Transcript Cognitive Schemas: hypothetical cognitive structures that consist of prior knowledge which affects how we categorize and interpret incoming information Types of Schemas: a) Person Effects how.

Cognitive Schemas:
hypothetical cognitive structures that
consist of prior knowledge which affects how we categorize and interpret
incoming information
Types of Schemas:
a) Person
Effects how we ---
b) Events (e.g., weddings
and funerals)
• attend
• encode
• retrieve information
c) Role
d) Self
Schemas and Memory
Occupational Labels
Waitress
Librarian
Consistent and inconsistent descriptive
information given about the traits, interests,
etc. of a waitress and librarian
Job title (schema) given before or
after descriptive information
Memory of facts
The procedure is really quite simple. First you arrange
things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be
sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have
to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next
step; otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to
overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at
once than too many. In the short run this may not seem
important, but complications can easily arise. A mistake can
be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem
complicated. Soon, however, it will become just facet of life.
It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task
in the immediate future but then, once cam never tell. After
the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into
different groups again (Bransford & Johnson, 1972, p. 722)
Schemas and Perception
Car accident
“Hit”
(shown on film)
versus
“Smashed”
34 mph
41 mph
2x more likely
to indicate
presence of
glass in the
accident (none
was present)
Schemas and Behavior
Phone conversation
with males
Low
Physical attractiveness
of female described to
males
High
Females did not know
how they were described
to males
Females behavior was warmer and more friendly when
they were described to the male as “attractive”
Males were
warmer, more
friendly, and
used more
humor when
talking to the
“attractive”
female
Heuristics: Cognitive shortcuts
Availability heuristic: What information is most available (seen,
noticed); what to comes to mind quickly (media influence)
Example: Death by plane crashes
Representative heuristic: Classifying things (objects, people) based
on how similar it is to a typical (average) member of a group
Base rate information: Data about the frequency of occurrence of
something in the population (often underutilized)
Sampling bias: Making judgments based on a sample that is small or
skewed (not typical)
Availability Heuristic
• Substituting ease of access for data on
frequency of occurrence
• Factors that increase availability
– Emotionality of events
– Recency of events
– Ease of visualization
– Imagining events
– Vividness of events or testimonials
Source: U.S. National Center for
Health Statistics, National Vital
Statistics Report, vol. 50, no. 15, Sept.
16, 2002
Causes
of death
Number
All causes
Total deaths
Percent of
total deaths
Deaths
per
100,000
2,403,351
100.0%
873.1
1
Diseases of heart
710,760
29.6
258.2
2
Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
553,091
23.0
200.9
3
Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)
167,661
7.0
60.9
4
Chronic lower respiratory diseases
122,009
5.1
44.3
5
Accidents (unintentional injuries)
97,900
4.1
35.6
6
Diabetes mellitus
69,301
2.9
25.2
7
Influenza and pneumonia
65,313
2.7
23.7
8
Alzheimer's disease
49,558
2.1
18.0
9
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis
37,251
1.5
13.5
10
Septicemia (infection)
31,224
1.3
11.3
11
Suicide
29,350
1.2
10.7
12
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
26,552
1.1
9.6
13
Hypertension and hypertensive renal disease
18,073
0.8
6.6
14
Assault (homicide)
16,765
0.7
6.1
15
Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids
16,636
0.7
6.0
1.
Motor vehicle crashes
Deaths per year: 43,200
2. Falls
Deaths per year: 14,900
3. Poisoning by solids and liquids
Deaths per year: 8,600
4. Drowning
Deaths per year: 4,000
5. Fires and burns
Deaths per year: 3,700
6. Suffocation
Deaths per year: 3,300
7. Firearms
Deaths per year: 1,500
8. Poisoning by gases
Deaths per year: 700
9. Medical & Surgical Complications and Misadventures
Deaths per year: 500
10. Machinery
Deaths per year: 350
Top 10 Most Common
Accidental Deaths
Fallacies/Biases
• Gambler’s fallacy --- 9 heads in a row
What are the odds that tails will be next?
• Base rate fallacy (Coin flip landing on heads: 7/10 v s.
700/1000)
Fallacies/Biases (cont.)
False Consensus Effect:
The tendency to overestimate the degree of agreement between one’s own
beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics (especially if they are negative)
(“Everyone does it”)
False Uniqueness Effect (Better Than Average Effect)
• More likely regarding positive behaviors (e.g., exercise regularly, eat a
healthy diet)
Illusion of control: The concept that people are in control over
chance events (e.g., choice to throw dice oneself; throw the dice harder …)
Self-Fulfilling Prophesies
• Pygmalion effect
– Distortion of observations
– Creation of demand characteristics that elicit
predicted behaviors
Confirmation Bias
Interview (Told that candidates possessed certain traits before interview)
“Introverted” candidate
Asked questions related to being shy
“Extraverted” candidate
Asked questions related to being outgoing
Observers rated the personality of the
candidates as consistent with the
focus of the questions (I vs. E)
Planning Fallacy (Tendency to underestimate the
amount of time needed to complete a task)
Why?
1) Focus on the future (e.g., the strategies needed to complete the
task)
2) Reflections on the past (when done) focus on external reasons as to
why the task took longer than expected
Can be taught to reflect on past activities and factors
relevant to current project planning
Greater accuracy
Counterfactual Thinking (what might
have been; what could I have done different?)
Negative Event
Imagine doing something different
(“better”)
• Enhances positive mood
• May allow for the development of
new strategies for future use
Counterfactual Thinking (cont.)
Test
Score
Grades
A
Upward counterfactual thinking
(dissatisfaction)
B
Lowered counterfactual thinking
(satisfaction)
Counterfactual Thinking (cont.)
Inaction Inertia
75% Off
Sale
Stock is selling
for $5.00/share
Plan or think
about buying an
item but don’t do
so
Plan or think
about buying the
stock but don’t do
so
25% Off Sale
Unlikely to buy
the item now
even though it
may still be a
good deal
Stock rises to
$10.00/share
Unlikely to buy
the stock now
even though it
may still be a
good purchase
Magical Thinking
1) Law of contagion: things which were once in physical contact maintain a
connection even after physical contact has been broken; the essence of
things (good/bad) spreads by contact (e.g., (sweater owned by someone
with a disease)
2) Law of similarity: If things resemble each other (look alike) they are
alike.” (e.g., refusing to eat a piece of cake that looks like a roach)
3) Thoughts and actions can influence physical world outside
oneself (sitting the same way and in the same seat will bring you good
luck; watching a team play will cause them to lose; celebrating winning a
bet before the game is officially over can cause one to lose the bet)
Psychological Accounting
• You are on vacation and want to go to the theater. Do you
spend $30 on a theater ticket if you
– Discover that you lost the $30 ticket you purchased earlier
in the day?
– Discover that you lost $30 from your wallet while touring
earlier in the day?
Psychological Accounting (cont.)
• You are going to buy a jacket and a calculator. The jacket costs $125
and the calculator costs $15 at the store. You learn that you can buy
the calculator at a different store (20 minute drive away) for $10.
Do you drive to the other store to get the calculator?
• You are going to buy a jacket and a calculator. The jacket costs $125
and the calculator costs $15 at the store. You learn that you can buy
the jacket at a different store (20 minute drive away) for $120. Do
you drive to the other store to get the jacket?
Sensitivity to the ratio of costs
• Size of the ratio of the high cost to the lower cost
influences the decision more than the absolute size of the
savings
• Calculator example
$15/$10 – ratio is 1.5 (drive seems worthwhile!)
• Jacket example
$125/$120 – ratio is 1.04 (prices seem nearly identical)
“It will never happen to me”
• Positive outcomes are overestimated
(especially with respect to oneself)
• Negative outcomes are underestimated
• Students estimate that they are 15% more likely
to experience a positive outcome than the
average student
• Students estimate that they are 20% less likely to
experience a negative outcome than the average
student
Priming: Process where recent experience
increases the use of a concept, trait, or schema
Coughing
Sneezing
Experimental Drug for
cancer treatment
50% success rate
Disease
diagnosis;
need for
certain
treatment
Significantly
more people
in this group
recommend
the drug be
approved
50% failure rate
Social Desirability
• Problems with “catch phrases” and emotionally loaded
wording
• Allow versus forbid is question wording
– Should we allow speeches against democracy? (62%
disagreed)
– Should we forbid speeches against democracy? (46%
agreed)
– Questions are equivalent but produced different
frequencies of endorsement with different wording
Can We Think Too Much???
Rate variety of jams
Reasons given may be the:
Taste & rate
Consistent with expert
views on jam qualities
Taste, analyze their
reactions to the jams
(how they felt a certain
way), & rate
• Most clear and accessible
(the easiest to recall and
come to mind)
• Easiest to verbalize
These reason may not be
the best to use and be
misleading
Rational Versus Intuitive Processing
.
...
. .. .. ..
Versus
.. ..
. .. .. ..
. .. . . . . . .
. ... .. . . . .
. .. ..
Automatic Vigilance: Attending to Negative Information
Jackie is a junior at a university – a biology major with an A- GPA. She
hopes to enter medical school after graduation. She is a warm, friendly
person, so most people who know her think she’ll make an excellent doctor.
Jackie’s hobby is music and she has a large CD collection. She works part
time to pay for her education and to cover the insurance on her car, which is
high because of several speeding tickets in the last year. Jackie grew up in a
medium-sized town and has one brother, Jason, who is in high school. She
is fairly neat and easy going; she never has any trouble getting roommates.
She is currently living with three other women in an apartment complex.*
Face-in-the-Crowd Effect:
Tendency to readily notice a negative face in a crowd of neutral and
happy ones.
* From Baron & Byrne, 1997
Thought Suppression
• Effectiveness of not thinking of something (e.g., an event, person)
• Effectiveness of replacing negative thoughts with positive ones
• Talking about negative event (s) rather than trying to “forget” them
Deception Quotes
"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know
how to lie well.” --- Samuel Butler
"That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has
every chance of being false." --- Paul Valéry
"Some lies are so well disguised to resemble truth, that we should be poor
judges of the truth not to believe them ."
--- Anonymous
"There's only one way to find out if a man is honest; Ask him. If he says
yes, you know he's a crook." --- Groucho Marx
“It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few
by deceit.” --- Noël Coward
Deception Quotes (cont.)
"...In spite of the hardness and ruthlessness i thought i saw in his face, I got the impression that here
was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word...."
--- Neville chamberlain, 9/15/38
(Writing to his sister after
Meeting with Hitler)
When the situation seems to be exactly what it appears to be, the closest likely alternative is that the
situation has been completely faked; when fakery seems extremely evident, the next most probable
possibility is that nothing faked is present."
--- Erving Goffman,
Strategic Interaction
"The relevant framework is not one of morality but of survival. At every level, from brute
camouflage to poetic vision, the linguistic capacity to conceal, misinform, leave ambiguous,
hypothesize, invent is indispensable to the equilibrium of human consciousness and to the
development of man in society..."
--- George Steiner, After Babel
If falsehood, like truth, had only one face, we would be in better shape. For we would take as certain
the opposite of what the liar said. But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a
limitless field.
--- Montaigne, Essays
Some Possible Cues to Detecting Deception
Do liars give shorter answers?
Do liars touch themselves more?
Do liars pause more before answering?
Do liars talk slower?
Do liars shift more?
Do liars smile less?
Do liars use less eye contact?
Answers to previous questions --Do liars give shorter answers? Perception = No; Actual = Yes
Do liars touch themselves more? Perception = No; Actual = Yes
Do liars pause more before answering? Perception = Yes;
Actual = No
Do liars talk slower? Perception = Yes; Actual = No
Do liars shift more? Perception = Yes; Actual = No
Do liars smile less? Perception = Yes; Actual = No
Do liars use less eye contact? Perception = Yes; Actual = No
Some Basic Cues
• Facial: Hard to interpret accurately because people may
display blends of multiple affects simultaneously;
easier to control when lying (often the worse
indicator)
Verbal (what is said, how things are said)
• Body: Difficult to control; “leakage can occur (often the
best indicator of deception)
Deception Studies
Smugglers going through customs:
Customs Agents
Lay people
No differences between
the two groups in
accuracy of identifying
smugglers
Taped interview of people
lying or telling the truth
Police officers
Students
Taped interview of people
lying or telling the truth
Police officers
Students
Psychologists
SS officers
Those with poor noverbal skills, young,
lower SES selected
52% correct
54% correct
Best; use of nonverbal cues
Some Factors Related to Accuracy in Detecting
Deception
• Culture
• Physical attractiveness (similarity in sender and receiver
of message)
• Motivation to lie