Social Psychology Final

Need for Status, Self-regard and belonging

(1) We only feel a sense of status when people are below us (2) Terror Management- with death on their minds, people shield themselves from the threat of their own death by derogating those who further arouse their anxiety by challenging their world-views. When people are feeling vulnerable about their morality, prejudice helps booster a threatened belief system

Resolving Social Dilemmas

- Regulation - Make the groups small (makes each person feel more responsible and effective) or make the sense that they are similar - Communication about dilemma forges group identity, which enhances concern for everyone's welfare - reward cooperation and punish exploitation - Encourage altruism

three ways people and situations interact (Snyder and Ickes)

1. A given social situation often affects different people differently 2. People often choose their own situations 3, People often create their situations - Shows reciprocal causation of seeing that people either react to or act on their environment

Preventing Groupthink

1. Be impartial- do not endorse any position 2. Encourage critical evaluation; assign a devils advocate, welcome input of a genuine dissenter 3. Occasionally subdivide the group and then reunite to air differences 4. Welcome critique from outside experts and associates 5. Before implementing, call a "second chance" meeting to air any lingering doubts

Cognitive Sources of Prejudice

1. Categorization 2. Distinctiveness 3. Attribution

TV's Effect on Behavior

1. Correlating viewership and behavior- the more violent the content, the more aggressive the child 2. Viewing Experiments- research confirms that exposure to media violence causes significant increase in aggression 3. Why Does T.V. Viewing Affect Behavior? a) Arousal - it arouses people. b) Disinhibits - it primes the person to think violence-related thoughts. c) Imitation - people imitate what they see

Pornography and Sexual Violence

1. Distorted Perceptions of Sexual Reality- seeing movies with this brings boys to believe that is acceptable 2. Aggression against women- it contributes to mens actual aggression towards women 3. Media Awareness Education- should be education on these things in terms of pornography and advertisements

Group Polarizations Experiments

1. Moscovici and Zavalloni observed that discussion enhanced French students' initially positive attitude toward their president and negative attitude toward Americans. 2. Mititoshi Isozaki found that Japanese university students gave more pronounced judgments of "guilty" after discussing a traffic case. When jury members are inclined to award damages, the group award similarly tends to exceed that preferred by the median jury member. 3. Myers and Bishop found that discussions among like-minded students increased the gap between their group and the other group. 4. This explains the rise of terrorism.

When do people help?

1. Often increases among those who are feeling guilty, in a good mood, or are deeply religious 2. People help when they have just observed a helpful model, they are not hurried, the victim is similar to them, they are in a small town or rural area or there are a few other bystanders

Racial Prejudice

1. Overt prejudice does not exist so much. 2. Prejudice in subtle forms does exist. 3. There is a widespread automatic prejudice reaction to African Americans. In a study, people more often accidentally shot people who were Black than those who were White.

Resisting Social Pressure

1. Reactance 2. Asserting uniqueness 3. Minority influence

Examples of Prejudice

1. Religion- after 9/11 and the Iraq war, 4/10 Americans admitted to have negative feelings towards Muslims 2. Obesity- when seeking love/employment overweight people (especially white women) face slim prospects; Marry less, have less desirable jobs, and make less money 3. Sexual orientation- gay youths experience homophobic bullying 4. Age- people's perception of the elderly as kind but frail , incompetent and unproductive predispose patronizing behavior like baby talk 5. Immigrants

Why do people help?

1. Social Exchange Theory 2. Reciprocity norm 3. Social-responsibility norm

Gender Prejudice

1. Strong gender stereotypes exist, and, as often happens, members of the stereotyped group accept the stereotypes. 2. These stereotypes are stronger than racial ones. 3. Attitudes toward women have changed as rapidly as racial attitudes. 4. Blatant gender is dying, but subtle biases live.

Influence of Video Games

1. The Games Kids Play - kids prefer violent games. 2. Effects of the Games Kids Play - it can be worse than watching on T.V. for many reasons. Anderson says that playing video games has 5 consistent effects - increased arousal, increased aggressive thinking, increased aggressive feelings, increased aggressive behaviors and decreased prosocial behavior. The more violent the game, the greater the effects.

Social Sources of Prejudice

1. Unequal Status - Unequal status breeds prejudice. 2. Socialization - family and culture passes on information a) The Authoritarian Personality - these people tended to be submissive to those with power over them and aggressive or punitive towards those whom they considered beneath them (like Jews in the Holocaust). b) Religion and Prejudice - the very devout are less prejudiced. c) Conformity - if it is socially accepted, then people will conform.

Conformity

Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard - If socially accepted people will conform and treat other prejudicially

Given situation affects differently

Because our minds do not easily see reality identically or objectively we respond to a situation as we construe it. Some people are more sensitive than others (Snyder) - eg: Japanese are more responsive to social expectations than the British

Stereotype Threat

Claude Steele believed in this; A fear that when facing a negative stereotype, ones performance will confirm it and therefore it inhibits performance in that situation - Could lead someone to believe that something is not so important to them, they look to a different domain because they feel uncomfortable in that one - If a person identifies as being good in a certain domain and is negatively stereotyped, then the effects are much greater, their performance goes down. Meaning, if someone thinks that they aren't good in a certain category and are told that they aren't, then it will effect them more than someone who doesn't think that they are good at it to begin with. The first person already doesn't care, so the stereotype doesn't really matter.

Claude Steele experiment

Did an experiment on stereotype treat with math tests: 1. They said women tend to do worse on the test and the women actually did worse 2. Other tests they told them that women usually do worse but on this test they did better - This is a reminder that stereotype can inhibit performance. We become distracted with not wanting to confirm it so much that we end up doing worse than what was thought of us. We confirm it because we are bothered by it

Stone Experiment

Gave 2 tests which are exactly the same but were explained differently: 1. When told is the test is about athletic ability, African Americans do better. White students in this class feel threatened and under performed 2. When told it was about athletic strategy, White Americans do better. The African American Students felt threatened and under performed

People often choose their Situations

Given a choice, sociable people elect situations that evoke social interaction. When you chose your college, you were also choosing to expose yourself to a specific set of social influences

Conformity Pressure

Group members rebuffed those who raised doubts about the group's assumptions and plans, at times by personal sarcasm.

Symptoms of Groupthink

Groups overestimate their might and right: 1. Illusion of Invulnerability= a group develops excessive optimism, which blinds them from danger 2. Unquestioned belief in the groups Morality= group members assume the inherent morality of their group and ignore ethical/moral issues Groups members also become close-minded: 3. Rationalization= the group discounts challenges by collectively justifying its decisions 4. Stereotype view of opponent= participants consider their enemies too evil to negotiate with or too weak and unintelligent to defend themselves against the planned initiate Group suffers from pressures towards uniformity 5. Conformity pressure= group members rebuff those who raise doubts about the groups assumptions and plans, at times not by argument but personal sarcasm. Faced with such ridicule most people fall into line 6. Self-censorship= members withheld/discounted their misgivings because disagreements were uncomfortable and the group seemed to be in consensus 7. Illusion of Unanimity= self-censorship and pressure not to puncture the consensus create his illusion. The apparent consensus then confirms the groups decision 8. Mind guards= some members protect the group from information that would call into question the effectiveness of morality of its decision

Groupthink

Irving Janis's idea of the tendency of decision making groups to suppress dissent in the interest of group harmony Stems from: - An amiable/cohesive group - Relative isolation of the group from dissenting viewpoints - A directive leader who signals what decision they favor

Risky Shift

James Stoner found that group decisions are usually riskier. This pccurs not only when a group decides by consensus; after a brief discussion, individuals too will alter their decisions 1.It has been discovered that this is not universal. There are decision dilemmas on which people became more cautious after discussion. Ina case where there is a big risk, groups did not show this same shift 2. Group discussion tends to enhance the group members initial leanings

Normative Influence

Leon Festinger argued in his theory of Social Comparison that we humans want to evaluate our opinions and abilities by comparing our views with others. We are most persuaded by people in our "reference group". We want people to like us, so we may express stronger opinions after discovering that others share our views

Social Comparison

Leon Festinger argued that we humans want to evaluate our opinions and abilities by comparison our views with others. We are most persuaded by people in our reference groups

Consistency

Moscivici found that more influential than a minority that wavers is one that sticks to its position

Religion and Prejudice

Religion is used as an excuse for social injustice. Religion does not cause prejudice. - the very devout are less prejudiced

Distinctive Events

We are sensitive to these, so the co-occurence of them is especially noticeable, more so than each of the times they do not occur together

Spontaneous Categorization

We find it especially easy and efficient to rely on stereotypes when we are pressed for time, preoccupied, tired, emotionally aroused, too young to appreciate diversity.

Stereotypes

a belief about the personal attributes of a group of people. To stereotype is to generalize. Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information.

Stereotype

a belief about the personal attributes of a group of people; They are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate and resistant to new information

Categorization

a cognitive process used to organize information by placing it into larger groupings of information

Defections from Majority

a minority person who has defected from the majority is even more persuasive than a consistent minority voice. Once defections begin, others soon follow, initiating a snowball effect.

Need to belong

a motivation to bond with others in relationships that provide ongoing, positive interactions

Reactance

a motive to protect or restore ones sense of freedom. It arises when someone threatens our freedom of action

The Authoritarian Personality

a personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status - Aggressive and punitive to those who they consider beneath them (like Jews in the Holocaust)

Prejudice

a preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members. It is an attitude which is a distinct combination of feelings, inclinations to act, and beliefs. A prejudiced person may dislike those different from self and behave in a discriminatory manner, believing them ignorant and dangerous

Interaction between people and social situations

a) A given social situation often affects different people differently. b) People often choose their situations. c) People often create their situations.

Why does TV affect behavior

a) Arousal - it arouses people. b) Disinhibits - it primes the person to think violence-related thoughts. c) Imitation - people imitate what they see

motivational sources of prejudice

a. the scapegoat theory b. social identity theory

self-fulfilling prophecy

an expectation that causes you to act in ways that make that expectation come true.

Social Responsibility Norm

an expectation that people will help those dependent upon them, those who really need it without regard for future exchanges

Sexism

an individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex, or institutional practices that (even if not motivated by prejudice) subordinate people of a given sex

Racism

an individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race, or institutional practices that subordinate people of a given race

Mindguards

appointment of members to the role of protecting against opposing views

Self-Confidence

belief in your worth and abilities as a person; conveyed by consistency and persistence. Nemeth and John Wachtler reported that any behavior by a minority that conveys this quality tends to raise self doubt amongst the majority

Unequal Status

breeds prejudice

Serge Moscovici

determined that there are 3 determinants of minority influence: a) Consistency - if a majority of participants judge blue slides as green, members of the majority will occasionally agree. b) Self-Confidence - an behavior by a minority that displays self-confidence tends to raise self-doubts among the majority. c) Defections from the Majority - a minority person who has defected from the majority is even more persuasive than a consistent minority voice. Once defections begin, others soon follow, initiating a snowball effect. (1) These factors would influence and strengthen the majority as well.

Snyder

did a study that led Purdue University students to believe that their "10 most important attitudes' were either distinct from or nearly identical to the attitudes of 10,000 other students. (a) When they next participated in a conformity experiment, those deprived of their feeling of uniqueness were the ones most likely to assert their individuality by nonconformity. (b) Individuals who have the highest "need for uniqueness" tend to be the least responsive to majority influence.

Latane and Darley

did research effects of the number of Bystanders as it greatly decreases intervention (people are more likely to help if they believe if they are alone) and broke it down to three reasons: 1. Noticing= you are less likely to notice something if others are around. It took people longer to notice smoke in the room when they were working with others as opposed to when they were in the room alone 2. Interpreting= those in the room with other people took much longer to report the smoke as being an issue. The way others act in a situation can determine the way you interpret a situation. If nobody else interprets the situation as being dangerous, neither will you. 3. Assuming Responsibility= people can interpret a situation as dangerous, but not think it is their responsibility and therefore not act upon it - People did not think that the presence of others made a difference and just shows us how we often don't know why we do what we do

Self-censorship

dissenters decide to keep quiet rather than make trouble, offend their friends, or risk being ridiculed

Vivid Cases

example that stands out in my mind are used as a shortcut to judging groups/will increase my prejudice

Illusion of Invulnerability

excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks

Social Identity Theory

feeling superior to others

superordinate goals

goals that unite all in a group and require cooperative effort

Informational Influence

group discussions elicit a pooling of ideas, most of which favor dominant viewpoint

Transformational Leadership

leadership that, enabled by a leader's vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence

Discourages Social Loafing

o If the task is challenging, appealing, or involving o When the task requires effort from everyone , like in an Olympic crew race everyone gives maximum effort as with a challenge everyone sees their effort as indispensable o When people see others in the group as unreliable/inept they are more likely to work harder o Adding incentives or challenging a group to strive for certain standards o When in a group of friends or feel they are identified with the group or indispensable to it o Cohesiveness and if you know you will see those in the group again (Israel's Kibbutzim)

Examples of Groupthink

o Pearl Harbor- U.S. were warned that the Japanese would attack in the Pacific. Military intelligence lost radio contact with Japanese aircraft carriers, which were moving through Hawaii , but the commanders were complacent and decided against providing an alert o The Bay of Pigs Invasion- JFK tried to overthrow Fidel Castro by invading Cuba o The Vietnam War- U.S. escalated the war despite warnings from gov't intelligence experts nd nearly all U.S. allies resulting in the loss of many lives

Examples of Social Loafing

o Tug of War Max Ringelmann found that the collective effort of tug-of-war teams was half the sum of individual efforts. This suggests that group members are less motivated when performing additive tasks. They blindfolded people and put them in a tug-of war apparatus. When people thought that they were pulling alone they pulled much harder than when they thought others were pulling with them o Shouting/Clapping: (a) They have found the noise produced by 6 people shouting/clapping as loud as they could be, was 3x less than one person doing it alone. (b) When people were blindfolded and had earmuffs on they were much louder when they thought that they were doing it alone vs. when they thought they were being helped by others o Exercise Bikes= When people were on the bikes they were less energetic when they thought output was pooled with everyone else. In the group condition people were tempted to free ride (benefitting from the group without contributing much to it) o Assembly line workers create 16% more product when their individual output was identified, even though they knew their pay would not be affected

Moscovici and Zavalloni (1969)

observed that discussion enhanced French students positive initially positive attitude toward their president and negative toward Americans

Self-concept

our sense of who we are, it contains not only personal identity but also social identity

Asserting Uniqueness

people feel uncomfortable when they are too different from everyone else, but they also feel discomfort when they are the same as everyone else. people feel better when they view themselves as being moderately unique (1) Snyder study (2) When children are incited to tell about themselves, they often tell the most distinctive attributes. (3) One is conscious of oneself insofar as, and in the ways that, one is different

Distinctive People

people take note of and define people by their most distinctive traits. We also pay extra attention to those who are distinct and it makes them seem more different than they actually are - It feeds self-consciousness: there is an experiment with a woman who thought she had a scar on her face but it was taken off. She misinterpreted comments and gestures because she thought she looked different

Free Riders

people who benefit from the group but give little in return

Distinctiveness

perceiving people who stand out

Tuner and Tajfel

posed the social identity theory: 1. We categorize- find it useful to put people into categories 2. We identify- we associate ourselves with certain groups (ingroups) which makes us feel good 3. We compare- we contrast our groups with other groups (outgroups)

People often create their situations

pre-conceptions can be self-fulfilling. We expect someone to be extroverted, hostile, intelligent, or sexy our actions toward the person may induce the very behavior that we expect - eg: A conservative environment is created by conservatives

Self-perpetuating stereotype

pre-judgements guide our attention and memories. Once we judge an item belonging to a category such as a particular race/sex, our memory for it later shifts toward the feature we assign to that category

Realistic group conflict theory

prejudice arises when groups compete for scarce resources

Kipling Williams

researched what happens when our need to belong is thwarted by ostracism: 1. People tend to respond with a depressed mood, anxiety, and hurt feelings. In an experiment even those left out of a game of catch feel deflated or stressed 2. He discovered even cyber-ostracism takes a toll. People played a game of catch on the web and the person not thrown to felt ostracized and depressed 3. He and his colleagues decided that they would ignore someone each day. Each person knew when they were going to be ignored and they still felt anxiety that day

Consequences of Prejudice

self-perpetuating stereotypes, self-fulfilling prophecy, stereotype threat

Stereotype Lift

stereotype/awareness of positive expectations can actually improve performance on tasks 1. A math test was given to Asian-American females and the stereotype is that they are bad at math. The stereotype about Asian-Americans is that they are good at math. They had a control group and 2 other groups all taking the same test. One group has a box for their gender at the top of the page, which reminds them of their gender and they under performed on the test. The other group had an ethnicity box on the top, this reminded them of the fact that they are Asian-Americans and so they performed better on the test 2. Female college students took a math test either with 2 women in the room or with 2 men in the room. The fact that they were in a room with men makes them more conscious of their female gender and so they under-performed on the test

Tragedy of the Commons

the "commons" are a shared and limited resource. If all use the resource in moderation it may replenish itself as rapidly as it is harvested. If not, then this occurs

Pluralistic Ignorance

the case in which people think that everyone else is interpreting a situation in a certain way, when in fact they are not. They don't realize how strongly others support the socially preferred tendency

Social Pressure

the entire set of psychological forces that are exerted on us by others' judgements, examples, expectations, and demands, whether real or imagined

Ostracism

the exclusion from society or a group. This challenges our need to belong

Socialization

the lifelong social experience by which people develop their human potential and learn culture, therefore also passing on previous prejudices

Leadership

the process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group

Leadership

the process by which individuals mobilize and guide groups a) Different people are good to lead in different situations. b) Effective leadership styles vary with the situations. c) Transformational Leadership - leaderships that, enabled by a leader's vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence

Attribution

the process of explaining one's own behavior and the behavior of others - merely observing another innocent person being victimized is enough to make the victim seem less worthy. This is because of the Just-world-phenomenon. People are indifferent to social injustice because they see no injustice. Those who assume a just world think a rape victim was asking for it/acted seductively. Such beliefs allow successful people that they deserve what they have

Discrimination's Impact

the self-fulfilling prophecy

Illusion of Unanimity

the statement of group agreement while private doubts and disagreements are suppressed

Fundamental Attribution Error

the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

Social Loafing

the tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts towards a common goal than when they are individually accountable - Being observed increases evaluation concerns vs. Being lost in a crowd decreases evaluation concerns

Minority Slowness Effect

the tendency of those who hold a minority opinion to express that opinion less quickly than people who hold the majority opinion

In-group Bias

the tendency to favor one's own group (1) supports a positive self-concept (2) This feeds favoritism- does not take much to provoke favoritism towards us and unfairness towards them. We are more prone to this when the group is small and lower in status relative to the outgroup

Group Polarization

theory proposed by Moscovici and Zavollini that group-produced enhancement of members preexisting tendencies. A strengthening of the members average tendency, not a split within the group. Meaning, the discussion typically strengthens the average inclinations of group members

Perceived Similarities and Differences

there is a strong tendency to see objects within a group as being more uniform than they really are. When we do this, we exaggerate the similarities and differences between them. - Can create outgroup homogeneity effect - When the group is our own, we are more likely to see diversity

Muzar Sherif Competition

took boys and put them in a 3 week summer camp... 1. He divided 22 unacquainted boys from Oklahoma into 2 groups, took them on separate buses and settled them in bunkhouses about half a mile apart at Oklahoma's Robber's Cave State Park. For most of the first week, each group was unaware of the other's existence. Each group became close through team-building activities. One group called themselves the "Rattlers" and the other group called themselves the "Eagles." Group identity had been established. 2. Near the end of the first week, the Rattlers discovered the Eagles on their baseball field. The camp staff proposed that there should be a tournament between the 2 groups. 3. The camp gradually degenerated into open warfare. Each side called the other names. Then there were garbage wars, flag burnings, cabin ransacking and fistfights. a) The competition had produced intense conflict, negative images of the outgroup, and strong in-group cohesiveness and pride. b) This was all without any cultural, physical, or economic differences between the 2 groups 4. To promote harmony among the warring campers, Sherif introduced superordinate goals. He created a problem with the camp water supply, which required both groups to cooperate. 5. After working together to achieve such superordinate goals, the boys ate together and enjoyed themselves around a campfire. Friendships sprouted across group lines. On the last day, the boys decided to travel home together on 1 bus. a) Sherif made strangers into enemies through competition and turned enemies into friends through superordinate goals. b) The same results were found in adults as well.

Discrimination

unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members

Dual Attitude System of Prejudice

we can have different explicit (consicous) and implicit (automatic) attitudes toward the same target - Implicit Association Test (Carpenter) assesses implicit cognition and showed via peoples speed of associations that people speedily associated "white" with "good" faster than black with good.

social exchange theory

we help after doing a cost-benefit analysis. We want to maximize rewards and minimize costs. If the anticipated rewards exceeds the costs then we help

reciprocity norm

we should return help to those who have helped us. We expect others to help us out later when we help them now

Prejudgements are self-perpetuating

whenever a member of a group behaves as expected, we duly not the fact, our prior belief is confirmed. When they act incosistently we explain the behavior away with: 1. Subtyping 2. Subgrouping

Terror Management

with death on their minds, people shield themselves from the threat of their own death by derogating those who further arouse their anxiety by challenging their world-views. When people are feeling vulnerable about their morality, prejudice helps booster a threatened belief system