Final Test Lecture Notes

Question 1

Definitional issues with prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination.

Answer 1

Prejudice involves affect or emotions.
Discrimination focuses on behavior.
Stereotypes are thoughts, or cognition.

Question 2

What are prototypical areas for prejudice?

Answer 2

age, tenure track, occupational, religion, socioeconomic class, and politics.

Question 3

Breadth/Accuracy: When does intergroup prejudice occur?

Answer 3

ntergroup prejudice occurs almost always when people are divided up into groups.

Even trivial groups formed in classrooms and labs, or based on the brand of computers that people use.

Question 4

Accuracy: 3 statements about stereotypes.

Answer 4

some stereotypes are more accurate than others.

rarely, if ever, does a stereotype pertain to every member of a group.

most stereotypes pertain to the minority of group members.

Question 5

Possible Causes of Stereotypes: What are the four causes of a prejudiced attitude?

Answer 5

operation/classical conditioning.
your own behavior.
information.
modeling.

Question 6

what other factors can cause prejudiced attitudes?

Answer 6

self-esteem
the media
one bad experience
outgroup homogeneity 
stereotype subtyping
FAE
personality factors

Question 7

self-fulfilling prophecies

Answer 7

“what you expect is what you get.”

Expecting someone to be hostile can cause them to actually become hostile.

Question 8

Steps for self-fulfilling prophecies.

Answer 8

1) we hold negative expectations about a person or group
2) we behave in ways that correspond with those expectations
3) group members notice and behave consistent with OUR EXPECTATIONS of them!

Question 9

How do the steps for self-fulfilling prophecies contribute to prejudice?

Answer 9

After step 3, we say, “Hey - I knew it!”

After that, our perceptions strengthen or grow into prejudice.

Question 10

stereotype threat

Answer 10

a disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.

Unlike self-fulfilling prophecies that hammer one’s reputation into one’s self-concept, stereotype threat situations haveIMMEDIATE/ACCUTE effects.

Question 11

Possible Remedies for Prejudice

Answer 11

1) education
2) contact hypothesis
3) hypocrisy induction
4) use guilt

Question 12

Remedy: education

Answer 12

know about the complexity of large groups.

“bias blind spot”

Question 13

Remedy: Contact hypothesis

Answer 13

1) increase intergroup contact

2) create common goals

Question 14

Remedy: Hypocrisy induction

Answer 14

make them feel like a hypocrite by using cognitive dissonance

Question 15

Remedy: Use guilt

Answer 15

remind white people of lynchings/slavery in the U.S.

Question 16

Special cases of prejudice

Answer 16

microaggressions (small and subtle insult based on your group membership)

LGBTQ - transgender is generally a good term to use; not everyone whose appearance or behavior is gender nonconforming will identify as a transgender person.

Current political climate: fears increasing among immigrants, Muslim-Americans, and other minority groups.

Question 17

Are actual prejudiced acts increasing?

Answer 17

YESSS. Hate crimes are still happening and MIGHT be increasing.

Question 18

The Role of Media on Aggression

Answer 18

Statistics: U.S. children watch more TV than other countries and 60-80% of that TV programming contains violence.

Lack of Realism: watching violence causes kids to be more aggressive.

Correlational/Experimental Evidence: watching violence CAUSES an increase in aggressive behavior ON AVERAGE.

Question 19

Qualifications of Aggressive cause-effect

Answer 19

mainly kids from 5-15 years of age.

more likely CERTAIN kids.

SAME with violent video games and violent music lyrics.

Question 20

what if a young adult disagrees with the research?

Answer 20

“I’ve watched violent movies and played violent video games and I turned out fine.”

Problems with this reasoning:

1) Self-report issus (misremembering, bias, lying)
2) may not generalize
3) no control group, so no cause-effect conclusion is justified.

Question 21

How can you reduce aggression?

Answer 21

1) reduce how much violent media kids are exposed to.
2) Educate kids on the lack of realism
3) model nonaggressive behavior
4) reduce the number of available guns (fewer guns=fewer acts using guns)
5) the “weapons effect” - the visible presence of a weapon can cause an aggressive response.

Question 22

Experiment on aggression.

Answer 22

Procedure: participants were insulted and given a chance to electrically shock the insulter.
IV: in a room with a table, with a table with a visible hand gun on it, and a table with a tennis racquet on it.
DV: number of shocks, how intense, how long.
Results: participants in the “visible gun” condition were more aggressive towards insulter.
Interpretations: we are justified to make a cause-effect conclusion here. Guns CAUSE aggression.

Question 23

Causes of Attraction and Liking

Answer 23

1) your looks an personality
2) similarity to you
3) proximity to you
4) you liked them first
5) non-sexual arousal: a rise in physiological arousal causes greater liking between 2 people.

Question 24

Love/marriage

Answer 24

1) Passionate vs. companionate love
2) divorce usually occurs during the cooling period.
3) love-based vs. arranged marriages

Question 25

Divorce (usually during cooling period)

Answer 25

transition between passionate and companionate love

on average 4-8 years

transition is typical, but when passion starts to decrease, they think something is wrong.

Question 26

Love-based vs. arranged marriages

Answer 26

oranges marriages are more common and LESS likely to end in divorce.

Question 27

similarities between the same and opposite sex couples:

Answer 27

1) argue about similar things

2) equally strong desire for long-term commitment

Question 28

differences between same and opposite sex couples:

Answer 28

1) same-sex couples are more egalitarian. They are more fair minded in dividing work.
2) same-sex couples have a more difficult start to their relationships (e.g., being seen in public, meeting for the first time).

Question 29

Can men and women be just friends?

Answer 29

40% of best friends are same sex.

cross-sex friends tend to talk/self-diclsose.

Question 30

what % of cross-sex friends report sexual tension?

Answer 30

60%.

Question 31

does the tension decrease when both are romantically involved with someone else?

Answer 31

YES.

Question 32

Alturism

Answer 32

helping others without regard for yourself.

Question 33

Does altruism exist?

Answer 33

empathy (altruism) vs. distress reduction (not altruism)

people don’t always do things out of love or purely to help someone else. it could be to reduce their stress about the situation.

Question 34

The social responsibility norm

Answer 34

we tend to feel we SHOULD help someone who…

1) needs the help
2) is less capable than we are

Reminder: this norm tends to weaken if we victim-blame.

Question 35

Is there safety in numbers?

Answer 35

A) prior to 1960’s.. yes..

B) 1964: kitty genovese = no bystander effect!
more bystanders = LESS HELPING

C) famous meta-analysis by Latane and Nida - NO, primary reason being diffusion of responsibility.

BUT…

D) 2007: new archival research shows that some 37 witnesses helped genovese.
2008: mistake discovered in 1981 meta-analysis more witnesses increase helping or show no effects
THE QUESTION IS OPEN.

Question 36

If you want your child to become a more helpful person…

Answer 36

model helping behavior
when a child does something helpful on their own, REINFORCE (VERBAL PRAISE THAT ENCOURAGES CHILD TO MAKE INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION).

Question 37

Advice for clinicians and counselors:

Answer 37

A) trust in your notes more than your memory.
B) trust research/statistics more than intuition
C) beware of nonverbal decoding (illusion of insight) (listening + seeing > just seeing).
D) beware of confirmation bias and leading questions

Question 38

Pros of bias

Answer 38

most biases, in moderation, are mentally healthy. (reduce depression) (without FAE ad self-serving biases comes depressive realism).

Question 39

Cons of bias

Answer 39

accuracy has benefits.
better decisions for myself.
get along better in groups.

Question 40

4 benefits to reducing the FAE

Answer 40

1) improve critical thinking
2) prevent future mistreatment
3) reduce anger and retaliation
4) increase willingness to help those in need

Question 41

antidepressants

Answer 41

1) remember the benefits of accuracy
2) realize accuracy = intelligence
3) make some downward comparisons

Question 42

Cognitive, social, and motivational causes of prejudice…

Answer 42

ethnocentrism is social.

outgroup homogeneity and group serving biases are both cognitive.