Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept

a. Representativeness b. Availability c. Anchoring and adjustment d. Status quo 6 1. Heuristics Representativeness heuristic o Guess the occupation of them 7 Representativeness heuristic o Representativeness heuristic : make judgments based on the extent of the current stimuli or events resemble a given prototype o Judgments based on this are often accurate:

group norms in behavior and style o Judge the likelihood of particular effects to be produced by specific causes with similar magnitude o Asians show less evidence of thinking based on representiveness heuristic (Spina et al., 2010) 8 9 Representativeness heuristic Representativeness heuristic o Possible error:

• Disregard base rates – the frequency with a given event/patterns occur in the total population • Discounting other important information 10 Availability heuristic o Availability heuristic : make judgments based on the ease/amount of specific kinds of information is brought to our mind o The easier to recall something, the more frequent or important we believe it to be o Possible error: overestimate the probability of events that are dramatic but rare 11 Availability heuristic 12 Which is more dangerous?

Flight? Car? Availability heuristic o The ease of retrieval or the amount of information available? o Ease:  Self -relevant ( Judgements about objects that we are personally familiar with, e.g.

consumer brands)  Involves emotions or feelings o Amount:  Judgement about others  Involves facts, or inherently difficult tasks 13 Problem: Negative Bias 14 o The fact that we show greater sensitivity and likely to remember the negative information than to positive information Anchoring and adjustment o Anchoring and adjustment heuristic : The tendency to use something we know (anchor) as a starting point to which we then make adjustments to deal with uncertainty o E.g. ‘self’ as the anchor 15 Anchoring 16 Status Quo o We tend to judge something as ‘good’ when it is easier to retrieve from our memory , than options that represent a change from the status quo o Chocolate claimed to be first sold in 1937 is judged to be better than those in 2003 (Eidelman, Pattershall & Crandall, 2010) 17 18 2. Schemas ( 基模 ) o A mental framework containing basic and essential features of situations • Built through experience • Shaped by culture • guides our actions and the processing of information • Particularly useful in new or confusing situations o Self, roles, groups (stereotypes), individual, relationships, situations, e.g. The procedures of going to restaurants 19 The impact of schemas o Attention • mental filter of related and consistent information (esp. in states of cognitive overload) o Encoding • information consistent with the schemas put into long -term memory • inconsistent information is put into a separate memory file o Retrieval • Tendency to recall information inconsistent with schemas • But report the consistent information more readily 20 Schemas aid information processing • Help remember or interpret new information • Be more efficient • Fill in the gaps in our knowledge • Perceive and label the new information which is consistent or inconsistent with the schemas • Reduce ambiguous elements in the situation Advantages of Schematic Processing Schemas o People may ignore information which does belong but is schema -inconsistent  Selective attention o People are overly accepting of information that fits a schema • Also called confirmatory hypothesis testing • A tendency to search for information that confirms our original hypotheses and beliefs ▪ we have a stable self -image Limitations of Schematic Processing A. Confirmation bias A. Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing • Snyder and Swann (1978) asked 50% of their participants to find out if the other person they were interviewing was an extrovert (easy - going and sociable), and the other half to find out if s/he was an introvert (shy and withdrawn) • People tended to select questions from a provided list that confirmed the hypothesis they were testing o How to prevent its influence?

• Self awareness • Evaluate own beliefs • Consider its effect in decision making • Critical thinking B. Self -fulfilling prophecies (自我應驗預言 ) o The process by which people’s predictions/ expectations lead them to behave in a way to confirm their expectations o Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) study • Gave IQ test to all students in an elementary school in San Francisco • Told the teachers that some of the students scored very high in an IQ test and were promising Limitations of Schematic Processing Self -fulfilling prophecy B. Self -fulfilling prophecies • They predicted that this information would activate the schemas (expectations) towards these students and thus their behavior toward them • In fact, “good” students were chosen randomly; all other students had become the control group • Results: ▪ Those “high” IQ students shown a larger improvement in another IQ test 8 months later compared with the control group B. Self -fulfilling prophecies • (Rosenthal, 1994) indicated that teachers gave the bloomers more attention, more challenging tasks, more and better feedback, and more opportunities to respond in class • In other words, their expectation, which has no grounds, has come true ▪ A self -fulfilling prophecy occurs when we act on our impressions of others • On the contrary, teachers’ lower expectancies for success for minority students or females often undermined the confidence of these groups and actually contributed to poorer performance by them (e.g., Sadker & Sadker , 1994) B. Self -fulfilling prophecies • Snyder, Tanke , and Berscheid (1977) gave male students a photograph of either an attractive or unattractive woman whom they were talking with over the phone for 10 minutes ▪ In fact, the photos were fake and were randomly assigned to women regardless of their true looks ▪ Men who believed they were talking to a more attractive woman behaved more warmly ▪ The woman in turn seemed more sociable, friendly, and likeable When misconceptions challenge self -conceptions • People may be motivated to disconfirm others’ misconceptions of them • When the target is certain of their self -concept, the target’s self -conception will prevail over the perceiver’s misconception • When the target is uncertain, the perceiver’s misconception will tend to prevail (see Swann & Ely, 1984) • What is the implication in education? C. Belief perseverance o Also called perseverance effect o Schemas remain unchanged even in face of contradictory information (e.g. Kunda & Oleson , 1995) o e.g. we found it hard to believe a priest or a teacher would molest children Limitations of Schematic Processing C. Belief perseverance o It is very difficult to demolish a belief once we have established a rationale of the belief o Experimenters first implanted a belief (Ross & Anderson, 1982) • e.g. whether individuals who take risks make good or bad firefighters • Group 1: read cases that a risk -prone person who was a successful firefighter and a cautious person who was not • Group 2: read cases showing the opposite o Subjects were then asked to explain why it is true o Finally, the experimenters told the truth: the information was manufactured FOR the experiment, i.e. a deception o However, the new belief is about 75% intact o The subjects retained their invented explanations for the belief Schemas are like a double - edged sword : They help us process vast amounts of information quickly, BUT sometimes lead us to perceive the world in ways that are not accurate. 33 3. Other errors in social cognition ■ Optimistic bias • Our tendency to see the world through rose -colored glasses . a) A tendency to expect that things will turn out well. b) believe more likely to experience positive outcomes in their lives and less likely to experience negative outcomes (Shepperd, Ouellette, & Fernandez, 1996). ■ Overconfidence bias • Error of omission/lack of feedback ■ Planning fallacy (with Self -serving bias) – Boss VS workers/employees – Look to the future VS look back in the past 34 3. Other errors in social cognition ■ Rocky past VS golden future • When we think about the past, we recognize as a mix of good times and bad times. However, when we forecast the future, we only think about the good times ahead. 35 4. Affect and cognition o Recall the following situations:

• One of your “good times” • One of your “bad times” 36 “ When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you. ” Shannon L. Alder 37 This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY -SA-NC The influence of affect on cognition o Mood affects our memory (people, the world, ideas…) • Mood congruence effects • Mood dependent memory 38 Mood congruence effects 39 • Our mood determines which information under given situation is noticed and enters our memory • Mood serves as a filter Mood dependent memory 40 o Affect influences what specific information is retrieved from memory o Current memory becomes a retrieval cue The influence of affect on cognition o Positive mood increases creativity o People with positive mood use more heuristic processing in dealing with problems o Positive mood tends to promote attributions of positive motives 41 The influence of cognition on affect 1. Two -factor theory (Schachter , 1964): We infer our internal reactions from the external world • E.g. when you meet an attractive person, you will feel your heart pounding, red -faced, aroused, excited, you will then conclude that you are in love/being attracted 42 The influence of cognition on affect 2. Activating schemas with strong affective component – different reactions to different people 43 The influence of cognition on affect 3. The regulation of affective states and cognition o We adjust affective state by cognitive mechanisms (use our thoughts to regulate our moods)  we “never had a chance”  I “could have spent the money elsewhere” o make a strategic decision to engage in a temptation that makes us feel better in the short term  e.g. ‘retail therapy’, ‘eating snacks’, ‘drink coca -cola’ 44 o Are we aware of our own heuristics, schema, errors in social cognition? o What would you do to avoid the cognitive biases? o Does the knowledge pose any changes to your habitual way of thinking? 45 Today’s Reflections: