Development of Social Cognition (7&8)

Question 1

Implicit vs Explicit

Answer 1

Implicit - uncontrollable, automatic, unconscious

Explicit - controllable, deliberate, intentional, consciously accessible

Question 2

What are social categories?

Answer 2

number of dimensions that differ in properties

gender, race, political orientation, sexual orientation, birth place, sports teams etc

Question 3

What are some functions of social categories?

Answer 3

learning (inferences from social categories/group memberships)
induction (evaluation/attitudes, stereotypes)
facilitates social interaction

Question 4

What is Effect of Contact?

Answer 4

children’s explicit bias influenced by their communities/schools. interaction (culture fills in content)
exposure to other groups reduces explicit bias

Question 5

What is The Paradox?

Answer 5

developmental decrease in explicit negative attitudes toward outgroups, but developmental increase in negative behavior toward the outgroup

Question 6

Limitations of explicit measures for bias (2)

Answer 6

Access- assumes we don’t harbour feelings outside our awareness
Social desirability - assumes we’re not motivated to conceal our feelings

Question 7

What is the IAT

Answer 7

Implicit association test - measures implicit bias
strength of association is measured in reaction time
stronger association = faster, more accurate

Question 8

T or F

Implicit ingroup preference is stable over time

Answer 8

True

Question 9

T or F

Explicit ingroup preference is stable over time

Answer 9

False - explicit ingroup preference decreases, but negative behaviour toward to the outgroup increases

Question 10

what is the relationship between culturally lower status groups vs higher status groups in implicit ingroup preference?

Answer 10

culturally lower status groups do not have an implicit preference for their ingroup relative to a higher status group, however relative to an even lower status group there is an implicit bias for the ingroup than an even lower status outgroup

Question 11

who has a stronger implicit ingroup bias? lower or higher status groups of 6 year olds?

Answer 11

higher status 6 year olds have a greater implicit ingroup preference

Question 12

According to Rudman (2004) what are the sources of implicit attitudes?

Answer 12

1. Early experiences (past, forgotten experiences influence bias)
2. Affective experiences (automatic emotional responses)
3. Cultural bias (societal evaluations, high status groups have greater implicit bias)
4. Cognitive consistency (self appraisals and societal evaluation align with implicit bias)

Question 13

What did Baron & Banaji (2006) want to find out?

Answer 13

when implicit attitudes toward social groups are formed and what the relationship is between explicit and implicit attitudes through development?

Question 14

What were Baron & Banaji (2006)’s methods?

Answer 14

using a child friendly IAT to measure implicit attitudes toward black and white children
explicit attitudes measured by a picture of a black and white child, forcing preference choices
participants were 6yos, 10yos and adults

Question 15

What were the results of Baron & Banaji (2006) study?

Answer 15

implicit race attitudes were the same across all ages
explicit attitudes were consonant for 6 year olds, 10yos significantly less consonant and adults explicit attitudes demonstrated no racial preference

Question 16

What can Baron & Banaji (2006) reasonably conclude from their study?

Answer 16

6yos have implicit attitudes toward social groups, explicitly preferring one’s own social group, this preference subsides by age 10 and disappears by adulthood
10yos have conscious and unconscious race attitudes

Question 17

What did Gonzalez, Steele & Baron (2016/2017) want to find out?

Answer 17

if adult implicit biases can be reduced through exposure can children’s? at what age?
are their developmental differences in capacity to reduce bias?

Question 18

What were Gonzalez, Steele & Baron’s (2016/17) methods?

Answer 18

read vignettes to children about exemplary people and showed a picture of a white or black person followed by an IAT (participants asian and white, 7 and 10 yos)

Question 19

What were the results of Gonzales, Steele & Baron (2016/17)?

Answer 19

implicit bias could be reduced in children 10+ but not younger (7yos) but unable to conclude whether they successfully changed their beliefs about the whole group

Question 20

What is psychological essentialism

Answer 20

idea that something is what it is because of some intrinsic, immutable property, stable or fixed at birth
shaped by language (nouns)

Question 21

Essentialism: beliefs

Answer 21

Certain categories are:
Real
Discovered
Rooted in nature
-some unobservable essence causes things to be the way they are, causes observable similarities shared by members of the category, not fooled by surface level changes
-words reflect this real structure of the world

Question 22

What did Gelman & Heyman (1999) want to find out?

Answer 22

whether lexicalization would influence children’s inferences about stability

Question 23

What were Gelman & Heyman (1999) methods?

Answer 23

5 and 7 yos were given a description with a noun label or verbal predicate then asked a set of questions about stability (past, future, unsupported and opposed behaviour)

Question 24

What were Gelman & Heyman (1999) results?

Answer 24

the noun label condition had higher stability scores, especially regarding future behaviour and without family support. influence of noun labels is stronger in 7 yos

Question 25

What could Gelman & Heyman (1999) conclude?

Answer 25

lexicalization provides important information to children about property stability. they believe the behavior is rooted within the person’s disposition and is not situational (is stable). Language influences are stronger in older children (7+)

Question 26

What did Dunham et al.(2011) want to find out?

Answer 26

whether 5 yos membership in randomly assigned minimal groups would induce intergroup bias

Question 27

What is the minimal group phenomenon?

Answer 27

participants grouped together by random assignment to create meaningless social groups is sufficient to induce preference for the miniman ingroup

Question 28

What is a minimal group?

Answer 28

neutral groups without competition or unequal status and no opportunity for differential in or out group interaction (often used in studies where participants are tested alone and do not meet any group members)

Question 29

What were Dunham et al. (2011) methods experiment 1?

Answer 29

the child selected a coin which represented an assigned group colour which they wore a t shirt. implicit, explicit, resource allocation and behavioural attribution tests were administered measuring the preference for ingroup vs outgroup members and same gender vs cross gender
minimal ingroup preference existed by less so than same gender preference

Question 30

What were Dunham et al. (2011) methods in experiment 2?

Answer 30

instead of colour “groups” (noun label) they children were given descriptive phrase (wearing an orange shirt). again they were tested on implicit, explicit, resource allocation and behavioural attribution measuring ingroup vs outgroup preference (gender was fixed)
minimal ingroup preference existed but less so than experiment 1

Question 31

What were Dunham et al. (2011) methods in experiment 3?

Answer 31

the child selected a coin which represented an assigned group colour which they wore a t shirt. they were told one ingroup and one outgroup stories (images were gendered matched, wearing different colour shirts) with equal positive and negative behaviours performed by each. free-recall was implicit test and playmate preference was explicit test.
positive actions more recalled for ingroup members, playmate preference for in group members

Question 32

What were the conclusions of Dunham et al. (2011)

Answer 32

minimal groups are sufficient to induce intergroup bias, more so with noun groups and implicit bias is stronger than explicit bias. merely hearing a story about an ingroup does not enhance memory but enhanced encoding of positive ingroup information.
ingroup preferences precede outgroup dislike