Social Perception Quiz

Which of the following is the best summary of research on automatic thinking?

• Automatic thinking is vital to human survival, but it is not perfect and can produce mistaken judgments that have important consequences.

• Automatic thinking is amazingly accurate and rarely produces errors of any consequence.

• Automatic thinking is a problem because it usually produces mistaken judgments.

• Automatic thinking works best when it occurs consciously.

Which of the following is true about the use of schemas?

• Schemas are an example of controlled thinking.

• When people have an incorrect schema, rarely do they act in a way to make it come true.

• Although schemas can lead to errors, they are a very useful way of organizing information about the world and filling in gaps in our knowledge.

• The schema we use is influenced only by what information is chronically accessible and not by our goals or by what has been primed recently.

Based on everything you’ve read in this chapter, what is the best conclusion about social cognition?

• People would be better off if we could turn off automatic thinking and rely solely on controlled thinking.

• Whereas people are very sophisticated social thinkers who have amazing cognitive abilities, there is also plenty of room for improvement.

• Social cognition is pretty much the same throughout the world in all cultures that have been studied.

• One purpose of controlled thinking is to set goals for ourselves; that cannot be done with automatic thinking.

Describe a time when you misjudged someone based on first impressions. What happened?

Which emotions are these two people expressing?

Beyond these six emotions, are there other emotional states that are communicated with distinctive and readily identifiable facial expressions?

What is the Primacy Effect in forming impressions?

What is Belief Perseverance?

What are the two types of attributions in Attribution Theory?

How do spouses in happy marriages attribute their partners' behaviors?