Midterm 2 Flashcards
What is a social category?
A mental representation of a group of people based on features that characterize them. People belong to many categories.
Can help us navigate world but can also be harmful.
Ex: We can infer physical social groups (skin colour, age, gender) but some are not directly visible (personality, …)
Name the three steps required to stereotype a person.
- Social categorization (classifying a person)
- Stereotype activation (how accessible a stereotype is in one’s mind)
- Stereotype application (how much it is used to judge or act towards members of target group)
TRUE or FALSE.
We encode race and gender within 50 ms.
FALSE.
We tend to encode it within 300 MS for both.
What were the findings of Ito when studying ERPs (event-related potentials)?
In a study where white participants identified black vs white people and also identified their gender, Ito found that race can be encoded as quick as 100 MS and gender 200 MS.
These identifications are automatic and outside of our control.
What is an exemplar?
An exemplar is basically know examples of a given category.
Ex: White women, Black women, Latina women
What happens when an individual is difficult to categorize (does not fit typical exemplars)?
We are motivated to socially categorize and we feel discomfort when we can’t. Misidentifying people can also be hurtful to them and their sense of self.
This brings it back to the study on conservatives and ambiguous faces. It is important to note that this discomfort may be present in everyone to a certain degree.
What is prototypicality?
It is the extent to which a person fits the observer’s concept of the essential characteristics of a social category. Is the person a match with what we expect to see when thinking of a specific category.
People higher in prototypicality are more easily identifiable and face increased stereotyping.
Ex: Tessa Thompson fits within the white, black and latina category, her appearance is less prototypical for each of these categories.
Discuss Eberhardt’s study on prototypicality.
The study examined whether prototypical black men were more likely to get the death penalty for murder using archival data.
The results indicated that those high in prototypicality were more likely to get the death penalty (56%) than those low on the measure (24%).
While the study tried to control for many variables, it is important to consider whether those high in prototypicality faced more challenges likely leading them down the path of criminality in the first place.
More lab studies on the concept were needed to exemplify the concept of prototypicality.
Ma & Correll conducted a laboratory study on prototypically. What was it and what were the findings?
They used the shooter bias concept and exemplified that people made more errors when a white person was holding a gun and when a black person was holding an object that was not a gun.
They then added the moderating factor of prototypicality, which demonstrated that the results above were most likely to be seen in those high in prototypicality (so higher errors for black people holding a non-gun object if more prototypical).
This exemplified that people rely more heavily on stereotypes for prototypical faces.
TRUE or FALSE.
Identities that are more visible are less likely to be socially categorized and discriminated against.
FALSE.
When it is easier to socially categorize someone, we are more likely to use available stereotypes.
In what ways can visible identities be seen without the use of our eyes?
Visibility can be based on all of our senses, it is based on cues in the situation.
Ex: People use the voice of a person to decide whether this person is gay or not, even though this information is an inaccurate stereotype for gay men.
What 2 things are most important for social categorization?
- Situation (determines which categories are most salient)
- Context (our goals determine what we are looking for)
Ex: At a football game you are looking for a person that supports the same team you do, you will be looking for someone who is wearing the same colours as you. Race + Gender less easily categorized.
What would exceptions in a social category be called?
A Subtype
What is re-fencing (Allport)?
It is when a fact cannot fit into the typical characteristics of the social group, so we create a new fence to encompass those who display these different characteristics. In this way, we still keep them within the original social group.
Ex: Black people (not ambitious) and black politicians (ambitious)
What is Fiske’s Stereotype Content Model?
It is a model that states that all stereotypes form along two dimensions:
1. Warmth (will they harm of help me)
2. Competence (can they act on their intentions)
These dimensions are fundamental to person perception with evolutionarily adaptive benefits.
What are the 4 dimensions of Fiske’s Stereotype Content Model?
- Admiration - High in warmth and competence
Ex: Tom Hanks - Contempt - Low in warmth and competence
Ex: Homeless people
These people are the most negatively treated. - Pity - High in warmth and low in competence
Ex: Children - Envy - Low in warmth but high in competence
Ex: Rich people
While Fiske’s model was the dominating model for a while, what did Koch discover for stereotypes?
Koch discovered a third dimension to add to the model of warmth and competence:
- Ideology
(Conservative/ Progressive & Traditional / Non- Trad)
Describe the relationship between ideology, warmth and competence in terms of Koch’s addition to the theory.
Competence is independent of ideology.
Groups more similar to your ideology are seen as warmer and those less similar are seen as colder.
What is the racial position model (Zou & Cheryan)?
A model that is solely currently applicable to the U.S. It states that racial/ethnic minority groups within the U.S are perceived along two dimension (instead of warmth and competence).
- Inferiority
- Cultural Foreigness
This goes beyond positive and negative feelings and expressions of negativity vary based on these dimensions.
Name the 4 positions based on the racial position model and which race is associated with which position (Zou & Cheryan).
- Superior and Foreign - Asians
- Superior and American - White
- Inferior and American - Black
- Inferior and Foreign - Latinx
In terms of the racial position model, what do these dimensions help us understand?
- Perceived discrimination, which is essentially why some minority groups are more likely to experience discrimination on one basis but not the other.
Ex: Claude Steel has a PHD, as a black man he still gets comments on how articulate he is, which conveys the view that he is inferior. - Perceptions of group threats.
How based on their placement, the threat to other groups differs.
Ex: Asian Americans are perceived as competing for high paying jobs (superior so threat to high status job security) - Strategic use of stereotypes
Ex: Barack Obama was difficult to portray as inferior, so they tried to utilize the foreign dimension as his parents were born in Kenya.
Describe some key points of Linda Zou’s interview.
She discussed her interest in how different racial. groups relate to one another. She had specific interests for black and asian relations.
She notes how the racial position model may be potentially applicable outside of the US or even for dimensions such as religion but not really for age or gender (double jeopardy).
She also notes that history is important to understand dimensions of foreignness and inferiority and that group positions can be dynamic. It is possible to change positions (ex: asians today vs in the 1800’s) but that it may not necessarily be likely.
Also discussed a study on how applicants for jobs may be accepted or rejected based on how “fitting” they are for a job (based on racial stereotypes).
Ex: For a high status job, an asian would be taken over a black person
She wants future studies to focus on intra-minority relations (how they collaborate and conflict) and also studies on intersectionality.
The outgroup homogeneity effect is an antecedent of stereotyping. What is it?
Tendency to perceive more similarity in outgroups than ingroups.
What are the mechanisms behind the outgroup homogeneity effect?
- Quantity of contact (we interact more with ingroup)
- Quality of contact (ingroup typically higher quality)
- Motivation to be distinct (see ingroup as more unique)
- Motivation to dehumanize (in some cases to maintain superiority)
The cross race effect is an antecedent of stereotyping. What is it?
The tendency to more easily recognize & remember own-race faces compared to cross-race faces. This is a consequence of outgroup homogeneity.
Related to both one’s motivation and ability to attend to outgroup faces.
Ex: Cross-race effects & police line-ups
What did sangrigoli et al. demonstrate in terms of the cross-race effect?
That it is not solely about what you look like.
Children adopted from Korea living in France recognized caucasian faces more correctly than they did asian faces, suggesting that exposure in your environment plays in important role in facial memory.
What is an attribution?
The process of explaining the causes of behaviour or events.
Dispositional attribution vs situational attribution
What is the fundamental attribution error and how can it lead to stereotyping?
Tendency to explain our own and other people’s behavior in terms of dispositional traits that than situational characteristics.
If our ingroup does something positive:
- Dispositional
If our ingroup does something negative:
- Situational
The opposite is seen for the outgroup. People will make stereotypes about whole groups based on behaviours observed.
What is the illusory correlation and how does it lead to stereotyping?
When people see two distinctive events and they assume the events are correlated.
People assume group membership and behaviour are associated when:
- A person’s group stands out
AND
- A person’s behaviour stands out
What stands out the most are minority groups and negative behaviours.
Ex: Arab-muslims are terrorists (while statistically a white person is more likely to be a terrorist)
How are stereotypes transmitted?
- Social learning (direct or indirect)
- Media Influence which builds certain associations in our minds (black people 20% of criminal activity but 40% of suspects pictured on news broadcasts)
Name examples of how the media affects our perception of minorities and stereotypes.
- Black people 20% of criminal activity but 40% of suspects pictured on news broadcasts)
- Black people are portrayed as poor by news networks (27% really but 63% of those portrayed)
- Negative correlation of estimates of black income the more news a person a watched and also higher stereotyping
- Children who watch TV more show stronger racial stereotypes and adults stronger stereotypes for black and muslims (this is correlational).
TRUE or FALSE.
Media seems to not actually make a difference, as in a study, a commercial portrayed a woman either occupying a traditional or non traditional gender role and in both situations women chose similarly.
FALSE.
The traditional commercial seeing gender stereotypes caused women to reduce expressed career ambitions.
Discuss the interview with Gordon Moskowitz.
He is interested in how to mitigate stereotypes and prejudice. Some people may have egalitarian beliefs but in terms of goals it may not be the biggest priority for them.
We can set ourselves up to be more egalitarian by:
- Setting up our environment
- Perspective taking
- Forming specific goals
He is pessimistic in the short term and optimistic about the long term study of disrupting stereotypes.
He would like to see progress in applying science to real world issues, specifically health and financial domain.
What is dehumanization?
Perceptions of people as lacking the mental or physical capacities of regular human beings.
Some older approaches entailed granting everyone primary emotions but the denial of secondary emotions to outgroup (denying “full” human experience for both pos. and neg. emotions).
Historically, black individuals have been often dehumanized (13th amendement slaves counting as 3/5 of a person)
Discuss the implicit examples of dehumanization (study by Chas et al., 2018).
Study of 3 groups of children (1st, 5th & 6th grade) measured associations between ingroup and outgroup names with human vs animal words.
IAT showed ingroup/human and outgroup/animal associations.
In follow-up study, children asked to connect each name with a single word (animal or human). Participants chose animal words for outgroup more than for ingroup.
Who conducted the first study on blatant dehumanization and what was it?
Bandura
Participants supervised a 3 person group, if group made wrong decision gave them a shock.
Participants either heard experimenter
- Humanize the group (understanding)
- Dehumanize group (devalue them)
- Neutral (no description)
Dehumanization lead to more aggression, which was measured by intensity of shocks given and humanization was least aggressive.
In terms of the “Ascent of Man” study where individuals rate how human people think groups are, which groups were rated as “less human” than Americans?
- Chinese
- South Korean
- Mexican
- Arab
- Muslim
What are some associations of blatant dehumanization in terms of policy beliefs for arabs and muslims?
- Immigrant opposition
- Less Helping
- Support military aggression
- Drone strike support
*Blatant dehumanization remains a predictor of policy beliefs after controlling for measures of explicit anti-muslim prejudice.
When does dehumanization occur?
When there are threats to the ingroup –> More dehumanization occurs (also higher instances of hate crimes and aggression)
Ex: Higher dehumanization of arabs following Boston marathon bombing.
What are some associations of blatant dehumanization in terms of the refugee crisis for arabs and muslims?
- Anti-refugee policy support
- Less asylum support
- Sign anti-refugee petition
Results persist after controlling for traditional measures of prejudice.
Are subtle dehumanization, blatant dehumanization and prejudice all the same concept?
They are all related but distinct.
What is meta-dehumanization?
How you feel when you recognize that other people are dehumanizing you or your ingroup.
Dehumanization and meta-dehumanization creates a vicious cycle, as those being dehumanized will also dehumanize and support violent forms of intergroup conflict.
TRUE or FALSE.
Higher power groups can also feel meta-dehumanized.
TRUE.
Privileged high power groups feel meta-dehumanized by minority low power groups and will reciprocate with dehumanization.
What are mechanistic forms of dehumanization?
When individuals are dehumanized but are not seen “animal” like. They are seen as more mechanistic or robotic. This is a form of dehumanization that asians are often victims of.
This is measured using a mechanistic dehumanization scale rather than the ascent of man scale. The sae participants will dehumanize black individuals animalistically and dehumanize asians mechanistically (Bai & Zhao).
In terms of hiring implications, what have Bai and Zhao observed in terms of dehumanization?
When participants were asked to hire an individual based on certain stereotypical traits, they tended to avoid asians for jobs that required less mechanical traits and they tended to avoid black individuals for jobs that required less animalistic traits.
TRUE or FALSE.
A radio show showing reduced hostility between christians and muslims in Nigeria helped reduce intergroup hostility (lower dehumanization and support of violence). This has lead to greater initiatives to portray this in the media.
TRUE.
Discuss the interview with Nour Kteily.
His work focuses on social hierarchies and mechanisms that uphold them.His source of inspiration to study this came from grad school.
He states that the ingredients for blatant dehumanization are:
- Power/status differentials
- Conflict/exploitation
Some small minority feel the motivation to express dehumanization (which is separate from prejudice).
Our implicit associations of dehumanization may be outside of our awareness and different than our explicit beliefs.
He hopes for more solidarity between dehumanized groups in the future and wonders what would happen if there was a reversal in power hierarchies.
What makes sexism different than other forms of discrimination?
Men and women are generally differentiated in biology and strongly differentiated in social roles. However, relationships between men and women are complicated by sexual reproduction which creates dependency and intimacy between the sexes.
Women are also not a numerical minority but they are economically disadvantaged. Straightforward accounts of ingroup favouritism and outgroup hatred don’t apply.
