POST MIDTERM TEXTBOOK Flashcards
What are the components of attitudes?
Affect (emotion - how much someone likes/dislikes an object - positive or negative emotion which constitutes the affectiveness)
Cognition (Knowledge and beliefs about objects and memories)
Behavior (Behavioral tendency to either approach or avoid something or someone)
Ways to measure attitudes?
Likert scale (1 – strongly disagree and 7 – strongly agree)
Response latency (The amount of time it takes for a person to answer)
Centrality of the attitude (calculate how strongly each one is linked to the others)
Implicit attitude measures (IAT)
Physiological indicators (increased heart rate Sweaty palms associated with fear)
What did the chinese couple going in several restaurants prove? Why is this?
They are denied service by only one of the 250 establishments visited
He reached out to those establishments and they said they were not likely to serve people of the Chinese race
This was inconsistent and proved that ATTITUDES HAVE VERY LITTLE EFFECT ON BEHAVIOUR
- this is because attitudes can conflict with other powerful determinations of behaviour (ex. dietting doesn’t work because don’t always win out over other determinants)
- social influence has a strong effect on behaviour
How do highly specific attitudes tend to do a better job of predicting specific behaviors?
People’s attitudes towards different classes of people, places, things, and events are often expressions of attitudes about a stereotypical example of a given category
If we encounter a situation that is not exactly stereotypical, our general attitude “doesn’t apply to that specific situation”
What is introspection?
The examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes. We feel the need to find a “reason” for liking something/someone
Why can behaviour powerfully influence attitudes?
People tend to bring out their attitudes in line with their actions.
“convince” themselves that their actions are right so their attitude must be wrong - so they change their attitude because it is less effort than changing their behaviour.
What is the Cognitive Dissonance Theory ?
Theory that inconsistency between a person’s thoughts, sentiments, and actions create an aversive emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to store consistency
We tend to justify or rationalize our behaviors and to minimize any inconsistencies between our attitudes and actions
Once you’ve made an irrevocable decision, you’ll try to reduce this dissonance, you’ll rationalize. Once people develop a slight preference for one option over the other they distort subsequent information to support their preference
Effort Justification
Tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time, effort, or money devoted to something that turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing
Try to justify doing something more when it is unpleasant and you went ex. were paid only small compensation or ex. went through a hard thing to participate in something boring
What is Induced (forced) Compliance?
Subtly compelling people to behave in a manner that is inconsistent with their beliefs, attitudes, or values in order to elicit dissonance and therefore a change in their original attitudes and values
When do we experience dissonance?
Whenever we act in ways that are inconsistent with our core values and beliefs and if:
the behavior was freely chosen
the behavior wasn’t sufficiently justified
the behavior had negative consequences
the negative consequences were foreseeable
What is insufficient justification?
if a person’s behavior is justified by a powerful incentive of some sort, even behavior that dramatically conflicts with the person’s belief won’t produce dissonance
What are negative consequences when talking about dissonance?
If nothing of consequence results from actions that are at variance with our attitudes and values it’s easy to dismiss them as trivial
People experience dissonance only when their behaviors results in harm of some sort
What is foreseeability?
We typically don’t hold people’s responsible for harm they’ve done if the harm wasn’t foreseeable
Negative consequences that aren’t foreseeable don’t threaten a person’s self-image as a moral and decent person so they shouldn’t arouse dissonance
What is Self-affirmation and dissonance?
By bolstering themselves in one area, people can tolerate a bigger hit in other areas
Ex. “I worry about climate change” but driving a SUV every day to work. but it’s OK because “ I put more volunteer hours than everybody”
If someone makes a prejudicial remark we will often let them slide because confrontation is uncomfortable and can have interpersonal costs
Is dissonance Universal?
dissonance might be a phenomenon unique to Westerners
What is Self-perception theory?
The theory that people come to know their own attitudes by looking at their behavior and the context in which it occured and then inferring what their attitude must be
contends that no arousal is involved – people coolly and rationally infer what their attitudes must be in light of their behavior and the context in which it occurred
Ex; I suffered to get in this frat I must like it
What is the crux of self-perception theory?
that we use whatever cues we have available to us to figure out what we think and how we feel
when we’re happy we smile
we don’t like something wearing inclined to push it away
What is the System justification theory?
The theory that people are motivated to see the existing sociopolitical system as desirable, fair, and legitimate
People who are advantaged because of the system have a reason to justify why it’s a good system and same thing for poor people because they feel the need to justify
For example, sometimes women, such as the nurse shown here, report feeling that they deserve to make less money than their male counterparts doing the same work
What is the core of dissonance theory?
People find cognitive inconsistency uncomfortable and therefore try to find ways to relieve the discomfort.
What is the terror management theory?
The theory that people deal with potentially crippling anxiety associated with the inevitability of death by striving for symbolic immortality through Preserving valued cultural world views and by believing that they have lived up to their cultures standards
What are stereotypes?
A belief that certain attributes are characteristic of members of a particular group
Can be positive or negative
Can be accurate or can be completely false
What is prejudice?
Attitudinal and affective response toward a group and its individual members
Negative attitudes generally get the most attention but it’s also possible to be positively prejudiced towards a group
What is discrimination?
A favorable or unfavorable actions directed towards members of a group
Unfair treatment of others because of their group membership and not on their individual characteristics or abilities
What is intergroup bias?
Stereotypes
Prejudice
Discrimination
These all refer to the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that drive relationships between groups
What is contemporary prejudice?
Norms about how different groups are viewed and are treated have changed over the years
In Western countries, it is now illegal to show any discrimination or no longer socially acceptable to express sorts of prejudice or stereotypes.
Now people think “how should I feel” and not just feel how they actually feel.
What is the theory of modern racism?
Prejudice directed at racial groups that exists alongside the rejection of explicitly racist beliefs.
White participants were in a position to aid a White or Black person in need of medical assistance. Who will they help if they are in desperate need of help? (screaming of pain)? Who will they help if they don’t seem in too much pain?
If the participants thought they were the only people that could help, they would go aid the black person somewhat more often (94% of the time) than the White person (81% of the time)
If the participants thought someone else was present and could help, or they could also unconsciously “blame” their actions on something (like “I thought someone else would be better at helping than me”) they helped the Black person less than the White person (38% vs. 75%)
What is benevolent sexism?
A chivalrous ideology marked by protectiveness and affection toward women who embrace conventional roles)
Benevolent sexism can be just as damaging as hostile sexism
What is hostile sexism?
Dislike of non-traditional women and those seen as usurping men’s power)
What is ambivalent sexism?
Benevolent sexism often coexists with hostile sexism. They argue that even the seemingly positive stereotypes aren’t benign
Research suggests that the protectiveness and affection displayed by men high in ambivalent sexism convey a sense of warmth to women that can mask the men’s more hostile sexist beliefs
How to measure attitudes about groups?
The implicit association test
Different types of priming procedures
Affect misattribution procedure (AMP)
What is the implicit association test?
The technique for revealing nonconscious attitude towards different stimuli, particularly groups of people
Pictures are presented on a computer screen and the respondent presses a certain key with the left hand if the picture a word conforms to one rule and different team the right hand if it conforms to another rule
What is priming and implicit prejudice?
Show a word and you answer the first thing that pops to your mind
ex. say the word bread the first word will be butter.
People that were sure that they aren’t prejudiced against black people nonetheless respond more quickly to negative word preceded by a picture of black faces and more slowly to positive words preceded by pictures of black faces
What is Affect misattribution procedure (AMP)?
A priming procedure designed to assess people’s implicit association to different stimuli including their association to various ethnic, racial, gender, and occupational groups
What is realistic group conflict theory?
Some of the most intense intergroup tensions arise between groups that are wanting the same limited resource
these observations highlight the core tenets of the economic perspective on prejudice and discriminations
group develop prejudices about each other and discriminate against one another when they compete for material resources
What is Ethnocentrism?
people in the outgroup weren’t often thought of in stereotyped ways and are treated in a manner normally forbidden by one’s moral code
What are superordinate goals?
A goal that transcends the interests of any one group that can be achieved more readily by two or more groups working together
What is the minimal group paradigm?
Readiness to adopt an “us vs. them” mentality
Experimental paradigm in which researchers create groups based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria and examine how the member of these “minimal groups” are inclined to behave towards one another
Some were told they were over estimators and others under estimators
What is ingroup favouristism?
the majority of participants are interested more in maximizing the relative gain for members of their in groups over the out groups than they are in maximizing the absolute gain for their in Group
doing whatever we can to feel better about the ingroup leads us to feel better about ourselves
What is the Social identity theory?
The theory that a person’s self-concept and self-esteem derives not only from personal identity and accomplishments but also from the status and accomplishments of various groups to which the person belongs
What happens when something from your ingroup is made salient?
You become “defensive” of things and say it is good.
What is boosting the status of the ingroup?
Because our self-esteem is based in part on the status of the group to which we belong we may be tempted to boost the status and fortunes of these groups and their members
What happens if your ingroup is “insulted”
People who are highly identified with a particular group react to criticism of the group as if it were criticism of the self
people appear to be especially motivated to identify with groups and derive self-esteem from their group membership when they feel uncertain about their own attitudes, values, feelings, and place in the world
What is Basking in reflected glory?
taking pride in the accomplishments of other people in one group, such as when sports fan identified with the winning team
People go to great lengths to announce their affiliation with the group and that group is doing well
when losing not so much
What is the cognitive perspective?
Stereotyping is inevitable
People categorize nearly everything both natural and artificial, even color.
Categorizing simplifies the task of taking in and processing the incredible volume of stimuli surrounding us
Stereotypes provide us with those simpler model that allow us to deal with the great blooming, buzzing confusion of reality
What is illusory correlation?
when we see an association between two variables (events, actions, ideas, etc.) when they aren’t actually associated.
Distinctive events capture our attention. We would notice if a student came to a lecture wearing a clown outfit
What is The impact of paired distinctiveness?
The pairing of two distinctive events that stand out even more because they occur together
Stereotypes influence how people interpret the details of events.
i.e; White participants watch a video of a heated discussion between one black and one white man.
How will the participant interpret the situation if the black man shoves the white man? how will he react if the white man shoves the black man?
When the white man shoved the black man it was interpreted as more benign (playing around)
when the black man shook the white man it was interpreted as a more serious action (aggressive behavior)
This is also the case for sports (think black man is better than the white man even though they do the same actions)
What are self-fulfilling prophecies?
People act towards members of certain groups in ways that encourage the very behavior they expect to see from those groups
for example someone who thinks that members of a particular group are hostile might act towards those group members in a guarded manner
What is the outgroup homogeneity effect?
the tendency for people to assume that within group similarity is much stronger for outgroups than for in groups
It is tempting to think of groups that you are not a part of as “they”, to imagine that the group members think alike, act alike, even look alike
we tend to assume that the members of an outgroup are more similar to one another, whereas the member of our in group are more individual and diverse
What is the Own race identification bias?
The tendency for people to be better at recognizing and distinguishing faces from their own race than from other races
What is subtyping?
“he’s an exception” (from the stereotype)
If people were primed with the stereotypical black people prime, what would be the difference between prejudiced and unprejudiced people?
He presented an idea of a man and if they were primed with the stereotypical black people prime then they saw the man as more hostile and more negative overall
this result was found equally for prejudiced and unprejudiced participants
She demonstrated that prejudiced and unprejudiced people differ primarily in their controlled cognitive processes (not their automatic cognitive processes)
Participants had to decide as quickly as possible whether an object depicted in a photo was a handgun or a hand tool, such as pliers. Each photograph was immediately preceded by a picture of either a black face or a white face. What were the results?
the white precipitants were faster to identify a weapon as a weapon when it was preceded by a blackface and faster to identify a hand tool as a hand tool when it was preceded by a white face
Was founded black faces facilitated the recognition of both negative and positive stereotypical items, handguns and sports equipment, but did not feel associate recognition of the non-stereotypical items, insects and fruit, regardless of whether they were positive or negative
Participants are instructed to shoot the person by pressing a key if they are holding a gun and not shoot by pressing another key if he is not as quickly as possible. Some of the people were black and others were white (all different whether they were holding a gun or object). What were the results?
Made both types of mistake shooting an unarmed target and not shooting an armed target, equally often when the target individual was white. But for black targets, participants were much more likely to make a mistake of shooting if the target was unarmed then failing to shoot if the target was armed.
What is the individual approaches to prejudice reduction?
Some efforts used the media or school programs to promote acceptance of outgroups, or to conceive convince people that their peers frown on the endorsement of unfounded or overly broad stereotypes, the expression of prejudice, and the perpetuation of discrimination.
What could help reduce prejudice?
Confronting people, cognitive and emotional training interventions may also help people reduce their prejudice
What is perspective talking?
individuals are instructed to envision themselves in the shoes of an out group member
Doing this should lead to more favorable attitudes towards the outgroup member
What are intergroup approaches to prejudice reduction?
1 all black platoon and three all white platoons
the white soldiers who served in semi integrated units expressed LITTLE resistance to the idea of fighting alongside their black countrymen
respelling was not shared my white soldier in entirely segregated battalions
What is the contact hypothesis?
the proposition that prejudice can be reduced by putting members of different groups in frequent contact with one another
Most of the studies observed an increase in prejudice after schools were integrated
The robbers cave study suggested that contact between different groups would be more positive and productive if what conditions are met?
the group needs to have equal status
different groups must have a shared goal that requires cooperation thereby promoting a common ingroup identity
making school assignments more cooperative and interdependent promotes more favorable attitudes between different ethnic and racial groups
What are the results with university students who were assigned roommates from a different race?
Less racist than other students, reduced anxiety about cross race interactions and registered with significant improvement of implicit measures of attitude towards the other group
What are strategies for the role of diversity ideologies and prejudice reduction?
Multiculturalism and colourblindness
What is Multiculturalism strategy?
A diversity ideology that encourages the acknowledgements and appreciation of people’s unique cultural and ethnic identities
Multiculturalism has an edge over color blindness
Shown to increase perspective taking to enhance support for pro diversity policies, Huge positive evaluations of and behaviors towards a group members and to reduce anxiety about anticipated interracial interaction
Participants from ethnic minority groups have been shown to perform better when working with white participants who have been primed with the multicultural perspective
What are the faults of the Multiculturalism strategy?
multicultural messages and initiative can elicit feelings of exclusion amongst white people and can be seen by a high status group member as an identity threat (threatening the value and relevance of their group)
can have the unintended consequence of increasing race essentialism or the belief that racial group differences are biologically based and immutable
white people’s effort to take a multicultural approach and their interaction with people from other racial group can lead to negative interpersonal consequences, such as the minority spotlight effect
What is the minority spotlight effect?
minority spotlight effect – is minority group identities become uncomfortably salient
What is the colourblindness strategy?
A diversity ideology that encourages treating others as unique individuals and downplaying or ignoring cultural and ethnic group experience
In theory this should put an emphasis on ignoring group differences and treating others as individuals fostering equality, inclusiveness, and acceptance of everyone
a deliberate blindness to cultural differences can lead to more, not less, prejudice and discrimination (associated with a stronger ethnocentrism )
What are faults of the colourblindness strategy?
white participants often try to avoid mentioning race in interactions with all black people
These attempts are cognitively taxing, leading the white participants to express more negativity nonverbally and in turn leading their black interaction partners to judge them as prejudiced
color blindness can backfire and expect more racial and gender bias and less racial and gender diversity
compared to multicultural, people problem with the color blindness minds that are less able to detect instances of racial discrimination
What is the Social Dominance Theory?
A theory about the hierarchical nature of societies, how they remain stable, and how more powerful or privileged groups in a society maintain their advantage
What is Individual discrimination?
Individuals in dominant groups act to preserve their advantage and keep those in subordinate groups in their place
What is Institutional discrimination?
Laws and norms preserve the hierarchy
What are Behavioral asymmetries?
Deference is shown to members of dominant but not subordinate groups and self-fulfilling prophecies undermine the achievements of members of subordinate groups
What is the the great replacement theory?
whites will be replaced by people around the globe
This has caused for acts of violence
They want to maintain power thus discriminating
What is social dominance orientation?
A personality trait that corresponds to a person’s support for socioeconomic hierarchy and the belief that different groups should occupy higher and lower positions in society
Express more prejudice to maintain power
Some religious people or other culturally born people don’t see inequalities and are acceptant of the circumstances as they believe it is the way it should be
