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

In a study on facilitated communication, headphones were used to ask the communication-impaired person one question and the facilitator a different question (unbeknownst to the two parties). Then the answers provided by the communication-impaired person with the help of the facilitator were examined. Findings indicated that the technique was __________.

"If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck," the adage goes. This expression best captures the essence of the __________.

According to the authors of your text, priming is an automatic and nonconscious process. When you watch TV and movies, you are often exposed to examples of advertisers attempting to prime you to buy their products. Give a recent example and be sure to include in your answer how it represents priming.

Why do schemas differ from culture to culture?

Miyamoto and colleagues conducted a study in which participants viewed either photos of U.S. city scenes or Japanese city scenes, then were asked to detect differences between two similar pictures. They found that participants who viewed Japanese city scenes were more likely to detect changes in _________.

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 __________.

In Kelley's (1950) research about the guest lecturer, the students were told that the guest lecturer was either a "warm" person or a "cold" person. The researcher wanted to see if this information would impact how they __________ after the lecture.

Korsakov's syndrome is a neurological disorder that makes sufferers unable to form new memories. The world is disorienting and incoherent to patients with this disorder, so they often confabulate and invent fictions to make the world less scary and confusing. A social psychologist might say that these patients __________.

Nisbett (2003) suggested that the difference in ways of thinking came from differences in Eastern and Western philosophical traditions. With that in mind, how would you expect your new roommate, who is From Korea, to think?

New students often have to concentrate very hard to take notes in class. They must listen to the lecture, pick out what is important, and focus their attention only on the classroom. As students gain experience, they can more easily identify what is important and what is not, they can often multitask, and they gain a deeper understanding of lectures. This example shows how students move from __________ thinking to __________ thinking as they gain experience in the classroom.

Nisbett and his colleagues conducted a study on graduate students in different disciplines to determine factors related to statistical reasoning. They found that __________ appeared to influence how accurately and logically they reasoned through everyday problems.

When the psychologist asks, "Tell me the first thing that comes to mind," he/she is asking for the most __________ schema.

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?

The "Barnum effect," in which vague statements about one's future or personality may be seen as accurate and valid, occurs because of the __________.

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

Nutz and Boltz, Inc., employs one hundred people; eighty are lawyers and twenty are engineers. Albert, a lawyer at the company, is quiet, likes puzzles, and carries a calculator. Most people, when asked whether Albert is a lawyer or an engineer, will guess that he is an engineer. These people are using __________ to make this faulty guess. A correct guess would have been made if they had used __________.

Moises is so used to stopping to get gas on the way home from work that he finds he stops one night at the gas station even though his tank is full. Moises is experiencing __________.

You stayed up all night cramming for this examination and didn't do as well as you had hoped. "If only I had started studying sooner and gotten a good night's rest, I'd have done much better," you think to yourself. You have just engaged in __________.

A mother who has tragically lost a daughter in a car accident spends her days rehearsing "if onlys." "If only I had made her stay home that night"; "If only she had taken Route 78 instead of Route 22"; "If only I had offered to chauffeur her instead of letting her drive herself." The mother is engaging in the process known as __________.

The __________ heuristic refers to the mental shortcut whereby people classify a person or thing based on how similar it appears to be to the typical case.