Chapter 10-11: Aggression & Prejudice Flashcards
Two types of aggression
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
Cultural differences:
Culture of honor
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.
Gender differences in aggression:
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.
Rewards for aggression
Positive reinforcement
It gets you things you want
Negative reinforcement
Stops bad things from happening
Using aggression to discourage something
Reducing aggression by punishment
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
Social learning theory and experiment
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
Media exposure
Effects and study
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
How does media exposure increase aggressions?
Five ways
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
Frustration aggression hypothesis
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
Catharsis and experiment
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.
Negative affect
When you don’t feel good you’re more aggressive
Eg:
People are more aggressive in heat
-murders rapes up
-baseball batters hit
Provocation and humor
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
Associated cues
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
Prejudice- ________ component
Prejudice- affective component
Hostile or negative attitude based solely on group membership
Persists despite evidence to the contrary
Implicit v explicit attitudes
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
Stereotype: ________ component
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
Cognitive ______
Confirmation bias
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
Discrimination: _______ component
Micro aggression
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
Three parts and components:
Prejudice
-Affective, how we feel
Stereotypes
-Cognitive, how we think
Discrimination
-Behavioral, how we act
Scapegoating and displacement
When frustrated taking it out on safe targets and displace aggression on them
Reaction formation
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
Economic theory of discrimination
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
Motivational hypothesis of discrimination
Minimal groups paradigm
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
Social identity theory and study
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
Aggression
Aggression is behavior intended to cause physical harm or psychological pain to another personal
Emphasis on intent
Stereotyping:
Conserving mental resources via categorization:
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
Effects of biased assessment: two examples
Effects of biased assessments
Even if we assume stereotypes conserve resources they don’t make it more accurate
Out group homogeneity
Paired distinctiveness
Out group homogeneity
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
Paired distinctiveness and study
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
Modern racism/expression of racism
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
Implicit measures of attitudes
Two ways
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
Benevolent racism v Hostile racism
“Good stereotypes” are still damaging to a group!
Still distinguish one rom another
Chivalry, athleticism, etc
Point to hostile racism below
Attributional ambiguity
Attributional ambiguity
Difficult to determine whether outcomes are result of prejudice or not
Applies to Good or bad events
Stereotype threat
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
Contact hypothesis: six things
Contact between groups is the best way to reduce conflict. However six factors best facilitate this:
Prejudice can be reduced by:
- Mutual independence
- Shared Common goals
- Equal status
- Supportive environment
- Multiple group members
- Supportive social norms
