Impression Formation II: Social Categorisation Flashcards
CATEGORISING
- assigning objects/people to discrete groups based on common characteristics
- consequences can be harmful BUT we can’t always do otherwise
WHY IS CATEGORISING EASY?
MACKNIK & MARTINEZ-CONDE (2011)
- thinking requires expensive brain activity
- energy = limited resource
- takes time/attention away from other tasks (ie. food/finding a mate/avoiding danger)
CHAOS
- categorisation prevents chaos, which humans are naturally wary of
- if everything is unique, we experience info overload
- categorisation = simplification
- categorisation = important fundamental cognitive ability
INITIAL CATEGORISATION
- AUTOMATIC
- UNINTENTIONAL
- EFFORTLESS
- UNCONSCIOUS
CATEGORISATION EVIDENCE
- we encode on the basis of physical cues (ie. age/ethnicity/gender)
- we add contained knowledge (aka. stereotypes/schemas)
- this affects judgement of/beh towards social groups and their members
MACRAE ET AL (1995)
PHASE 1. parafoveal priming aka. woman/Chinese person
PHASE 2. video aka. Chinese woman reading book
PHASE 3. LDT (Lexical Decision Task)
- prediction of priming influencing LDT
! CRITICAL !
- the categories we activate are influenced what is salient
- those that are less useful may be inhibited
PENDRRY & MACRAE (1996)
- role of motivation in categorisation (superordinate/subordinate categories)
- video of woman at work
- processing goal (accountability/clarity/height)
- LDT (women/business/female-coded language)
- more involved categorised at a deeper level
THE SHOOTER BIAS: BACKGROUND
CORRELL (2002)
- US black oppression
- research prompted by high police shootings of (particularly male) black people; speedy racial categorisation processes impacting such behs
- pps played videogame; photos of young men (1/2 white; 1/2 black) in a range of settings; 1/2 w/gun, 1/2 w/harmlesss object
TBS: PROCEDURE
CORRELL (2002)
- pps asked to press button saying if man was holding/not holding gun (aka. “shoot”/”don’t shoot”) on gut reaction
- pps most likely to his “shoot” for black males regardless of if they had a weapon
- reveals how accessible schemas can bias interpretation given to social events when time/processing capacity is limited
TSB: META-ANALYSIS
MEKAWI & BRESIN (2015)
- not all researchers study it in the same way
- different shooter bias definitions/method usage/interpretations
- contextual factors may affect outcome (ie. community racial make-up/state gun laws/individual prejudice)
TSB: M-A: FINDINGS
- all studies compared w/white males
- pps shot black armed targets fast, unarmed slower
- more likely to have liberal shooting threshold for shooting black targets = SHOOTER BIAS FOUND
- studies in more premissive gun law states found bigger effects
- studies in high POC neighbourhoods showed bigger effects (aka. contact hypothesis link theory)
MODERATING FACTORS OF THE SHOOTER BIAS
- EXPERTISE
- MULTIDIMENSIONALITY OF SOCIAL CATEGORIES
- ECOLOGICAL VALIDIY OF 2D DEPICTIONS
- CONTEXT
- PREVALENCE OUTSIDE US
MFOTSB: EXPERTISE
CORRELL ET AL (2014)
JOHNSON ET AL (2018)
- experts (police officers) VS novices
- same effects not always found
MFOTSB: MULTIDIMENSIONALITY OF SOCIAL CATEGORIES
BODENHAUSEN & PEERY (2009)
FRABLE (2007)
TODD ET LA (2020)
- results attenuated when dif categories are salient (ie. age)
MFOTSB: ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY OF 2D DEPICTIONS
TAYLOR (2011)
- improved simulations to create more realistic depictions
JAMES, KLINGER & VILLA (2014)
JAMES, VILLA & DARATHA (2012)
- generally failed to find SB evidence
MFOTSB: CONTEXT
KAHN & DAVIES (2017)
- SB more prevalent in threatening neighbourhoods when target has “threatening” clothes
SADLER & DEVOS (2020)
- ethnic diversity on areas impacts SB
MFOTSB: PREVALENCE OUTSIDE US
ESSIEN ET AL (2017)
- other ethnicities/countries also prey to SB (ie. Arab-Muslim, Turkish)
SHOOTER BIAS METHODOLOGY EVALUATION
CESARIO (2022)
- issues of applying SB lab findings to real world settings
- most lab research tightly controls stimuli (ie. varying only one variable; rest held constant)
MISSING INFORMATION FLAW
- many vital info pieces are missing in standard lab-based paradigms that officers are trained to notice/use to inform decision, like:
1. why the officer has been called to scene
2. what the neighbourhood is like
3. past citizen encounters
4. citizen compliance
5. citizen movement
6. if non-lethal tactics have been used
MISSING FORCES FLAW
- neglect of contextual factors that may impact findings
- black/white targets shown equally for stats BUT doesn’t reflect IRL
- violent crime context is overwhelming influence on officers decision to shoot
- violent crime rates differ across racial groups
MISSING CONTINGENCIES FLAW
- possible motivation/ability between experimental and IRL decision makers difs
- race of target usually known to police in advance; lab pps told little beforehand
- few fatal shootings are due to misidentified objects as guns
- naive undergraduates used; decision inconsequential/no training; police officers receive 1000+ hours force training
FAITH IN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH ON SB
CESARIO (2021)
- little overlap between experimental parameters and IRL decision parameters
- concept of uncontrollable bias in humans is premature
- concerned that this gap isn’t being explored
CESARIO (2021) SUGGESTMENT
- Talk to relevant people outside lab (ie. police officers); researchers should complete training protocols.
REASON: To reveal that context/beh of target citizen is critical; context of violent crime is central in officer’s decision to shoot. - Analyse groups more/less likely to be associated w/SB (ie. beh/personality/individual difs)
REASON: Recognition of sizeable difs across violent crime groups; biasing effects of race on decision must be places in beh context. - Design experiments informed by obtained data resulting in more engaged/difficult studies w/non-student sample.
