 This is part two of lecture three and this part will be discussing automatic thinking and In order to understand human behavior, it is good to know that we have different systems for processing information So if we are on the lookout for new information or we're trying to make judgments on our social worlds We can do so in two different ways basically So we can do so in a controlled way using controlled thinking and what we do when we use controlled thinking We are very deliberative. We think about information carefully. This is a quite a slow process. It's careful It's conscience. It's also effortful. So you're probably using this information Maybe while you're watching this lecture also when you're studying for exam Also when something is really important to you and you start really thoroughly thinking about it You want to make a good decision? So this system is great because it really helps us to use our brain to the full capacity It's not flawless. We'll be discussing the controlled system in a part three of today's lecture But it's actually definitely sort of the more advanced system compared to the second system Which is automatic thinking when we use automatic thinking. We're basically going on autopilot This is very quick. It's intuitive It's unconscious and it's efficient because it is automatic So it's you don't need any resources in order to use this system if you're not doing your best at all you're relying on automatic thinking and Human beings use this a lot because we are a bit lazy and it's really tiring to use this controlled thinking all the time Also, there's some individual differences on preferences. Some people really love complex thinking. They love puzzles They love really to use their brain and others are not so interested in doing so So these are also the people that really love studying and love reading compared to people that have different hobbies So this automatic route actually has a lot of benefits as well We'll be discussing this automatic thinking Process in just a bit, but let me first sort of show you when we use the different systems So first of all, it's important to realize that we rely on the control system When we're really invested in a certain idea if we really want to make a good decision If we are motivated to think thoroughly if we also have the capacity to do so when so when we are not so tired When we're not distracted then we are using the control system and other times we tend to use the automatic system One factor that's also influential is our moods So when we are in a good moods, you feel relaxed you feel happy We're actually more likely to use the automatic system and that is because it's our intuitive system So the moment we start we feel good we feel sort of confidence that our gut feeling is correct and We start relying more on our roots for automatic thinking when we are in a bad mood when we are sort of you know Grumpy things are not going our way We have more resistance to using the automatic system. We are more on guard basically So therefore we are actually more likely to use the control system So mood impacts which type of system we use and mood also impacts the information we see in the world So this is a result of a study in which people were placed In either a good or a bad mood and researchers have clever ways of doing so for example Why letting participants watch a certain movie clip that is either really funny and relaxed and positive or you know Very negative so you place people in either a good mood or a bad mood and after doing so The researchers showed a certain video clip to the participants and they basically just asked a simple question So how many negative behaviors do you see in this video clip or how many positive? Behaviors do you see in this video clip the video clip was exactly the same for everyone? But the results showed something interesting So the moment that people were placed in a good mood so beforehand the researchers did an experiment Manipulation good mood bad mood if you're in a good mood you actually detect less negative behaviors And you detect more positive behaviors if you're put in a good mood if you're being put in a bad mood It's the opposite so you actually detect more negative behaviors, and you detect less positive behaviors So this is actually again in line with this idea of confirmation bias So the moment you feel good you see all good things happening in the world And when the moment and you feel when you feel bad when you don't have your day And I think we can all relate to that sometimes everything just seems to be going wrong on one day You're like how is this possible? Oh everything goes wrong in this one day It's probably because you're on the lookout also for bad things to happen because you're already in a bad mood So moods impacts the system we use automatic versus controlled It's also impacting the way we interpret events in the world one other thing that I want to point out before going in detail talking about the automatic thinking That is that culture also impacts the way we see the worlds around us So basically what we know is that people from different cultures especially people from the Western world more Individualistic countries have a different processing style than people from more collectivist Countries, and that's also impacting the way they perceive the world So for example look at this this picture over here here several things are going on And people from different cultures were being asked to to look at this picture for a certain period of time Later on this picture disappeared and they were being asked the question so what do you remember from the picture and What is interesting is that people from Western countries actually saw different things remember different things than people from More collectivistic countries like East Asian culture countries such as China and Korea And what is interesting is that people from these different cultures also have a different Processing style so people from an individualistic country have a more analytic thinking style and if you have an analytic Thinking style you focus more on the properties of objects without considering the surroundings So for example if probably if you're from a Western country or I am from a Western country I'm from the Netherlands if I look at this picture I am focused on for example the car that there are some animals in the back of the car I'm Focusing maybe on the scarecrow in front of this picture so details of the objects I'm not really looking at the surroundings while people from from East Asian cultures. They look more globally on what is going on So for example, they tend to watch the overall context and think about the trees in the back Maybe the farms that you see So you actually perceive this this picture differently And this is this difference between analytic things in thinking style and holistic thinking style is important And it's gonna come back later And I think it's for now. It's important to know that it's also impacting the way we perceive the world and and how we process information So let's now zoom into this automatic thinking. What is it exactly and how do we use it? So I mentioned already if you use automatic thinking you're going on autopilot. You're not really thinking at all It's just going automatic. That's why it's called automatic thinking style And if you do so we will lie on heuristics and heuristics are sort of mental shortcuts that allow us to very quickly and efficiently make Decisions, so we're gonna. I'm gonna show you several examples of heuristics of these mental shortcuts for you to get a sense of what I mean by them So to introduce the first heuristic, let me ask you a question So which mode of transportation do you think is more dangerous? Is this flying or is this going by car? So most of you I hope that you're now using your controlled system for making decisions Then probably if you use rationalization, you probably know it's the car, right? There's way more the probability of you to get in the car accidents is way way way higher than for you to get in the plane Accidents, however, if you use the automatic system Intuitively people are often more afraid of planes than of cars There's way more people that are terrified to go on a plane while they would easily hop in the car Even though they know that going by car is actually more Dangerous, so why is this this is because of the first heuristic which is called the availability heuristic This heuristic is used when it comes to Making judgments of how often something happens basically the question that is Raised in this heuristic is how quickly does something come to mind? So when you think about plane crashes that probably comes to mind more quickly than car crashes And also if you think about a plane crashing, of course the consequences are much more severe often than when you have an accident with a car Even though they can of course also be very dangerous. So planes and danger That's just more available in our minds that this is a dangerous mode of transportation so the availability heuristic is used when we try to estimate the frequency or the probability of a certain event and We often also when we use this this this heuristic it can help us, but it can also We we also oftentimes make errors because how available information is it's oftentimes not informative on how you know how probable And a certain event is so let me give you two examples of this so Let's let's consider the following question. Do you think there are more words with the letter R as the first letter or With R as the third letter If you think about this if I have if I ask you to quickly decide on this The most people will say there are probably more words with R as the first letter And that is because it's way easier to think of words that start with an R Then that have R as the third letter That's really quite difficult to to think about and because words with R as the first letter are more available We judge we decide that there are more words that start with an R Than have R as the third letter even though that's not correct Another completely different example something that I think you might relate to when you work in groups is that oftentimes People when they have to do an assignment together for example students I have to do an assignment together and you ask them later So who contributed the most to this group assignment and a lot of people say I did and Within a group a lot of people will say that they felt like they contributed the most It also has something to do with the availability heuristic also with With positive illusions that we have about our our own capacities and our own work But also definitely with availability because your own work what your contribution was that's very easily accessible That's something that comes to mind very easily and therefore you often decide That you think that you did the most just because your own work is most available for you Okay, and let's move on to the second heuristic The second year a heuristic has to do with people Let's imagine you meet this guy over here, and I asked you so What do you think is the favorite activity of this person? Is it? Life action role-playing or is it football playing soccer? What do you think? What is his hobby? I think a lot of people would sort of intuitively say it's probably life action role-playing and that is because we rely on a Heuristic when we watch people The moment we meet a person we start categorizing this person you meet this person this is quite a prototypical nerds It's sort of an exaggeration of a nerds, and we have this idea that nerds have certain hobbies They may be like life action role-playing more than playing football So when we make this decision this is purely based on the heuristic of representativeness and this heuristic means that we sort of make judgments by comparing how similar Person is to a certain prototype So the picture I showed you over there quite similar to the prototypical nerds, right? So therefore you place them in a certain category and we make judgments We decide what this person likes what this person dislikes based on this heuristic So this is a great heuristic Sometimes because it can help us make judgments about people and oftentimes we're right But oftentimes we're also wrong and the moment this goes wrong is when we make errors on the base rate information So base rate information. I'll explain this concept. This basically means that How that we misjudge how frequent something occurs and some hobbies? Like football are very popular So a lot of guys around the age of the person you saw in the picture play football have a hobby that is football and Actually very little people do life action role-playing. So if you look at the relative frequency of events Actually, it would be in a better bet to say that this person plays football or soccer Then life action role-playing just because the odds are so different The odds for any person to play football are much higher than the odds of any play person Engaging in life action role-playing. So let me give you a second example just to clarify this concept of base rate information a bit further Here you see a Selma Selma as you see here. She has a very, you know extravagant clothing style She describes herself as someone with a free spirit. She's quite extroverted and she is also a student and Your job is to estimate what Selma studies. So Selma studies at a university with 400 psychology students and 10 art students What does Selma study? So here you have information about sort of a stereotype activation and you have base rate information And if you would use the represent a representation Juristic you probably would guess that Selma is an art student just because she fits this box so nicely But if you would take into account the base rate information you would actually Estimate that the chances for her to be psychology students are so much higher So maybe it's just statistically a better bet to say that she studies psychology So this is all I wanted to say about the automatic thinking style in the next part We're gonna be discussing the control thinking style You