Final - New Lectures

Question 1

what two notes should be kept in mind for understanding when children learn X?

Answer 1

children vary a lot in when they develop certain capacities

age ranges should be viewed like a measure of central tendency (ie mean, median) rather than a rule

Question 2

how do we measure nonverbal recognition of social categories?

Answer 2

inferring novelty from eye gaze duration

Question 3

explain the habituation paradigm

Answer 3

baby has reduced looking time every time they re shown the novel object again and again (habituation)

baby must be able to see and control where her eyes are aimed, and recognize the repeated object (functional memory) in order to exhibit the habitual paradigm

Question 4

looking time can assess what two things?

Answer 4

recognition of novelty, difference or change

preference

Question 5

what is the recognition of novelty, difference or change (nonverbal)?

Answer 5

when a pre-existing stimulus has been completed encoded (familiarity)

Question 6

what is preference in terms of looking time?

Answer 6

when a pre-existing stimulus hasn’t been completely encoded

when two items are equated on their novelty and presented at the same time, and we can see where the child chooses to put their attention

Question 7

explain Fagan and Singer’s study on novelty (babies)

Answer 7

sample: 5-6m olds

design: 1. habituate to a photo and 2. see a new photo of someone who is similar or different in gender/age

DV: looking time at new photo (habituation = complete encoding = recognition)

Results: not categorized strictly by gender (more nuanced)

Question 8

explain Kelly et al’s study on preference (babies)

Answer 8

sample: white newborns and 3m olds

design: saw images of people form different races (no habituation)

dv: looking time (no habituation so looking time reflects preference)

results: newborns have no race-based difference in looking times while 3mo have more looking time for white faces (cultural)

limitation: biological factors of vision in newborns

main point: nonverbal preferences based on race develop with experience

Question 9

what are the rules for when awareness of social categories develop? (what determines whether or not kids are paying conscious attention to certain types of social categories)

Answer 9

1. visibility of social category
2. primacy of social category in everyday life (do they live in an environment where people vary on this social category)

Question 10

at what age does awareness of gender develop?

Answer 10

2-3y

Question 11

when does race/ethnicity awareness develop?

Answer 11

5+yo (variation due to local exposure)

Question 12

in the USA, white children can generally distinguish what races first/second/….?

Answer 12

1. black
2. asian, latinX, native american
   variation

Question 13

Study on how children vs adults determine race

Answer 13

sample: adults, 4-9yo in northeast US (mostly white)

design: participants saw white and black faces, had to label as white/european-american or black/African-american
—faces differed in skin colour and facial features (physiognomy)

main point: adults rely on a combo of skin colour and facial features while children rely primarily on skin colour

could be due to socialization and exposure to diff prototypes, greater attention, people start using facial features to determine whether or not you’re black/white

Question 14

what is physiognomy?

Answer 14

facial features that are stereotypical for specific races (independent of skin tone)

Question 15

explain the study that looked at the development of race as immutable/unchangeable or essential feature of a person

Answer 15

5-6yo, 9-10yo and adults viewed images of whte/black kids and adults that were expressing either a happy or angry expression

on each trial, participants saw a photo of one child who was making either a happy or angry expression and then one same-race adult making a diff expression or one other-race adult making the same expression

participants then had to choose: when the child grows up, which one will he be?

RESULTS
- 9-10yo white kids and adults viewed race as more important than emotion
- white 5-6yo used race much less BUT racial minority 5-6yo more likely to use race (race is more salient)

Question 16

what is “colourblindness”?

Answer 16

as children become more aware of race as an aspect of one’s social identity, they also become aware of the cultural norm of hesitancy to discuss race directly

children may learn to avoid discuss race even in situations where the situation might demand it

Question 17

explain the study that investigated how far children would go in avoiding to discuss race by using a modified version of the game “guess who?”

Answer 17

race-relevant condition and race-neutral condition (all people here were white but given brown/white sticker)

looked at how many questions kids need to get to the right answer, and they rigged the game so that you’ll get to your answer faster if you ask about race

8-9yo asked roughly same amount of questions in both conditions
10-11yo needed more Qs to get to answer in race-relevant condition

**needed race neutral condition to make sure its not just that older kids don’t care about the game so aren’t trying

Question 18

what are two important factors for development of racial prejudice? (prejudice depends on __ and __)

Answer 18

1. are you a member of a majority/minority group?
2. how much contact do you have with members of minority groups?

Question 19

what are the changes in explicit racial prejudice in white children?

Answer 19

largely seems to go away by age 10 in the study reviewed

not sure if its a genuine change or a change due to socialization (debate)

Question 20

what are the implicit attitudes across development (racial prejudice)? explain the study

Answer 20

sample: predominantly white kids (kindergarteners, 5th graders, adults)

design: children-friendly IAT for kindergarteners (instead of good/bad = :) or :( ) on racial preference

results: implicit pro-white attitude is very consistent (doesn’t change across years), while self-reported preference decreases with age

Question 21

what might explain the pattern in explicit racial prejudice?

Answer 21

bc its a more controlled judgment, we are attuned to the fact that its not okay to have a racial prejudice

Question 22

what explains the pattern in implicit racial prejudice?

Answer 22

even very early on, we are exposed to subtle prejudices like in kids books

maybe as we get older, were better able to control this stuff which is pushing your implicit associations in one direction, but when you’re exposed to more biased inputs pushing in competing directions so you’re getting no change

Question 23

why does explicit prejudice decline?

Answer 23

• learn social and cultural norms about race
• internalize moral lessons about equality and fairness

Question 24

what are 3 reasons for the stability in implicit attitudes?

Answer 24

1. stability of attitude
2. stability of cultural messages
3. implicit prejudice increases, but adults get better at controlling them

Question 25

explain the study that investigated the implicit and explicit race attitudes (towards black, white and Chinese people) among children growing up in Cameroon

Answer 25

sample: 30 participants from the following age ranges –> 3-6, 6-9, 9-12, 12-15, 15-18, and 18-30

design: implicit attitudes were measured using an adapted IAT and explicit attitudes were measured by preferences for own-race vs other-race people in a variety of scenarios

• from 3-6y, there was an implicit in-group bias, shifted from 6-9 to an outgroup bias implicitly (maybe bc go to school and exposed to larger cultural messages)

Question 26

Preference for own gender develops at what age?

Answer 26

2-3y

Question 27

Why do gender preferences decline around puberty?

Answer 27

• probs due to heterosexual attraction

Question 28

explain the example given in class on the development of gender stereotypes (intelligence)

Answer 28

• girls as young as 6 less likely vs boys to report girls are “really, really smart”
• beliefs predicted less interest in activities believed to be for rly smart ppl

Question 29

explain the meta-analysis on draw a scientist

Answer 29

found that the gender bias in the draw a scientist task is decreasing over time but not substantially (percentage of male scientists drawn throughout years across all kids is decreasing and is more true for girls than for boys –theyre equally likely)

for girls, the rate of drawing a male scientist also increases with age (within a year, older girls are more likely than younger girls to draw a male scientist)

Question 30

explain the study on reducing racial prejudice among children

Answer 30

• 5-6yo and 7-8yo (white)
• manipulated whether person reading story to child was black (outgroup) or white (ingroup)
• measured childrens reconciliation skills (ability to accept that others’ judgments that differ from their own are valid)

5-6yo thought that both black and white readers would have more positive attitudes towards white people while 7-8yo thought the black and white readers would prefer their racial ingroup and this was particularly true for kids with higher reconciliation skills

the storybook intervention had no effect on children’s own racial attitudes (story featuring cross-race friendship)

Question 31

explain a reason for the lack of success of the storybook manipulation in changing children’s racial attitudes

Answer 31

• mostly assumed reader shared their own racial prejudices
• young kids may not possess cognitive structure to engage w anti bias perspective
• one hurdle for effective interventions for kids is to understand and appreciate what cognitive skills are needed for a message to be effective

Question 32

why neuroscience and intergroup relations?

Answer 32

another way of getting at ways of looking at psychological processes that are less worried about faking or social desirability

Question 33

why isnt the use of neuroscience methods within social psychology and intergroup relations just for the purpose of localization?

Answer 33

localization doesn’t get you very far –> they’ll connect it to other pieces of literature to get a more cohesive model to learn about how the mind interacts with the world (how the brain works)

Question 34

what can neuroscientific methods reveal?

Answer 34

timing of various psychological processes that is not possible using either self-report or even measures like the IAT

Even the IAT, or very fast self-report, still requires some time for completing a behavioral response (e.g., pressing a computer key).

Neuroscience approaches can then bypass these delays and reveal the true time course of various processes.

Question 35

Study on passively viewing faces and ERPs

Answer 35

• white Ps passively viewed images of Black and White people
• some categorized based on gender, others on race
• ERPs tracked during judgement process
• differences in processing of race within 100 milliseconds and gender within 200 milliseconds

Question 36

What are the implications of neuroscience findings suggesting that social categorization is very fast and therefore likely autonomatic?

Answer 36

• no point trying to change categorization bc it’s not rly under our control
• instead of focusing on activation, focus on application! (like design vs individual problem focus for reducing discrimination)

Question 37

what is neurosynth.org?

Answer 37

platform for large-scale, automatic synthesis of fMRI data

takes thousands of published articles reporting the results of fMRI studies, chews on them for abt and spit them out with brain pics/activations

can use to look at connections btw various psychological processes based on what happens in brain

Question 38

explain the racial differences in the N200 component when using EEG analyses

Answer 38

• N200 has been ass w response selection and conflict processes bc originates in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (2nd peak of ERP)
• typical finding of larger N200 response to ingroup targets in race categorization tasks may reflect response conflict associated with making an ingroup classification

Question 39

How have neuroscience findings supported Gordon Allport’s theories

Answer 39

• cognitive perspective from Allport
• not something specific ab way you think ab social worlds; taking tools from other parts of life and applying them in social world

Question 40

explain the study that looked at differences in how he brain treats the process of intergroup stereotypes vs intergroup prejudice

Answer 40

• stereotypes: grouping based on trait
• prejudice: connecting person w pos or neg
• Ps saw 2 faces (2W, 2B, 1W1B; analyses focused on mixed trials)
• in some blocks made stereotypical judgement (who is more athletic), in other blocks made prejudicial judgment (who do you want to befriend)
• did task in fMRI scanner, then did 2 IATs (one ab attitudes pos/neg, one ab mental/physical stereotypes)
• one brain region more activated during friendship trials
• diff region more activated during trait trials
• During ‘friendship’ trials, activation in the left temporal pole was more associated with evaluative IAT scores (good-bad).
• During ‘athletic’ trials, activation in the left temporal pole was more associated with stereotype IAT scores (mental-physical).
  **so left temporal pole is what’s needed to retrieve the relevant association you have and apply it to a context

Question 41

explain the study that looked at “racial paralysis”

Answer 41

• task very similar to the previous study but w key diff: Ps given option to indicate they had “no gut feeling” and could opt out of making the judgment
• in lab studies, Ps more likely to opt out of mixed race trials (esp when judgment was ab stereotypical traits)
• fMRi study found greater activation in DLPFC for cross-race trials (even when P opted out); SO more activation when clear you could be indicating a racial preference (esp true when judgments were stereotype-relevant)

Question 42

what is racial paralysis?

Answer 42

where people high in motivation to not appear prejudiced work hard to avoid cross-racial comparisons

Question 43

explain the brain region that was more active during cross-race and stereotypical judgments (what this means, implications)

Answer 43

[This region] is implicated in self-conscious emotions that plays a central role in the regulation of behaviors and judgments governed by strong social and moral norms…

The implication of these regions in cross-race decisions offers support for our account that the fear of appearing biased evoked by such situations leads to conflict, greater reflection and a resulting tendency to opt out.

Question 44

explain the study that looked at the more basic process by which people decide who is or is not a member of their own group (policy positions)

Answer 44

• testing whether people rely more on similarity or group structure when evaluating new people as potential group members
• Ps indicated belief ab policy issues
• learned ab beliefs of 3 other targets, had to align w one target by siding w them on unknown policy position
• latent structure of ppl’s preferences made it more or less easy to form group w one of targets (B)
• as distractor (C) becomes more similar to P/Target B, preferences for target B increase
• This design can help tease apart “dyadic similarity” (all that matters is similarity to me, so A and B are equal) versus “latent structure” (using the behavior of others to infer a consensus or group structure).

Question 45

explain the fMRI analyses of the study that looked at the more basic process by which people decide who is or is not a member of their own group (policy beliefs)

Answer 45

fMRI analyses found that greater use of this “latent structure” (the more reliant you are to determine your judgment based on the presence of C) approach was more strongly associated with activity in the right anterior insula.

• this brain region key to more general structural learning tasks (non-social)
• brain region is not specific to group structure learning –> using the skill and applying it to social world about who’s more similar to me

**seems like way we think ab other ppl is highly similar to way we think in general!!!

Question 46

What is mobile measurement?

Answer 46

• future direction for intergroup neuroscience
• cap tracks info through phone instead of traditional lab work (EEG cap)

Question 47

what is inter-brain synchrony?

Answer 47

• future direction for intergroup neuroscience
• hook multiple people up and measure the degree to which they sync up together (for team building and student learning - works better when more similarly activated)