Chapter 10-11: Aggression & Prejudice

Question 1

Two types of aggression

Answer 1

Hostile aggression
Stems from anger and is aimed at inflicting pain

Instrumental aggression
Means to some goal other then causing pain
Ie aggression to get ahead

Question 2

Cultural differences:

Culture of honor

Answer 2

Southern males supposedly have a heightened sense of masculinity, and react aggressively when it is threatened.

Cohen 1996

Males from south who were bumped into and threatened had heightened levels of cortisol and testosterone. They also walked further into a threatening game of chicken.

Question 3

Gender differences in aggression:

Answer 3

Men are more physically aggressive

Women are more relationally aggressive
-gossip, backstabbing rumors etc

Bettencourt 1996:
Men are more aggressive but: The gender difference dissolves when either gender is threatened.

Question 4

Rewards for aggression

Answer 4

Positive reinforcement
It gets you things you want

Negative reinforcement
Stops bad things from happening
Using aggression to discourage something

Question 5

Reducing aggression by punishment

Answer 5

Reducing by Punishments
Can be effective under certain circumstances

Must:

• Immediately follow behavior
• be strong enough to deter aggressor
• Consistently applied and seen as fair/legitimate

However

• May provoke retaliation
• provides model to imitate

Question 6

Social learning theory and experiment

Answer 6

Social learning theory
People learn social behavior by observing others and imitating them

Children imitate aggression in degree and kind (bandura, 1961)

• Experimenters beat up a bobo doll
• Kids would match that behavior in degree and kind, and not in control

Question 7

Media exposure

Effects and study

Answer 7

Violent TV (short and long term)
Correlational study shows positive correlation in the short term violence and the long term violence

Violent video games and music
(Anderson & dill, 2000)
People played violent or nonviolent video game/music
Then they delivered noise blasts to others
Participants who played violent games sent much longer times

Question 8

How does media exposure increase aggressions?

Five ways

Answer 8

Weakened inhibitions via social influence
-When you see other people engaging in aggressive behaviors it tells
you it’s ok, others do it, so your inhibitions are chipped away

Imitation, ie social learning theory
-You see others doing it so you imitate

Priming anger appraisals
-When you encounter or engage in aggression it primes aggression to
make it more accessible

Habituation to violence
-We see it all the time and so we get used to it.

Increasing defensiveness
-You perceive the world as a dangerous violent place, and are violent

Question 9

Frustration aggression hypothesis

Answer 9

Frustration aggression hypothesis

Frustration occurs when you’re being blocked from being able to attain a goal, it increases likelihood of a aggression

Interrupting progress toward goal leads to frustration leads to aggressiveness

Claims all aggression is caused by frustration

Question 10

Catharsis and experiment

Answer 10

Catharsis: letting out anger makes you feel better

This is wrong, evidence against

Green 1975
Participants were shocked by a confederate. They were either aggressively shocked or lightly shocked, supposedly the aggression would create a need for catharsis. In the second part, the confederate was shocked by no one, an experimenter, or the participant. If catharsis, the participant should shock less if they’ve already had chance to shock. However, those who got to shock already shocked more instead of less, knocking down catharsis, pushing that violence perpetuates violence

Engaging in aggression increases future aggression likelihood. Creates aggression reward chain.

Question 11

Negative affect

Answer 11

When you don’t feel good you’re more aggressive

Eg:
People are more aggressive in heat
-murders rapes up
-baseball batters hit

Question 12

Provocation and humor

Answer 12

Baron & ball
Yes it leads to aggression but humor can neutralize the situation

Participant was attacked like first study
Then they were supposed to rate cartoons or neutral pics
Dependent was average shocks
Provocation lead to higher shocks only with neutral participants, funny ones had no difference

Question 13

Associated cues

Answer 13

Associated cues
Just the presence of guns or accessibility of them increases aggression

Berkowitz and lepage 1968
Subjects were angered or not
There were either actual guns on the table or badminton rackets or nothing
Dependent was how much participant shocks
Increase on aggression with guns

Question 14

Prejudice- ________ component

Answer 14

Prejudice- affective component

Hostile or negative attitude based solely on group membership
Persists despite evidence to the contrary

Question 15

Implicit v explicit attitudes

Answer 15

Implicit attitudes

• Automatic,
• uncontrollable,
• involuntary,
• unconscious

Explicit attitudes
Consciously endorse or verbally agree to
In American culture the structure of prejudice has shifted to a decrease of explicit prejudice values yet implicit attitudes still lie there

Question 16

Stereotype: ________ component

Answer 16

Stereotype: cognitive component

Geteneraoizealtion of a group of people where certain traits are assigned to all members

Ignoring individuability of members

Seeing people less of person more as group member

Question 17

Cognitive ______

Confirmation bias

Answer 17

Cognitive misers”
people tend to spend as little effort as they can resulting in stereotypes

Confirmation bias-
when we see someone act in these stereotypes if confirms it but we ignore when they act against

Question 18

Discrimination: _______ component

Micro aggression

Answer 18

Discrimination- behavioral component
Negative harmful action toward member of a group solely because group membership

Microaggressions- not intended to be hostile small ways we act different
Talking down to women
Telling Asian his English is good

Question 19

Three parts and components:

Answer 19

Prejudice
-Affective, how we feel

Stereotypes
-Cognitive, how we think

Discrimination
-Behavioral, how we act

Question 20

Scapegoating and displacement

Answer 20

When frustrated taking it out on safe targets and displace aggression on them

Question 21

Reaction formation

Answer 21

Reaction formation
Reduces unacceptable feelings you’re uncomfortable with so you’re uncomfortable with

Eg:
Homophobia is associated with homosexual arousal
The most homophobic were the most attracted to gay porn

Question 22

Economic theory of discrimination

Answer 22

Economics
Group conflict stems from competition over limited resource

Eg:
Robbers cave experiment
Inter group conflict arose immediately when competition was introduced
Super-ordinate goals (goals above each group) reduced inter group conflict

Question 23

Motivational hypothesis of discrimination

Minimal groups paradigm

Answer 23

Motivational
Inter group hostility can develop in the absence of competition

Minimal groups paradigm
Hostility arises even in dumb meaningless groups with no competition, shown in underestimator overestimator experiment

Question 24

Social identity theory and study

Answer 24

Social identity theory
Self concept and self esteem derive from status and accomplish from groups
Boost status of in groups, boosts own self esteem (BURGing)

Can derogating out group members boost ones self esteem?
(Fein, 1997) eg are people motivated to discriminate out group to boost ones self esteem

People took an exam, those who had self esteem hurt by gold they did badly released racism against Jews when rating profiles, actively making themselves feel better

Question 25

Aggression

Answer 25

Aggression is behavior intended to cause physical harm or psychological pain to another personal

Emphasis on intent

Question 26

Stereotyping:

Conserving mental resources via categorization:

Answer 26

Conserving mental resources via categorization

Categorizing people helps conserve mental resources
(Think back to schemas and social categorization helps process info)

More likely to use stereotypes when we are ego depleted
Eg: during nonoptimal times of day
-(morning people stereotype at night and vice versa

Can stereotypes conserve resources?
Macrame et al 1994
People remembered information better when they viewed t through the schema of a stereotype, this allowed them more mental resources
-stereotype of Indonesian people in this study

Question 27

Effects of biased assessment: two examples

Answer 27

Effects of biased assessments
Even if we assume stereotypes conserve resources they don’t make it more accurate

Out group homogeneity
Paired distinctiveness

Question 28

Out group homogeneity

Answer 28

People tend to view in group members as unique and individuals and out group members as similar and ununique

You overestimate how similar out group members are

You may want to think of in group as multifaceted and out group as boring

Question 29

Paired distinctiveness and study

Answer 29

Pairing of two distinctive effects stands out even more because they cooccur (eg illusionary corollary)
-People in minority groups are distinctive because they’re rare, crime is
also distinctive plus negativity bias
-which says we remember negative things more

Eg: We’re more likely to remember minority’s who commit crimes
because of paired distinctiveness

Hamilton (1976)
Saw slides of people in either group a or b doing good or bad things
-Group A: Majority
-Group B: Minority (1/3)
More positive actions than negative for both

Results
People were much more likely to say that negative actions were committed by group b

Caused by fact that
-minorities are distinctive and
-negative things are more distinctive
therefore they are more likely to be paired together

Question 30

Modern racism/expression of racism

Answer 30

Modern racism

Outwardly acting nonprejudiced while inwardly maintaining racist views
Social norms regarding appropriate inter group behavior have changed
Same holds for sexism homophobia etc

Question 31

Implicit measures of attitudes

Two ways

Answer 31

Implicit measures of attitudes
Instead of directly asking attitudes that measure explicit attitudes

Implicit association test (IAT)
The association test with black good etc
Shows your internal biases

Affect Misattribution procedure (AMP)
Operates off of Misattribution effect:
-People aren’t good at identifying where their emotions come from
Quick presentation of a picture. Then you rate pleasantness of pictograph, the early flasher influences their rating
-They’re misattributing the affect of the photo onto the earlier photo

Question 32

Benevolent racism v Hostile racism

Answer 32

“Good stereotypes” are still damaging to a group!

Still distinguish one rom another

Chivalry, athleticism, etc

Point to hostile racism below

Question 33

Attributional ambiguity

Answer 33

Attributional ambiguity

Difficult to determine whether outcomes are result of prejudice or not
Applies to Good or bad events

Question 34

Stereotype threat

Answer 34

Stereotype threat- like self fulfilling prophesy

Being anxious or fearful that you’ll fit into the stigma or stereotype, often making you do it
Leads to increased arousal which can interfere with performance on complex tasks
Can also lead to negative thinking or just fixating more on avoiding failure than attaining success

Pittinsky 1999
Can we shift salience of identity to change performance?
Shifting Asian women’s focus on gender or race can make them perform better or worse at math exams

Question 35

Contact hypothesis: six things

Answer 35

Contact between groups is the best way to reduce conflict. However six factors best facilitate this:

Prejudice can be reduced by:

1. Mutual independence
2. Shared Common goals
3. Equal status
4. Supportive environment
5. Multiple group members
6. Supportive social norms