Social Psychology Chapter 11 – Flashcards

-stereotypes -prejudice -discrimination -refer to the belief, attitudinal, and behavioral components of negative intergroup relations -they often go together -people more inclined to hurt those they hold in low regard -ingroup favoritism can arise in absence of outgroup enmity -possible to be prejudice but not discriminate-> cultures that don't allow discrimination-> civil rights movement-> laws-> uncouple prejudice and discrimination

beliefs that certain attributes are characteristic of members of particular groups -some have truth behind them, some don't

a negative attitude or affective response toward a certain group and its individual members -can be positively prejudice too -prejudging others because they belong to a specific category

unfair treatment of members of a particular group based on their membership in that group

involves concealing prejudice from others in public settings, but expressing bigoted attitudes when it is safe to do so, for instance in the company of friends who share these views; also involves attributing various bigoted views to sources other than prejudice, whenever another explanation for potentially biased behavior is feasible; attempting to appear color-blind and refusing to acknowledge race as a means of suggesting one isn't a true racist, subtler -50 years ago it was okay to be racist -created conflict when it became illegal -some of our reactions to groups is unconscious and automatic -stems from ingroup favoritism

If unambiguous evidence is presented to a jury, whites and blacks are convicted equally. If ambiguous (some is viewed as inadmissible but usually used by the jury anyways) if participants have option of helping black and white person in need of medical assistance they will help the black person, unless they are with others, then they will help white person more because they "thought somebody else with more expertise would intervene"

The opposite result: bias directed at the ingroup

white participants first read that some admissions procedures are alleged to be biased, and activist groups are pressuring colleges all over the country to review and reevaluate their admissions criteria -then they read the applications of black applicants -rated them more favorably than they rated comparable white applicants

Benevolent sexism: a subjectively favorable, chivalrous ideology that offers protection and affection to women who embrace conventional roles often coexists with hostile sexism (antipathy toward women who are vied as usurping men's power) Those who hold ambivalent attitudes tend to act positively toward members of outgroups only if they fulfill their idealized image of what such people should be like. -ambivalent sexism/racism resistant to change -those who hold ambivalent attitudes tend to act positively toward members of outgroups only if they fulfill their idealized image of what such people should be like. Those who deviate tend to be treated with hostility

-can't just ask people, because you get the honest answer -either it is unconscious or inappropriate to share -use the IAT to measure attitudes

Implicit Association Test A computerized reaction-time task designed to measure the strength of association between target concepts (e.g., flowers and insects) and attribute concepts (e.g., pleasant and unpleasant). -a technique for revealing nonconscious prejudices towards a particular group -times how quick you are to respond -evidence that IAT responses do correlate with other measures of prejudice -predicts discrepancy between how much one spoke to the white versus the black experimenter, how often they smiled at the black versus the white experimenter, and the number of speech errors and hesitations they exhibited when interacting with the white versus the black experimenter

have measured this by using priming -word associations or picture and word associations -compare a persons average reaction time to positive and negative words preceded by faces of members of the target category -results: using priming methods has shown that people often have subtle prejudices against various target groups that they would steadfastly deny having

The procedure used to increase the accessibility of a concept of schema (for example, a stereotype)

-different groups vying for the same resource -have difficulty getting along because of this **Groups develop prejudices about one another and discriminate against one another when they compete for material resources** -can be racial, religious, cultural

Part of the economic perspective. A theory that group conflict, prejudice, and discrimination are likely to arise over competition between groups for limited resources. Increase during economic difficulty. Mostly comes from the groups that stand to lose the most. ex: working class during the civil rights movement had more anti-black sentiments -pronounced ethnocentrism develops (ex: an opponent whose antics are annoying seems more likable once that person becomes a teammate) -loyalty to the ingroup intensifies

the tendency to view one's own group as superior to others and as the standard for judging the worth of foreign ways

22 boys 12 years of age from similar backgrounds were chosen to participate. As they became aware of the opposite group, tension mounted and each group expressed the desire to compete with the other. Superordinate goals--goals that couldn't be achieved by either group alone but could be accomplished by both working together--groups started to work together -sherif

Found that hostility between groups could be created and overcome. Created: two groups, seperated and then pitted against eachother in competetive games. Overcome: when they worked together towards a common goal. Important lessons: -neither differences in background nor differences in appearance nor prior hostilities of conflict are necessary for intergroup hostility to develop -all that is required: two groups entering competition for goals that only one can achieve -competition against outsides often increases group cohesion -intergroup conflict can be diminished-> work together (getting to know one another usually isn't enough)

Robbers cave experiment -as the groups became more locked in competitive struggle: -athletic or more aggressive boys tended to gain popularity -bean experiment: each boy believed their group had collected the most beans even though the picture for both groups had the same amount of beans

Robbers cave experiment -superordinate goals -had to work together to accomplish the goal

The economic perspective "works" in the sense that it fits nicely with what we see around us as the successes and failures of intergroup relations. -where have efforts toward integration been most successful? >the military -different ethnic and religious groups in the military are in the equivalent of phase 3 of the robbers cave experiment-> must cooperate together to reach goal of defending country -colleges are not good-> they encourage competition against one another-> many students segregate themselves almost exclusively with other members of their own race or ethnicity

goals that transcend the interests of one individual group and that can be achieved more readily by two or more groups working together

The existence of group boundaries among any collection of individuals can be sufficient to initiate group discrimination -intergroup hostility can develop in the absence of competition -claim things to be "ours" and want to challenge or run them off

Tajfel, Flament, Billig, & Bundy (1971) -Participants allocated to two groups on an arbitrary basis -Identities of people in other groups unknown -Allocate money to people (via code numbers) in the two groups -Could not allocate money to self Results -A persistent tendency to allocate more points to their own group than the out-group -Even though Meaningless categories -No interaction between groups -No past relationship -majority of participants are interested more in maximizing the relative gain for members of their ingroup than in maximizing the absolute gain for their ingroup-> willing to do so at the cost of their ingroup, if they had not focused on allocating more points to their ingroup they would have had a larger absolute gain

Tajfels theory, divides identity in to different groups e.g being a parent, being British, being a friend, being a wife...These different groups to which we belong are our ingroups our sense of belonging to these groups is important. Self esteem is boosted by having a positive view of these groups, and exaggerating the differences between our ingroups and those groups to which we do not belong, aka outgroups more negatively. See minimal group for experimental evidence. Social mobility can improve the status of a group by adjusting the power differences between groups or working for social change either through social creativity (Black is beautiful campaign) or social competition (Ghandis passive resistance). Criticised for it's lab based research because this trivialises social differences such as gender and race.

-self esteem associated to groups we belong to -want to boost the status of the ingroups -leads to ingroup favoritism Ex: -study assessed participants self-esteem after they have had an opportunity to exhibit ingroup favoritism in the minimal group situation -those who had been allowed to engage in intergroup discrimination had higher self-esteem than those who had not been given the opportunity -can react to criticism of that group as criticism to the self

The tendency to take pride in the accomplishments of those with whom we are in some way associated, as when fans identity with a winning team. (457) "We" won versus "They" lost close to other person, activity not central to our self-esteen, performance of other person is high, ex: non premed student think, "im so proud of my best friend for getting into a top medical school" -wearing a winning teams jersey and not wearing a losing teams jersey

-stereotyping and prejudice can boost or maintain self-esteem Ex: -study -1/2 participants told they had done horribly on an intelligence test-> self-esteem threat -then shown video of job interview where the applicant was jewish -those who had their self-esteem threatened and thought she was jewish rated her more negatively than those who were not told she was jewish -increase in their self-esteem

A psychological theory on prejudice which argues that people who are frustrated in their attempts to achieve highly desired goals, act out in aggressive ways. The aggression is targeted at a substitute, since the real source of their frustration is difficult to pinpoint, and thus the target is made into a scapegoat. Minority groups are often made into scapegoats due to their negative stereotypes that exist about them and due to their lower position in the ethnic hierarchy. Example: In the 1980's, two laid-off autoworkers murdered a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin, blaming him for their unemployed status (they targeted Chin, assuming he was Japanese, and they blamed Japanese car imports for their job loss).

Strengths: -Builds on two important elements: 1) people readily draw us/them distinction 2) people tend to react to frustration with aggression and often direct their aggression at the "safest" and least powerful targets The three legged stool: -conflict between groups analogy -rests on the need to glorify the ingroup, form societies in which there are unequal distributions of resources, and stereotype members of different groups

Stereotypes are a natural result of the way our brains are wired to store and process information

Participants were either praised or criticized by a white or black doctor. Reaction times to "black" words and "medical words" after criticism or praise by white doctors were virtually the same. But this was not true for reaction times after criticism or praise by black doctors.

-stereotypes facilitate recall of stereotype-consistent information and conserve cognitive resources that can be used to aid performance on other tasks -stereotypes allow people to process info efficiently -more likely to invoke stereotypes at the low point of their circadian rhythm -ex: pair a group of words with the stereotype (skin head), and have them watch a video on indonesia with a pop quiz on the country afterward and recall of the words, those that had the skin head prompt were better able to recall the descriptive words and did better on the pop quiz-> stereotyping saves cognitive space

Not all category members are well captured by the stereotype. Invoking the stereotype may save time and effort, but it can lead to mistaken impressions and unfair judgements about individuals. Biased information processing can help explain why even stereotypes completely lacking in validity nevertheless develop and endure. If we suspect that a particular group of people might differ from the mainstream in some way, it is shockingly easy to construe pertinent information in such a way that our suspicion is confirmed, solidified, and elaborated. -How does this happen? 1) accentuation of ingroup similarity and outgroup differences 2) the outgroup homogeneity effect 3) distinctiveness and illusory correlations 4) expectations and biased information processing

-arbitrary categorical boundaries can have significant effects on the human mind -studies have shown that dividing a continuous distribution into two groups leads people to see less variability within each group and more variability between the two -people make these assumptions even when the groups are arbitrary*** that is the interesting thing (like race)

perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup members. Thus "they are alike; we are diverse." (As we generally like people we perceive as similar to us and dislike those we perceive as different, the result is a tendency toward ingroup bias) the tendency to assume that there is greater similarity among members of outgroups than among members of ingroups. This happens because: - Easier to recall specific individuals when thinking about our own group. - We often do not notice subtle differences among outgroups because we have little personal contact with them. (sometimes all we know is their stereotypes)

Hypothesis: Two distinctiveness events stand out, are better remembered, and leave even more of an impression because they co-occur Research Method: 1) Participants were shown a series of slides, each of which described a positive or negative action initiated by a member of group A or group B 2) 2/3's of the actions were attributed to group A, making A the majority group. Most of the actions attributed to each group were positive (equally true of both groups) Results: Members of the minority group were thought to be disproportionately responsible for the negative behaviors Members of the minority group were rated more highly on negative traits and less highly on positive traits than members of the majority group Conclusion: Jointly distinctive events (minority status and rare behavior) stand out and form the basis of illusory correlations Impressive because: -obtained in a laboratory context Critique: -doesn't fit real world stereotyping -their analysis predicts that people should be prone to develop illusory correlations between any two variables that are jointly distinctive (being left handed and a vegetarian), but we just don't do that-> over predicts

-not always clear where impartial processing leaves off and passions, motives, and self-interest begin -distinctive events capture attention and remember them better-> become overrepresented in our memory -minority groups are more salient because they are different from the majority group -negative behavior from a minority group is doubly memorable -illusory correlation can occur because of something that stands out to it is associated with another event that may have nothing to do with one another -paired distinctiveness

Result when people overestimate the association between personal characteristics that are only slightly or not at all related -People overgeneralize based on a few rare instances when the characteristics do co-occur.

pairing of two distinctive events that stand out even more because they co-occur (doubly distinctive and doubly memorable behavior by minorities), -IE: Polynesians and Bank teller yelling. If yelling at bank teller was part of your group you wouldn't jump to thinking ethnicity as the defining characteristic.

-because of the outgroup homogeneity effect, people are more likely to assume that in individual action is typical of a group if the group is not their own -people are more likely to generalize behaviors and traits that they already suspect may be typical of the group's members -stereotypes can therefore be reinforced -stereotypes also influence how the details of events are interpreted ex: participants watched video, had to code behavior of actors, in one video a white man shoved another man (was coded as playing around), in another video a black man shoved another man (was coded as aggressive behavior)-> the participants were influenced by their own stereotypes -when the situation is seen and viewed through the stereotype then retold then the situation changes with the stereotype -people do not evaluate info even-handedly

people who hold negative stereotypes of ethnic groups sometimes dismiss examples of individuals who don't conform to the stereotype as exceptions or members of relatively rare subtypes. -people do not give up their stereotypes easily -actions that are inconsistent with the stereotype are deemed insignificant

Explaining away exceptions to a given stereotype by creating a subcategory of the stereotyped group that can be expected to differ from the group as a whole., -evidence that supports the stereotype is treated differently than evidence that refutes it -supportive taken at face value specific categories within larger categories that helps us deal with exceptions (people who do not fit your stereotype) (if you have a stereotype that all girls are emotional, likes shopping and the color pink & you meet a woman who like sports, it is inconsistent with your stereotypes so you make another category for them) "Exceptions that prove the rule" (which they don't)

Events that are consistent with preexisting stereotypes are encoded at a more abstract, and therefore more meaningful, level than events that are inconsistent with preexisting stereotypes -abstract terms consist of state verbs or trait terms (for example, hate, hateful), and concrete terms consist of descriptive and interpretive action verbs (for example, hits, hurts) ex: see someone helping another who has fallen-> concrete: "lifting" (less stereotype)-> abstract: "helping"-> even more abstract: "altruistic or helpful person" (more stereotype) -often a conscious process

- Controlled processing is our conscious mind, and includes thoughts we are aware of, and plan out in a linear manner. Automatic processing is our intuitive or instinctual subconscious thoughts and feelings, which we often do not expect and cannot predict... -some cognitive processes that give rise to stereotyping and prejudice are deliberate and mindful -sometimes stereotyping automatic -patricia devine study -stereotypes can be triggered even if we don't want them to be

-measured on the modern racism scale -wanted to demonstrate that people still have stereotypes but that they resist the stereotype showed how automatic and controlled processing can result in incompatible attitudes in the same person towards members of outgroups -unprejudiced people primed by words designed to activate stereotypes-> caught off guard and unable to suppress automatic processing --> the judgements of "unprejudiced people" could be found prejudiced when studied by a technique that examines the unconscious processing of information -they do this because these associations are present in our culture

scale that asks people to respond to symbolic questions that reflect modern racism (prejudice that surfaces in subtle ways)

-white participants shown black and asian faces -examined area of that brain that was activated Results: -participants who had desire to not be prejudice initially had an automatic response to black versus white faces -black faces caused more activity in the prefrontal cortex (part of the brain associated with cognitive and behavioral regulation)

Hypothesis: Social attitudes can influence basic categorization processes Research Method: 1) White participants were shown a white or black face 2) Immediately after viewing a face, participants were shown an object and asked to identify it as a gun or a tool as quickly as possible Results: Participants identified guns more quickly and mistook tools for guns more often after being primed with black faces Conclusion: Implicit stereotypes influence identification and categorization -Experiment after this one found that it is not just negative stereotypes, but also positive stereotypes that we associate with race (sports equipment and hand guns)

white police in NY city attempted to question Amadou Diallo, a black west african immigrant who had gone outside his apartment building to get some air and who seemed to fit the description of the serial rapist they were looking for. Diallo ran up the steps of his building and then reached inside his jacket for what police belied was a gun but was actually his wallet. Reacting out of fear that diallo was about to start firing a weapon the four police officers fired 41 shots, striking the innocent Diallo 19 times and killing him -officers more likely to mistake that an african american has a weapon v. a white suspect and more likely to open fire on them faster v. a white suspect

critics of cognitive perspective has said that the approach has influenced psychologists understanding of intergroup conflict, may lead us to lose sight of the causes of the truly disturbing manifestations of prejudice and discrimination -we are all capable of stereotyping and all have capacity to harbor troubling prejudices

-unfair price -aware of the stereotypes associated with their group -social psychologists have focused on two things: 1) attributional ambiguity 2) stereotype threat -members of stereotyped groups can also have a difficult time dispelling common stereotypes because those who hold the stereotypes act in ways that tend to elicit the very behavior that lies at the heart of the stereotype

-Members of groups that often experience SOCIAL STIGMA find it challenging to determine whether feedback is based upon their actual behavior or membership in a stereotyped stigmatized group -Discredits positive feedback as a FORM OF SYMPATHY rather than seeing it as the result of their ability and achievement Study: white and black participants were criticized or praised (randomly) by a white student either through a one way mirror or would not be seen -whether or not they could be seen had no effect on white students but had an effect on black students -this study indicated that members of stigmatized groups live in a less certain world, not knowing whether to attribute positive feedback to their own skill or to others condescension and not knowing whether to attribute negative feedback to their own error or to others' prejudice

* An outcome of the Stereotype Threat Self-Fulfilling Prophecy * people who are targets of negative Stereotype Threats can confirm those Stereotype Threats (paradoxically) by trying to disconfirm them * This may occur through feeling apprehensive about the Stereotype Threats which in turn interferes w/ your performance (ex: Black students being apprehensive about Stereotype Threat for poor academic performance in turn causes them to under-perform * For Tx: creating an alternative mindset that counters the stereotype (remind yourself that you are a good student individually; think of positive role models in your Stereotype Threat group) has been shown to boost performance ex: math test performance by men and women when the test was described as one that yields gender differences (aroused stereotype threat among women) or was described as one that does not yield gender differences -merely indicating race at the top of the page of a test resulted in worse performance

A. You make a prediction and based on that prediction you behave accordingly and as a result of your behavior, your prediction is more likely to come true than it would have otherwise B. Self-imposed C. What is expected or predicted by others ex: interview black and white applicants-> interviewers unwittingly treated them differently based on their race -black applicant, interviewer sat farther away, hem and haw throughout the session, terminate the proceedings earlier-> does not inspire self-possession and smooth performance -by placing black applicants at a disadvantage, the white interviewers confirmed their negative stereotypes of blacks

1) stereotype threat leads to increased arousal-> interfere with performance on complex tasks 2) serve as a source of distraction that interferes with concentration 3) knowing one's group is "suspect"-> undermine performance and lead to individuals to "play it safe" 4) can result in poorer overall academic achievement-> undermines confidence -it is a vicious cycle can lead to disidentification

long term results from stereotype threat; stereotypes become incorporated into one's self concept

Increasing day to day interaction with all groups and increasing, common group identity, knowing someone in the outgroup (reduces), one on one interactions reduce playing of persons group membership, overome fear that outgroup members dont want to interact with us-- with contact reduces group boundries significance. Positive interactions negate slanted media portrayal, one on one contact and equal status contact create positive associations. -different groups NEED to have equal status -cooperative interactions