fast, relatively effortless, and intuitive manner. thinking at an unconcious level

tendency to remember and be more sensitive to negative information versus positive information

tendency to expect things to turn out well

tendency to think we are better in some areas than we really are

overly optimistic of how long it will take to finish a task

a type of optimistic bias in which we keep a pessimistic attitude about an outcome, so we are not devastated if things do not turn out the way we want

thinking about alternatives to the actual outcome; "what could have been"

things could've been better

things could've been worse

thinking based on assumptions that don't hold up to rational scrutiny

our efforts to cope with the knowledge that we will die

our moods and emotions

current moods strongly determine which information we pay attention to and encode in our memory

reflects what specific information is retrieved from memory

predictions of how they would feel about an event they have not experienced