L3 - Intergroup Relations

Question 1

What was the Robbers cave study?

Answer 1

• Summer camp
• 2 groups of boys aged 11-12
• First week, groups separated and given incentives
• Second week had contact through competition and conflict, became very hostile
• Reduced hostility by setting common goals for both groups, causing cooperation, reducing inter-group conflict

Question 2

What are negative inter-group relations?

Answer 2

• Group antagonism
• Neg attitudes and behaviours towards members of another group

Question 3

What are the components of negative intergroup relations?

Answer 3

• Cognitive: Stereotypes (schema), someone to activate the label with attributes attached (pos/neg)
• Affective: Prejudice (Attitudes), readiness to discriminate against a group
• Behavioural: Discrimination

Question 4

What are stereotypes?

Answer 4

• Beliefs about typical characteristics of members of a group or social category
• Overemphasise attributes
• Underestimate variability within group
• More likely to be used when info is ambiguous/inadequate
• Viewing a person with their group membership, especially when there is a juxtaposition between our groups

Question 5

How is this seen in Kunda&William’s study?

Answer 5

• Ppts given story about either housewife/construction worker
• Given a low aggression, high aggression and ambiguous situation.
• Trend is the same for aggressive situation, but in the ambiguous one, people went with stereotypes and infer the aggression levels
• ConWorker was a lot higher on the aggression scale than the Housewife

Question 5

What is prejudice?

Answer 5

• Affective response towards a group or its members
• Evaluative (pos/neg)
• Based on a prejudgement without knowing the individual
• Often negative
• High prejudiced people are more negative to members of the target group, and will endorse more stereotypes. They rationalise their decisions through hard to dispute ways

Question 6

What is discrimination?

Answer 6

• Neg behaviour towards indivduals based on group membership
• Refusing members of a group access to desired resources
• Blatant: historic examples
• Subtle: sexist jokes
• Occurs when situation is ambiguous

Question 7

How was discrimination seen in a study?

Answer 7

• Ppts put in booths to communicate, they had to do a task and then talk.
• 2 conditions: One ppt with a group of confederates. The other only contained one confederate and one ppt
• Confeds were either black or white
• When confed signalled medical emergency, everyone helps in alone condition
• With others, when confed was black, help drops
• Other people who can take responsibility, but are not, so ppt does not either.
• Was an ambiguous situation, and ppts seek presence of others to get info to ask about situation

Question 8

What are the effects of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination?

Answer 8

• Damaging for targets
• Attributional uncertainty = Creates tension affecting self-esteem, motivation and performance, Creates resilience against stigma
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Stereotype Threat

Question 9

What is a study showing a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 9

• Male students interviewed an attractive/unattractive female via phone
• Photos were unrelated to true looks
• Men behaved more warmly to women they believed to be attractive
• The attractive females were rated as more friendly, likeable and sociable by independent judges

Question 10

What is Stereotype Threat?

Answer 10

• Stereotype
• Situation where stereotype may be confirmed
• Experience of threat
• Deterioration of performance
• Stereotype confirmed

Question 11

Study demonstrating Stereotype threat

Answer 11

• St1: Women are bad at maths
• St2: Asians are good at maths
• asian women asked to do a maths test
• Before test, either gender or ethnicity was cued
• Performance enhanced when ethnicity cued, and worsened when gender cued

Question 12

What is cognitive Account?

Answer 12

• People are perceived as members of groups rather than distinct individuals
• Automatic, unconscious, involuntary
• Salience
• Depends on context
• Simplified and efficient info processing
• Makes stereotypes accessible

Question 13

What was Tajfel’s Experiment on categorisation?

Answer 13

• Condition 1: Longer lines were A, shorter were B. Condition 2: Randomisation of length and label of A&B
• Shortest A line was overestimated and vice versa, there is supposed to be a clear boundary

Question 14

What is the motivational account?

Answer 14

• Social categorisation & self categorisation: perception of self in group terms
• Social identity: part of identity is derived from group memberships
• Compare groups with ours
• Strive for positive group image

Question 15

What is the economical account?

Answer 15

• Society is composed of groups that differ in power
• Dom groups: maintain positions
• Subordinate groups: reduce inequality
• Competition = conflict = prejudice (arises from conflicts over lim resources)

Question 16

How to improve intergroup relations?

Answer 16

• Contact: bringing people from diff groups together

Question 17

What are the conditions for intergroup contact?

Answer 17

1) Personal interaction: sufficient frequency, duration and closeness
2) Equal status
3) Cooperation for common goal
4) Supportive environment and social norms

Question 18

How to reduce prejudice?

Answer 18

• Minimising salience of group membership, decategorising
• Shift attention to alternative group memberships
• Cross-categorisation: categoires that do not make tension
• Recategorisation: Superordinate groups are inclusive