SOCIAL Flashcards
Social Psychology
The scientific study of how people’s
THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, and BEHAVIOURS are influenced by the ACTUAL, IMAGINED, or IMPLIED presence of others
Guiding principles of Social Psychology
- The social brain
- The power of the situation
- Levels of analysis
- Critical thinking
The Social Brain
- UNDERSTANDING the SELF and its relations to OTHERS
- Forming JUDGEMENTS about others
- Understanding & making INFERENCES about others’ mental states
- Social DECISION-MAKING
- Perception of socially relevant CUES (faces, eye gaze,…)
- Understanding social categories & our place in them
The Power of the Situation
–> Kurt Lewin (1935): the BEHAVIOURS of people is always a function of the FIELD OF FORCES around them
- FIELD OF FORCES (humans) = the SITUATION they find themselves
- A (person) x (situation) interaction
- I.e –> human behaviour = results from PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES + particular SITUATION
Levels of Analysis
in order of decreasing…
- individual (RS w self)
- INTERpersonal (RS w other individuals)
- INTRAgroup (RS w other people within a same group)
- INTERgroup (RS w people in diff groups)
Critical thinking
Healthy skepticism (doubt towards knowledge)
Challenges in Social Psychology
Scientific rigour and critical thinking:
- CONTEXT is v important (HOW and WHY)
- no one-size-fits-all answer
- not all findings are true in every situation
- BUT… a guiding principle of science is replicability
- (2015) a paper attempting to replicate 100 psychology studies found only 36% replicated
BENEFITS of Social Psychology
- provides insights into our own and others’ BEHAVIOURS
- Helps us UNDERSTAND the causes and consequences of current events (eg: COVID-19, BLM)
- Gives us tools to ACT EFFECTIVELY and HELP OTHERS do the same
Aspects of self-identity
- Personal identity
- Social identity
- Cultural Identity
The Social Self
UNITARY and CONTINUOUS awareness of who someone is
- Many aspects of the self are influenced by social experiences:
- HOW we think of ourselves
- WHAT and WHO we like and dislike
- HABITS we form
- VALUES we adhere to
- How we (learn to) BEHAVE
Personality is affected by social context
Study by Tice (1992) - Have you ever pretended to be more extraverted than you are?
- Present yourself as an extraverted / introverted person
- In public / in private
- Then participants rated their “true selves”
–> Results:
- PUBLIC: people rated themselves as MORE extraverted than they really are
- PRIV: not much diff
Social Identity
Identity is something that BINDS us w others, NOT separate.
Early conceptions of social selves:
–> The Social Me (William James):
- What we know about ourselves from social relationships
* Who a person is in one context (e.g., at work) ISN’T necessarily the same person they are in another context (e.g., at home)
–> Working self-concept (Markus & Wurf, 1987)
- A subset of our self-knowledge is brought to mind in a given CONTEXT
- The self relevant to rs may be the mind’s prime focus in ROMANTIC contexts;
- the self related to competition in sports contexts
SELF-CATEGORISATION theory
–> CATEGORISING OURSELF (basic human process) = the diff/ similarities btwn groups
- We group things together to HELP US UNDERSTAND the world
- At the group level, we categorise people into ‘INGROUPS’ (groups to which we belong) and
‘OUTGROUPS’ (groups to which we don’t belong)
–> CATEGORISING OTHERS (acting differently when in diff contexts)
- The self can be construed at various levels of identity abstraction
- DIff identities become salient (noticeable) in diff contexts (eg: a psych student in lecture; a mother when homeschooling)
- Shifting the salience of diff identities can make previous outgroup members become ingroup members (e.g., engineering student vs psych student –> Unimelb students)
- ‘Who we are’ depends on the context in which we find ourselves
Cultural Identity (a form of social identity with mostly inborn)
- Our sense of self derived from groups we belong to that have a distinct culture (nationality, ethnicity, social class, etc)
- A form of social identity, but one that is often inborn and encompasses a total way of life & the way we view the world
- Can be fostered DIRECTLY : (thru socialisation efforts) /
INDIRECTLY: thru bg exposure to ways of life, predispositions toward
seeing the world in a particular way)
Culture and the Social Self
- CULTURAL self-construal (Markus & Kitayama,1991)
= Individualist (or independent): the self is an autonomous (govern itself) entity SEPARATE from others;
–> ppl should assert (behave confidently) their independence and celebrate their uniqueness
- “My environment should change to fit me”
* western countries: US, Australia, UK - COLLECTIVIST (or interdependent): the self is fundamentally CONNECTED to others;
–> people should seek to FIT IN a community and fulfil appropriate roles
“I should change to fit my environment”
* East Asian, South Asian, African and Latin American countries
Individualist (Independent)
self-construal
- Separate from social context
- Be unique, express yourself
- Promote your own goals
- Say ‘what’s on your mind
Collectivist (interdependent)
- Connected with social context
- FIT IN, occupy your proper place
- Promote others’ goals
- “read others’ minds”
Culture and the Social Self
Research
‘Who am I’ exercise (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954)
–> Results:
- Americans’ responses mostly context-free about traits and preferences (“I like camping”; “Hard working”)
- Responses by ppl fr interdependent cultures mostly context dependent and refer to RELATIONSHIPS (“I’m serious at work”; “I’m Jan’s friend”)
‘Who am I’ in KENYA:
- Undergraduate students w greater exposure to Western culture & being educated in Western tradition
- Traditional peoples who
had v little contact with Western
principles
- results: responses of undergrads were more ab personal characteristics > roles / groups
Significance of the social
–> Being w others is good for us:
–> Being apart fr others is bad for us:
–> The online context
How can being with others be good for us?
–> Being w others meets basic needs
- basic psychological needs:
(Belonging, Self-esteem, Control,
Meaning) - Connection with others fosters these needs:
- People were asked to rmb they gained / lost an important identity or group membership
- Then reflected on how this event affected basic needs
- results: need satisfaction is greater
gained a grp > baseline > lost a group
The Sociometer Hypothesis
- Things that make us FEEL GOOD about ourselves (self-esteem) are also the things that make others accept and like us (belonging)
- Like a fuel gauge, self-esteem is a readout of our likely standing w others
- High self-esteem = social inclusion
- Low self-esteem = social exclusion
- Self-esteem CUxES us when we need to attend to and shore up our social bonds
- Leary and colleagues argue we DON’T NEED self-esteem for PERSONAL reasons, just social
reasons
Social Comparisons Theory
–> 2 assumptions:
- We seek to GAIN ACCURATE self-evaluations
- Comparisons w others help us
REALITY-CHECK our own self-evaluations
–> We make 2 types of comparisons
1. Downward comparisons: comparing to people we think r ‘worse’ –>
improves our self-evaluation
2. Upward comparisons: comparing to others we think r ‘better’ –>
worsens our self-evaluation
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model
–> 2 assumptions of this theory
1. We seek to MANTAIN / IMPROVE our self-evaluation
2. Comparisons with others INFLUENCE our self-evaluation
–> 2 processes
1. Reflection: Others IMPROVE our
self-evaluation
- Usually happens when evaluation happens when domain is NOT RELEVANT to the self
- Self-evaluation increases cuz self shares in the success
2. Comparison: Others WORSEN our self-evaluation
- Usually happens when evaluation is RELEVANT to the self
- Self-evaluation decreases cuz it invites unfavourable comparison w our own abilities
BIRG-ing
–> basking (take pleasure in reflected glory):
- others’ success becomes OUR success
- aligns ourselves publicly with successful people
- wearing team clothing, saying ‘we’ (football players)
- motive for ENHANCEMENT: we want to feel good
CORF-ing
– > cutting off reflected failure:
others’ failure becomes our failure, unless…
- we distance ourselves publicly from them
- taking down signs of support
- motive for PROTECTION: we want to avoid feeling bad
The Better Than Average Affect
- Most of us tend to view ourselves +vely
- people think they are ABOVE
average on a wide range of positive dimensions - Most drivers said their driving skill was closer to “expert” than “poor”…while hospitalised for being in a car accident
Why is being apart from others is bad for us?
- psychological distance: loneliness
- social distance: social network centrality
- induced distance: rejection and discrimination
Loneliness
–> Feeling of distress when social relations are not going how we wld like:
- Diff btwn connectedness level - we want to hv & what we currently hv
- We can be surrounded by others AND still be lonely / be alone BUT not feel lonely
- lonliness is affected by
rs quality > rs quantity
Social Distance in Social Networks
–> A way of quantifying social structures
- Characterises networked structures in terms of nodes (individuals within the network) and the ties that link them
- Yields several measures– who knows whom in a network, popularity within a network, closeness between people in a network etc
- Lack of inclusion in a social network is detrimental for health
Social Networks and Physical
Health
Greater social integration is
associated with lower mortality.
* The fewer social ties people had, the more likely they were to die over the next 9 years
* Same pattern for men and women and across age groups
Social Networks and Mental Health
Loneliness is transmittable !
- study found ppl directly connected to a lonely person
in a social network were 52% more likely to be lonely
- Loneliness grows in networks over time
- Growth is particularly strong when the lonely tie is close - (friend / family member)
–> 3 explanations for this:
* Induction: Emotion contagion within a network
* Homophily: Similar ppl are connected (like w like)
* Shared environment: Exposure to the same social challenges and upheaval
Ostracism
- In modern terms, refers to social shunning
- Any act of ignoring & excluding of an individual / group by an individual / a group
- Why do we ostracise?
Group reasons, Individual reasons
Cyberball
- Online version of a ball-tossing game
- Effects of being EXCLUDED in cyberball are similar to “in person” ostracism
- v effective method of inducing ostracism
o-Cam
A modern experimental paradigm that increases the realism of the
ostracism experience
Ostracism Hurts
- ostracism signals DANGER (no access to social resources)
- As a result, being excluded or ostracised HARMS basic psychological needs and makes us FEEL BAD
Discrimination
–> How others treat us on the basis of our group membership impacts on our mental & physical health
- Discrimination can lead to ill-health through:
* Stress and emotional reactions
* -ve coping responses (smoking, substances…)
* Reduced access to resources (education, medical care)
* Physical injury via racially-motivated assault
Is Social Media Good or Bad for Us?
–> Stimulation hypothesis
–> Displacement hypothesis
Stimulation Hypothesis
Social media can strengthen social ties:
- Active use to connect with others
- Online communication can stimulate self-disclosure, which improves rs and well-being
Displacement Hypothesis
–>Social media can weaken social ties:
- Passive use is associated with less perceived social support & worse well-being
- easier than f2f communications
–> Social comparison is problematic
- frequent users think others are happier / better lives
- comparison anxiety predicts
greater depression
The Impact of Social Media Depends on Us
How we use social media matters
- Active vs. passive: engaging socially vs. lurking
- Motives for use: connect with others vs. avoid social anxiety
Dale Carnegie’s Golden Rules for Becoming FRIENDLIER
- Don’t criticise, condemn, or complain
- Give honest, sincere appreciation
- Arouse (cause) in the other person an eager want
- Become genuinely interested in other people
- Smile
- Rmb that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound
- Be a good listener; encourage others to talk about themselves
- Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
- Make the other person feel important - do it sincerely
Person Perception and Interpersonal Relationships
- Making a first impression
- Updating a first impression
- Getting to know someone
Making a First Impression
Snap judgements
Thin slices
Person perception
Snap judgements
- Lack of sufficient info RARELY stops us from making judgements
about others - snap judgements: quick impressions based on the most brief of glances
–> a study showed ppl faces and had them rate those faces on a range of traits –> some at own pace, others rated after seeing the faces for 1s, 1/2s, or 100 ms
- traits assesses: attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness
Impressions that make a difference
–> Our judgements of others predict consequential decisions, (voting behaviour)
- Politicians with faces judged to be more competent after 1s exposure = 69% MORE LIKELY to win their election
- Replicates when the faces are shown for 1/10 s
- Snap competence judgements made B4 an election accurately predict who will win that
election in 70% of cases
Thin Slicing
–> The ability to find PATTERNS in events based on “thin slices” (narrow windows of experience)
- Our ability to draw relatively accurate conclusions ab the emotions & attitudes of ppl in SHORT interactions
- a study had participants form judgements of UNI LECTURER & HS teachers
- judgements were based on 10s
vids of the person teaching
*Participant judgements were compared against student evaluations (of lecturer) and principal ratings (of hs teacher)
*results: strong similarities btwn ppl’s ratings of uni lecs when they knew the person rlly well
Person Perception
–> Judgements based on 2 primary dimensions:
- warmth and competence
Warmth
Traits that help us assess others’ intent in a social context
- “Are this person’s intentions toward me good or bad?”
- Friendly, kind, sincere, generous, helpful, tolerant, understanding, fair, honest
Competence
- Traits that help us assess others’ ABILITY to ACT on their intent
- “Can this person carry out their intentions toward me?”
- Skill, efficiency, confidence, intelligence, clever, knowledgeable, foresighted
Fundamental Dimensions
- Warmth and competence are
INDEPENDENT - Warmth judgements
PRIMARY, and made quicker than
competence judgements
Impression by Innuendo
We like to form well-rounded impressions of ppl, meaning we assume qualities about ppl even if we don’t hv evidence ab those qualities
–> “innuendo effect” study Warm:
- “Pat seems like a very nice, sociable, and outgoing person”
- Control: “Pat made a very positive overall impression”
* Competent: “Pat seems like a very smart, hard-working, and competent person
- results: assume someone is bad at the other thing (non-mentioned)
Updating a First Impression
–> Impression formation: COMBINING INFO about others to make overall judgements
* Algebraically
* Configurationally
Algebraic Models (point based)
Impressions formed on the basis of a mechanical combination of
info about a person
–> 3 ways of combining info:
- Summative
- Averaging
- Weighted averaging
Configurational Model (looks at overall)
–> Based on Gestalt principles: the WHOLE is greater than the sum of its parts
- An emergent impression is formed that may vary depending on the total
context of the information provided
- ppl combine info they receive ab someone into an overall
impression that can be diff from
the simple sum of items of info about that person
Central traits
influential in impression formation
Peripheral traits
less influential in impression formation
Impression formation (Asch, 1946)
- tested how SMALL changes to a DESCRIPTION of an individual might affect overall impression formation
1.A person was described as:
Intelligent, skilful, industrious, WARM, determined, practical, cautious
2. Intelligent, skilful, industrious, COLD, determined, practical, cautious - Participants asked how likely the person was to also possess other traits
What do we like in others
–> We like familiarity
- Mere exposure effect: the more we’re exposed to something, the more we like it
- study: mere exposure effect among students
* 4 people attended psych lectures
but didn’t participate
* Varied the number of lectures attended: 0, 5, 10, 15
–> We like similarity
- study:
- Real couples were more similar to each other than “random couples” in most cases
- ACTUAL similarity –> predict liking in short interactions;
- PERCEIVED similarity –> in existing relationships
-The LESS we know about someone, the MORE actual similarity affects liking (because we have little info to based on)
–> we like people who r attractive
- there is considerable variation in what people find attractive and we find people we like more attractive than people we don’t like
What strategies help us get
closer with others?
- Healthy patterns of communication foster more satisfying social bonds
- Communication that builds TRUST improves relationships
- Sharing with others
- Self-disclosure
- Self-disclosure begets more self-
disclosure: norm of reciprocity
!! BUT… self-disclosure at inappropriate / irrelevant times can lead to reduced liking and closeness.
Capitalisation Cycle acc. to Dale Carnegie’s rules of winning friends
Respond appreciatively when the other person tells you about themselves.
How can we influence people to comply with our requests?
- obedience; tell ppl what to do
- persuasion: talk ppl around
- social norms: more subtle forms of influence
Milgram’s Obedience Studies
–> examine how individuals could obey orders that instructed them to HARM others
Participants:
* The EXPERIMENTER
* The “teacher” (naive participant)
* The “learner” (confederate)
- Teachers instructed to increase shock voltage w each incorrect response
- Confederate learners consistently made errors and reacted verbally to the shocks (an act)
–> Results:
- Most teachers showed great deal of emotional conflict and wanted to stop the experiment
- V few psychiatrists thought
participants would administer shocks at the ‘XXX’ level,
but in reality, most participants (68%) administered shocks to
the ‘XXX’ level –> demonstrates the power of obedience
–> High rate of obedience factors:
- The authority figure has high status
- Participants believe the authority figure is responsible for consequences
- No clear-cut point to switch to disobedience
- gradual escalation : following orders little by little has has mild consequences,
Results (diff versions of study):
- varied obedience
- only a few continued to max voltage
- the majority disobeyed (at some point)
- Factors that reduced likelihood of
obeying included a non-committed
experimenter, having a close
relationship with the learner, and
seeing other people disobey
Replications of Milgram’s experiment
–> Burger (2009) study with more ethical conditions:’ 150 volts, pre-study interviews w a clinical psychologist, told 3 times they could withdraw from the study
- Found similar results
- Ppl w greater DESIRE for CONTROL and more EMPATHETIC concern for others were more reluctant
–> Shock Room
- Almost everyone refused to administer the final shock
- Being told “you have no other choice” - final straw for ppl
Stanford Prison Experiment
–> study designed to simulate prison life
- Participants: Prison guards / Prisoners
- “Prisoners” were arrested & brought to the basement of the
building;
- Some “guards” began tormenting & abusing prisoners
- A no. of “prisoners” became
emotionally disturbed
–> Results: supposed to last for 2 weeks, but was stopped after 6 days
Criticisms of Stanford Prison Experiment
- Not an experiment
- Despite the brutal conditions, only 30% of guards behaved cruelly
- Self-selection:
- Demand characteristics
- Motivated leadership
why the studies (Milgram’s obedience studies / Stanford Prison Experiment) may be
powerful demonstrations of our ability to RESIST influence?
shows how we CONFORM to roles and BEHAVE in ways expected by the situation
Persuasion: Emotion-based approaches
–> Compliance is higher when ppl are in +ve mood
–> 2 main reasons
- mood COLOURS our interpretation of events: requests seem LESS INTRUSIVE when we FEEL GOOD!
- emotion maintenance: we want to CONTINUE feeling good, and granting a request is one way to do so
Persuasion: Reason-based approaches
- We often make decisions by weighing the pros / cons of engaging in a particular action
- Some persuasion attempts are focused on CHANGONG ppl’s decision
- Reason-based approaches INDUCE (persuade) compliance by providing GOOD REASONS for ppl to agree to a request
Norm of reciprocity
When someone does something for us, we feel pressure to help in return
- expected return of benefits both ways
- failure violate a social expectation
Regan (1971) study: Norm of reciprocity
- confederate bought a participant a soft drink during an experiment
- Later, the confederate explained they were selling raffle tickets
- Participants who were given the soft drink bought TWICE as many raffle tickets as those not offered a
soft drink
Power of commitment
–> Once a choice has been made, ppl feel pressured to act
consistently w that commitment
study for Power of commitment
- participants asked to take part in an experiment. They were
informed the experiment started at 7am b4 / after saying they would participate. - > half agreed when told the start time after
- < half agreed when told the start time up front
Door-in-the-face
- asking for a v large favour that will probably be refused
- then following the request w a more modest favour
- drop in size of request appears to be a concession (compromise)
- fueled by RECIPROCITY
Foot-in-the-door
- make a smaller requests
- then follow up with a larger request which was the real request all along
- fuelled by COMMITMENT
Elaboration Likelihood
Model
–> Explains how ppl change their attitudes in response to persuasive
messages
- 2 pathways to persuasion:
- Central: ppl think carefully &
deliberately about the
content of the message,
- Peripheral: ppl attend to EASY-
TO-PROCESS, superficial
cues related to argument
Social Norms: Norm-based approaches
–> Our tendency to CONFORM to the behaviour of others around us can be harnessed to achieve compliance
–> study
- gave household info ab their own energy use in comparison to their neighbours
- People changed their behaviour to FIT THE NORM:
* Above-average users used less energy
* Below-average users used more energy
Types of Social Influence
–> Majority influence
–> Minority influence
Majority Influence
STUDY:
- a group of students perform a simple task w obvious answer
- The correct answer was v clear
- Each person called out their judgement publicly,
- Only 1 participant was a confederate - instructed to respond incorrectly
Results:
- MOST participants conformed at least once
- On average, participants
conformed on 1/3 of trials
Factors that affect
Majority Influence
- Anonymity (priv vs public)
- Expertise and status
- Group size
- Group unanimity (1 person’s difference in answer)
Minority Influence
Study:
- participants asked to determine whether slides were green / blue
- Participants nearly always thought the stimuli were blue
- Participants could hear other people in the study, an inconsistent or consistent minority of whom said the slides were green
Results: Participants conformed to the consistent minority’s opinion >
the inconsistent minority
Normative Influence
We are influenced by others because we want to gain their social approval
- common in majority influence
Informational Influence
We are influenced by others bcuz we accept info from them as EVIDENCE about reality
- common in minority influence
How selfish are we?
–> Freud: actions are motivated by the ‘pleasure principle’ - we do things that maximise personal pleasure
–> Machiavelli: humans are “fickle,
hypocritical, and greedy of gain”
Dictator Game
–> A paradigm for investigating trust & generosity
- Player 1 (the allocator) is given some money, (eg $10)
- Player 1 decides how much to give to Player 2
- Player 2 receives the offered amount and Player 1 receives the rest
Findings:
- On average, ppl give almost half even though they can give zero
- 71% of people give between 40%-50% of their resource
Dictator Game: What encourages people to give?
- Social closeness to the recipient
- Trust and prosociality (intent to benefit others)
- Demographic factors
- Not being econs student
Giving Feels Good
–> Spending money on others makes us HAPPIER than spending money on ourselves
- increases happiness
- creates a positive feedback loop: we keep wanting to feel good
- Not just about spending money: general acts of kindness improves one’s wellbeing
Social Loafing
= the tendency to exert LESS EFFORT on a group task where individual contributions cannot be monitored
- Explains why groups r sometimes LESS PRODUCTIVE than individually
- More likely on tasks ppl DC about / in groups that people don’t like
- More likely when personal effort CAN’T be identified
- More likely when LOW MOTIVATION
Social Loafing Study
–> investigated social performance in an individual / cooperative rope-pulling task
Results:
- When pulling alone, ppl etried harder compared to in pairs / groups
- The larger the group, the smaller the amount of force exerted
Why do we loaf?
–> De-individuation: ppl feel they can ‘HIDE IN THE CROWD’ and avoid the -ve consequences of slacking off
–> Equity: stereotyped ideas that ppl don’t work hard in groups, so they reduce their own effort
–> Reward: ppl feel their personal
effort won’t be recognised even if they try hard
Takeaways from social loafing
- ASSIGN RESPONSIBILITIES/TASKS
make clear who’s accountable for what - Establish clear standards & RULES for what good performance looks like
- EVALUATE INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE TOO!! on top of group performance
Social Facilitation
–> We don’t always slack off in groups:
- in fact, the mere presence of others can give us a boost
- 2 types of social facilitation:
- CO-ACTION effects: we perform better at tasks when we do them WITH other ppl
- AUDIENCE effects: we perform better at tasks when we are WATCHED by other people
- More likely on EASY tasks than complex tasks
- More likely when personal effort CAN be identified
- More likely when HIGH MOTIVATION
Co-Action Effects Study
–> Studied If Performance boost when accompanied by others engaged in the same activity
- cyclists performed better when racing AGAINST each other than the clock
- wound fishing experiment w children alone / in pairs –>
–> Children worked faster when with a partner doing the same task
Audience Effects in
- Performance boost when in the presence of PASSIVE spectators
- Thought to be in part cuz other
people heighten physiological arousal (alert, awake, attentive)
& evaluation apprehension (anxiety), –> enhance performance
Out for others: Altruism
–> Prosocial behaviour that benefits others w/o regard to
consequences for oneself
–> motives for altruism = Social reward, Personal distress, Empathic concern
Competitive altruism
If people are motivated by social
reward, they may try to outdo one
another in altruistic acts
- people will give higher social status to more altruistic individuals
Study on altruism: ‘It’s all about me!’
- researchers interacted w another
participant (actually a confederate) who would be subjected to 10 electric shocks
1. Easy-to-escape condition: participant could leave after seeing 2. Hard-to-escape condition: participants had to stay through all 10 shocks - Participants’ main emotional response was assessed: personal distress (tendency to feel -ve feelings of others) vs. empathic concern (tendency to help)
- Results:
v low no. distressed participants agreed help in easy conditions but MAJORITY distressed participants agreed to take shocks in difficult condition - more empathic participants agreed to help in easy conditions than difficult conditions
Bystander Intervention & effects
- Assistance given by a witness to
someone in need - We hope that ppl respond
unquestioningly, but in reality people can be reluctant to intervene during seeming emergencies
Bystander study: The Smoke Under the Door Experiment
–> male undergraduates took part in a study on “problems at an urban university”
- in a waiting room participants faced an ambiguous but potentially dangerous situation in which smoke began to puff into
the room
* Grp 1: participants did the study alone
* Grp 2: study w two CONFEDERATES trained not to respond overtly to the smoke
* Grp 3: two other REAL participants
Results:
- Alone: participant responded to smoke
- W real participants: < half responded to smoke
- W confederates: only 10% people responded to smoke
Why did bystanders not
intervene?
- Diffusion of responsibility
- Pluralistic ignorance: (uncertain about the legitimacy of the “emergency” because others are less reactive to it)
- Evaluation apprehension: (ppl fear making mistakes & being seen as foolish)
Factors that increase
likelihood of helping
–> The bystander effect was reduced when:
- The situation was more dangerous
- The perpetrator (person doing harmful things) was present
* The victim was a close other
* Other bystanders were REAL
Takeaways for bystander effect
- Reduce the ambiguity (vagueness) of the situation
- gather info ab what is happening & how to respond - Speak up - DISCUSS w others ard
- Invite empathy for the victim - see them as a real person with feelings rather than a nameless ‘other’
Prejudice
Actual meaning: pre-judgement
- hostile attitude toward a
person who belongs to a group,
simply because he [sic] belongs to a group, and is therefore presumed to have the objectionable qualities
ascribed to that group.
- Racism
- Sexism
- Homophobia
- Transphobia
- Prejudice based on religion, SES, age, disability, political orientation, etc
Prejudice vs Discrimination:
Prejudice = attitude;
discrimination = behaviour
Prejudice: attitude or affective
RESPONSE (+ve / -ve) toward a
group and its members
Discrimination: favourable /
unfavourable TREATMENTS of individuals based on their group membership
Prejudice is an attitude
encompases all 3 components of an attitude = ABC
A = Affective (feelings ab the grp)
B = Cognitive (thoughts)
C = Behavioural (intentions to take action)
Types of Prejudice
- Blatant prejudice (‘old fashioned’
prejudice)
- Explicit rejection of the outgroup
- inferiority of outgroup
- Opposition to contact w the outgroup
* Outward expression of -negativity toward the outgroup - Subtle prejudice
- Covert (not explicit) forms of prejudice
- rejection of explicitly prejudiced beliefs while still feeling animosity (“I’m not racist, but…”)
- Can be reflected in unacknowledged / unconscious -ve feelings toward outgroups
- Sometimes assessed using ‘implicit’ measures that don’t rely on asking people to self-report on their attitudes
A Case Study: Sexism
–> coined the term ‘ambivalent sexism’, which recognises
that prejudiced attitudes can contain both -ve and +ve features
1. Hostile sexism: BLATANT, overtly -ve attitudes of women traditional gender roles (men dominance)
- 2. Benevolent (kindly) sexism: SUBTLE, +ve attitudes towards WOMEN
The Economic
Perspective of Prejudice
–> Realistic Group Conflict Theory
- Predicts (correctly) that prejudice will increase under conditions of economic
difficulty, (eg: recessions, high unemployment)
The Robbers Cave
Experiment of Prejudice
Summer camp of 22 boys
–> Boys were allocated to two groups: The Eagles and The Rattlers
- Stage 1: INGROUP FORMATION (get to know)
- Stage 2: GROUP CONFLICT (competition)
- Stage 3: CONFLICT RESOLUTION (work tgt)
- Results :
low hostility (stage 1)
hostility rises to peak (stage 2)
hostility decreases (stage 3)
The Motivational
Perspective: prejudice
- Hostility can EMERGE btwn
groups even w/o direct competition - Intergroup hostility can develop simply bcuz another group exists
- mere group boundaries can initiate intergroup prejudice
The Minimal Group
Paradigm of prejudice
–> Designed to reveal the MINIMAL CONDITIONS required for ingroup favouritism & outgroup derogation to occur
- People are allocated to groups based on seemingly meaningless criteria and have no interaction with other group members
- Participants allocated to groups based on meaningless criteria & NO interaction with other group members
- Participants then assign points, redeemable for money, to pairs of their fellow participants
- One amount would go to an ingroup member and the other to an outgroup member
Findings: Poeple assigned LESSER points to outgroups, even if it also meant assigning fewer points to ingroup members.
–> Merely categorizing ppl into new groups affects a wide variety of perceptions, evaluations, and behaviors that reveal the degree to which people FAVOUR new ingroups over new outgroups.
Social Identity Theory
Social identity + Self-categorisation theory –> ‘the social identity approach’
- Our IDENTITY is comprised in large part of social groups we belong to
- in order to feel good ab ourselves, we strive to FEEL GOOD ab our INGROUP STATUS
- People who are MORE IDENTIFIED w their group tend to show greater ingroup
favouritism
The Cognitive Miser
- People tend to favour SIMPLER ways of thinking than more effortful ways of
thinking - hence, our tendency to categorise things and ppl
- Just as a miser seeks to avoid
spending money, the human mind often seeks to AVOID SPENDING COGNITIVE EFFORT
The Cognitive Perspective
–> STEREOTYPES, helps us process info rapidly & effectively
- Beliefs that ALL MEMBERS of a group have the SAME QUALITIES,
–> Main Features:
- Define people in terms of their social category membership
- stereotypes are shared
Stereotypes Studies
- Researchers brought a baby into a class
- Half were told the baby’s name is Keith, the rest Karen
- Participants rated the baby on stereotypical personality traits
- Male and female stereotypes
- Keith rated more highly on masculine stereotypes (athletic, actie, aggressive, assertive) * Karen was rather much lowly
- Participants watched a recording in which 2 people had an argument and one pushed the other
- Half saw a BLACK person push a WHITE person; the other saw a WHITE person push a BLACK person
- they rated how violent the episode was
- White pusher (about 10% thought it was violent)
- Black pusher (about 75% thought it was violent)
How do we reduce prejudice?
- Economic Lessons
- REDUCE intergroup competition & INCREASE intergroup cooperation (RECATEGORISATION) - Motivational lessons
- set ingroup NORMS against prejudice & for tolerance (normative influence) - Cognitive lessons
- WEAKEN effects of STEREOTYPES by exposing ppl to individuals fr lost of diff groups (INTERGROUP CONTACT)
