Week 7 - Day 3 (Chapter 7 - part 2 - Schemas)
PY 101 - 012
Friday, February 26, 2016
Week 7 - Day 3 (Chapter 7 - part 2 - Schemas)
Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/_22fu12
Schema
- Networks of knowledge, beliefs, associations, and expectations
- ooFor example, you could have a schematic response
- Schemas are adaptive in that they enable us to make quick judgments with little effort
- ooEx: Think about a doctor
- You might come up with
- Lab coat
- Nurse
- Stressed
- Wealthy
- Hospital
- Fear
- Educated
- Brave
- Heroic
- Busy
- Stethoscope
- You might come up with
- ooEx: Think about a doctor
- We tend to remember schema-consistent information when information is ambiguous
- ooFor example, if I were to tell you
- ooJohn is a doctor he…
- Works hard
- Enjoys movies
- Spends time with his family
- Is well-educated
- Creative
- Has irregular schedule
- Has two dogs
- ooYou’re more likely to remember
- Works hard
- Well-educated
- ooIf I told you john was a doctor you’d remember
- Enjoys movies
- Creative
- Has two dogs
- When you encounter a person who diverts from our schema, we are unlikely to adjust our schema, but more likely to adjust our perception of that person; make them an exception
How do we know schemas work this way?
- Study was done where people asked people
- ooAre doctors educated
- They answered quickly
- ooDo doctors have eyes?
- It was less quick
- You have to link the schema of doctor to human
- It was less quick
- ooAre doctors educated
- If I say doctor, the schema of nurse becomes more accessible to me
- Doctor might bring up the following connections
- ooMedical doctor
- ooParent
- ooDoctor who
- ooProfessor
Which would you pick
- In the first program there is %100 probability that 1/3 patients are saved
- In the second, there is 1/3 possibility that all are saved and 2/3 probability that nobody is saved.
Scripts
- Essentially behavioral schemas
- Shaped by culture
- What is your script for going to the movies?
- ooIn a group
- ooGoing to buy popcorn or soda
- ooGo to theater and sit quietly
- You don’t have to think about it, you just do it
- You probably have a behavioral script for class
- ooYou sit down
- ooYou take notes
- ooYou might respond when he asks questions
- ooWhen you leave, you no longer act with your student script
Schemas
- The schemas and scripts that children learn are likely to affect their behavior when they are older
- Cognitive schemas allow for easy, fast processing of information about people based on their membership in certain groups
- ooStereotypes
- Almost every individual is stereotyped in some way
- ooDo you think this is useful?
- ooIn what ways could schemas like stereotypes be adaptive?
Solve this riddle
- A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital. Just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t operate - that boy is my son!”
- Explain how this could be true
- Answer: The surgeon is the boy’s mother
- ooGender roles=schemas
- That’s how schemas can be detrimental. If it took you a moment, you don’t picture doctors as females
Modes of thinking
- Automatic vs. Controlled Processes
- oo Automatic
- Picking up on someone else’s emotions
- oo Controlled
- Ex: doing a math problem
- oo Automatic
- Subconscious process
- ooMental processes outside of conscious awareness but accessible when necessary.
- ooDriving a car, typing
- Nonconscious processes
- ooMental processes occurring outside of and not available to conscious awareness
- ooCan’t be retrieved or elaborated on
- ooExample: impression formation
- Positive mood -> meet a new person -> favorable impression
- Implicit learning: Learning that occurs when you acquire knowledge about something without being aware of how you did so
- ooLearning to ride a bike vs. learning to walk up the stairs
- You can’t elaborate or remember how that process was learned.
- ooLearning to ride a bike vs. learning to walk up the stairs
What keeps us from thinking rationally
- In a perfect world we would think in algorithms
- oo_Algorithm_
- A procedure that, if followed correctly, will always yield the correct answer
- oo_Algorithm_
- We think in Heuristics
- ooHeuristic thinking often occurs unconsciously and allows us to free up some cognitive resources
- ooHeuristic thinking can be adaptive in that it allows us to decide quickly rather than weighing all the evidence
- Consider the following
- ooWhat makes you more uncomfortable, riding in a car or in an airplane?
- ooHave you ever wished someone a “good flight”?
- ooHave you ever wished someone a “good drive” to work?
- ooHow do you explain these differences?
- Control
- How much you’re exposed to either
- News covers these accidents more
- Availability heuristic
- ooMaking a decision based on the answer that most easily comes to mind
Come back to which would you pick (reworded)
- 100% probability that 2/3 die
- 33% probability that no one dies and 2/3 that all will die
Changing representations
- In problem solving, we often need to revise a mental representation to overcome an obstacle
- oo Restructuring
- New view reveals a solution that was not clear
Task is to connect dots using at most 4 striaght lines
Vocab
| Schemas | Cognitive structures which help us perceive, process, and organize information |
|---|---|
| Scripts | Schemas that dictate appropriate behavior |
| Stereotype | Information assumed about people who are classified as a certain group |
| Automatic process | Unintentional, involuntary, effortless process outside awareness |
| Controlled | A process that the enactor is fully conscious of |
| Heuristic | Shortcuts used to reduce the amount of thinking needed to make decisions |
| Availability heuristic | Making a decision based on the answer that most easily comes to mind |
| Restructuring | A new way of thinking about a problem that aids its solution; representing the problem in a novel way |