historical foundations

Question 1

who is William James?

Answer 1

first psychologist circa 1875

Question 2

who is Kurt Lewin?

Answer 2

first social psychologist circa 1945

Question 3

who is William McDougall?

Answer 3

• wrote one of the first textbooks on social psych, which propagated scientific racism (circa 1921)
• identified psychological qualities associated with “superior” racial groups

Question 4

what was the Johnson-Reed Act?

Answer 4

• 1924
• a quota imposed on immigrants that disproportionately favoured immigrants from Northern and Western Europe
• justified based on eugenics research and other forms of scientific racism

Question 5

what is social Darwinism?

Answer 5

“survival of the fittest”: existing disparities between social groups were justified as reflecting innate differences between more and less worthy groups

Question 6

what is the main critique of social Darwinism?

Answer 6

• naturalistic fallacy: what we observe in the natural world is not necessarily how the world ought to be
• also ethically questionable implications (eg. forced sterilization)

Question 7

who coined the terms “ingroup”, “outgroup” and “ethnocentrism”?

Answer 7

Sumner in his book “Folkways”

Question 8

what is the main argument in Sumner’s “Folkways”?

Answer 8

• we have a fundamental need to be part of a group
• self-identity is strongly tied to group identity

Question 9

what was the thesis of Lippmann’s “Public Opinion”?

Answer 9

• the modern world is chaotic and disorderly and people have a tendency and necessity to oversimplify it (i.e., stereotype)
• stereotypes are a cognitive shortcut that arise from a need for abstraction
• recognizes how cultural influences and expectations shape the way we view the world

Question 10

what were the findings of Katz and Braly’s Princeton Trilogy Strategies?

Answer 10

• relied on self-reported stereotyped beliefs that people held about other groups
• found that people have a motivated perception of stereotypes (i.e., confirmation bias plays a role in perpetuating stereotypes)

Question 11

what was the experiment conducted in LaPiere’s “Attitudes vs Actions”? what did it seek to prove? what were the findings?

Answer 11

• guy travelled around America with a Chinese immigrant couple visiting hotels and restaurants to see if they would be refused service
• wanted to make the point that self-reported attitudes may contradict behaviour
• they were only refused service one time, despite the fact that when he called the establishments, 92% said they would refuse service to a Chinese person, indicating discrepancies between attitudes and behaviour

Question 12

why is Allport’s “Nature of Prejudice” so influential today?

Answer 12

laid the foundations for many influential research topics in intergroup relations:
- influential in his social cognitive perspective of prejudice
- emphasized the importance of studying intergroup relations

Question 13

who was Gordon Allport?

Answer 13

father of research on intergroup relations; wrote “the Nature of Prejudice”

Question 14

according to Allport’s
“The Nature of Prejudice”, why do humans slip so easily into ethnic prejudice?

Answer 14

erroneous generalization + hostility, which are both common capacities of the human mind

Question 15

describe Allport’s contact hypothesis in “The Nature of Prejudice”

Answer 15

• a specific type of intergroup contact is an effective means of reducing intergroup hostility and prejudice
• type of contact can take on many forms depending on the situational context
• effective contact is based on acquaintanceship, integration, and communal identity/goal

Question 16

according to Allport’s contact hypothesis, what are the various situational factors that can impact the type of intergroup contact?

Answer 16

1. quantity (frequency/duration of contact)
2. status (are groups of equal/different status)
3. goals (does interaction facilitate cooperative vs competitive behaviour)
4. social (is contact formal or casual; voluntary or involuntary)
5. physical (what is the context; what is the proximity of the groups)

Question 17

according to Allport, what criteria determines effective intergroup contact?

Answer 17

1. based on acquaintanceship (contact that brings knowledge and acquaintance is ideal)
2. integrated (close proximity)
3. communal (revolving around a shared identity or goal)

Question 18

what was the basis for one of the first studies on intergroup contact, by Singer and Stouffer (1948)?

Answer 18

studied relationships between Black and White military officers

Question 19

what was the basis for one of the first studies on intergroup contact, by Deutsch and Collins (1951)?

Answer 19

compared the relationships between Black and White residents for those living in more vs less integrated public housing

Question 20

what theory emerged out of Sherif’s “Robbers Cave” experiment?

Answer 20

realistic conflict theory: argues that intergroup conflict is a reflection of social structural forces; specifically due to competition for desired resources

Question 21

according to Sherif’s “Robbers Cave” experiment, what determines intergroup attitudes/behaviour?

Answer 21

determined by the nature of functional relations between the groups, rather than by deviant behaviour from individual members

Question 22

what were the three stages of Sherif’s “Robbers Cave” experiment?

Answer 22

1. experimental ingroup formation
2. competition/friction between groups
3. integration between groups

Question 23

what is social identity theory?

Answer 23

• individuals’ sense of identity and self esteem is determined primarily by their group membership
• Tajfel

Question 24

what is Tajfel’s minimal group paradigm?

Answer 24

• the mere classification into ingroups and outgroups based on arbitrary characteristics is enough to create intergroup bias
• people shape their identity around their group membership

Question 25

what is system justification theory, as outlined in Fanon’s “Black Skin White Masks”?

Answer 25

• maintaining existing social structures is prioritized, even at the expense of personal or group interests
• Black people have an incentive to continue to uphold inequality and internalize a sense of inferiority, since it helps them maintain a sense of order

Question 26

what is social cognition in the context of intergroup relations?

Answer 26

• the study of how mental processes like perception, memory, and thought shape our understanding of the social world
• argues that a better understanding of how the human mind works is vital to understanding the processes related to bias, discrimination, and prejudice

Question 27

what is implicit social cognition? how is it tested?

Answer 27

• investigates the role of automatic/unconscious processes in social psychological outcomes such as bias, discrimination, and prejudice
• tested through evaluative priming (i.e., pairing faces of different races with various words with positive vs negative connotations)

Question 28

according to Lippmann, when are stereotypes beneficial? when do they become harmful?

Answer 28

• useful in helping us make sense of the world and assigning order to mass amounts of information we are exposed to
• they become harmful when they are not altered and individualized with experience or counter-information, and are not explicitly understood to be semi-fictionalized generalizations

Question 29

according to Lippmann, what are the consequences of treating stereotypes as biological fact?

Answer 29

treating stereotypes as essentialist fact gives support for pseudoscientific and racist narratives like race psychology