Advanced Social Flashcards
Two main approaches in social psychology?
Social cognition - from cognitive psych.
Social identity theory - motivationally orientated perspective.
Summary of social cognition?
Focuses on individual thought process, following a response to social stimuli. Defined by how people store, in memory, and process social stimuli. Perceivers viewed as information processors.
People expereince social stimuli and form impressions on them based on information stored in memory, through cognitively effortful thinking
Summary of social identity theory?
Focus on intergroup behaviour driven by shared identities with others. We have a preference for positive social identity defined by our affiliation with in-groups. Founded by Henri Tajfel, rejected what he called the excesses of cognitive theory.
How have humans evolved to think socially?
Mostly through our use of language, other species (primates) can form mental representations but can’t communicate them with other members of their species.
We form mental representations of ourself and others, and can communicate those representations.
Difference in neanderthal and humans in social cognition?
Neanderthals may have traded good visual perception at the expense of social cognition, then faced competition from homosapiens - perhaps the reason for extinction
Two theories (and their authors) on how we organise our social thinking?
Allport (1924) - social psychology should focus on the individual rather than the group/others
Festinger (1954) - social comparisons theory - we organise our thinking based on comparisons with others, ‘you’re better than me’ ‘I feel sorry for you’
What is the self-concept?
Set of beliefs or knowledge that a person has about him or herself.
Multi-dimensional construct, each identity is represented in the mind as self-schema
What is social identity theories’ take on self-concept?
There is both a personal and a social identity
Two theories behind how the self-concept forms?
Bem’s (1972) Self-perception theory: we make attributions about our behaviour
Festinger’s (1954) Social comparison theory: compare ourselves to others.
What are the three core motives that influence how we search for knowledge about the self?
Self-assessment: To seek accurate info about the self
Self-verification: to seek information that we are correct
Self-enhancement: to promote oneself - sometimes despite evidence to the contrary
What is self-esteem?
The evaluation of your self-concept as generally positive or negative.
Social identity theorists believe that we seek to boost self-esteem by thinking positively about our individual and group selves.
What is social inference?
The way in which we process social information to form impressions and make judgements
Three different theories regarding social inference?
Naive scientist - systematic processing, likely when we have time and motivation (cause and effect).
Cognitive misers - simple heuristics, we take shortcuts when we can
Motivated tactician - we choose between the two as and when necessary.
What are attribution theories?
Theories we construct to predict and explain how people will behave.
Weiner (19586)’s 3 dimensions of causality in attribution theories?
Locus - Refers to whether the cause of success or failure is internal (the individual) or external (the situation)
Stability - is the cause stable or unstable
Controllability whether the future performance is under control or not
What are key heuristics (Tversky and Kahnman 1974)?
May not always use attribution theories…
Representative Heuristic - how similar a particular target is to a typical member of that category
Availability heuristic - Associations coming readily to mind, considered more common and prevalent than they really are.
What is attribution bias?
Attributions can lead to errors and biases.
Types if attribution biases?
Fundamental attribution error: Tendency for people to attribute behaviour to stable personality dispositions
Actor-observer effect - internal attributions about others behaviour and external causes for our own behaviour.
Criticisms to attribution theories?
Do not think like naive scientists much of the time and Heuristics are often used instead.
Stereotypes can be viewed as heuristics and they often lead to generalisations.
What is social categorisation?
What does it do?
We have a need to achieve coherence, and so categorisation is the process of understanding what something is by understanding what other things it is equivalent to, and things it is different from.
Categorisation allows fast and efficient impressions
It creates coherence
What is individuation?
We cannot categorise sometimes - when heuristic processing is difficult, individuation can occur, this is when one differentiates between group members based on individual attributes, more effortful than categorisation.
Impressions vary in terms of categorical or individuating info, impressions are formed on a continuum (between individuation and categorisation.
What happens when people belong to conflicting social categories?
inconsistency resolution resulting in emergent attributes are used to resolve the conflict.
Emergent attributes allow smooth impression formation resulting in coherence.
Disadvantages of categorical thinking?
Often inaccurate due to generalisations.
Cohen (1981) showed a video of a woman’s birthday dinner. One group told she was a waitress, one told she was a librarian.
Waitress condition - more likely to recall her drinking beer
Librarian condition - more likely to recall her wearing glasses.
More positive info is recalled about ingroups than outgroups
Why do people stereotype?
It makes life easy - simplify information and reduces cognitive load.
Helps us justify existing social hierarchy - system justification theory
Automatic processes involved in social cognition?
Awareness - automatic processes are characterised by a lack of awareness
intention - Automatic processes are initiated without the deliberate intention of the individual.
Control - automatic processes are uncontrollable
Efficiency - automatic processes are cognitively sparing
What is behavioural priming?
Exposure to concepts can change behaviour automatically
Bargh (1996) priming politeness - less likely to interrupt an experimenter relative to participants primed with rudeness
- participants primed with stereotypes of the elderly take longer to exit the experiment than those primed with young attributes.
Replicated in some, but not all studies.
What is temporal primacy?
The fact we categorise on features encountered first
What is perceptual salience?
The fact we categorise when features are very salient
What happens when we meet someone who does not fit into categories?
Either (i) individuation or (ii) re-categorized as a subtype.
What are ‘naive scientists’ looking to do?
Testing hypotheses, looking for cause in our social world to achieve coherence.
What is Causal reasoning?
Causal reasoning is when an individual tries to determine the reason behind things - also referred to as complex reasoning
Individuation is an example of naive scientist or cognitive miser (heuristics)?
Naive scientist.
Is categorisation an example of naive scientist or cognitive miser?
cognitive miser - heuristics
What is dual-processing in social categorisation?
Switching between individuation and categorisation.
What is the most used model of dual categorisation?
Fiske and neuberg (1990) continuum model.
allocation of attention is done with the baddeley and hitch model of attention - with the central executive allocating attention.
Summary of Hutter and Crisp (2006)
More emergent attributes generated in low cognitive load condition in response to ambiguous social categories.
Summary of Hutter et al (2011)
Older adults more likely to categorise as they have less executive resources available
these perceivers find it more difficult to resolve inconsistency through the use of existing social categories, therefore they are more likely to use emergent attribution to create new categories instead of modifying the already existing categories
What did Mason and Mcrae (2004) show
Individuation relies on temporal and prefrontal resources, Right hemispheric dominance.
What did Cloutier, Turk and macrae (2008) find?
Judging the targets sex was associated with left fusiform gyrus (temporal cortex)
This is associated with face recognition and categorisation.
Evidence regarding the method used to form impressions of incongruent conjunctions?
Quadflieg et al. (2011) found that participants who did a social task and recognised incongruent conjunctions took longer - not easy to categorise
Also found (in incongruent conjunctions) activation of:
- Fusiform face area - for faces
- Extrastriate body area - for bodies
- Fusiform body area - for bodies
- Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - suggests executive control.
Together this suggests that incongruent conjunctions rely on individuation.
An explanation for intergroup bias according to social identity theory?
We see ourself as part of a group identity in certain situations. We are motivated to have a positive self-concept. If we see our group negatively we will have a poor social identity and low self-esteem. SO:
When our social identity is salient we are motivated to see our group as being better than others.
Evidence for social identity theory?
The minimal group paradigm:
Sorted boys (48) into one of two groups based on painting preference.
Identities of other group members were unknown - were then asked to allocate money to a series of unknown outgroup and ingroup members
Significant tendency to allocate more to ingroup members
This was unique because there was no personal gain, group history, no interaction and the categories were meaningless
This means the minimal conditions for discriminations was simply categorisation.
What is the Social Identitiy Theory (SIT)’s explanation for Tajfel’s minimal groups?
more money -> “our group is better” -> more positive self-concept -> higher self-esteem
Evidence for the self-esteem hypothesis of SIT?
Oakes and Turner (1980)
Ptps split into two groups, half took part in a resource allocation task (like money distribution), showing the usual ingroup bias of minimal groups. The other half just read a newspaper.
Those who did the resource allocation task showed higher self esteem at the end of the study.
Criticisms of the self-esteem hypothesis of SIT?
Contrasting evidence regarding part two of the hypothesis (those with low self-esteem show more discrimination).
Crocker and schwartz (1985) showed those with low self esteem showed more discrimination, however Abrams (1982) showed the opposite
What are basking in reflective glory and cutting off reflective failure?
Basking in reflected glory: Deriving self-esteem from the achievements of the group.
Cutting off reflected failure: If the group is doing badly try to reduce our association with it.
What are the three things the chosen strategy to enhance social identity depends on?
Legitimacy - is the group legitimate i.e. factory worker or management
Stability - Is the status likely to change over time
permeability - are you able to leave the group or not
What strategies are used to enhance social identity?
- Social mobility - moving out of that group into a different one - used if there are legit and stable differences in groups, and if there are permeable barriers
- Group challenge - challenge and compete with the higher status group - may be used if there are impermeable barriers - and if the high status group is illegitimate or unstable
- Social creativity - used if there are impermeable boundaries and if high status group is legitimate and stable - Redefine dimensions of comparison i.e. “black is beautiful” or find new dimensions. or finally compare to a third group and claim superiority over them.
What is self-categorization theory?
Wen you switch from seeing the self as an individual to seeing the self as a group member
What is identity shift?
When the membership of a group becomes salient we define ourselves less in terms of personal identity and see ourselves as an interchangeable representative of that social group.
Called depersonalisation
What did jetten, spears and manstead (1997) show about identity shift?
Ptps divided into two minimal groups
Ptps told that the other ingroup members are either fair or discriminatory
Asked to allocate resources amongst groups
People showed more bias in the discriminatory groups
Two types of threats to social identity?
Threat to group esteem - arises when another group derogates us
threat to group distinctiveness - arises when we are too similar to another group
How do we respond to threats to group distinctiveness ?
Ingroup favouritism - make your group as different from other outgroups as possible
What did crisp, stone and Hall (2006) show about group distinctiveness?
ptps completed an assessment of ingroup identification
Birmingham students told that their uni would be merged with Aston - in intervention group, in control - not told that.
ptps then completed measures of intergroup bias
Clear difference in those who highly identified woth the uni in the intervention group (who produced more bias) - control had little difference
What is (i) intergroup bias, (ii) prejudice, (iii) stereotypes and (iv) discrimination?
Intergroup bias: Preference for an ingroup over an outgroup
Prejudice: Negative attitude or feelings towards a specific social outgroup.
Stereotypes: Common characteristics applied to members of a particular social group
How has prejudice changed over time? (Clark and Tate, 2008)
Used to be blatant expressions of negative attitudes and stereotypes, racial segregation in the US and SA for example.
Now: Covert or subtle, not wanting to associate with certain groups, and blaming certain groups for issues.
What is ambivalent racism?
Katz and Hass (1988):
Ambivalence: co-existing of conflicting feelings.
Conflicting attitudes/values lead to more polarised view of minority groups.
I.e. you can have 2 views of the world:
- You work hard and you get deserved wealth
- People are created equal, so you should help the less fortunate
These lead to conflict if both are held, so in an effort to reduce conflict people identify with either end of that spectrum of thought (i.e. closer to 1 or 2).
Susan Fiske’s take on the development of prejudices towards social groups?
Two underlying dimensions to peoples’ views of others are:
- Status, which predicts competence
- Level of cooperation, which predicts warmth
SO this leads to 4 groups
- High warmth (cooperative) and Low status:
- older people, disabled people: pitied, sympathy - High warmth (cooperative) and high status:
- In-group, allies, reference groups: pride, admiration - Low warmth (competitive) and Low status:
- Poor people, Homeless, immigrants: disgust and contempt - Low warmth (competitive) and high status:
- Rich people, lesbians, jews, feminists, asians: envy, jealousy
What is aversive racism?
Gaertner and Dovidio (1985)
Seemingly egalitarian views, but when interacting with an outgroup behaviour changes.
Implicit bias (unconscious)
If prejudice can be attributed to something else it will be
e.g. people run over by car, choose ingroup member, and attribute that to the fact others were helping
What is benevolent sexism?
(Sidanius, Pratto & Brief, 1995)
Seemingly positive views of a gender, but are in fact prejudiced.
i.e. Women are the best carers of children, men should protect women.
Glick et al (1997)
For example positive perceptions about women as long as they confine themselves
Benevolent sexists asked to think about women in traditional and non-traditional roles:
- Traditional roles promoted positive feelings
- Non-traditional promoted negative feelings
Becker 2010 showed that women are just as likely to hold a benevolent sexist attitude as men.
Findings of Hedig & Ferris 2016 regarding benefits of benevolent sexism?
Measured participants using Benevolent Sexist (BS) trait measures.
Then measured attitudes towards affirmative action (AA)/employment equity - favouring disadvantaged groups for employment in (i) masculine and (ii) feminine jobs
Found BS increases positive attitudes, (in reference to women) ONLY for feminine jobs
How do biases change during childhood?
Gender and ethnic biases emerge between 3-4yrs, and peak around 6-8yrs, and then decline
What measures can you use to assess prejudice in childhood
Preference tasks - e.g. identical dolls apart from skin colour (clark 1947) Trait assignment Structured interview Behavioural observations Simple questionnaires
Benefits and limitations of Clark (1947)’s doll task?
Benefits:
- easy to administer
- comprehensible to children
Limitations:
- Forced choice between only 2 alternatives
- Artificially enhances the saliency of race (only difference)
- social desirability bias (e.g. if the researcher was white, more likely to pick white doll to fit in)
Explanation and limitations of trait attribution task - preschool racial attitude measure (PRAM)? (williams et al 1975)
Children asked to assign positive and negative to two stimuli (e.g. white picture of kid and black picture of kid)
Limitations: it’s a forced choice between only 2 alternatives, this doesn’t disentagle in-group favouritism and outgroup derogation
What is the multiple response attitude (Doyle & Aboud 1995) Limitations?
Assign multiple categories to one of two stimuli (whit kid/black kid). Categories are like.. healthy, good, naughty, selfish
Positives and negatives summed to produce a trait score for each stimuli.
Produce:
1. Positive bias score = subtract out out-group positive trait score from the in-group positive trait score
- Negative bias score = subtract the ingroup negative trait score from the outgroup
- Intergroup bias score = positive bias score + negative bias score / 2
Limitiations:
- Still only two categories, ptp uses ingroup/not-ingroup logic, only a measure of ingroup bias
- social desirability
What is social reflection (socialization) theory?
What is the social learning approach to development of childhood prejudice?
Limitations to this?
Social reflection: Theory that children pick up their prejudices as a result of social context
Bandura 1977, children learn their attitudes either by directly observing/imitating parents or direct training.
Would expect to see a positive trajectory as children increase with age
Limitations:
Mixed findings regarding parents attitudes and childs
Empirical work doesn’t always support the expected trajectory
children are not simply empty vessels (or templates)
What is cognitive developmental theory? Aboud (1990)
Evidence in support?
Limitations?
Posits that prejudice is caused by information processing errors due to young childrens’ poor cognitive ability to perceive people on an individual basis
Cognitively immature children are prone to prejudice because they cannot process multiple classifications
With age children are able to make judgements in terms of unique interpersonal qualities.
In support:
- The theory supports the ‘bellcurve’ of a peak of prejudice at 7-8. This is consistent with cognitive developmental stages - at around 7 ‘centration’ (focusing on only one aspect of an individual) declines
However:
A decrease in racism is not seen in all domains
There are also other explanations for the decline - the development of social emotions, such as guilt and shame.
Possible causes for prejudice in adulthood?
Authoritarian personality (adorno et al 1950)
Social dominance theory
Terror management theory
Intergroup emotions theory
Evidence around authoritarian personality explanation for prejudice?
- Trait/behavioural style characterised by a high regard for authority/rigidity/conventionality
Difficult upbringing can lead to an authoritarian personality - as a defensive reaction to fear and weakness
- highly prejudiced individuals
Theory has been mostly discredited:
- Prejudice changes
- likely cultural influences trump personality
Social dominance theory? (Pratto, Sidanius & Levin) (2006)
Evidence?
Limitations?
(Pratto, Sidanius & Levin) (2006)
Does rely quite a lot on personality still
Societies are made up of group-based hierarchies
These hierarchies are formed and maintained through discrimination
Justified through hierarchy-legitimising myths, i.e. groups are actually unequal
Some people have a social dominance orientation:
- General orientation towards and desire for unequal and dominant/subordinate groups
- Highly supportive of a hierarchy
Pratto et al, (1994) showed social dominance orientation predicted sexism, nationalism and racism,
It also predicts hierarchy legitimising policies and ideologies: political conservatism, civil liberties, immigration and gay rights.
Some suggestion that is doesn’t take into account situational factors that contribute to prejudice
What is terror management theory?
Limitations?
Greenberg, pyzynczyski & soloman, 1986
Humans have strong survival instinct and a fear of our future death, to control this:
We adopt a cultural worldview:
- A set of values of how we think we should behave
- Provides senso of meaning
- Allows us to transcend death? e.g. religion
- Motivated to protect this worldview
- Biased against those who don’t share our worldview
Limitations:
- Alternative explanations, such as a general threat activates it (not just mortality)
- Effect of associated factors, such as pain form dying
- The effect only exists when thinking about death, may not explain why we are prejudiced in everyday life
What did Greenberg et al, 1990 (study 1) and Greenberg et al, (1990) (study 2), and 3 show in terms if terror management theory?
Study 1:
Made mortality salient by asking christian ptps to write about their death
Then given a profile of a jewish and christian and asked to rate them
Compare to a control group
Results showed the salient mortality group rated a christian profile more positive than a jewish one (and a jewish one lower)
Study 2:
Participants given 12 attitude questions
Ptps given authoritarianism questionnaire
Ptps given the mortality manipulation
Then given the attitude info on a potential partner (either 25% agree or 75% agree)
Asked to rate how positively they viewed that partner
Those high on authoritarianism rated a similar partner more positively than a dissimilar
Study 3:
US students given mortality manipulation
Read an interview critical or positive about the US
Rated how much they liked the interviewee
Ptps in the mortality salience condition rated the more positive author (about the US) more positively and the converse was also true
What is intergroup emotions theory?
Evidence?
Strengths/Limitations?
Builds on appraisal theory of emotions, and on social identity theory.
Group membership is important part if our self-concept and it used to boost self-esteem
We react emotionally when an outgroup does something that might affect our ingroup:
- Cognitive appraisal
- Emotional response
- Behavioural response
This varies according to the perceived strength of a group:
If the group is strong:
- Perceived injustice
- Anger
- Aggression
If weak:
- Perceived injustice
- Fear
- Avoidance
Silver, Miller, Mackie & Smith (2001):
- Female undergrads imagined being threatened by a man: either (i) alone or (ii) with other females:
When alone more fear felt and more inclined to move away from outgroup
Strengths:
- Seems applicable to real life conflict
- Explains how people react differently according to group strength
Limitations:
- No study has provided evidence for the full model
- Can emotions really be felt at a group level - they may be weaker
- Too simplistic to explain different contextual features of differing situations
Why should we tackle prejudice in children?
It has been linked to low self-esteem and feelings of loneliness and peer-rejection
May be easier to change children’s attitudes - they are more malleable.
Methods to reduce prejudice in children?
Socialization approach
Empathy approach
Cognitive development approach
Intergroup contact
What is the socialization approach to reducing prejudice in children?
Evaluation of this approach?
Use media sources to encourage positive intergroup attitudes
Can involve books or tv
Favoured by practitioners
Evaluation:
- Graves (1999) - sesame street race relations curriculum..
Sesame street had segments to deal with challenging children’s racial stereotypes - aimed to emphasise similarities as humans, embrace differences and promote inclusion
Children suggested that when the white kid went home to play and eat with the black kid
- Multicultural readers:
Litcher & Johnson (1969): 4 week programme in which children read stories featuring counter-stereotypical African-American characters, they showed prejudice levels were lower following the intervention, subsequent studies did not replicate this.
Koeller (1977) exposed 11 year old americans to stories containing mexican characters - did not lead to more positive intergroup attitudes
McAdoo (1970) found an intervention increased negative racial stereotypes
Why do socialization interventions fail?
Not based on recent psychological research
Idea that children are passive recipients (learning theory approach) - not true
It has been shown that people forget, distort or ignore information that contradicts existing attitudes (Neuberg 1996)
They often focus on differences rather than similarities
Unconscious, negative feelings are stronger predictors of prejudice than beliefs.
What is emotional empathy and cognitive empathy?
Emotional empathy: the ability to experience the feelings of another in response to a particular situation
Cognitive empathy: Knowledge of and respect for the norms and world views of other groups
Evidence regarding evaluation of the empathy approach presented in Nesdale, Griffith, Durkin & Maass (2005)?
150 children 5-12 yrs from anglo-australian descent.
Given empathy measure
Told they were going to take part in a drawing competition and they were in a team ‘just like them’ - to enhance self-categorization with this group, all pictures were same age and gender.
The children then saw that the outgroup (competition group) was either the same ethnicity or different ethnicity.
The children were asked how much they liked the out group.
Empathy linked to liking if the outgroup was not of the same ethnicity
Shows empathy has a role in prejudice.
Shows that children are aware of their social dominance (belonging to the anglo-australian group)
Empirical evaluation of the blue eyes/brown eyes experiment?
Weiner & Wright 1973:
Day 1: 9 year olds divided into green and orange (superior) groups
Day 2: roles reversed
Day 3: asked how much they’d like to go on a picnic with African American children
Showed that kids were more likely to go on the picnic (compared to a control)
However didn’t measure empathy
How may increasing empathy in children work to reduce prejudice?
Cognitive empathy:
Cognitive empathy intervention leads to reduced prejudice, this is mediated by the fact that there is increased similarity, decreased threat and an increased sense of shared destiny.
Emotional empathy (Batson, polycarpou et al 1997)
Stage 1: empathic concern for the individual who is suffering
Stage 2: Lead them to value the welfare of the individual who is suffering
Stage 3: concern for that individuals welfare generalises to the group that person is a member of
Stage 4: leads to change in intergroup attitudes
However other possible emotions include shame and guilt, which are developed at around 5yrs
What is the cognitive development approach to tackling prejudice?
Evidence?
Limitations?
Based on cognitive development theory - the idea that children don’t have the mental capacity to undersatnd people belong to many different categories, and tend to sort people into rigid categories based on concrete attributes (e.g. appearance)
Bigler and Liben (1993) found that among 4-9 yr olds better multiple classification skills led to less gender and ethnic stereotyping.
Bigler and Liben (1992) investigated the idea of doing multiple classification training, children practised sorting people according to gender and occupation at teh same time, i.e. men in female jobs, women in male jobs e.t.c. Idea is that they will learn people can belong to at least two different categories at a time.
Found that kids in the intervention group had better multiple classification skills and importantly less stereotyping
Limitations:
- Not linked to attitudes
Cameron et al (2007) showed the multiple classification training alone did not result in more positive outgroup attitudes
Multiple classification may be limited to changing stereotypes and maybe only in the context of gender roles.
Intergroup contact to reduce prejudice?
Evidence?
Limitations?
Bringing together groups under the righ conditions should reduce prejudice:
- Equal status
- Common goals
- Intergroup cooperation
- Support by authority
- personal interaction
Some evidence of effectiveness, (meta analysis: pettigrew & Tropp 2006)
Friendship is especially valuable (pettigrew 1997)
Even learning about friendships of others (in ingroup) - extended contact can reduce prejudice, wright et al (1997)
Pettigrew and Tropp, (2005) suggested that contact has a bigger effect on ‘affect’ i.e. feelings and emotions than cognition
However can create intergroup anxiety at the prospect of encountering an outgroup member (Stephan & Stephan 1985), this arises due to fears and negative expectations:
- Encounter will be socially awkward
- Will inappropriately offend outgroup
- They will take advantage exploit/reject us
How is intergroup anxiety related to intergroup contact and prejudice?
Anxiety impairs executive function (PFC responsible to inhibition of stereotyping e.t.c.)
Richeson and Shelton (2003):
White participants asked to interact on a task with a black or white confederate, asked to complete stroop test.
Intergroup contact impaired performance
Executive function has limited cognitive resources, during the visit ptps are anxious about behaving appropriately and appearing prejudiced, this takes up resources.
Increased anxiety may result in an increased reliance on stereotypes
This may be interpreted as prejudice by the outgroup
Those high on intergroup anxiety are less likely to engage in intergroup contact
Shows that the right conditions for contact are important to reduce anxiety
Difficulties regarding ‘self-segregation’, what drives segregation?
Intergroup friendships are uncommon, less durable and decline with age.
Segregation seems to be driven by perception of ingroup norms.
Feddes et al (2008) found that children’s perception of ingroup norms about OUTGROUP FREINDSHIPS at the start of the year predicted how many outgroup friends they had at the end of the year
Difficulties regarding collective action of marginalised groups?
Increased intergroup contact decreases the likelihood of collective action by the outgroup
This is because intergroup contact increases marginalised group liking for the outgroup, reducing in group identification (Brewer & Miller 1984)
For collective action the outgroup must be held responsible - Scott & Drury 2004
Self-affirmation theory in the reduction of prejudice?
Criticisms?
Fein & Spencer 1997 argue that prejudice is an attempt to maintain a sense of self-worth. people are ‘self-affirming’
Suggest that if we find another way to self affirm ten prejudice will decrease, e.g. write about a time a value was important to you.
Those who self affirmed had less prejudice.
Criticisms:
Critcher & Dunning (2015)
It’s just creating a broader perspective of the self
Self-affirming’ expands the working self concept, narrowing the scope of the threat
Lehmiller, Law and Tormala (2010): slef affirmation of some values i.e. family values actually show more prejudice
Definition of aggression?
Any form of behaviour directed towards the goal of hurting or harming another human being who is motivated to avoid such treatment.
Two main categories for theories of aggression?
What do they each argue?
Biological and social
Biological: we are predetermined to aggress
Social: we are driven to aggression from our environment.
Components of biological theories of aggression?
Psychodynamic - redirect self-destructing behaviour
Evolutionary - Protect offspring/males mating rights
Genetics - mixed evidence
Hormones - testosterone and androgens drive us to aggression
Evidence for hormonal theories of aggression?
Prenatal androgens (synthetic progestin) can lead to more violent behaviour later (Reinisch 1981)
Van Goozen 1995 - when Females transition to males in transexual treatment they have increases in aggressive behaviour.
Van Honk and Schutter (2007) - testosterone administration associated with perceiving less threat stimuli
Results regarding testosterone in female ptps (Van Honk and Schutter, 2007)?
16 ptps
Within-subjects design
Asked to recognised morphed faces
Testosterone reduced sensitivity to detection of threat
Specifically applied to anger
A reduced threat sensitivity predisposes to anti-social behaviour
Social theories regarding aggression and frustration?
Dollard et al 1939; Hovland & Sears, 1940; Catalano et al, 1993.
Frustration is blocked goal attainment
Frustration always leads to aggression
Aggression is always a consequence of frustration
Aggression is not always directed at the cause of the frustration (depending on whether the source is strong (physically/socially)
- Weaker target i.e. scapegoating (target substitution)
- Expressed in indirect ways (response substitution)
Limitations to the frustration-aggression theory?
Hard to demonstrate outside of the lab
Whitely & Kite (2010) - prejudice people just show aggression to everyone
Unlikely to be a spontaneous act if driven by frustration and aggression is occasionally spontaneous
Frustration is likely to be a factor amongst many.
What is the cue arousal theory in terms of aggression?
Berkowitz
Aversive events e.g. provocation, noise, frustration = negative affect.
Cognitive and motor flight/fight response
Cues present in aggressive situation become associated with memory of the event
So aggression is dependent on a cue
Aversive events will lead to aggression only if the situation contains stimuli with negative associations
Berkowitz and lePage 1967 research on aversive cues and aggression?
Male students were given shocks by a confederate
more shocks = reported being angrier
evaluated performance by giving shocks in return (aggressive)
Intervention group had a shotgun and revolver on a nearby table
Those who were angrier gave more shocks.
Those with the aggressive stimuli also did.
The weapons effect.
What is the General Aggression Model (GAM)?
Limitations?
Anderson and Bushman, 2002
Integrates theories into an over-arching model:
- Personal factors (e.g. testosterone) and situational factors (e.g. overcrowding) can affect behaviour independently or in combination (with each other)
- Current internal state (affect, arousal) - Cue-arousal
- These factors combine to determine appraisals and decisions resulting in thoughtful or impulsive actions
- The behaviour implemented changes the nature of the social encounter and can be reinforced, i.e. if you choose an impulsive action you may be more likely to do that again.
- This is internalised into personality - thus influencing future encounters
The GAM is however weak on biological explanations
What person-centered attributes are linked to aggression?
Gender differences:
Hormonal
Socialization
Personality:
- Type A/B although this is heavily criticised - Type B have little within individual correlations
Low self-esteem
- Narcissism (inflated or unstable self-esteem) - prone to anger when their self-esteem is threatened (criticism).
- Instrumental aggression - coercing others through aggression to obtain a goal (respect, money, power) - if this works then this behaviour will become reinforced.
Situational determinants of aggression?
Alcohol
Physical environment:
- Temperature
- Noise
- Crowding
Mass media (TV violence)?
Evidence for alcohol as a determinant for aggression?
1) Bachman and peralta (2002) heavy drinking in school students increase likelihood of violent offending.
2) Giancola and zeichner (1997):
1. RT competitive task
2. two groups: high blood alcohol and low blood alcohol
3. DV is intensity of shock (given if ptp is successful)
4. Men delivered a high intensity of shock to an opponent after heavy drinking and increased blood alcohol.
3) Attention allocation model:
- Alcohol focuses attention on salient provocative cues at the expense of inhibitory cues
Evidence: Giancola & Corman (2007):
- 2 (alcohol, placebo) x 2 (distraction: yes or no) x 2 (Provocation: yes or no) mixed design
- Receive and administer shocks to a confederate in a competitive RT task, can choose intensity of shock
Alcohol without distraction was very high intensity, alcohol with distraction was quite low however:
- Because the distraction moved attention AWAY from salient provocative cues, suggests support for attention-allocation model
Does exposure to violent media increase aggression? What situations might this happen under?
Heymann 1989:
- children watch an average of 3.5 hrs of TV a day and see an average of 33 violent acts.
Media aggression is more likely to increase aggressive tendencies IF:
- Efficacy:
- If the aggressive act is presented as an effective means to achieve goals and/or if it goes unpunished. - Normative:
- If there is no attention to it’s negative consequences (it is normal) - Pertinence:
- If the perpetrator is portrayed as similar to the viewer - Susceptibility:
- If the viewer is in a state of emotional arousal- prevents a detached or critical attitude.
Violent Gangsta rap (Anderson et al 2003)
- increased state hostility (feelings) and aggressive thoughts:
Study 1: increased state hostility for aggressive lyrics
Study 2: Increased similarity ratings for ambiguous words and aggressive words
Study 3: Faster to vocalise aggressive words
Study 4; 5: faster to complete aggressive words
What is the definition of ‘to persuade’?
To induce a person to believe something; to lead to accept a statement, doctrine, fact e.t.c.
What is cognitive dissonance?
Discomfort when people do not act in accordance to their attitudes:
e.g. when people smoke but also think it’s bad for their health
What did Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) show about insufficient justification in cognitive dissonance?
When ptps are rewarded for saying a boring task was interesting one group was rewarded (for lying) with $1 and another with $20
The group given $1 had more attitude change, there was MORE dissonance, so the way to reduce that dissonance was to convince yourself the task was actually interesting
What are the necessary steps in dissonance induced attitude change?
- Person must perceive negative consequences of behaviour and there must not be a justification for it
- Personal responsibility must be taken for the behaviour, i.e. they must have the freedom of choice
- Person must feel unpleasant arousal, and attribute that to attitude-discrepant behaviour i.e. must have some investment in action
What are the types of dual process models of persuasion?
Heuristic-systematic model
Elaboration-likelihood model
How does the Heuristic-systematic model of persuasion play out?
Central or systematic, when willing and able.
- Strong attitudes that predict behaviour
Peripheral or heuristic route, when unwilling and unable: like being convinced by happy music in adverts
- Weak attitudes not predictive of behaviour
Both routes are affected by:
- Speed of speech
- Mood
- Self-relevance
- Individual differences
- Humour
Seven propositions of the Elaboration-likelihood model?
Underlying motivation to hold correct attitudes
Variations in elaboration
Three methods of influence
Objective elaboration
Biased elaboration
Trade-off between two processes
Consequences of elaboration
What are the things that make up the underlying motivation to hold correct attitudes?
- Not necessarily absolute
- Knowledge function
- Utilitarian function
- Value expressive function
- Ego defensive function
What makes up variations in elaboration?
The nature and extent of elaborations are made up of (i) motivational factors and (ii) Ability or capacity factors.
Motivational:
- Forewarning
- Need for cognition
- Task importance
- Issue involvement
Ability or capacity:
- Distraction
- Knowledge/expertise
- Repetition
- Time pressure
Attitudes formed via the central route in the ELM have what qualities?
Persistent over time
Resistant to change
Predictive of behaviour
What are peripheral cues (In the ELM)?
Heuristics:
Internal cues:
- Mood as information
- Facial feedback
- Ease of processing
External cues: Come under the characteristics of the source of persuasion: - Expertise/credibility - Likeability - Physical attractiveness - Similarity of self to source
Three characteristics of heuristics?
Applicable
Accessible
Reliable
What did Hovland and Weiss (1951) find about how the reliability of the heuristic affected attitude change?
There is a big effect of how reliable to source is at the start but this effect is nullified after time. Source memory fades.
What did Martin and Hewstone (2003) show about personal relevance and majority (i.e. majority of people) messages?
Low personal relevance:
- Majority messages processed peripherally
- Minority messages processed centrally
High personal relevance:
- Majority messages processed centrally
- Minority messages processed peripherally
Common features of attitudes?
Motivating factors
Relatively stable
Evaluative in nature
Definition of attitude?
A learned disposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner with respect to a given object.
What 4 psychological functions do attitudes serve?
Utilitarian - Liking your psychology degree because it will help get a job in the future
Knowledge - Liking your psychology degree because it will provide useful info in dealing with people
Ego defensive - liking your psychology degree because you really wanted to become a vet but weren’t good enough
Value-expressive - liking psychology degree because it illustrates your commitment to helping people
How are the functions of attitude divided up?
A Knowledge/Regulating approach/avoidance
B Higher psychological functions
What is A: Knowledge/Regulating approach/avoidance made up of in terms of attitude functions
- Utilitarian or adaptive or adjustment function, i.e.
attitudes help to guide us to our goals
- cued by social need
- changed by changing goal - Economy or knowledge i.e. attitudes that help us summarise information
- cued by cognitive problem
- changed by new info
What is B: Higher psychological functions made up of in terms of attitude functions?
Expressive pr self-realisation function: attitudes help express a suitable self-image:
- cued by appeals of self image
- changed by a revaluation of basic values
Ego-defensive function i.e. attitudes help to cope with uncomfortable thoughts:
- Cued by threats to security
- Changed by removal of threat
5 determinants of the strength of attitude-behaviour relationships?
Specificity Time Self-awareness Attitude accessibility Attitude strength
In terms of specificity when are you likely to achieve good correlations between attitudes and behaviour?
When they are measured at the same generality:
so when you measure global attitudes against global behaviours
OR Specific attitudes against specific behaviours
What did Fishbein & Ajzen (1977) claim with regards to when attitudes are held and behaviours are performed
They are held and performed with respect to:
- Target at which the action is directed
- Action being performed
- Context in which the action is performed
- Time during the action is performed
TACT
Effect of time on the strength of attitude-behaviour relationship?
Shorter times between when you measure attitude and behaviour meant higher correlations.
How does self-awareness affect the strength of attitude behaviour relationships
There is public self-awareness and private self-awareness
Self-monitoring:
- Individuals with low self monitoring, are less likely to take into account social cues from their environment. They will be guided more by their own attitudes.
What makes up attitude accessibility in terms of the strength of attitude-behaviour relationships?
Accessible attitudes should be more predictive of behaviour:
- Easy to locate in memory
- Automatically comes to consciousness
- Node in associative network
Definition of communication?
Transfer of meaningful information from one person to another.
What is Locution and Illocution?
Locution is words in a sequence
- It’s hot in here
Illocution is the context
- Is this a statement? A criticism?
What did Searle (1979) say we use language for?
- Say how something is
- Get someone to do something
- Express feelings and attitudes
- Make a commitment
- Accomplish something directly
What is paralanguage?
The manner in which you say something, paralinguistic cues are used to recognise and communicate emotion.
What are the non-linguistic elements of speech?
Volume Stress Pitch Speed Tone Pauses
Results from Scherer, Banse and Wallbott (2001) regarding the universality of emotional paralinguistic cues?
Asked ptps to label non-word sentences (said with an emotion) with an emotion
9 different cultures did it and accuracy was similar across cultures and better in women.
What influences your speech style?
Brown & Fraser 1979:
- Scene
- Participants
What is the matched guise technique?
Investigates attitudes based on speech alone
Ptps rate extracts which differ in accents only
Rate on status (intelligent, powerful) and solidarity (warmth, friendliness)
Results of Fuertes et al (2012) meta-analysis on standard accents vs regional accents?
Standard accents rated more highly
d = .99 on status, .86 on dynamism and .52 on solidarity
What is ethnolinguistic identity theory?
The extent to which someone views their ethnic identity as a source of pride will determine whether they emphasise or de-emphasise their accent.
What is ethnolinguistic vitality theory?
Asserts that status, demographic, institutional support and control factors make up the vitality of ethnolinguistic groups.
An assessment of a group’s strengths and weaknesses in each of these domains provides a rough classification of ethnolinguistic groups into those having low, medium or high vitality.
Low vitality groups are most likely to go through ASSIMILATION and may not be considered a distinctive group.
High vitality groups are likely to maintain their language and distinctive cultural traits.
Examples of status, demographic and institutional support variables?
Status:
- Economic control of destiny
- Consensually high self-esteem
- Pride in the groups past
- Respected language internationally
Institutional:
- Large numbers in homeland
- Favourable in-group:outgroup proportion
- Low emigration rate
- High birth rate
- Low incidence of mixed marriage
Support:
- Good representation of language in national institutions (government, schools etc.)
What is speech accommodation theory?
People tend to adapt the way they speak to the context
- Joey Barton speaks with a french accent
We do this to:
- Help the listener understand
- Promote an impression of ourselves
What is convergence, divergence and bilateral divergence in speech accommodation theory?
Convergence - both the high status and low status speaker shift to a closer midpoint.
Divergence - lower status speaker shifts upwards, higher status remains
Bilateral divergence - both remain where they are
Are women more talkative and more tentative than men?
Talkative - no
Tentative - Lakoff (1973) suggested that women adopt a more tentative speech style because they adopt a more subordinate position in society.
Criticisms:
- little empirical basis
- exaggerated gender differences
- Evidence that tentative language is just associated with lower status.
Leaper et al (2011) showed that women were more likely to use tentative language, however only with a small effect size d=.23
How is tentative language characterised?
Expressions of uncertainty:
- I’m not sure if this is right…
Qualifiers
- Jim’s performance on the match was SOMEWHAT disappointing
Hedges:
- I guess, kind of…
Tag questions:
- That was interesting wasn’t it
Intensifiers:
- very, so, really
How DO men and women differ in the language they use?
Word length - men use longer
Articles - men use more words such as ‘a’ and ‘the’
Men use more swear words
Women talk more about thoughts and others, man discuss ‘things’ more
Women use more first person pronouns
How do women in leadership roles typically adapt their language?
Often adopt more male language, Jones (2016) shows Hilary Clinton using more masculine words over time
What types of non-verbal communication do we employ?
Facial expressions
Gaze
Gestures and touch
Interpersonal distance
Functions of non-verbal behaviour?
Know others feelings Regulate interactions - eye contact and turntaking Express intimacy Establish dominance Achieve a goal
Differences in gender and non-verbal communication?
Women have shown to be better at decoding nonverbal signals and have greater knowledge about them.
Ickes, Gesn & Graham (2000)
Six universal emotions?
Happiness, disgust, sadness, anger, surprise and fear
Evidence regarding recognition of emotion across cultures?
Elfenbein & Ambady (2003) Large meta-analysis:
- Examined emotion recognition within and across cultures
- Emotions universally recognized at better-than-chance levels
Accuracy was better when emotions were expressed and recognised by the same national, regional or ethnic group.
What are display rules with regard to emotions?
They govern the expression of emotion, particularly of negative emotion.
These vary with gender, culture and context.
Western cultures - certain emotions expressed at certain times
How much of a conversation do people spend in gaze, what is gaze?
Gaze = looking at someones eyes: this happens for 60% of a conversation - varies according to whether we are
On average each gaze is 3 seconds
How much of a conversation do we spend in mutual gaze (eye-contact)?
30%
On average each gaze is 1 second
What can gaze/eye-contact be used for?
Signal turn-taking
Assert dominance
To persuade
To convey intimacy
What proportion of conversations do we spend gazing, when we are listening and when we are speaking?
Listening - 75% gazing
Speaking - 41% gazing
Findings of Kendon (1967) regarding turn-taking and gaze, in conversations?
Speaker signals their intention to stop speaking by gazing at the listener
To signal their intention to begin speaking, the listener looks briefly at the speaker (mutual gaze) and then looks away as they begin speaking
This varies between people
When we want to persuade or ingratiate ourselves what do we do?
We gaze more
When we want to convey disapproval or dominance what do we do?
Stern stare
What did dovidio et al. (1988) find with regards to gender differences, dominant/non-dominant gaze patterns and expertise?
Did a study with mixed sex pairs. Had 3 topics, one where the male is an expert, one where the female is, and one where they were equal.
Measured time spent gazing during speaking and listening.
Found that when the male was an expert, the female demonstrated much more gaze when listening (non-dominant), than when the female was the expert.
When equal, the female demonstrated much more gazing when listening.
Chen et al. (2013) study regarding eye-contact and attitude change?
Study 1:
- Showed ptps videos representing various opinions
- Measured attitude change, time looking at eyes
- More time looking at eyes, reduced persuasiveness
Study 2:
- More perceptive to persuasion when looking at the mouth
Mutual gaze’s effect on intimacy?
Kellerman et al (1989):
- asked strangers of opposite sex to look into each others eyes and count blinks for 2 minutes
- greater feelings of affection in the mutual gaze condition
Van straaten et al. (2010)
- sat male/female ptps opposite an attractive or unattractive experimenter
- Male ptps gazed more at attractive experimenter and females did not
Dimensions of interpersonal touch as defined by Jones and Yarbrough (1985)?
Positive affect - affection, appreciation, sexual interest
Playful - to communicate humour and playfulness
Control - to draw attention or induce compliance
Ritualistic - greetings, departures
Task-related - to accomplish tasks
Factors that affect the use and perception of touch?
Gallace and Sencer (2010)
Culture: Italians hug and kiss each other ALL the time
Setting: Touch is more likely at airports or during team sports
Gender:
Part of the body
Who’s doing the touching
Findings regarding gender and touch?
Women find brief professional touches more positive than men (whitcher and fisher 1979)
Men touch women more than the other way around
Men are more likely to derive sexual connotations from touch than men
Gueguen (2010)
- 64 men
- confederate young woman
- If touched, the men were more likely to engage her in conversation and quicker to do so.
Findings regarding the communicability of interpersonal touch and emotion?
Hertenstein et al (2006)
- ptps divided into encoders and decoders
- sat opposite each other with a screen in the middle
- encoder instructed to convey one of 12 emotions by touch
6 emotions reliable communicated:
- anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude and empathy
Findings regarding touch in romantic relationships?
Tactile physical affection is highly correlated to relationship satisfaction (Herz and Cahill 1997)
Positive physical affection in couples has been shown to:
- Lower BP in stressful situations
- Release oxytocin in females
Different zones of interpersonal distance?
Intimate 0-0.5m
Personal 0.5-1.25m
Social 1.25-4m
Public 4-8m
What is interpersonal distance moderated by?
Self-protecting factors
Attraction
How do people deal with situations where their personal space has to be invaded, such as a bus?
Decrease other non-verbal cues such as eye-contact.
LaPierre 1934 study of attitudes and behaviour?
In 1930s there were negative views about the Chinese.
Visited 250 establishments, without the Chinese couple being refused
Wrote to ask if they would accept chinese:
- 1 yes
- 9 depended
- 118 no’s
Attitude response was different to behaviour, however:
- Attitudes predict behaviour so they should be measured first
- And it is easier to respond to letter with no, than to respond face to face
- Also person who responds to letter is not the same as the person who works and serves people
Consequences of a strong attitude?
Stable over time
Predictive of behaviour
Low pliability
impacts on information processing
What is the theory of planned behaviour with respect to attitudes?
What were the contributions to this approach?
The notion of the behavioural intention; a person’s intention of performing a given behaviour is the best predictor of whether or not the person will actually perform the behaviour. It is based on the premise that the best prediction of an actual behaviour is the behaviour a person actually intends to do.
- Fishbein’s 1967 summative model
A = S b.e - Fishbein & Ajzen’s intention as a mediator
B= BI = A + SN - Theory of reasoned action/ planned behaviour
Multiple predictors of intentions
The two different models with respect to the theory of planned behaviour?
Theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen 1975)
Theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen 1985)
Different models relating attitudes and behaviour?
Summative model
Intention as mediator
Social influences
Going beyond volitional behaviours
Support for the theory of planned behaviour?
Strong correlational support
Moderate experimental support?
Points that make up the Theory of planned behaviour?
Attitude
Subjective norm
PBC - perceived behavioural control
Behavioural intention
Behaviour
What is fishbeins summative model of attitudes?
SUM of b . e :
- Behavioural belief
- Evaluation of outcome
Over a set of modality beliefs
What did Tropp and Pettigrew (2006) show?
Contact was negatively related to prejudice, when Allports conditions were not met, and even more negatively when they were
Evidence for intergroup contact.
What did Dunbar 2003 show?
The social brain hypothesis is mostly supported in the data. Humans have larger neocortices.
Results of Milne and Macrae (1999)?
Inconsistency resolution is an executive process
only source memory had sig results
Source accuracy better for counterstereotypical than stereotypical in the articulatory suppression group.
Quadflieg et al (2011)?
When doing a social/non-social task ptps were asked to categorise inconsistent and consistent stereotypes according to sex
In the social task ptps activated areas of the brain associated with conflict and person perception.
