Exploring Social Cognition
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Errors in Social Cognition

1) Negativity Bias is the
fact that we exert greater
sensitivity to negative than
to positive information.
 
2) The optimistic bias is
a predisposition to expect
things to turn out well on
a continual basis.
 
3) Unrealistic optimism is
the tendency to believe that
we are more likely to experience
positive life events and less
likely to experience negative
life events, than similar
others.

4) Planning fallacy is
individual's tendencies
to make optimistic predic-
tions about the completion
of a specific task.
 
5) Counterfactual tendency
is the tendency to imagine
outcomes in a situation other
than those that acutally
occurred.  Furthermore, to
think about "What Could Have
Been".
 
There are two types of counter-
factual thinking. First, upward
thinking is when an individual
imagines a better outcome. 
Secondly, downward thinking is
when an individual imagines
a worse outcome.



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