PSY 304 Test 2
Recall that Carl Word, Mark Zanna, and Joel Cooper (1974) tested the self-fulfilling prophecy as it relates to prejudice. They observed the differential behaviors of Anglo-American interviewers who interviewed either African-American or Anglo-American job candidates. They then trained other interviewers to manifest these two different interview styles. When the new interviewers later interviewed Anglo-American job applicants, the applicants who were treated as African-Americans had been treated in the first study
actually behaved in less effective and comfortable ways.
traditional racism
advocating racial superiority, segregation, discrimination
1. prejudice
affect
fear of rejection causes
anxiety
current self -> ought self
anxiety; avoidance; avoid being rejected, conform, be nice, be accepted/worthy
The mild threat in Aronson & Carlsmith's experiment showed that when you don't apply an extrinsic motivation, kids then _______
apply their own intrinsic reason
Maslow (50s-60s)
argues that psychological needs (esteem needs & belongingness and love needs) are pervasive in everyone and they are the reason we are so influenced by our society. also argues that people usually don't achieve self-actualization because they're too worried about how they appear to others.
implicit bias
association strength between faces and words
2. discrimination
behavior
self-presentation
behavioral solution to reduce dissonance; behaving in a way to keep the dissonance away
I think that people pretty much get what they deserve
belief in a just world
Aronson & Carlsmith (1963)
children told not to play with a certain toy; some received a severe threat and some received a mild threat. Severe threat: for many kids the rating of that toy increased Mild threat: some decreased their rating of the toy -> they're justifying that they didn't want the truck
Deiner et al
children told to take one candy on halloween night, behavior was dependent on whether or not there was a mirror present. The mirror triggers the moment of objective self-awareness. immoral behavior <-greater discomfort->internal standards moral behavior<-discomfort->internal standard
3. stereotypes
cognition
Stereotypes are the _____ component of a negative attitude toward a group of people.
cognitive
stereotypes
cognitive beliefs that associate groups of people with traits (heuristics)
Hai has been taking expensive beta-carotene supplements for years, because he believes they will reduce his risk of cancer. Hai has just learned that a well-controlled study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine showed that beta-carotene supplements do not reduce cancer risk. Hai is probably experiencing
cognitive dissonance.
Keep in mind Gordon Allport's (1954) description of stereotyping as "the law of least effort." From Allport's perspective, people are often
cognitive misers.
self-deception
cognitive solution to reduce dissonance; talking yourself out of the dissonance
realistic group conflict
competition -> more prejudice cooperation -> less prejudice
stereotype effects
confirmation bias, self-fulfilling prophecy
Gordon Allport (1954)
contact hypothesis: prejudice is reduced with increased contact between majority and minority groups -> wrong
Crocker et al (2003, 2004)
contingencies (7 basic domains) of self-worth
rejection causes
decrease in self-esteem
modern (symbolic) racism
denial of discrimination, too much change/progress, lack of effort
stereotype threat
dis-identification; when you're the target of a stereotype & you fail, it confirms the stereotype for them
post-decision dissonance
dissonance aroused after making a decision, typically reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternatives
the Ben Franklin effect
doing someone a favor with little or no external justification can create a more favorable attitude toward that person because otherwise there wouldn't be any justification for why you just went out of your way to help them
Joanne Wood, Shelley Taylor, and Rosemary Lichtman (1985) found that in order to feel more optimistic about their own futures, cancer patients engage in
downward social comparison.
According to the authors of your text, it is primarily the _______ aspect of prejudiced attitudes that make them relatively impervious to rational or logical arguments.
emotional
The principal of a local elementary school plans to implement a "Reading for Cash" program, whereby children would be given cash rewards for reading. Before investing in this plan, the principal asks for your assessment. Because _____ tend to _____, you would probably tell her that the program would not be an effective way to increase interest in reading.
external rewards; reduce any inherent intrinsic interest
Gordon Gallop
figured out that primates know they exist; 18 month babies begin to understand that they exist
performance goals = the ______ mindset; _______ self; _____ challenge
fixed, fragile, fears
performance goals: ______ mindset; __________ intrinsic motivation; ______ persistence; ________ grades; ________ improvement; ______ cheating
fixed, lower, less, lower, less, more
According to self-affirmation theory, if I were to receive a "D" on a chemistry test, I would attempt to restore my self-esteem by
focusing on something I do well.
Baumeister et al (2003)
found that self-esteem isn't the cause of bad grades; says that we were focusing on global self-esteem, but that's not where we get out self-esteem from
Duval, Wicklund, & Fine (1972)
gave subjects positive and negative feedback and asked them to wait in a room; those who got negative feedback had less self-esteem and they left earlier; escape from self-awareness
Participants in a study by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Thomas Figurski (1982) wore beepers for a week. When the beeper sounded at random intervals, participants wrote down what they were thinking about. Which of the following thoughts was most likely to have been recorded by their participants?
"I wasn't particularly thinking about anything."
projection
(Freud) attribute one's own thoughts, feelings, and impulses to others
repression
(Freud) keep distressing thoughts and feelings in the unconscious
denial
(Freud) simply deny the existence of anxiety-provoking thoughts and feelings
rationalization
(Freud) unconsciously create self-justifying explanations for our behavior
reaction formation
(Freud)hide true thoughts, feelings, and urges by behaving in a way opposite them
the sociometer hypothesis
(Leary) sensitivity to rejection, "early warning system"; we have developed vigilance & a mechanism to correct our behavior
public self-consciousness
(material/social self) the extent to which someone is aware of themselves as an object of other people's attention ("I am self-conscious about the way I look")
the above average effect
(self-deception) the tendency for people to rate themselves as above the average on most positive social attributes
self-serving bias
(self-deception) the tendency for people to take personal credit for success but blame failure on external factors
unrealistic optimism
(self-deception) when we tend to imagine that the outcomes of situations will be better for us than for other people
self-handicapping
(self-presentation) choosing to fail rather than risk failure
self-affirmation
(self-presentation) emphasizing positive aspects of self
ingratiation
(self-presentation) impressing those higher in status
self-verification
(self-presentation) seeking out accurate self information
self-enhancement
(self-presentation) seeking out positive self information
private self-consciousness
(spiritual self) the extent to which someone is aware of their own thoughts, feelings, and motives ("I reflect about myself a lot")
Jane Elliot (1968)
-teacher of third grade in Riceville, Iowa -created experiment when MLK had just died -created 2 unfair days where students were better/worse if their eyes were blue/brown -minimal group effect
when self-discrepancies arrive, you have two options:
1. approach (change behavior to match standards) 2. avoidance (escape from self-awareness)
3 solutions to cognitive dissonance:
1. change behavior (to be consistent with cognition) (gossiping is wrong) 2. change cognition (to justify behavior) (gossiping is okay) 3. add cognition(s) (that justify behavior) (Sally gossips more than me)
stereotype formation
1. create social categorization 2. associate traits to group members
self-discrepancies -> threat to image -> dissonance. Solution?
1. self-deception (cognitive) 2. self-presentation (behavioral)
Hull & Young (1983)
35 males nearing the end of a 3 week detox for alcohol abuse; more self-awareness + negative life circumstances = more likely to relapse
Aronson & Mills (1959)
An experiment about asking female college students to join a sex discussion group and they were asked to rate how much they enjoyed the conversation. The 1/3 that were given x-rated words (severe initiation) rated it really enjoyable. This is because they're more attracted to the group now because they're justifying what they just went through.
______ thought thinking realistically was normal & that having a positive outlook on life was abnormal and indicative of a mental illness
Freud
Which of the following people is using ingratiation as a self-presentational tactic?
Iman, who brings her boss coffee and offers to do other favors for her.
Why does the Jigsaw Classroom yield such positive results with regard to self-esteem, achievement, and positive informal contact between children of various racial and ethnic groups?
It is in each child's self-interest to cooperate with others.
spiritual self
James; the self as "knower"; you're conscious of your motives and values
material/social self
James; the self as "known"; your knowledge that you exist, how you exist in terms of other people
Maria is on a limited budget, and can only afford one compact disk (CD). She really likes two in particular: Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits and the soundtrack from the musical Rent. When she gets home and listens to the Frank Sinatra CD, she cannot imagine why she ever considered the Rent CD. This is because
Maria was motivated to reduce her post-decision dissonance.
William James (1890)
Principles of Psychology; material/social self vs. spiritual self the self as "known" vs. the self as "knower"
_________ posits that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people.
Social comparison theory
_____ refers to the apprehension among minority group members that they might confirm existing cultural stereotypes.
Stereotype threat
Hodson & Busseri (2012)
Tested whether general intelligence in childhood predicted prejudice in adulthood. the lower the intelligence, the higher the prejudice. Children that scored lower in the intelligence test will be more conservative and will have more prejudice. low cognitive ability -> right-wing authoritarian views -> increased prejudice
According to social psychological research on gender differences in the definition of self, which person below is least typical of their gender?
Tom, whose girlfriend provides the most important and positive emotional events in his life.
Research by Rohan and Zanna (1996) on parents' and children's attitude and value similarity found
a correlation between parents' and children's attitudes, but only for egalitarian participants
In examining the executive function of the self, Baumeister, Muraven, and Tice have suggested that, in self-regulation, the self functions like
a muscle, which is less effective when fatigued and can be strengthened through exercise
Who would be least likely to remember sound and well-founded arguments against smoking?
a person who has no desire to quit smoking
self-reflection only occurs with _______________
a very intelligent brain; the most social & biggest-brained animals (chimps, orangutans, elephants, dolphins, great apes)
Recall that Janet Swim and Lawrence Sanna (1996) systematically studied a series of 58 experiments conducted over the last 20 years. These researchers found that when men succeed at a given task, participants attribute his success to _____, whereas when women succeed at that same task, participants attribute their success to ______
ability; hard work
According to Tory Higgins (1987), _____ is to who we are as _____ is to who we would like to be.
actual self; ideal self
According to the authors, one reason why school desegregation efforts didn't have the anticipated positive effects is that the typical classroom
is competitive and students do not participate on an equal footing.
theory of self-discrepancies
it's fundamental for self-regulation to move to reduce the discrepancies.
Sherif et al (1961)
kids at summer camp were divided into two groups and they suddenly started hating the other group because of realistic group conflict.
Amelia is trying hard to explain to Ricardo why women should not be restricted to the home. Even though Ricardo has no firm basis for his beliefs, Amelia's logical arguments fail to persuade him in this case because
logical arguments rarely work on the emotional basis of attitudes.
relationship b/t bad grades and self-esteem according to research from the 70s-90s
low self-esteem causes bad grades (wrong)
Recall that Leon Festinger and J. Merrill Carlsmith (1959) paid participants either $1 or $20 to tell another person that a boring, tedious task was really fun and interesting. The results of their experiment demonstrated that
minimal external justification can lead to attitude change.
While riding a harrowing roller coaster, Jim notices that the person sitting next to him is extremely attractive and he resolves to get her phone number when the ride is over. Jim is probably doing this because he is
misattributing his arousal from the roller coaster ride to sexual attraction.
objective self-awareness
most of the time you're not self-aware until something calls it back to you (like embarrassment)
Conditions under which contact situations reduce prejudice include
multiple contacts, mutual interdependence, and equal status.
jigsaw classroom
mutual independence; depend on each other equally because they must each listen and learn together to fully understand
Aronson & Mills: behaviorists would have assumed that the ___________ group would have enjoyed the discussion the most because they had the _________ punishment
no initiation, least
epidemic of low self-esteem
non-existent; it's normal to have high self-esteem, if you don't there's probably an underlying problem (depression).
Duvall & Wicklund (1972)
objective self-awareness; the bigger the discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self, the worse you feel
Souza & Cribari-Neto (2015)
people of lesser intelligence tend to be homophobic
Recall that Russell Fazio and his colleagues (1995) quickly flashed pictures of white or black faces and then had students decide whether words on a computer screen were either "good" or "bad" words. Finally, all participants were debriefed by an African-American experimenter. They found that there are basically three different "kinds" of people:
people who experience no negative feelings toward out-group members, people who act out their prejudice, and people who suppress automatically activated negative stereotypes.
Grant & Dweck (2003) found that college students who establish a performance goal for their academic work (i.e., grades), that they tend to:
perform more poorly in their classes
Duval and his colleagues found that participants who have received negative feedback about their abilities have a tendency to:
physically escape a situation that makes them self-aware
Recall that when they were given a choice between white or black dolls, African-American children as young as three years old often rejected the black doll (Clark & Clark, 1947). These findings by Kenneth and Mamie Clark suggest that
prejudice does harm to the self-esteem of minority children.
the three faces of racism
prejudice, discrimination, stereotypes
Freedman (1965)
repeated the kids-toy experiment, but brought them back 2 weeks later and asked them to rate the toys again. Found that the children still rated the toy lower when they received a mild threat, meaning the kids really did convince themselves that they didn't want the toy
ideal self -> current self
sadness; approach; try to be more smart, savvy, successful
Frustrated and angry unemployed autoworkers in Detroit murdered a young Asian man several years ago. This tragic incident is an example of
scapegoating.
According to the tenets of dissonance theory, when we cannot find sufficient external justification for acts such as saying something we don't truly believe, we will most likely
seek internal justifications.
I know that I'm not good at everything, but I'm proud of the things I'm good at.
self-affirmation
I like for people to point out my better qualities
self-affirmation
Edwin, who recites all the fellowships he has received.
self-affirmation, self-enhancement?
When we are in a state of _______,we evaluate or compare our current behavior against our internal standards and values.
self-awareness
material/social self vs. spiritual self today
self-concept vs. self-awareness
When I've bought a new outfit, I will ask my friends if they like it
self-enhancement
Kurt, who gets drunk the night before his midterm examination.
self-handicapping
Sometimes I find that I will not try as hard as I could on important tasks
self-handicapping?
_____ theory posits that when our attitudes or feelings are ambiguous, we infer our internal states by observing our own behaviors and the situation in which they occur.
self-perception
alcohol use is for ___________
self-regulation; you're not drowning your sorrows, you're drowning your awareness of the sorrows.
I tend to accept responsibility for my failures
self-verification?
Diener & Dweck (1978)
set up kids to fail at a puzzle; kids handle it in either 2 ways 1. mastery oriented (they got excited about the challenge and put in more work) 2. helpless (they pouted and boasted about other things to salvage their self-esteem) learned helplessness
Recall that E. E. Jones and Rika Kohler (1959) exposed people who were strongly in favor of segregation and strongly opposed to segregation to both plausible and silly arguments in favor of both sides of the issue. They found that people tend to remember:
silly or unconvincing arguments on the other side of the issue.
One of the hazards of institutional racism and institutional sexism as sources of negative stereotypes and prejudice is that they are
so subtle that we don't even notice these influences on our attitudes.
Inzlich & Ben-Zeev (2000)
stereotype threat- females in groups of 3 complete a standardized math test; when 2 females are present: 70% correct, when 2 males are present 55% correct
By categorizing her students according to eye color, Jane Elliot produced ___ among her students.
stereotypes, discrimination, prejudice
Someone whose negative gender stereotype has changed via ____ is most likely to classify women into such groups as "rabid feminists," "whores," and "earth mothers."
subtyping
According to Nisbett and Wilson, the best way to describe the relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and actions and our beliefs about why think, feel, and act the way we do is
telling more than we can know.
I am an above average student
the above average effect
I think that I work harder than most students
the above average effect
I think that I will be successful in my career
the above average effect?
Rosa feels depressed. Although she had hoped to graduate at the head of her class, her current GPA makes that impossible now. This example best illustrates what happens when
the actual self falls short of the ideal self.
the rationalization trap
the costly pursuit of high self-esteem/ low dissonance; frequent self-deception & self-presentation behaviors; inability to learn from mistakes; inability to adapt to normal social and life challenges
minimal group effect
the finding that people show favoritism toward in-group members even when group membership is randomly determined
cognitive dissonance
the mental discomfort experienced when our behavior or thoughts are inconsistent with a positive view of self
Recall that British social psychologist Henri Tajfel (1982) divided strangers into groups based on such criteria as whether their artistic taste represented a "Klee style" or a "Kandinsky style." Tajfel designed such experiments to determine
the minimal conditions for establishing in-group bias.
Leary
the sociometer hypothesis; says we have a fundamental need to belong; links our basic social motives to evolution and what used to make individuals valuable in a group (ability to mate and ability to contribute)
Recall that George Quattrone and Edward E. Jones (1980) showed rival Princeton and Rutgers students videotapes of decisions made by a male character. Half the time the character was allegedly from the participants' university, and half the time, he was from the rival university. Participants then predicted what percentage of students at that university would make a decision similar to the target's. In support of their "out-group homogeneity" hypothesis, Quattrone and Jones found that participants viewed one person's behavior as predictive of his group when
the target was a member of the rival school.
anchoring
the tendency, in making judgments, to rely on the first piece of information encountered or information that comes most quickly to mind; it's very difficult to adjust attitudes after stereotype formation
Judson Mills (1958) had elementary school children compete for attractive prizes. The children could cheat to win the prizes, but they didn't know that the experimenter would be assured of detecting the cheaters. Some children cheated, and others did not. The next day,
those who had cheated earlier become more lenient in their attitudes about cheating.
When I get married, I think that I will be unlikely to ever get divorced
unrealistic optimism
Recall that Tesser and Smith (1980) told some participants who performed poorly that the task was a sign of intelligence and told others nothing about the self-relevance of the task. Later, participants in both groups played the game of Password with a friend or with a stranger. Participants who thought their previous failure _______ were more likely to give ______________.
was self-relevant; hard clues to their friends
justifying discrimination and aggression
we dehumanize our enemies to justify us killing/acting rudely to them
representativeness & self-fulfilling prophecy
we tend to behave in ways that cause behavioral confirmation for our stereotypes
confirmation bias
we'll notice and process information consistent with our stereotypes
Recall that Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski (1985) showed participants a debate between an African-American and a European-American, and asked them to rate the debaters' skills. After the debate, in one condition, a confederate made a hostile racist comment about the debaters' skills; in another, a confederate made a nonracist comment; and in a third condition, no comment was made. These researchers found that when participants overheard a racist comment, their ratings of the African-American
were lower on a number of dimensions.
Fein & Spencer (1997)
white subjects with damaged self-esteem were more prejudiced; when you feel bad about yourself is when you really start lashing out with stereotypes
belief in a just world
you want your world to make sense, so naturally blaming the victim happens when people are afraid that the crime could have happened to them
performance goals vs. learning goals
grade chasing/ extrinsic vs. intrinsic/ desire to grow; helpless kids (performance) vs. mastery kids (learning)
lower IQ is associated with __________ prejudice
greater
learning goals = the _______ mindset; ______ self; _______ challenge
growth, flexible, thrives on
learning goals: ______ mindset; __________ intrinsic motivation; ______ persistence; ________ grades; ________ improvement; ______ cheating
growth, greater, more, higher, more, less
A person who believes in a just world would likely believe that a date-rape victim should
have known her date better.
Hull & Young discovered that the men with the greatest probability of relapsing into alcoholism were those with ___ and ___.
high self-awareness; poor life circumstances
bullies have ______ self-esteem
high, unstable (narcissism)
managing 2 self-discrepancies: ideal self & ought self
ideal self- what you want to be current self ought self- what you should be
I try to be polite and sophisticated when I'm around important people
ingratiation
Becky, who plays helpless in order to get her boyfriend's attention.
ingratiation, self-handicapping?