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

Ethan and Heather see a man stumbling around as he walks down the street. Ethan, who belongs to Alcoholics Anonymous, thinks the man is drunk, but Heather, who just watched a TV special on Michael J. Fox, thinks the man has Parkinson's disease. These differing interpretations of the same behavior seem to be caused by Ethan and Heather's differences in __________.

According to the authors of your text, what is the primary reason that people often rely on a variety of mental shortcuts?

When judging other people and ourselves, we use the __________ heuristic.

In the self-fulfilling prophecy, a perceiver has a(n) __________ that affects the __________ of the target of perception.

Consider the results from a study by Miyamoto and colleagues 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. Based on their findings, if an American was touring in Tokyo, Japan, which of the following aspects of a picture would she be most likely to pick up on?

Which of the following characteristics is NOT a part of automatic thinking?

When a researcher interviewed both a Scotsman and a Bantu herdsman about the particulars of a cattle transaction, the Scot __________, whereas the Bantu herdsman __________.

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. The researchers found evidence that viewing Japanese city scenes _________.

Assume that the winning lottery ticket was purchased at the convenience store just around the corner from your house. According to research on counterfactual thinking, you would probably feel worse than if the winning ticket had been purchased all the way across the state, because __________.

Faustino is a musician who plays the trumpet in the band at his school. When he sees Isabel carrying a case into the school, he assumes she is a musician as well. Faustino's schema is __________.

What is the take-home message from the research regarding the effects of generating different numbers of examples of behavior?

Professor Chadwick is young and looks even younger than his years. He dresses in jeans, grubby tennis shoes, and Hawaiian print shirts. One day in the hallway, he strikes up a conversation with a student. During the conversation, the student begins to complain about the poor teaching of the faculty in the department and about the bad things he's heard about the course that Professor Chadwick teaches. Needless to say, when the student finds out he was actually talking to a professor, he feels embarrassed and avoids Professor Chadwick. What is the moral of this story?

Ms. Honeywell is an elementary school teacher who maintains that in her thirty-five years of experience, boys just tend to do better at math than girls. Recently, she has read a number of studies that show that girls and boys actually have about the same level of math ability. Based on information about how teachers create and sustain self-fulfilling prophecies, what is Ms. Honeywell most likely to think about the study results?

Which example best describes the representativeness heuristic?

The fact that students "instantly" know the difference between a classroom and a party is an example of __________.

In the study by Shariff and Norenzayan (2007) presented in your text, when participants were primed with words related to God or fairness to others, they behaved __________.

Culture can influence our schemas by influencing __________.

Define each of the following mental shortcuts and explain why each may be inaccurate: (1) the availability heuristic and (2) the representativeness heuristic.

The authors of your text identify another consequence of counterfactual thinking of positive events. Engaging in counterfactual thinking may result in __________.

When people were asked to think about how their lives could be worse if something good had never happened to them, they __________.