Foundations of Social Cognition
Mental frameworks that shape how individuals interpret social information and expectations.
What are schemas?
Mental shortcuts that help individuals make rapid judgments under uncertainty.
What are heuristics?
This theory examines how individuals explain the causes of behavior.
What is attribution theory?
This theory proposes that physiological arousal occurs first, and emotion results from interpreting those bodily changes.
What is the James-Lange Theory of Emotion?
This classic study demonstrated how institutional roles and environmental pressures can rapidly shape behavior.
What is the Stanford Prison Experiment?
Mental shortcuts that allow people to make rapid judgments with minimal cognitive effort.
What are heuristics?
This heuristic involves judging whether someone belongs to a category based on similarity to a stereotype.
What is the representativeness heuristic?
These explanations attribute behavior to personality traits, motives, or internal qualities.
What are dispositional attributions?
According to this theory, physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously.
What is the Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion?
This concept refers to reduced self-awareness and accountability within group settings, increasing the likelihood of disinhibited or abusive behavior.
What is deindividuation?
The process of explaining the causes of behavior using either internal or external explanations.
What are attribution processes?
This heuristic occurs when people estimate likelihood based on how easily examples come to mind.
What is the availability heuristic?
These explanations focus on environmental pressures or contextual influences on behavior.
What are situational attributions?
This theory argues that emotion results from both physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation of a situation.
What is the Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory?
This memory distortion occurs when post-event information alters an eyewitness’s recollection of an event.
What is the misinformation effect?
A distinction between unconscious, rapid thinking and deliberate, effortful thinking.
What is automatic versus controlled processing?
This cognitive bias occurs when early information disproportionately shapes later judgments.
What is anchoring bias?
Interpreting an aggressive outburst as proof someone is inherently violent rather than considering trauma or stress is an example of this type of attribution.
What is a dispositional attribution?
In this theory, an elevated heart rate could be interpreted as fear during an interrogation, excitement at a concert, or anger during a confrontation.
What is the Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory?
This phenomenon occurs when witnesses focus attention on a weapon, reducing memory for surrounding details or facial features.
What is the weapon focus effect?
A cognitive bias in which people overemphasize personality traits while underestimating situational influences.
What is the Fundamental Attribution Error?
This bias involves seeking, interpreting, and remembering information that confirms pre-existing beliefs.
What is confirmation bias?
This bias occurs when individuals explain their own behavior situationally while attributing others’ behavior to character flaws.
What is the actor-observer bias?
This theory is especially relevant in forensic settings because trauma survivors may experience intense physiological arousal during testimony, which can influence memory recall, threat perception, and reactive aggression.
What is the James-Lange Theory of Emotion?
These interviewing strategies emphasize open-ended questioning, contextual recall, and minimizing interviewer influence to improve eyewitness accuracy.
What are cognitive interview techniques?