2- Historical Foundations Flashcards
1- (Briefest) History of Social Psychology
1875: William James starts the first psychology laboratory at Harvard University. Mainly studies sensation, perception and emotion. In 1890, James published The Principles of Psychology.
1945: Kurt Lewin becomes Director of ‘Center for Group Dynamics’ at MIT. Widely recognized as the first social psychologist to use an experimental approach to study issues related to group dynamics and on the impact of one’s social environment on individual behavior.
2- Scientific Racism
Phrenology: Popular scientific fad in early 19th century that believed skull shape was a reliable predictor of psychological traits.
McDougall (1921)
William McDougall wrote one of the first textbooks on social psychology (1908).
Was a professor at Duke University and department chair at Harvard.
In a series of lectures, he purported to identify a number of psychological qualities associated with “superior” groups, such as
curiosity, introversion, and self-assertion. He argued “Nordic” races were more likely to possess these traits. Also argued that Black
people were inherently submissive, which made it appropriate for them to be subjected to a lower status in society.
Johnson-Reed Act (1924)
Imposed a quota of 165,000 immigrants for countries outside of the Western Hemisphere (~80% reduction), while barring
all immigrants from Asia.
Disproportionately favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe.
Justification for the law drew heavily from research on
eugenics and other forms of scientific racism.
3- Social Darwinism
Herbert Spencer: Creator of the term “survival of the fittest”. Existing disparities were then justified as reflecting innate differences
between more and less worthy groups. Aside from being wrong from an evolutionary standpoint (evolution selects at the individual level, not the group level), this is also an
example of the naturalistic fallacy.
Virginia Sterilization Law of 1924: .S. state law in Virginia for the sterilization of institutionalized persons “afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy”.
4- (Some) Changing Tides
At the same time, many researchers began to recognize that any
supposed biological differences between groups could not be solely
responsible for the intergroup disparities seen across society. Instead,
structural forces and prejudice must be contributors.
Floyd Allport* (1924):
“The discrepancy in mental ability is not great enough to account for the problem which centers around the American Negro or to explain
fully the ostracism to which he is subjected.”
William Graham Sumner
Professor at Yale from 1872-1909. Was the first Professor of Sociology in North America. In 1906, he published Folkways, a sociological study of how moral systems develop across different cultures.
In Folkways, Sumner most influenced the study of intergroup relations by coining the terms ingroup, outgroup, and
ethnocentrism.
Defining ‘ingroups’ and ‘outgroups’: (see full quote) . “Their relation to all
outsiders is one of war and plunder.”
On the fundamental need to be a part of a group: (see quote)
Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974)
Journalist who won two Pulitzer Prizes. Founding member of The New Republic.
In 1922, Lippmann published Public Opinion. The book
was a rather negative assessment of individuals’ ability to act rationally and self-govern. In Public Opinion, Lippmann adapted a term from the printing industry to describe the process through which
someone takes impressions towards one group member
and applies them to all group members: a stereotype.
Public Opinion:
-The modern world is too chaotic and disorderly, so people must (over)simplify it
-Stereotypes arising from a need to abstract
-Cultural influences and expectations shape the way we view the social world
(read all the quotes)
The Princeton Trilogy Studies (1933)
racial stereotypes of 100 college students. Ex: italians are……..
Katz & Braly: Motivated Perception of Stereotypes
Yet we find 78% of 100 students agreeing that one of the most typical characteristics of Germans is their scientific-mindedness.
Of course individual experience may enter into the student’s judgment but it
probably does so to confirm the original stereotype which he has learned.
He has heard, for example, of Germany’s scientific progress and of the devotion to
applied science in Germany. Therefore when he meets a German he will expect the
scientific trait to appear, and because human beings from time to time exhibit all
kinds of behavior he can find confirmation of his views.
LaPiere (1934): Attitudes vs. Actions
“ The technique is simple. Thus from a hundred or a thousand responses to the
question “Would you get up to give an Armenian woman your seat in a street car?”
the investigator derives the “attitude” of non-Armenian males towards Armenian
females. Now the question may be constructed with elaborate skill and hidden with consummate cunning in a maze of supplementary or even irrelevant questions yet
all that has been obtained is a symbolic response to a symbolic situation.
The words “Armenian woman” do not constitute an Armenian woman of flesh and blood, who might be tall or squat, fat or thin, old or young, well or poorly dressedwho might, in fact, be a goddess or just another old and dirty hag. And the
questionnaire response, whether it be ‘yes” or “no,” is but a verbal reaction and this
does not involve rising from the seat or stolidly avoiding the hurt eyes of the hypothetical woman and the de-rogatory states of other street-car occupants. “
For two years, LaPiere traveled around America with a Chinese immigrant couple. In total, the three of them visited 66 hotels and 184 restaurants, and were only refused service or accommodation one time.
Six months after these visits, LaPiere contacted each and asked whether they would
provide service to a Chinese couple. He was able to secure responses from 128
hotels or restaurants.
In all, 92% of responses said they would refuse service to a Chinese couple.
What are some possible reasons for this discrepancy?
5- Some changing tides (part 2)
Gordon Allport
Professor at Harvard from 1930 to 1967.
In 1956, published his book The Nature of Prejudice, arguably the first
psychological analysis of issues related to prejudice and discrimination.
Nature of Prejudice laid the foundation for many influential research
topics in intergroup relations.
In particular, Nature of Prejudice is credited for
1) taking a “social
cognitive” perspective of prejudice and 2) arguing for the importance of studying intergroup contact.
“Why do human beings slip so easily into ethnic prejudice? They do so because the two essential ingredients that we have discussed – erroneous
generalization and hostility – are natural and common capacities of the human mind. Once formed, categories are the basis for normal prejudgment. We cannot possibly avoid this process. Orderly living depends on it.”
Allport’s “Contact Hypothesis”
Intergroup contact – and a specific type of contact – was one effective means of reducing intergroup hostility and prejudice.
However, intergroup contact can take many forms, depending on factors like:
Quantity (Frequency, duration)
Status (Are groups of equal status vs. status differences)
Goals (Is the contact facilitating cooperative or competitive behavior)
Social (Is the contact formal vs. casual, voluntary vs. involuntary)
Physical (Is contact happening in an employment, religious, residential context)
Effective Contact (for Allport):
-Is Based on ‘Acquaintanceship’
-Is Integrated
-Is Communal
(read quotes to understand)
6- First Studies on Intergroup Contact
Singer (1948): In a sample of White military officers and enlisted men, 77% reported that their attitudes had become more favorable towards Black people after serving in the same
unit as Black soldiers (0% said their attitudes became less favorable).
Stouffer (1949): Compared attitudes of men who did vs. did not fight alongside Black
soldiers in World War II. Only White soldiers who fought alongside Black soldiers showed more favorable attitudes towards Black people.
Deutsch & Collins (1951): Compared residents assigned to live in more versus less integrated public housing. Residents in more integrated housing developed more positive
attitudes towards Black people. These findings led many states to reverse policies about segregated housing.
7- The Robbers Cave Experiment
Muzafer Sherif
Turkish social psychologist and former student of Gordon Allport.
Left position in Turkey in 1944 due to political persecution and was never
able to return. Eventually settled at University of Oklahoma, where he
was able to conduct his Robbers Cave Experiment.
His work gave rise to Realistic Conflict Theory, which argues that intergroup conflict is a reflection of social structural forces. Specifically, conflict arises due to competition for desired resources (more on this in the next class).
An intensive three-week experiment at a summer camp featuring twenty-two eleven-year old boys who had no prior contact.
Boys were randomly assigned to one of two teams and kept separate from the other team at first. A series of activities was planned to increase identification with one’s team. Then, a ‘competition stage’ was planned, where teams
competed over special prizes and bragging rights.
Finally, boys engaged in a series of mutually cooperative events
to show how intergroup conflict could be reduced
Thesis: “Intergroup attitudes and behavior are determined primarily by the
nature of functional relations between groups in question… not by the deviate
or neurotic behavior of particular individual members.”
Three stages of the experiment:
Stage 1: Experimental Ingroup Formation
Stage 2: Friction Between Groups
Stage 3: Integration Between Groups
(read details of each stage if I forgot)
Lessons:
The nature of intergroup relations – for good or evil – does not necessarily stem from the existence of tools and techniques: the same tools and techniques can serve harmony and
integration as well as deadly competition and conflict.
Theories of intergroup relations that posit single factors (such as leadership, national character, or individual frustrations) as sovereign determinants of intergroup conflict or
harmony have, at best, explained only selective cases.
8- Minimal Groups Paradigm
Henri Tajfel
Polish social psychologist who was a prisoner of war during World War II
while serving in the French army.
Founder of Social Identity Theory, which argued that individuals’ sense
of identity and self-esteem was primarily determined by their group memberships. Like Lippmann, also helped advance the notion that
stereotypes and prejudice relied on ‘normal’ cognitive processes.
Also advanced research on the Minimal Groups Paradigm.
Minimal Groups Effects
The mere classification into ingroups and outgroups was
sufficient to create intergroup bias.
The discovery of these minimal ingroup effects was a bit of a fluke. Tajfel was initially trying to find a ’baseline condition’
where group effects were not important. To do so, he divided a school class arbitrarily into “over-estimators” and “underestimators” for a dot-counting task. Despite his intentions, even these arbitrary group levels was
sufficient to create intergroup bias between under-estimators
and over-estimators.
Insights from ‘Human Groups & Social Categories’
Intergroup processes can be studied in a controlled, laboratory setting:
“A systematic study of social behavior is an essential task… There is no evidence that other approaches present as much solidity as the experimental straw appears to have.”
On the interplay between group membership and individual identity:
“An intensified affiliation with a group is only possible when the group is capable of
supplying some satisfactory aspects of an individual’s social identity.”
9- System Justification
Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist and philosopher from Martinique, wrote frequently about how societal structures force marginalized groups to internalize a sense of inferiority.
“[The Black man] lives in a society that makes his inferiority complex possible, in a society that draws its strength by maintaining this complex, in a society that proclaims the superiority of one race over another.”
Later, psychologists John Jost and Mahzarin Banaji developed this line of thinking into System Justification Theory, where maintaining existing social structures is prioritized, even at the expense of personal or group interests.
Brown vs. Board of Education
In the 1940’s, psychologists Mamie and Kenneth Clark
conducted a series of ‘doll tests’ where they asked Black
children to choose between a White or Black doll. A majority of children preferred the White doll.
The Supreme Court majority opinion in Brown vs. Board of Education cited these studies, and used them to reach broader conclusions about how cultural messages create inferiority:
“To separate [African-American children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. We conclude that in the
field of public education the doctrine “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
Martin Luther King to the APA
10- Social Cognition
The most recent decades in intergroup research have been heavily influenced by Social Cognition, which is the study of how mental processes like perception, memory, and thought shape our understanding of the social world.
A social cognitive perspective argues that in order to better understand processes related to bias, discrimination and prejudice, we must have a better understanding of how the human mind functions (e.g., how it categorizes stimuli, how it groups objects).
“Implicit” Social Cognition
Like social cognition, implicit social cognition investigates the role of automatic (and often unconscious) processes in social psychological processes.
Ex: evaluative priming
