Examtests with Social Cognition: From Brains to Culture by Fiske and Taylor - 4th edition

What is social cognition and which place does it have in psychology? - ExamTests 1

Questions with chapter 1

Question 1

Solomon Asch came up with two models explaining how people form particular impressions of others they haven’t seen before. Name and explain the two models.

Question 2

What is the difference between the elemental approach and the holistic approach?

Question 3

In social psychology there are five general models of the social thinker that can be identified, one of which is the activated actor model. Explain this model.

Answer suggestions with chapter 1

Question 1

1. The Configural Model: this model hypothesizes that people form a unified view of others which denies variation. This means that if a particular behavior does not fit into one’s overall impression of a person, one may interpret the behavior so that it aligns.
2. The Algebraic Model: this model does not begin with a unified whole, but starts with the observation of a number of isolated evaluations which are collected into a summary evaluation. It hypothesizes that people add up traits to form a total picture.

Question 2

According to the elemental approach (Wundt, Ebbinghaus), information comes to us, forming ideas. These ideas then become associated through contiguity in space and time. According to the holistic approach (Gestalt; Kant), the mind organizes the world according to an order of grouping.

Question 3

The activated actor model considers individuals as being activated actors. Without being aware of it, people’s social concepts are quickly cued by their social environments. As a result they also almost inevitably cue the cognitions, affect, evaluations, motivation and behavior that are associated with these social concepts.

What are the dual modes in social cognition? - ExamTests 2

Questions with chapter 2

Question 1

What model states that people have the tendency to rely on relatively automatic processes depending on situational demands?

Question 2

What is the difference between subliminal priming and conscious priming?

Question 3

What is meant by chronically accessible concepts?

Question 4

Name and explain three examples of a controlled process.

Question 5

Our tactics to move between unconscious, automatic thoughts and controlled, conscious thoughts depend on our motives. Name and explain our main motives.

Question 6

There are two main models on how we perceive others. Name and explain these models.

Answer suggestions with chapter 2

Question 1

The motivated tactician model.

Question 2

Subliminal priming is when a concept will be activated in our mind by some environmental cue that doesn’t penetrate the surface of our consciousness. Conscious priming (postconscious automaticity) occurs when we are consciously aware of a prime, but we have no awareness of how that thing impacts our subsequent behavior.

Question 3

Chronically accessible concepts are those attributes we learn to associate with others through experience (via proceduralization).

Question 4

1. Goal-dependent automaticity: this is mostly automatic, yet requires some intentional processing and depends on the task being undertaken.
2. Goal-inconsistent automaticity: this occurs when our automatic processes steer us away from achieving our actual goals.
3. Intentional thought: this means rejecting the default, and overcoming instinct. It is enacted by paying attention and implementing intent.

Question 5

1. A sense of belonging: being accepted by other people, especially one’s own group.
2. Understanding: the need for socially shared cognition, the belief that one’s own views are shared and understood by those of their own group.
3. A sense of control and dependency: feeling like we are dependent on an outcome we do not influence, motivates us to seek out more controlled and deliberate processes.
4. Self-enhancement: seeing yourself in a positive light. We want to be optimistic for the future, feel more control than we have, and feel that we are better than we are.
5. Trusting the ingroup: trusting others within our social group.

Question 6

1. The dual-process model of impression formation: According to this model, we make an initial categorization. This is good enough if the person is not relevant to our goals. However, the more relevant they are to our goal, the more distinctions we make to our mental representation, especially if the individual exhibits traits that do not fit within our category. So we type, and then we subtype.
2. The continuum model of impression formation: According to this model we move people from one end of a continuum to the other. We place people initially in an automatic category, then re-categorize and specialize on closer inspection when we find data that contradicts our assumption. While we begin with category-based responses, we can advance to attribute-based responses.

Which role does attention and encoding have in social cognition? - ExamTests 3

Questions with chapter 3

Question 1

What is meant with encoding?

Question 2

How come salience is context-dependent?

Question 3

What makes a stimulus vivid?

Question 4

Our brains naturally categorize and organize information. On what does the accessibility of these categories depend?

Question 5

On what do assimilation and contrast effects depend on?

Answer suggestions with chapter 3

Question 1

Encoding transforms a perceived stimulus into an internal representation.

Question 2

We are socially salient whenever we present some sort of novelty.

Question 3

A stimulus is vivid when it is emotionally interesting, concrete and imagery provoking, and close by in a sensory, temporal, or spatial way.

Question 4

Priming.

Question 5

The consciousness of the prime, features of the stimuli involved, and the goal of the perceiver.

How are certain events stored in your memory and what is the role of its mental representation? - ExamTests 4

Questions with chapter 4

Question 1

There are four associative network models of social memory. Name and explain all four models.

Question 2

The activation of social categories can occur via either serial or parallel processing. What is the difference between these processes?

Question 3

What do the connections and connection strengths in parallel distributed processing (PDP) models represent?

Question 4

Why is the perceptual symbol systems (PSS) model particularly applicable to social cognition?

Question 5

Why is categorical person perception considered a top-down process?

Question 6

What does the exemplar approach suggest?

Answer suggestions with chapter 4

Question 1

1. The PM-1 Model: this model works as a computer simulation. It predicts extra attention to impression-inconsistent material, resulting in extra associative links for those items and increasing their alternate retrieval paths.

2. The person memory model: this model suggests that we get an impression from a target’s behavior, which we interpret in trait terms, evaluate and review inconsistent behaviors.

3. The twofold retrieval by associative pathways (TRAP) model: this dual process model favors both inconsistent and consistent memory, depending on the strategy enacted.

4. The associated systems theory (AST): this model creates representations of others through four systems: the visual, verbal/semantic, affective, and action system.

Question 2

A parallel process activates many related pathways at once. A serial process occurs instead as a sequence of steps.

Question 3

The connections represent constraints about what units are associated, and connection strengths represent the type and magnitude of association.

Question 4

According to the perceptual theory of knowledge (model of perceptual symbol systems; PSS), our internal and external experience is encoded using perceptual symbols. This view is particularly applicable to social cognition because it does not merely focus on archiving memories, but on preparing for situated actions, embedded in context. Social psychology suggests that one’s social environment plays a major role in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The PSS model places the actor in their interpersonal context.

Question 5

Because we impose our previously assumed ideas onto reality.

Question 6

The exemplar approach suggests that one remembers separate instances that they have encountered rather than an abstract prototype. They then compare perceived stimuli against their own memories of exemplars of the same category.

What is 'the self' in social cognition? - ExamTests 5

Questions with chapter 5

Question 1

Explain the following words; (1) self-concept, (2) self-schemas, and (3) self-esteem.

Question 2

Name and explain the two motivational systems that regulate our behavior.

Question 3

Higgins distinguished two types of self-guides: the ideal self and the ought self. What is the difference between these two self-guides? And how do discrepancies between the two serve as a motivator?

Question 4

In what way do self-improvement and self-enhancement differ?

Question 5

According to the simulation theory we self-reference. What does this mean?

Answer suggestions with chapter 5

Question 1

A person’s self-concept is made up of their complex beliefs about who they are, and is influenced by cultural background. Self-schemas are cognitive-affective structures that represent the self’s qualities in any given domain. Self-esteem is the result of self-evaluations; it contributes to a sense of well-being, acts as a motivation for goals, and allows us to cope with difficult situations.

Question 2

1. The behavioral activation system (BAS); this appetite (desire) system causes us to approach other people and activities.

2. The behavioral inhibition system (BIS); this aversive (repulsive) system causes us to avoid others.

Question 3

The ideal self is the person one desires to be, and the ought self – often based on one’s beliefs about appropriate societal behavior and the expectations of others – is the person one thinks they should be. Discrepancies from the ideal self serve as a motivator: people strive to improve themselves.

Question 4

Self-enhancement is the effort to maintain or create a positive sense of self. Self-improvement is the goals we make that will bring us closer to our possible selves.

Question 5

That we infer the mental state of others by imagining what our own thoughts would be in a similar situation.

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