15: Groups and prejudice

Question 1

Prejudice

Answer 1

the general attitude we have toward members of a particular group - how we feel about them

Question 2

Stereotype

Answer 2

refer to generalized beliefs we hold about groups - beliefs that reflect what we think members of a particular group are like (both positive and negative)

Question 3

Social psychologists often distinguish between explicit and implicit stereotypes and prejudices.
What are explicit and implicit stereotypes?

Answer 3

EXPLICIT: if you ask yourself how you feel toward members of group x, the attitude you’re aware of is your explicit prejudice toward the group.

IMPLICIT: But you may also have implicit attitudes toward group x - prejudices you may not be aware of and that you can’t directly report.

Question 4

Which test can be used to access indirectly access prejudice?

Answer 4

The implicit association test (IAT)

Question 5

Discrimination

Answer 5

refers to behaviors directed toward others because of their group membership.

Question 6

Institutionalized discrimination

Answer 6

is discrimination that has been built into the legal, political, economic and social institutions of a culture (e.g. laws)

Question 7

What are the general costs of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination?

Answer 7

• Material costs (e.g. women do not get paid as much as men for the same work)
• Psychological costs (e.g. being afraid of confirming the stereotypes, or performing beneath potential)

Question 8

Why do people have prejudiced feelings, stereotyped thinking and discriminatory actions?

Answer 8

Because they can serve several important goals

- Can help support and protect one's own group 
- Can provide social approval 
- Can bolster personal and social identities 
- Can help us navigate complex, information-rich social environments with an economy of mental effort

Question 9

Minimal intergroup paradigm

Answer 9

an experimental procedure in which short-term, arbitrary, artificial groups are created to explore the foundations of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination

Question 10

ingroup bias

Answer 10

benefiting members of their own groups over members of other groups

The roots of the ingroup bias likely lie in our evolutionary past.

Question 11

Realistic group conflict theory

Answer 11

proposes that intergroup conflict emerges when groups find themselves competing for the same material resources (seeing the others as a threat)

Question 12

Social dominance orientation

Answer 12

describes the extent to which a person wants his or her own group to dominate and be superior to other groups.

Question 13

which factors affect social dominance orientation?

Answer 13

○ individuals with a strong social dominance orientation prefer social systems in which groups are ordered according to their worth. (often their own is ought to be wealthier and more powerful).

○ People having a strong social dominance orientation are particularly likely to hold negative stereotypes and prejudices against lower-status groups. 

	○ Believing that your group is threatened - especially if you highly identify with it - will increase your social dominance orientation. 

	○ Being member of a dominant group or even being temporarily assigned a position of power, also creates or enhances a social dominance orientation.

Question 14

When economic times are tough, will we espect to see increased or decreased ingroup favoritism?

Answer 14

INCREASED

Question 15

In relation to intergroup competition, one can talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy, which?

Answer 15

Competition and hostility breed increased competition and hostility. As people view others as competitors, they themselves begin to compete, inadvertently bringing about or amplifying the competition they initially feared.

Question 16

In the self-fulfilling spiral of intergroup competition, we see two fundamental forms of the person-situation interaction, which?

Answer 16

1. competitive situations create competitive people and groups who possess little trust for one another, illustrating once again that situations can change people in important ways.
2. competitive, untrusting people and groups create ever more competitive and hostile situations.

Question 17

People who report being religious tend to be more prejudiced than those who do not.

There are 4 kinds of religiosity, which? and how do they relate to prejudices?

Answer 17

1. extrinsic religiosity = they see religious worship as an opportunity to make friends, gain status or find support in difficult times.
   
   • These groups are more negatively prejudiced against racial outgroups, gays and lesbians than nonreligious people
2. Intrinsic religiosity = hoping to live their religion and internalize its teachings (tolerance etc.)
   
   • These seem less prejudiced (but maybe they just want to appear more tolerant)
3. Fundamentalism = characterized by a certainty in the absolute truth of ones religious beliefs
   
   • People who score high on fundamentalism tend to possess more negative views of racial and religious outgroups, gays etc. Than nonreligious people
4. Quest religiosity - from this perspective religion is a never-ending personal journey toward truth.
   
   • Few prejudices

Question 18

scapegoating is?

Answer 18

the process of blaming members of other groups for one’s frustrations and failures.

- Scapegoating is usually directed toward easily identifiable groups against whom socially acceptable prejudices already exist. 
- By blaming other groups for our own misfortunes and frustrations, we are better able to deal with our self-doubts and to feel good about ourselves.

Question 19

social identity

Answer 19

the beliefs and feelings we have toward the groups to which we see ourselves belonging

Question 20

Authoritarianism

Answer 20

the tendency to submit to those having greater authority and to denigrate those having less authority.

Question 21

Is it true/false that negative prejudices are produced by sick minds?

Answer 21

False, We all hold negative prejudices of some sorts

Question 22

When our self-images are shaken by frustration, failure or other threats - are we then more/less likely to derogate members of stigmatized group?

Answer 22

More likely. It can increase self-esteem.

Question 23

How do ingroup favoritism relate to self-esteem?

Answer 23

○ Individuals having LOW self-esteem tend to be negatively prejudiced against outgroup members, and they show consistent favoritism toward the ingroup.

○ But individuals with HIGH self-esteem also favor their own groups, often to an even greater extent than do people with low self-esteem.

- This may be especially pronounced when they are threatened by personal failure 
- Challenges to self-image are particularly threatening to people who hold themselves in high regard.

Question 24

In which way does time pressure affect stereotyping?

Answer 24

stereotypical biases occur automatically, without conscious attention when under time pressure.

• e.g. thinking a man is reaching for a gun instead of a wallet

Question 25

stereotyping

Answer 25

the process of categorizing an individual as a member of a particular group and then inferring that he or she possesses the characteristics generally held by members of that group.

They provide ready interpretations, ready explanations and different standards for evaluating members of different groups. = lot of information for little effort.

Question 26

perceived outgroup homogeneity effect

Answer 26

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which members of other groups are similar to one another.

Question 27

How does “high need for structure” affect stereotyping?

Answer 27

Individuals with a high need for structure strive for simple ways to view the world. Because stereotyping are one way to simplify the world, such persons are more likely yo use their existing stereotypes to understand others and more likely to form stereotypes of new groups.

Question 28

How does moods and emotions affect stereotyping?

Answer 28

○ moods and emotions can powerfully influence whether and how we stereotype others.

○ Positive moods increase stereotyping (no need to be accurate) 

○ Emotions that are arousing (anger, fear, excitement etc.) reduce the amount of cognitive resources available thereby making stereotyping more likely. 

○ Moods and emotions also influence which social categories people use to understand others. 

○ People in negative moods are more motivated to go beyond their stereotypes to understand others.

Question 29

the ignorance hypothesis

Answer 29

An explanation on why negative prejudices and stereotypes exist = that “people just don’t know any better”

According to this hypothesis, if people only learned what members of other groups are truly like, they wouldn’t stereotype, be prejudiced or discriminate against them.

Question 30

The goal-based strategy involves two established points, which?

Answer 30

1. prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination serve important goals for people
2. specific features of the person and situation bring these goals into prominence.

Question 31

According to the goal-based strategy, which 4 steps should we take to reduce prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination?

Answer 31

1. We might attempt to change features of the person (e.g. anxious people stereotype more, so we must reduce their anxiety) = CHANGE THE PERSON
2. We might try to change features of the situation (e.g. if people are more likely to form and express prejudices when it is socially acceptable to do so, a community concerned with this might focus on some of its energies on creating and advertising social norms that disapprove of prejudice and approve of intergroup tolerance) = CHANGE THE SITUATION
3. We might give people alternative ways to satisfy their goals (e.g. people sometimes derogate members of other groups to boost their own self-regard - they should have other ways to feel good about themselves) = PROVIDE THE PERSON WITH AN ALTERNATIVE WAY TO SATISFY HIS OR HER GOAL
4. We might try to activate goals incompatible with prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination (e.g. try to make people to be fair and empathize with members of the other group) = CHANGE THE GOAL

Question 32

In which situations are contact helpful to reduce prejudice?

Answer 32

• when groups contain stereo disconfirming members
• when contact is supported by local norms
• when status is equal in the contact setting
• when contact occurs at the individual level
• when the contact is rewarding
• then contact involves collaborative work towards common goals

Question 33

How is a group defined?

Answer 33

A group consists of two or more individuals who influence each other.

Question 34

What are groupings?

Answer 34

a mere collection of individuals - e.g. people at a busstop

Question 35

The presence of other people can influence our performance, how? and in which direction - better/worse?

Answer 35

1. the presence of others improve performance on well-mastered tasks
2. the presence of others decrease performance on unmastered tasks.

this is because of increased arousal which facilitates dominant responses (den respons som er bedst indlært)

Question 36

What is social facilitation?

Answer 36

Improvement in individual performance when working with other people rather than alone → being observed.

The presence of others increases the likelihood of dominant responses, leading to better performance on well-mastered tasks and worse performance on unmastered tasks.

Question 37

What is Evaluation apprehension?

Answer 37

when people believe that observers are explicitly assessing their performances, they become increasingly aroused, and this arousal further facilitates dominant responses

Question 38

What is deindividuation?

Answer 38

In groups, people may lose their senses of individual identity and, as a result, relax their inhibitions against behaving in ways inconsistent with their normal values - a process called deindividuation

Question 39

Groups deindividuate their members in two ways, which?

Answer 39

1) crowds sometimes mask the identities of their individual members, making them anonymous and less accountable for their actions = the anonymity of being in a group
2) by distracting members attention away from their individual selves and their personal values (Presence of crowd leads to focus on its values and norms rather than your own)

Question 40

groups can be seen as a dynamical system, what does this mean?

Answer 40

Dynamical system = a system (e.g. a group) made up of many interacting elements (e.g. people) that changes and evolves over time

○ Research: over time residents living near one another began to hold similar attitudes toward their community council. Not because people relocated to be closer to those holding similar beliefs, but because people influenced, and were influenced by, those living near them.

Question 41

What characterize a “real group”?

Answer 41

Real groups are likely to have members who are interdependent (they need each other to reach their shared goals) and share a common identity, and they are also likely to have a stable structure.

Question 42

which elements are central in a groups structure?

Answer 42

• They may possess INJUNCTIVE NORMS - shared expectations for how group members ought to behave if they wish to receive social approval and avoid disapproval.
• They may create ROLES for their members - shared expectations for how particular group members should behave.
• A group may also have a STATUS HIERARCHY, in which members are ranked in terms of their social power and the influence they have over other members.
• A structured group usually also has a stable COMMUNICATION NETWORK through which information flows to its members.
• A final feature of group structure is COHESIVENESS, or the strength of the bonds among group members.
  
  • Groups can be cohesive because their members enjoy being with one another (interpersonal cohesiveness) or because they are all committed to the groups task (task cohesiveness).

Question 43

why do people belong to groups?

Answer 43

People seem to have a basic “need to belong” and group living is an universal feature of human life.
○ Being excluded from a group is a horribly uncomfortable, even painful, experience and people do go a long way to be accepted by others.

○ People seek groups for various reasons

	- Because they allow us to express our values publicly 
	- Because they help us define ourselves 
	- Because they provide needed emotional support
	- To accomplish tasks they can't effectively accomplish otherwise 
	- To acquire and share information in especially potent ways
	- To gain the material and social benefits of leadership

Question 44

what is Social loafing?

Answer 44

reducing one’s personal efforts when in a group as the group grow larger

Therefore groups rarely perform to their full potential

Question 45

Is diversity in groups valuable?

Answer 45

Heterogeneous groups may have important advantages over homogeneous groups.

Like the value of different personalities, the value of group diversity depends greatly on the task.

Question 46

What are the costs and benefits of cultural diversity in a group?

Answer 46

• Culturally diverse groups may generate a wider range of solutions to problems, especially if the diversity is related to the task.
  
  • The costs may be especially great when the diversity is racial or ethnic - people tend to be prejudiced against members of other racial and ethnic grous and often don’t understand them very well.

Question 47

In social psychological terms, a stable, well-functioning corporation has a transactive memory - what does this mean?

Answer 47

transactive memory: knowledge located within the minds of its individual members and ways to spread it through communication
□ Because transactive memory provides such rich information, group decisions can be more accurate than individual decisions.
□ But groups don’t always lead their members to make better decisions - e.g. sometimes groups just don’t possess accurate information and useful information doesn’t always get shared effectively.

Question 48

In which ways does uncertain circumstances affect our need for a group?

Answer 48

Uncertain circumstances motivate people to seek information from others - to engage in the social comparison processes.

We often prefer to group with others in the same boat and with those who have already completed the journey (can reveal to them what lies ahead).

Question 49

How does majority influence group decisions and why might this be?

Answer 49

If discussing a topic with 10 friends, where 7 of them is pro the topic and 3 of them is against, the desire to gain social approval often push the beliefs and attitudes toward the majority view.

□ Members of groups are likely to hear more arguments favoring the group inclination than arguments opposing it.
- As a result of this persuasive arguments process, the group view, on the whole, becomes more extreme than it was prior to the discussion

□ Discussion illuminates the group norm
- You could become a more treasured member of the group by becoming more favorable toward the major group opinion etc.

Question 50

What is group polarization?

Answer 50

when group discussion leads members to make decisions that are more extremely on the side of the issue that the group initially favored.

The opinions of the friends would probably also shift further toward being pro on the topic (because of majority influence)

Question 51

what is the risky shift?

Answer 51

A phenomenon where discussions led group members to make riskier decisions than they would as individuals

Question 52

What is minority influence?

Answer 52

Minority influence occurs when opinion minorities persuade others of their view.

Question 53

why is it difficult to accomplish minority influence?

Answer 53

It is difficult to accomplish for several reasons:
□ Opinion minorities are generally less able to exert social pressures on others.
◊ Because there are fewer of them, they can’t provide as much social acceptance and threaten as much social isolation, as can those in majority.

□ Opinions expressed by larger numbers of people gain credibility and validity

Question 54

when are opinion minorities most persuasive?

Answer 54

WHEN:
® They hold steadily to their views
® They once held the majority position
® They’re willing to compromise a bit (fairness/impartiality)
® They have at least some support from others
® They present their views as comparable with the majority view but as just a bit “ahead of the curve”
® The audience wants to make an accurate decisions and pay close attention to the quality of arguments the two sides present

BUT:
Even when minorities are persuasive, however, their influences may remain indirect or hidden (e.g. people are privately swayed by minority arguments, but may still go along with the majority in public because they want to avoid social disapproval)

Question 55

What is groupthink?

Answer 55

a style of group decision making characterized by a greater desire among members to get along and agree with one another than to generate and critically evaluate alternative viewpoints and positions.

Question 56

Who wants to be the leader of a group?

Answer 56

Leadership provides power and status, enables goal achievement and is a sign of accomplishment.
○ Logically, then, people ought to seek leadership when they are ambitious - when they have a strong desire to exercise power over others or when they have a strong urge to do great things.
- “The need for power” is the desire to attain prestige, status and influence over others.
- “Achievement motivation” is the desire to do something exceptionally well for its own sake

Question 57

It seems that men, in general, are somewhat more interested in becoming leaders that are women. Why might this be?

Answer 57

This general male preference may be linked to the hormone testosterone which motivates competition for status.

Question 58

What situational factors trigger one’s desire to pursue a leadership role?

Answer 58

○ “voids at the top” - leadership opportunities open up when current leaders die or depart the group. They also become available as the group grow larger.

○ People sometimes just happen to be well situated for leadership - they’re in the right place at the right time.

Question 59

Who gets to lead a group?

Answer 59

○ Good leaders are usually seen as possessing relevant skills (e.g. high intelligence ore levels of expertise)
○ Good leaders are expected to be invested in the group
○ Group members pick as their leaders individuals whose “styles” seem to fit well with current circumstances
○ In people’s minds, leaders have a certain “look” to them (Physically mature facial features (narrow eyes, broad jaw, angular face etc.))

Question 60

When are leaders effective?

Answer 60

• Leadership success is contingent on the group’s needs
• As a group’s circumstances change, the leader’s style usually must change as well if he or she hopes to remain effective
• Whether a particular leadership style is effective may depend on the other resources available to the leader
• Autocratic leadership (individual control over all decisions and little input from group members) may be effective only when leaders can supervise their members closely

Question 61

What is Transformational leadership?

Answer 61

leadership that changes the motivations, outlooks, and behaviors of followers, enabling the group to reach its goals better

These leaders are effective not because they change themselves, but because they transform the group

Question 62

What characterize a transformational leader?

Answer 62

□ Transformational leaders are charismatic and engage the aspirations and self-concepts of followers so that the successes of the group become the followers’ own personal successes.

□ They help group members with diverse sets of skills better take advantage of this potential strength

Question 63

which gender tends to use the transformational style the most?

Answer 63

Woman leaders tend to exhibit more transformational style than do men
□ Because of this they may be in a somewhat better position to lead effectively

Question 64

How is can social loafing be prevented?

Answer 64

1. By individualizing the collective task
   □ De-anonymize output (label individual contributions)
   □ specify unique, non-overlapping tasks (assign specific tasks)
2. Improve perception of the task by adding:
   □ Meaning
   □ Importance
   □ Challenge
3. Improve the group
   □ Increase cohesiveness
   □ Select collectivistically-oriented group members (women, non-westeners)

Question 65

When 2 groups with different attitudes on a topic are put together to discuss it. What will happen?

Answer 65

Polarization

Both groups will be more extreme in their attitudes

Question 66

There are 2 processes to explain polarization, which?

Answer 66

1. informational influence
   - hearing convincing arguments advocating for the same position
2. normatice influence
   - adopting views because they are held by others (in own group) - i.e. social comparison

Question 67

In which groups is groupthink found?

Answer 67

In groups with:

• high cohesiveness
• homogenous members (lack of diversity perspectives)
• isolation from outside influence
• directive leadership
• unsystematic decision-making procedures (mere fokus på enighed end rette beslutning)

Question 68

What are the symptoms of groupthink?

Answer 68

• overestimation of the group (positive bias)
• closed-mindedness
• pressures toward uniformity (selvcensur)
• defective decision-making (biased processing of information, failure to examine risks etc.)

Question 69

There are 5 implications of an evolutionary approch to prejudice, which?

Answer 69

1. Threat detection orients around reducing false negatives (hellere være FOR sikker)
2. Different threats will be managed by different psychological systems (i.e. our prejudices do not result from a single, general-purpose mental processor, but from distinct sub-systems)
   
   • mental modularity = distinct mechanisms designed to address specific problems (e.g. cheater detection system)
3. Different threats are cued by different information (i.e. there is no one “activating” or “scary” situation, but different situations for different kinds of threats)
   
   • difference between threats of violence and threats of contagion
4. After #3 (cues to a given threat) activate #2 (the psychological system for a threat), a distinct syndrome of prejudicial responses will be enacted for a given group (behavior connets to the cues of the threat)
5. which prejudice syndrome is employed depends on individual’s perceived vulnerabilities (our different vulnarabilities affect how threatened we feel from a given cue)

Question 70

One reason for optimism and one reason for pessimism about our future power to reduce prejudice in society?

Answer 70

Optimism:

• The more we interact with different people, the less we will use background as a reason for prejudice. (globalisering)
• knowing the evolutionary logic may point to preventive strategies

Pessimism:
- Current prejudices will be reduced, but changed to other prejudices (new group categories)

Question 71

are the evolutionary and non-evolutionary approaches to prejudice complementary?

Answer 71

YES! they are largely complementary.