Lecture 6 - Group membership Flashcards
WHo did the study where experimentors pretended to be psychiatric patients?
Rosenhan (1973)
Outline Rosenhan (1973)
Had experimentors pretend to be patients in a psychiatric hospital
- I.e. reported audiotory hallucinations to doctors and got admitted to hospital
- failure to recognise sanity
Once categorised as insane, found it very hard to get them out of hospital, doctors didn’t trust that the symptoms had gone, otherwise they wouldn’t be in that category
Proved mental illness can be attributed to people too easily and this can have bad affects on their life
How do categories of group membership form?
Socialisation – how you were raised – what environment you were raised in
language – reinforces known/ new categories
Inherent cognitive boundaries – certain things we automatically assume to belong to a category, e.g. reorganising colours which don’t have a name in their culture.
Key component – categories are used, or they disappear
As use changes, category shifts – e.g. definition of ‘poor’
Define prototpyes
Definition = Theoretical, ideal example of a category
Contains all the attributes in the right quantities
Rarely exists in real life – what makes a chair a chair? If it has 4 legs? What about a bar stool?
Animal species
- Biology tries to categorise all of life
- But species do not exist in prototypical form
- Evolution process species are in constant shift
- when is it a new species – and not just a cross breed
No answers for human groups in biology or DNA? - its social, because we think of things in context and in categories
- No genetic basis for race or gender
Prototypes maximise entitavity
- A property of a category that makes it appear to be cohesive, distinct, clear
We do this to people via depersonalisation
- Viewing someone as only having properties of a group category, e.g. female
- Stereotyping is one way to achieve this
Metacontrast principle = categories organised to maximise intergoup differences – focus on attributes that make categories the most difference
Categorisation processes one way to perpetuate norms
Describe cultural differences in prototypes
There may be physical differences in the brain, between the ‘luhh’ and ‘ruhh’ sounds
This may be because of our social upbringing
If we are english, we learn these are very distinct and different prorotypes
But if we learned japanese when growing up, L and R are seen as the same prototype, its hard to disinguish between them
Who did the paintings study intto the minimal group conditions?
Tajfel (1971)
Outline Tajfel (1971)
Looked at the minimal conditions for group orientated behaviour
Created arbitrary groups
- No prior connection between members
- No personal stake in outcome of group
- No interaction between group members during tasks, or after
- Anonymity of membership
P’s were 48 boys grom grammar school
- Shown paitings by Klee or Kandinksy – stated their preferences
- They were alone, but told which group they belonged to
- Had to give points to other members, only told what group they were in, had to assign points according to a scale
What were the 3 strategies used by Tajfels participats?
1) Fairness strategy - awarding equal points
2) Maximum ingroup profit strategy – mamximse points to ingroup
3) Maximum difference strategy – Choose
option that maximises difference between
points in favour of your own group
Outline Tajfel’s results
Maximum difference strategy was commonly used
“Mere categorisation effect”
If nothing else is known about the person, group categorisation is used as a basis for behaviour
Merely knowing group membership leads to ingroup favouritism
Tendency to compete vs outgroups
Social identity theory
- “The individuals knowledge that he belongs to certain social groups together with some emotinoal and value significant to him of this group membership”
- Social ID has value to use – it influences attitudes, beliefs and behaviour
Positive distinctiveness – see ingroup as really good
- motivated to see groups in which we belong in positive light
- Helps maintains SE
- involves downwards comparisons to outgroups
Define the ‘other’
- Outgroup member
- Often deindividualised
- Sometimes dehumanised
- someones in an outgroup – they must be different to me
Who came up with the 5 steps to collective hate?
Reicher et al (2008)
Outline Reicher et al (2008) 5 steps to collective hate
1) Group identification
- Strong identification with ingroup – Passiionate commitment to them
- Feel you are your true self when you’re with them
- See that group as important to your life
2) Differentiation from other
- Have a concept of the ‘other’, outside the group
- Members believe exclusion necessary for ingroup solidarity
3) Threat
- Portray outgroup as a threat to existence of ingroup – not that they’re just bad – its self-defence, not aggresion
- And/ or thwarting core values of ingroup
- begin to deny benefits
- Begin to actively punish
4) Identify ingroup with virtue
- Essentialise ingroup as a positive virtue – see you group as the sole propietors of a virtue – freedom, love etc
- Need to act in a way that preserves that virtue- “we’re defending freedom”
- identify outgroup as opposite
5) Celebrate hostility
- Defeating outgroup becomes priority
- given above stages, elimination becomes required for preservation of ingroup
- Hostility is celebrated
Define deviants as a threat to the ingroup
- Not all group members uphold norms at all times
- those who don’t uphold norms = deviants
- Marques et al (2006, 2010)
- p’s reacted more negatively to deviant ingroup members, than deviant outgroup members.
- Once you’re categorised as in group, youre supposed to act in accordance to our rules, outgroup have never followed the rules so they arent breaking anything and seen as less of a problem.
Define criticism as a threat to the ingroup
- ingroup criticism can be positive
- outgroup criticism is universally condemned (Hornsey, 2005)
- Furthermore, new members are less able to criticise than older members (Hornsey 2007)
Who did the SPE?
Haney et al (1972)
