Psych Final Exam
What is the jigsaw classroom and how is it thought to reduce prejudice?
"Jigsaw classroom": - Jigsaw Classroom: A classroom setting designed to reduce prejudice and raise the self-esteem of children by placing them in small, desegregated groups and making each child dependent on the other children in the group to learn the course material and do well in class How does it reduce prejudice? It is thought that the children will become more dependent of one another and by doing so will allow them to better respect one another and reduce the likelihood of prejudice emerging
six conditions to reduce prejudice
-mutual interdependence -a common goal -equal status -informal interpersonal contact -multiple contacts -social norms of equality
"Fundamental motives" were mentioned several times throughout the semester. Summarize three of these motives, and provide examples of each in action. What other fundamental motives might there be in your opinion?
4 fundamental motives -Belong We like to feel connected and belong. Nobody wants to be an outcast. So, we try to do things to fit in. Conformity- a change in one's behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. -Justify actions Post decision dissonance- Dissonance reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternative. Justifying your choice by making it sound better and making the alternative sound worse. Cognitive Dissonance (Smoking example) -Be accurate We do not like to be wrong or admit that we are wrong -Maintain a positive self-view We do things to make us fell feel better because we do not want to feel bad about ourselves Self affirmation- In the context of dissonance theory, a way of reducing dissonance by reminding oneself of of one or more of one's positive attributes. Other possible motives: Biological Fear Love
deindividuation
A phenomenon that occurs when immersion in a group causes people to become less aware of their individual values, leading to an increase in impulsive behavior Example: burning couches in the fort
Groupthink
A situation in which group members seek unanimous agreement despite their individual doubts
blaming the victim
An out-group attribution that causes a person to blame someone else for their own personal prejudices and discriminatory behavior.
Although we sometimes carefully process information, often times we operate on autopilot. Provide two examples of cases where we only use superficial information to make decisions, and two examples of cases where we process carefully. When do we engage in which kind of processing?
Automatic Thinking: "autopilot," Thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless Controlled Thinking: "process carefully", Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful
Automatic influences are pervasive. Describe how such influences are sometimes good (i.e., lead to better decisions, better well-being, etc.) and sometimes bad, using specific research examples.
Automatic influences of self-esteem: You're more likely to: Move to a state that is like your name Marry someone who shares your initials Join a profession that sounds like your name
Define automatic prejudice, and describe one way to measure whether or not someone is prejudiced at the automatic level. What kinds of effects does automatic prejudice have?
Automatic prejudice- an unconscious and automatic first thought about some person or a group of people A way to measure if someone is prejudiced at the automatic level is to use an ******implicit measure***** Implicit measures of attitudes do not require direct responses Connect faces with tools or guns Black faces faster to say gun White faces faster to say a tool
scapegoating
Blaming an innocent person or a group for one's own troubles
What basic cognitive process is minimal group research based on? What does this research demonstrate?.
Categorization Minimal group research: participants assigned to groups: Prefer Klee vs. Kandinsky (artists) Compare two paintings, whichever one you prefer, groups became proud ("KANDINSKY LOVERS!") always preferred their own group Then, participants evaluated own and other group Results: in-group favoritism (preferential treatment of in-groups) Purpose of this experiment is to determine how boring and meaningless a group can be and still show in-group favoritism Out-Group homogeneity: perception that our group members are more similar to each other than they really are Ex: "They are all alike"
What are two basic cognitive processes by which stereotypes form that were discussed in class?
Categorization- (automatic) the act of placing objects into meaningful groups We like to categorize people just like objects. We do this at a young age to make sense of the world. Thinking in terms of "us" and "them" In-groups: we are members Out-groups: we are not members Illusory correlations (automatic) - relating distinct and rare events; when we expect things to be related we fool ourselves into thinking that they are even when they are not Tendency to see relationships between events that are unrelated Example (from lecture): African Americans are louder than others Most likely to occur when events or people are distinctive or conspicuous (rare events) Example (from the book): You do not know many Muslims You hear about terrorist acts by Muslims in the news You hear about a Muslim trying to blow up a plane in the news Your illusory correlation is further confirmed You tend to notice more situations where they behave violently and are less likely to notice when they behave peacefully Also, you are less likely to notice situations where other religions (Jews or Christians) perform terror in the name of religion Consequently, your stereotype is confirmed by the illusory correlation
We've seen several times throughout the semester that what's within our own minds, and how we interpret the world, is often more important than objective reality. Summarize three ways in which we use what we already know in our judgments and behavior, and ignore the way the world "really is."
Confirmation bias: looking for information that backs our claims about the world and ignoring information that disproves our claims Obama fan only looks for reasons he was a good president and ignores the ways he was a bad president. Representative heuristics: objects according to how representative they are of a typical case Wear orange on game day so they must be a Vol fan. Implicit personality theories: A type of schema people use to group various personality traits together Nice and generous Others: Schemas and stereotypes
What is the contact hypothesis? What are the necessary conditions for the contact hypothesis to work? Based on these conditions, do you think contact is a viable means of reducing prejudice?
Contact Hypothesis: Contact between ethnic groups reduces prejudice. Increasing contact between ethic groups can decrease prejudice Conditions: -both groups are of equal status -both share a common goal that generates awareness of their shared interests -common humanity -contact is supported by law or local custom (social norms) Integrated housing worked, but desegregated schools didn't work.
What do schemas do for us (that is, what are their functions)?
Direct attention to what is important Help us interpret situations Guide recall
What is the "dissociation model" of stereotyping? Describe the two-step process involved in this model of prejudice, and describe what separates prejudiced from non-prejudiced individuals according to the model
Dissociation model of Prejudice (Devine, '89)- Prejudice learned early (as early as 6 years old) Everyone shows automatic activation of stereotypes "Prejudiced" people let stereotypes influence behavior "Non-prejudiced" people prevent discrimination through controlled processes 2 Step process involved in this model: Automatic processing: occurs whenever an appropriate stimulus is encountered either a member of a stereotyped group or contact with a stereotypical statement - causing the stereotypes for that group to be accessed from memory Controlled processing: occurs with your awareness - as when you choose to disregard or ignore the stereotyped information that has been brought to mind
holistic thinking style
EAST ASIAN. type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which objects relate to each other.
information processing
Encoding (receive)- consistent versus inconsistent info Learning new things about people; we will most likely remember stereotypes Remember consistent info with schema more than inconsistent because we already have a place for the consistent info Ex. artist has clothes all around his or her room-- we think all artists are slobs Sub-typing (ex. "Career woman") - stereotype of women is that they aren't likely to have a career like men - there is no career man label Interpreting ambiguous info (Turn to stereotype) Ex. black vs. white facial expressions, it took people longer to recognize positive expressions on black faces than white faces, even though the computer-generated expressions were identical Ex. You suck at math/girls suck at math
Group memberships play an important role in our lives, according to social psychologists. Summarize three ways in which our memberships in groups influence our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Groups help us... -Define who we are -Form social norms -Acceptable behavior -Accomplish behavior -Accomplish goals you couldn't on your own 1. Group think: when maintaining group cohesiveness is more important than good decision making Antecedents: 1. Cohesive 2. Isolated 3. Strong leader 4. Stress 5. No formal decision making 2. Social Facilitation: tendency to perform well on easy tasks and poorly on complex tasks in the presence of others (key: must be able to evaluate individual performance) the mere presence of others Triplett, 1898: Children wound fishing reels faster when others were present Zajonc's explanation: 1. Presence of others à arousal 2. Arousal à "dominant response" 3. Dominant response depends on task: easy task: performance increases Hard task: performance decreases Zajonc et. Al, "69: Cockroach study Cockroaches ran easy maze Other cockroaches: Present Absent Cockroaches ran faster when others were watching What about a hard maze? Ran slowly when others were present 3. Social Loafing: when people's individuals cannot be evaluated, the mere presence of others leads to relaxation and social loafing 4. Group Polarization: causes individuals to become more extreme in their attitudes when they were before group discussions
How do individualist and collectivist cultures differ? Describe how these differences apply in the domains of self-esteem, group memberships, and conformity.
Individualist cultures (i.e USA and Western Cultures) -Self-esteem Report higher self-esteem than collectivist cultures -Group memberships Emphasize personal achievement regardless of the expense of group goals -Conformity People will say they want to be unique and favor individuality BUT they do conform because conformity makes life easier and are social creatures who want to feel connected and belong Collectivist cultures (i.e. Eastern Cultures and Korea) -Self-esteem Derive self-esteem from status a valued group -Group memberships The group is more important than the individual -Conformity Will often do what others want them to as the group is first Individualist vs. Collectivist cultures: Individualist Focuses more individual rather than group Collectivist The needs of the group matter more than the needs of a particular person (tried to increase group harmony)
We discussed four ways in which stereotypes self-perpetuate, what are they?
Information Processing (encoding/subtyping) Confirmation Bias Self-fulfilling prophecies Attributions
What does it mean to say that prejudice is inevitable? Describe two situations when automatic prejudice/stereotype activation does NOT happen?
It is inevitable due to an ingrained in-group favoritism 3-4 day old babies portray in-group favoritism It is an automatic process -When opportunity and motivation is present as well as controlled processing then there is a chance that prejudice/stereotype activation won't occur -In a situation where one is not speaking to someone in an out-group 1. One situation could deal with people who do not have automatic prejudices/stereotypes because they're fighting the good fight 2. We can't help but encode, but there are expectations. If someone is in your way and you're not paying attention, it's not inevitable.
Social psychology tends to focus on the power of the situation over that of the individual. Describe three domains where social forces trump individual personalities in determining social behavior.
Many options (do what you remember): Deindividuation, Groupthink, Group norms, Social Facilitation, obedience.
Old fashioned vs modern racism
Old fashioned racism 1. Socially accepted, blatant, relatively rare Modern racism 1. Outwardly unprejudiced, inwardly prejudiced
What are the two reasons out-group homogeneity effect occurs that were discussed in class?
Out-Group Homogeneity Effect- perception that out-group members are more similar to each other than they really are Ex. Jane Elliot Experiment What two reasons does it occur?: Less contact with group so don't see members as individuals If we know one thing about one of the out-group members then we will are more likely to feel you know something about all of them (ex. Media)
Provide two examples of schemas from two different domains in social psychology, identify what kind of schema each is, and how it's come in handy for you. How do schemas fail?
Person schema: contain information about the characteristics of people Automatically encode so that they guide impressions Things that are automatically encoded Gender Age Race Role schema: provide information about how to act in certain roles Role as student and teacher Role as patient and doctor How do they fail: Self-fulfilling prophecy Perseverance effect: they persist even after they are disproven Somewhat predictive
Throughout the semester we have talked about how the ABC's of social psychology can be applied to numerous topics. Choose two of the topics and carefully describe how they can be applied, giving examples in each case.
Prejudice Affect= prejudice Behavior= discrimination Not hiring someone because they are female Cognition= stereotypes All nurses are females Self-concept- The contents of the self Affect= self esteem How people feel inside Behavior = knowledge of actions (self-perception) Cognition= beliefs about the self
Define prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination, and discuss how they are related.
Prejudice- Affective. A hostile or negative attitude towards people in a distinguishable group based solely on someone's group membership (negative or positive response to them) Fears, threats, anger, envy, pity etc. towards certain groups Discrimination- Behavior. Acting on your feelings towards people, unjustified negative or harmful acts towards members of a group solely because they are in that group. Stereotype- Cognition. Beliefs about the traits of groups. These traits are assigned to virtually all members of the group. Ex. engineers are geeks, blondes are dumb They are related because you are treating someone differently because they are in a different group of people. Discrimination and prejudice are related as they both deal with negative feelings towards groups of people. Prejudice leads to discriminations and the prejudice may have been formed by a stereotype someone has about a person in a specific group
What is "realistic conflict," and how does it lead to prejudice?
Realistic conflict theory holds that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in prejudice and discrimination. Limited resources means for political power, and for social status which evokes conflict between parties. EXAMPLE Robber's Cave Study (Sherif, '61) Kids at camp assigned to groups: Eagles or Rattlers First the groups increased cohesiveness like building project and preparing group meals Then the researchers set up competitive games: such as football, baseball and tug-of-war Caused conflict and tension between the two groups Groups made to compete Competition led to hostility and conflict
priming
Recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait or concept.
Social influence is pervasive. Summarize three ways in which we are influenced by others, drawing from different topic areas that we've covered.
Role-following Example: Stanford Prison Study Decision making Example: Deindividuation: what happens when our own identities are diminished and we tend to grow into group norms Example: KKK Social learning Attitude Aggression Groupthink: kind of thinking in which maintaining group cohesiveness an solidarity is more important than considering the facts in a realistic manner Maintain a cohesive group Conformity: Asch: Line Study Conform to the group even if it is wrong answer Bystander Intervention: Latane and Darley, '70: smoky room study Participants complete survey alone or in groups of 3 Experimenter pumps smoke into room Who goes for help within two minutes? 50% of alone participants 12% of 3-person groups
Describe the steps involved in a self-fulfilling prophecy, and explain how it applies to two social psychological phenomena that were covered this semester.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: Believe something about X Belief changes how you act towards X Behavior forces X to conform to your expectations Applies to schemas Expect homemade cookie to be better than store-bought Eat homemade cookie with enthusiasm and store-bought to be polite Homemade tastes better because you ate it happily Applies to stereotype threat: Stereotype threat: apprehension experienced by a member of a group that their behavior might confirm a stereotype Men and women take a math test. When women thought that the test was designed to show gender differences women did worse than men. When they were told gender had nothing to do with the test they performed equally with men.
Describe Sherif's (1961) summer camp experiment. What was learned about conflict and contact from it?
Sherif's (1961): ~ kids at camp assigned to groups ~ Groups made to compete ~ Competition led to hostility and conflict What was learned: Eagles and the Rattlers when conflict and competition were instigated, stereotyping and prejudice resulted. Once hostility and distrust had been established, removing conflict and the competition did not restore harmony. Sherif reduced hostility using mutual interdependence, having a common goal, equal status, friendly/informal setting for contact, there are multiple members from each group and the larger social norms promote equality
What is stereotype threat? How is it thought to happen and who is susceptible to it?
Stereotype threat: apprehension experienced by members that their behavior might confirm a cultural stereotype How does this happen? Normative conformity: tendency to go along with the group in order to fulfill the group's expectations and gain acceptance ??????? Who is susceptible to it? African americans, women, latinos, low income people, and the elderly -The more conscious individuals are of the stereotype of their group, the greater is the effect on their performance. Example: GRE test at Stanford African Americans and white students Stereotype: African American "intellectual inferiority" Half of student thought they were being measured by their intellectual ability Other half of students examined the process of test taking African Americans who thought their abilities were not being measured performed as well as white students African Americans student who thought the test was measuring their abilities did not perform as well as white student or as well as the African Americans in the other group Also so if the individual indicated their race prior to the test African Americans did significantly worse than they would otherwise
What is "symbolic racism," and how does it relate to political attitudes?
Symbolic racism- certain political issues become symbolic playing fields for racial prejudice Example: Opposition to affirmative action, desegregation, Obamacare Conservatism? Or racial Prejudice? Do you really not agree with Obamacare or do you not like it because he's black Often a person's political stance on an issue was based upon racial prejudice rather than putting thought about politics behind their stance
Fundamental Attribution Error
Tendency to explain our own and other peoples behavior entirely in terms of personality traits and to underestimate the power of social influence
Describe how automatic processes have been incorporated into attribution, stereotyping, and persuasion research. In your opinion, what percentage of our behavior is determined by automatic thought processes? Explain your reasoning.
The conscious part (controlled and automatic) =tip of iceberg The unconscious part (all automatic) =iceberg under the surface Automatic processes influence: 1.Perception perceptions of objects perceptions of people perceptions of ourselves 2. Attributions trying to explain other people 3. Behavior Automatic prejudice Automatic perception-behavior link Cognition precedes perception When do automatic processes influence us? -When low in motivation/opportunity -When should automatic processes influence us? -When we've fed our "guts" the right info How to correct for automatic "biases"? Notice bias, notice how it's influencing you...
Contact hypothesis
The idea that stereotypes and prejudice toward a group will diminish as contact with the group increases.
Social facilitation
The presence of others affecting your performance. Cockroach
Construal
The world as interpreted by the individual
analytic thinking style
WESTERN. type of thinking where people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context.
Who are the victims and perpetrators of prejudice?
We are all victims and perpetrators of prejudice for no reason other than our membership to an identifiable group. It isn't just minority groups. Prejudice is a two way street and it often flows from the minority group to the majority group as well as in the other direction.
obedience
We will be more obedient when an authority figure tells us to do something Proven by Milgram study When the researcher was not in the room the participants were less likely to fully shock the person and the ones that did were authoritarian
Princeton Trilogy: 1933-2001
Whites viewed blacks as less superstitious, lazy, ignorant, more musical What changed? 1950s-1960s: opponents to institutional racism grew more vocal ex. MLK Hearts and minds did not change. Institutions changed and hearts and minds somewhat conformed.
Attributions have come up repeatedly this semester. Why do the attributions we make matter so much? Describe three domains in social psychology where making one attribution instead of another has important psychological consequences. *
Why do they matter so much? Describe how we explain other people's behavior Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)- Overestimating internal causes of behavior and underestimating external causes. Ex. Bob is dumb and cannot read. Bob grew up poor and his school had few resources. Example from the book: Undergraduate students split into groups either competitive or cooperative and asked to play a game where their characteristic fit under Competitive (Wall Street Game) Cooperative (Community Game) The name of the game made a tremendous difference on how people played the games The actor-observer difference- External attributions for self and internal attributions for others. Ex, I fell because the sidewalk had a crack in it (external). You fell because you are a clumsy fool (internal). Internal attribution- belief that a person is acting a certain way because of their personality, attitude, or character. Ex. My mom yelled at me because she enjoys yelling (internal attribution). She yelled because had a bad day (external attribution and the real reason she yelled).
has racism declined over the years?
Yes it has declined over the years. old-fashioned racism: socially accepted, blatant, relatively rare. modern racism: outwardly unprejudiced, inwardly prejudiced racism still there, but coming out more subtlety because of social norms The Princeton Trilogy: 1933, 1951, 1969, 2001 "Circle the traits that apply to Blacks" Results changed each time the study was conducted Key trends (1933-2001): Whites viewed Blacks as: Less superstitious, lazy, ignorant More musical 1950's-1960's: Opponents to institutional racism grew more vocal 1970's-80's: Symbolic racism ******symbolic racism: certain political issues become symbolic playing fields for racial prejudice opposition to affirmative action, desegregation, Obamacare people don't like it when its linked to Obama, a black person, but like it when it is linked to Hillary Clinton 1980's-90's: The Cognitive Revolution: prejudice=natural byproduct of a limited info processing system
confirmation bias
a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
self-fulfilling prophecy
an expectation that causes you to act in ways that make that expectation come true. Ex. Believe something about x and then x acts a certain way.
availability heuristic
base judgments off the ease at which something comes to mind
representative heuristic
classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case
Controlled thinking
conscious, intentional, voluntary, effortful. The more people believe in free will the better.
attributions
inferences that people draw about the causes of events, others' behavior, and their own behavior. Ultimate attribution error: groups --- does something good in the group (we are good) Another good does something bad (they are bad) Our group does something bad it was an accident Helps us maintain that we are good) Positive in-group behaviors are internally attributed Positive out-group behaviors externally attributed
three types of heuristics
judgmental, availability, representative
ultimate attribution error
make dispositional attributions about an entire out-group
Judgmental Heuristics
mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently
schemas
mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people notice, think about, and remember (can lead to self fulfilling prophecy)
The social cognition approach
need to be accurate; this need can lead to self-fulfilling prophecy. *EXPECTATION interferes with PERCEPTION
automatic thinking
nonconcious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless. (Using our past knowledge to organize and interpret new information)
out-group homogeneity
tendency to view all individuals outside our group as highly similar
normative conformity
the desire to fit into a group because of fear of rejection
mutual interdependence
the need to depend on one another to accomplish a goal that is important on both sides
The self esteem approach
the need to feel good about ourselves
social distance
the perceived difference or similarity between oneself and another person
microaggressions
the small insults and put-downs that many members of minority groups experience
in-group bias
the tendency to favor one's own group
illusory correlation
the tendency to see a relationship between things that aren't related
Elaboration Likelihood Model
theory identifying two ways to persuade: a central route and a peripheral route. centrally, when people are motivated and have the ability to pay attention to the argument in the communication, and peripherally, when people do not pay attention to the arguments but are instead swayed by surface
social cognition
ways in which people think about themselves and the social world
Counterfactual reasoning
where people mentally change some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been.
