Exam 3: Social Cognition: How We Think About the Social World

The textbook discusses facilitated communication, a technique that has been touted as allowing communication-impaired people to express themselves via a keyboard operated with the help of a facilitator. In fact, the technique

If all humans have access to the same cognitive tools, what is the role of culture?

Your roommate is interested in dating Chris, whom you know from a history class. Your roommate asks if you think Chris is generally a considerate person. You remember how Chris lent you notes when you missed class last week, and tell your roommate you think Chris is very considerate. In making your judgment, you have relied upon the ________ heuristic.

The most important take-home message about controlled thinking is that it

Recall that Harold Kelley (1950) told some college students that their guest instructor was a warm person, and others that he was a cold person. Students who were told that the guest instructor was a warm person evaluated him more positively and participated more in class discussion than did students who were told that he was cold. These results support the idea that schemas are

You were supposed to make an important presentation at work, but you overslept, the bus was late, and you missed the meeting. If you are able to generate many ways in which to "undo" this terrible outcome, you will experience ________ emotional reaction.

Diana currently has a goal to lose fifteen pounds by the summer, and she notices that lately her friend, Sarah, hasn't been eating much. Based on your text's discussion of how current goals can affect accessibility, how is Diana most likely to interpret Sarah's behavior?

A teenager wants to borrow the family car to go to an out-of-town concert. Her parents resist the idea. Based on the results of the research study on the effects of generating different numbers of examples of behavior described in your text, the teenager in question is most likely to view her parents as stubborn and unreasonable when they say to her,

According to the authors of your text, what are the three reasons why schemas become accessible?

Parents seldom spend a lot of time explaining to their children how to ride a bicycle. Instead, they often get a bike with training wheels and let the children learn for themselves how to ride a bike. This is because our understanding about how to ride a bicycle is based on

If your professor asks you to list ten ways to improve the course and you cannot do it, how will that affect your course ratings overall?

You really want your date to like you and agree to go out again. At the end of the night, it is best to ask him/her for

The availability heuristic is associated with which of the following characteristics of schemas?

Self-fulfilling prophecies most often are a result of

Watson, the computer, won his game of Jeopardy against two very skilled opponents. However, he would not do very well at

When people classify a stimulus based on how similar it appears to be to the typical case, they are using the ________ heuristic.

Counterfactual thinking can be either detrimental or beneficial to people's mental health. Counterfactual thinking can be detrimental because it ________ and beneficial if it ________.

When asked a question during Trivial Pursuit, Sylvia is certain that her answer is correct, even though her teammates disagree. Sylvia cannot be persuaded by her teammates to reconsider how accurate her response is. She is demonstrating the

You and your friend are debating the greatness of the human mind. She claims that relying on schemas and automatic processes is ultimately detrimental, but you contend that such processes have their benefits. List and explain three benefits to relying on schemas and automatic processes, as well as three drawbacks to using these processes.

According to the authors of your text, when people use automatic thinking, they tend to size up new situations