Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 43 views

    2 - Social Cognition - Heuristics

    Uploaded by

    criz criz
    Heuristics are simple rules or mental shortcuts that allow people to make decisions and draw inferences quickly when facing complex information. Some common heuristics include representativeness, availability, anchoring and adjustment, and preferring the status quo. While heuristics aid rapid decision making, they can also lead to errors. For example, the availability heuristic can cause people to overestimate the likelihood of dramatic but rare events. Sources of error in social cognition include optimistic bias, overconfidence, counterfactual thinking, and magical thinking. Heuristics provide mental shortcuts but can introduce cognitive biases.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    2 - Social Cognition - Heuristics

    Uploaded by

    criz criz
    43 views7 pages
    Heuristics are simple rules or mental shortcuts that allow people to make decisions and draw inferences quickly when facing complex information. Some common heuristics include representativeness, availability, anchoring and adjustment, and preferring the status quo. While heuristics aid rapid decision making, they can also lead to errors. For example, the availability heuristic can cause people to overestimate the likelihood of dramatic but rare events. Sources of error in social cognition include optimistic bias, overconfidence, counterfactual thinking, and magical thinking. Heuristics provide mental shortcuts but can introduce cognitive biases.

    Original Description:

    social psychology

    Original Title

    2 - Social Cognition_ Heuristics

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Heuristics are simple rules or mental shortcuts that allow people to make decisions and draw inferences quickly when facing complex information. Some common heuristics include representativeness, availability, anchoring and adjustment, and preferring the status quo. While heuristics aid rapid decision making, they can also lead to errors. For example, the availability heuristic can cause people to overestimate the likelihood of dramatic but rare events. Sources of error in social cognition include optimistic bias, overconfidence, counterfactual thinking, and magical thinking. Heuristics provide mental shortcuts but can introduce cognitive biases.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    43 views7 pages

    2 - Social Cognition - Heuristics

    Uploaded by

    criz criz
    Heuristics are simple rules or mental shortcuts that allow people to make decisions and draw inferences quickly when facing complex information. Some common heuristics include representativeness, availability, anchoring and adjustment, and preferring the status quo. While heuristics aid rapid decision making, they can also lead to errors. For example, the availability heuristic can cause people to overestimate the likelihood of dramatic but rare events. Sources of error in social cognition include optimistic bias, overconfidence, counterfactual thinking, and magical thinking. Heuristics provide mental shortcuts but can introduce cognitive biases.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 7

    Social Cognition: Heuristics

    Too Many Choices: When information is complex and confusing, how


    do you make a decision?

    HEURISTICS
    These are simple rules for making complex decisions or drawing inferences in a rapid and efficient
    manner.

    Why use heuristics?


    Any input beyond our limit puts us into a state of information overload where the demands on our
    cognitive system are greater than its capacity.

    To deal quickly with large amounts of information, especially under conditions of uncertainty where the
    “correct” answer is difficult to know or would take a great deal of effort to determine.
    HEURISTIC STRATEGIES

    1. REPRESENTATIVENESS: JUDGING BY RESEMBLANCE

    A strategy for making judgments based on the extent to which current events resemble other stimuli.
    The more similar an individual is to typical members of a given group, the more likely he/she is to
    belong to that group.

    2. AVAILABILITY: IF I CAN RECALL MANY INSTANCES, THEY MAYBE


    FREQUENT
    Suggests that the easier it is to bring information to mind, the greater its impact on subsequent
    judgments or decisions.

    The fact that we can bring some types of information to mind quite readily suggests that it may indeed
    be frequent or important, so it should influence our judgments and decisions.

    But relying on availability in making social judgments can also lead to errors. Specifically, it can lead us to
    overestimate the likelihood of events that are dramatic but rare, because they are easy to bring to mind.
    3. ANCHORING AND ADJUSTMENT: WHERE YOU BEGIN MAKES A
    DIFFERENCE
    This heuristic involves the tendency to deal with uncertainty in many situations by using something we
    do know as a starting point (the “anchor”) and then making adjustments to it.

    The self is the most common used anchor in social cognition.

    EXAMPLE:

    If you are to judge another person’s productivity, the anchor for your final judgement maybe your own
    level of productivity. (reference point)

    Depending on your own level of productivity, you might therefore underestimate or overestimate that
    person’s level of productivity.

    4. STATUS QUO HEURISTIC: WHAT IS, IS GOOD


    Objects and options that are more easily retrieved from memory may be judged in a heuristic fashion as
    “good.”

    These objects and options are often judged as better than ones that are new, are rarely encountered, or
    represent a change from the status quo.

    What are the imperfections of the social cognition process?

    SOURCES OF ERROR IN SOCIAL COGNITION


    1.Optimistic bias - a powerful predisposition to overlook risks and expect things to turn out well.
    Research findings indicate that most people believe they are more likely than others to experience
    positive events, and less likely to experience negative events (Shepperd, Carroll, & Sweeny, 2008)

    We often have greater confidence in our beliefs or judgments than is justified—an effect known as the
    overconfidence bias.

    People who are least competent in a domain are often the most likely to be overconfident of their
    judgments in that domain.

    Like many other types of judgments, we frequently have to assess our competence under conditions of
    uncertainty—where all the relevant information is not known.

    2. Counterfactual thinking: Imagining “what might have been”

    Counterfactual thoughts seem to occur automatically in many situations. It seems easy to imagine that
    things might have turned out differently.

    By imagining how we might have done better, we may come up with improved strategies and ways of
    using our effort more effectively
    3. Magical thinking, terror management, and belief in the supernatural

    Magical thinking - such thinking makes assumptions that don’t hold up to rational scrutiny but that feel
    compelling nonetheless (Risen & Gilovich, 2007).

    Assumes that one’s thoughts can influence the physical world in a manner not governed by the laws of
    physics.
    REFERENCES:

    Baron, R . & Branscombe , N. (2017) Social psychology 14th Ed. Pearson Educ. Inc.

    Google images

    You might also like