thereby becoming more likely to affect subsequent thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; spreading activation is the process by which associated concepts are activated.
People often rely on heuristics when making judgments (such as availability, representativeness, and anchoring and adjustment heuristics, along with ignoring the base rate).
Social psychologists seek to create surveys, studies, and scales that are both reliable (how consistently each measurement of the same phenomenon produces approximately the same result under the same conditions) and valid (the extent to which a particular measurement tool provides accurate results). Internal validity refers to the extent to which we can be sure that the purported cause—the IV—is the only factor influencing the purported effect—the DV. External validity indicates how well the results of the study can be generalized or applied to other settings and populations.
People engage in motivated reasoning, such as belief perseverance, confirmation bias, and biased assimilation.
Reasoning is subject to cultural influences. Some characteristics of East Asian thinking is that it is a holistic approach, tolerant of contradictions, focuses on the big picture; characteristics of North Americans thinking include the following: It is analytic, avoids contradictions, and has a relatively narrow focus.
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Key Terms
Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic, 94
Appraisal Model of Stress, 102
Automaticity, 85
Availability Heuristic, 92
Base Rate, 94
Base Rate Fallacy, 93
Belief Perseverance, 98
Biased Assimilation, 101
C-system, 84
Causal Relationship, 00
Confirmation Bias, 101
Considering the Opposite, 99
External Validity, 97
Heuristic, 91
Internal Validity, 97
Looking-Glass Self, 78
Motivated Reasoning, 97
Priming, 86
Reliability, 96
Representativeness Heuristic, 93
Spreading Activation, 86
Validity, 96
X-system, 84
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Think Further!
As you sit at the library or coffee shop chatting or doing school work, become aware of the differences between social and nonsocial thinking that are occurring in your mind.
How does social cognition “funnel” information into our mental systems?
Try testing the anchoring and adjustment bias on your friends. Look up a fact that is numerically based and create a couple of false anchors. Then provide them (separately) with the anchors and ask them to estimate the number. What happens?
If you could create a human-like robot companion that engaged in only controlled or automatic processing, which would you prefer and why?
Suggested Readings
Bargh, J. A. (1994). The four horsemen of automaticity: Awareness, intention, efficiency, and control in social cognition. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition, Vol. 1: Basic processes; Vol. 2: Applications (2nd ed., pp. 1–40). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Evans, J. S. B. T., & Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Dual-process theories of higher cognition: Advancing the debate. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 223–241.
Janiszewski, C., & Uy, D. (2008). Precision of the anchor influences the amount of adjustment. Psychological Science, 19, 121–127.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480–498.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1131.
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Chapter 4 What Is the Self?
Depiction of Anger, Disgust, Joy, Fear and Sadness from the animated movie Inside Out.
Pictorial Press/Alamy.
Learning Objectives
4.1 Define the self, self-concept, schema, and self-schema; describe self-discrepancy theory and the actual, ideal, and ought selves.
4.2 Contrast introspection and self-perception and explain the limits to learning about the self via each process; describe how the facial feedback hypothesis relates to self-perception.
4.3 Describe the strengths and weaknesses of surveys and self-report methods and the following biases: response effects, acquiescence, extremity, and context effects.
4.4 Define intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and overjustification, and illustrate each with examples; define global and specific self-esteem and interpret them in terms of the sociometer hypothesis.
4.5 Explain each of the following and state how they are related to the goal of self-enhancement: social comparison theory, self-evaluation maintenance, downward and upward social comparison, better-than-average effect, self-serving judgments, the bias blind spot.
4.6
