Block #4 Flashcards
Two-Step Model of Attribution
- Personal Attributions
- Situational Attributions
Attribution Theory
A group of theories that
Stereotypes
Beliefs associate a whole group of people with certain traits.
- Thoughts or cognitions
Prejudice
Feelings about others because of their connection to a social group.
- Our feelings or is the effect of this component of this process.
Discrimination
Behaviours directed against a person because of their membership in a particular group.
- Actions or behaviours
Three Reactions
Discrimination, stereotypes, and prejudice can operate independently or together.
- Discrimination can be fueled by our thoughts or by our feelings (by stereotypes or by feelings)
- Discriminatory social practices may support stereotypes and prejudice.
- Stereotypes may cause people to become prejudiced.
- Prejudiced people may use stereotypes to justify their feelings.
Stereotype Formation #1: Culture & Cognition
This affects how and when we will categorize people. Factors include:
- Family
- Media
- Socialization
Stereotype Formation #2: Social Categorization
The classification of persons into groups based on common attributes.
- Save time and effort.
- Leads us to overestimate differences between groups
- Leads us to underestimate differences within groups
Stereotype Formation #3: Ingroups vs. Outgroups
“Us” vs. “Them”
- Ingroups: groups that you identify with
- Outgroups: groups that you do not identify with
Consequences:
- Exaggerate differences: exaggerate the difference between our in-group and other out-groups - because perceived similarities are minimized, and differences are maximized, stereotypes are formed and reinforced.
- Outgroup homogeneity effect: THEY are all alike; not only through stereotypes, but people can also be less accurate in recognizing the faces of members of racial outgroups.
Why are outgroups seen as homogenous?
- Little personal contact with them
- People do not encounter a representative sample of outgroup members
- New neuroscience research examining this effect: research using brain imaging or cognitive methods has found that merely categorizing people as in-group or out-group members influences how perceivers process information about them (Jay Van Bavel)
- People were shown white and black faces, and there was different activity seen in the brain (orbital frontal cortex) when the faces were labelled as being from an ingroup than when they were labelled as being from an outgroup. The activity was correlated significantly with the degree to which participants reported preferring the ingroup over the outgroup.
- Identifying faces as ingroup or outgroup had a much stronger effect on orbital frontal cortical cortex activity and on the preference of the faces than whether the faces were black or white.
Illusory Correlations
One way that stereotypes endure; is a tendency doe people to overestimate the association between variables that are slightly or not at all correlated. Two processes:
1. Overestimate the association between distinctive variables - variants that capture the attention because they are novel or deviant (an unusual combination will stick in people’s minds and cause people to overestimate the relationship). Example: brutal murder (uncommon behaviour) is committed by someone released from a mental institution (uncommon category of person).
2. Overestimate the association between variables that they expect to go together; people have meaningful expected associations pairings are perceived to occur more frequently - SEEN THROUGH the fact that people overestimate association between stereotyped group and stereotyped behaviour
Attributions
Fundamental attribution errors can perpetuate stereotypes, not taking context into account and only seeing the behaviour and attributing it to the person they are observing and taking it as evidence that supports a negative stereotype.
- Perceivers see confirmation of the stereotype instead of recognizing the consequences of discrimination.
Internal stereotypes consistent information as a result of the internal causes.
- Interpret steretpye inconsistent information as a result of external causes.
