Question

Topic 2:

1a). Explain the concept of "priming" and how it may impact behavior - provide an example that highlights this unconscious force. 1b). Explain the concept of "embodied cognition" and provide an example of how this unconscious force can influence behavior. 1c). What is overconfidence? Explain how overconfidence can lead to confirmation bias.

2a). Identify and explain counterfactual thinking and illusory thinking. 2b). How might these types of thinking explain behavior, such as gambling? What is "regression to the average" and provide an example of how this can impact thinking.

3a). Explain attribution theory and distinguish between situational and dispositional attributes. Provide an example of each. 3b). What is the fundamental attribution error? 3c). Why is it important to study and understand attribution errors?

4a). Explain the concept of cognitive dissonance. 4b). Is selective exposure helpful to reduce cognitive dissonance? Explain your rationale.

5a). Identify and explain the difference between the insufficient justification effect and the overjustification effect.  

6a). Explain how we are influenced by: evolution and genes; cultural diversity and norms. 6b). Identify two norms from your culture and explain how they impact behavior.

7a). Explain how males and females are similar or different through the lens of: gender and genes; independence versus connectedness; social dominance; aggression and sexuality.

8a). What is a gender role? 8b). How do gender roles vary with cultures and vary over time?

Answer 1

1a) Its an implicit memory effect which stimulates the thought in both the negative and the possitive ways. Human brains are trained by using such priming effects by the trainers . For example , if a person knows the smell of chocolates of various ways , its easy for him to identify the products related to it by smelling . Such effects are also applicable for hearings, visions , touches etc.

1b) Embodied cognition is the connection between the body and the mind and it says that body influenced the mind to work accordingly . It means that mind responds according to the body and thus it influences the behaviour of the humans. For example--if body is weak or sick , mind responds calmly and thus behaviour is cool in case of aggression also, and its vice versa too.

1c) Over conffidence is the over stimulation on a certain point of time through which peoples starts reacting in a positive way. In that situation peoples neglects the weaknesses which can stop him in performing a certain task , for which he may regret later on .

2a) Counterfactual thinking: Its a concept in psychology in which people starts thinking of other possible alternatives to the facts which have occoured already.

Illusory thinking: Its a phenomenan of perceiving an relationship with the peoples, facts or behaviour etc in illusion only and no such relationship exists in actual.

2b) Such types of thinking influences the actual thoughts in a diversified way , resulting which peoples bound to take wrong decisions even after knowing the possible results. A belief system works in between and which prevents the mind to think possitively , rather the thought process are controlled by such belief system and leads into a wrong direction. for example in gambling , there are formulas that works for sure success but peoples take part into that process with a belief only that he will earn money surely. Regression to the average is the phenomenan in which if a varible is extreme towards mean in its first measurement , then it will be near to average on its 2nd measurement and vice versa too. That means in case of psychology if a behaviour is extreme in first step then it will be average in 2nd step and vice versa affects too. If we put the example of gambling , if a person looses in first step he will be half hearted from the mind in his 2nd step and if he earns a small in his first step he will be very much eager to earn more in his 2nd step .

3a) Attribution is a process through which people explains the behaviours and events in the society. When a person believe that a certain events occours due to some internal factors its called situational attributes and dispositional attributes are based on certain traits , chaarecters of the persons and not based on any situations.

3b)Fundamental attribution error is also known as correspondence bias in which persons unnecessarily placed emphasis on the charecters internally rather than to compare in contrast with the external factors.

3c) It is important to study the fundamental attributional errors to access the impact on the other side of the persons which varies greatly in the thought processes and the ideas which are concluded from the facts and events.

4a) Cognitive dissonance is the state of mind in which there are incosistant thoughts occours which also effects the beliefs and attitudes and are unmatched with the behaviour which are known to them. It can be more elaborated by saying its an conflict of two beliefs in a mind which gives discomfort to the mind.

4b) selective exposure may help in reducing the problems if it is logically correct to apply such exposure into it . Appropriate selective exposure may give some clues to the mind which helps the mind to think in a proper way and thus gives some comforts to the mind.

5a) Insufficient justification effect is a phenomenan in which a person is only able to justify the situation through internal ability and over justification is the phenomenan in which the intrinsic value decreases to perform due to certain motivational factors such as fantasy decreases as fulfilled or money received .

6a) In each and every society there are some kinds of beliefs , prejudices and cultural system through which persons of that society is influenced . So while interacting in the society or in the other places he is influenced by his inner belief system which got created inside him where he born and brought up. Time changes those beliefs and thoughts over the years if that person starts living into other society , but still then genes and its charecteristics did,nt got changed as it has its effects on the behaviours of the human beings.

6b) example can be taken of marriage system in which bride moves to the groom to marry and this norm influnced the society since several era,s . Now if the system got reversed by some person or the authority in the society it would not be easy to accept the new rules as we are not influnced by such system.

7a) Males and females are the two parts of the sociology and the society , they are similar as human beings but can be charecterised more differently by their behaviours, charecteristics , genes and its effects and biological changes in their bodies. Since the time of adam and eve , it is beleived that adam is for looking after the outsside works and eve is for inside works , thus a dependence roles created for eve on adam and they are both interrelated to each other. It was evolved in the society that males are the dominants in the society and sexuality too. males are the physical seekers and females are the mental seekers , exchange of both the needs transforms into a successful society. Agggression levels are equally distributed among both the males and females buut expressions of it varies greatly depends on the society to society.

8a) Gender role defines the family system in which males are expected to perform as the bread earners for the family and females are expected to be the home makers .

8b) But this gender roles varies greatly from society to society. In the modern countries both the gender plays important and equal role so the performances are like as partnership and in the developing countries the system is much more traditional and males are responsibile for earnings while females are for handling homely activities . Though the system are changing with the rapid pace and such countries are adopting the systems of developed countries.