Social Psych Flashcards
What was Rousseau’s opinion on the nature of humankind?
Man is by nature good and only institutions make him bad
What was Hobbes’ opinion on the nature of humankind?
Man is by nature solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish - need civilising constraints on society for the safety of all
Who is generally more “right” about humankind’s nature?
Rousseau, because in situations of crisis, people are generally kind to each other and do not panic
Describe a cognitive approach to social psychology
Emphasis on how perception/interpretation of the environment affects behaviour. For example, if you interpret noxious behaviour as accidental, then it is unlikely that you will respond aggressively.
List four more recent debates in social psych
- What sort of questions should be asked within social psych?
- What sort of theory should be used?
- What sort of issue should be studied?
- What sort of research methods should be used?
Describe a learning perspective to social psych
Emphasis on principles of reinforcement and imitation; responses based on prior learning. Tendency to focus on observable behaviour and ignore cognition.
Describe a motivational perspective to social psych
Emphasis on basic human needs - need to belong, need to be accepted. If not accepted, more likely to: drop out of school, be depressed, etc.
Evidence for motivational perspective
People need other people: Part of brain that lights up due to physical pain also lights up due to social pain
Biological perspective to social psych
Idea that social behaviour is driven by evolutionary past and genetic disposition - we’re aggressive as individuals due to evolving for aggression/aggression being part of evolution
Cultural perspective on social psych
Emphasis on how culture affects social behaviour. Example: shift in thinking about gayness, more people ok with being gay?
Levels of explanation in social psych
- Intra-personal level: Based on what goes on inside the person
- Interpersonal level: Interactions between two people - what was it about someone’s interaction with others that caused them to commit the actions they did?
- Inter-group level: Based on group level behaviour
- Societal level: Cultural effects on behaviour
Example of intra-personal level of explanation: Charles Whitman
Charles Whitman shot several people - did an autopsy and found that he had a growth in his brain
Example of inter-group level of explanation
Why is it that men tend to be more violent when rejected, as compared to women?
Example of societal level of explanation
Why are there so many murders in some countries like the U.S.?
Freud was the first person to draw attention to:
- The study of the unconscious
- The developmental aspects of character
- Talking cures (therapy)
Freud vs. Hobbes
- Hobbes claimed that a person’s baser instincts were curbed by external sanctions, whereas Freud claimed that the external restraints of society were internalised during childhood. Parents spanked children → children internalise parental/societal standards of right and wrong.
How did Freud see the human condition?
As a seething cauldron of pleasure-seeking instincts
What did Freud think about forbidden impulses?
Impulses can be denied, but will always return and reassert themselves - will always be a conflict between instincts and the demands of society. This conflict goes on deep in the unconscious.
What three subsystems are involved in this unconscious conflict?
The id, ego, and superego
Describe the id
- Most primitive part of the psyche (contains the need to gain sexual pleasure)
- Works on the demand principle - demands satisfaction now not later, regardless of consequences
Describe the ego
Works on the reality principle and tries to satisfy the id in accordance with societal norms
Describe the superego
- Represents internalised societal rules - if rules are broken, superego metes out punishment (guilt and anxiety)
- If the demands of the superego are met, the impulses of the id must be repressed
What necessitates defence mechanisms?
As impulses re-emerge, so does intense anxiety (conflict between id and superego) → defence mechanisms brought into play
Describe the four defence mechanisms
- Displacement: Impulses redirected into a safer course (example: going to gym to get out sexual urges)
- Reaction formation: Original wish is supplanted with the opposite
- Projection: Urges are projected onto others (example: if you see someone you like, you might think that they like you - projection of desires)
- Isolation: Awareness of memories, but not emotions (example: can talk very calmly about significant trauma)
Origins of unconscious conflict
Result of childhood experiences - child starts life seeking pleasure through the stimulation of certain body zones
List the psychosexual stages of development
- Oral stage (0-2)
- Anal stage (2-4)
- Phallic stage (4-6)
- Latency stage (6-12)
- Genital stage (12+)
What happens during the phallic stage for boys?
- Boys develope Oedipus complex (want to fuck mom, hate dad) –> fear that father may find out and castrate them
- Develope castration anxiety, problem resolved when boy gives up desire for mom
- Boy identifies with dad (learns to be a man like his dad) in the hope that when he’s older he’ll have a partner like his mom
What happens in the phallic stage for girls?
- Girls develope Electra complex
- Realise that they do not have a dick –> feel that they have been castrated already and develope “penis envy”
- Want to fuck dad who has a dick in the hopes that he will give them a dick substitute (a baby), hates mom
- Develope anxiety over desires, end up identifying with mom
What does difficulty at the oral stage lead to?
Example: was pulled off the breast as a baby. Leads to oral fixation, smoking, thumb sucking.
What does difficulty at the anal stage lead to?
Example: problems on the potty. Leads to anal retentiveness, won’t spend money, obstinate, likes painting.
What does difficulty at the phallic stage lead to?
Castration anxiety → boy becomes gay
Issues with Freud’s theories
- Never actually studied children
- Ideas not falsifiable - theory that’s right either way
- Little experimental evidence to support ideas - data better explained through other processes, experiments supporting his claims often flawed
Freud and aggression
Claimed that children with harsh parents redirect aggressive instincts towards those with less power
Issues with Freud’s thoughts on aggression
Evidence suggests that authoritarian aggression is not caused by the redirection of repressed impulses, but by observational learning (example: Bandura, 1965)
Example of flawed experiment supporting Freud: Bruner & Postman
- Freud claimed that threatening stimuli is repressed
- Bruner & Postman presented threatening (sex, fuck) and non-threatening words (brick, tennis) by means of tachistoscope → found that threatening words took longer to report
- Supports theory of repression, but findings are problematic as people may feel embarrassment or want to recheck their eyes
Attitude definition according to Crano & Prisilin
A positive or negative reaction towards a stimulus
What three components are attitudes comprised of?
- Cognitive - what you think about, how you evaluate something at an intellectual level
- Affective - emotional
- Behavioural - the extent to which we intend to behave in accordance with our attitudes
Likert scales as a technique of attitude measurement
Depend on honesty (sometimes people don’t tell the truth and give socially desirable answers instead) –> need to use unobtrusive methods
The bogus pipeline as a technique of attitude measurement
Participants hooked up to impressive-looking apparatus, told it measures minute changes in muscles –> if respondent believes that the apparatus can assess their true attitudes, there is little point in lying
Electromyography (EMG) as a technique of attitude measurement
- Measures activity of facial muscles - when people experience emotions such as happiness or sadness, different facial muscles move
- Measure participant attitudes, then present participants with videos which either support or disagree with these attitudes
- Generally find: Muscles associated with happiness move when the video supports attitudes and muscles associated with anger move when the video disagrees with attitudes
Attitude-behaviour relations: LaPiere 1934
- Investigated the relation between racist attitudes and behaviour
- Toured with Chinese couple and stopped at over 50 hotels and 200 restaurants - only one hotel refused service
- Wrote to each establishment asking if a Chinese couple would be accommodated - 92% said no → attitude doesn’t predict behaviour
Theory of planned behaviour
To demonstrate the relationship between attitudes and behaviour we must consider:
1. When we have a positive attitude towards the behaviour
2. When norms support our attitudes
3. When the behaviour is under our control
According to this model, many studies fail to find relations between attitudes and behaviour because they do not take these factors into account. Support for this model: Sieverding et al., 2010.
Attitude stability and change: Himmelweit 1990
Found in a 15-year study that attitudes to capital punishment did not change - attitudes are generally stable
Factors contributing to attitude change: Cognitive dissonance
- Cognitive dissonance describes inconsistency between attitudes and behaviour
- If behaviour is irrevocably at odds with original attitude –> attitude changes
- Evidence: Knox & Inkster asked people to estimate the chances of winning a bet –> found that those who had placed bets were much more confident of winning
Other factors contributing to attitude change
- If the source is: Credible, trustworthy, attractive, and likeable
- If the message is presented, quickly, long, and without hesitation
- If we are approached on sunny days or when we are happy
- Emotional appeals: Fear works when message evokes moderate to strong fear and/or the message provides a feasible way to reduce threat
Attitude resilience: McAlister et al. (1982)
- One way to avoid attitude change is via the rehearsal of counter-arguments
- Sought to prevent teens from smoking, taught arguments like “I’d be real chicken if I smoked just to impress you” → teenagers trained in this way were less likely to smoke
Measurement of attributions: Likert scales
- Example: Jane scores 95% on a maths test. What is the single most important cause of this behaviour?
- Jane then rates this on a Likert scale
- Internal - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 - External
Consequences of attributions
- Couples with marital distress tend to attribute their partner’s negative behaviour to internal characteristics
- Frey & Rogner (1987) found that following accidents, individuals who thought that they were in some way to “blame” spent 30 days in hospital, whereas those who thought they were not to “blame” spent 20 days in hospital
Optimistic vs. pessimistic attributional styles: Martin Seligman
- Longitudinal study following young men, found that men who explained negative events through reference to internal characteristics (pessimistic attributional style) tended to have significantly poorer health between the ages 45-60 (25 years after the events took place)
- Optimistic style: Optimist explains the negative events in terms of external factors
Motivational basis of attributions: Self-esteem
Attributions linked to self-esteem in two ways:
1. If we behave positively or successfully and attribute this to our own internal qualities, we can achieve and maintain self-esteem
2. If we behave negatively or fail in some way and we attribute this to the same internal qualities, we can suffer a decrease in self-esteem
Motivational basis of attributions: Control
- If we attribute our successes to our internal characteristics, we may believe that we are in control
- Control function not always positive - can lead to victim blaming because people want to feel they have control over negative events (if I don’t do this, this terrible thing won’t happen to me)
Four levels of analysis for attributions
- Intra-personal level
- Interpersonal level
- Inter-group level
- Societal level
Intra-personal level (attributions): Definition and major theories
- Focuses on the criteria by which individuals analyse information and come to make an attribution (what goes on in people’s minds)
- Major theories: Correspondent inference, covariation and configuration
Intra-personal level (attributions): Kelley 1967
Claimed that when making an attribution, information can be derived relating to:
1. Consistency: Is this person normally rude to you?
2. Consensus: Are people normally rude to you?
3. Distinctiveness: Is this person rude to others?
Interpersonal level (attributions): Definition
Deals with face-to-face attributions, attributions no longer seen as rational
Interpersonal level (attributions): Two major types of effect
- Actor-observer effect (fundamental attribution error): People tend to attribute the cause of their own actions to external factors, and tend to attribute the cause of others’ actions to internal causes
- Self-serving bias: People take credit for their successes, but not for their failures
Inter-group level (attributions): Definition
Attributions at this level examine the way in which the members of different groups explain behaviour
Inter-group level (attributions): Hunter et al. 1991, 1994
- Found that Protestants tended to make external attributions for Protestant violence and made internal attributions to Catholic violence
- Catholics tended to make external attributions for Catholic violence and made internal attributions for Protestant violence
Societal level (attributions): Miller 1984
Found that while individuals from Western cultures favour internal explanations, individuals from non-Western cultures tend to favour external explanations
Proximity and interpersonal relationships: McKnight 1994
Found that 83% of people met their “special partner” in a familiar social setting, 6% in a casual social setting
Proximity and interpersonal relationships: Byrne
Found that people tended to make friends with people they were seated beside alphabetically
The mere exposure effect: Zajonc 1968
Repeated exposure to any stimulus makes it more appealing
The mere exposure effect: Mita et al. 1977
- Claimed that if it was merely repeated exposure to a stimulus that enhanced our liking of it, we should prefer photos of our facial images as we see them in a mirror (reversed image), while our friends should prefer a normal image
- Found that 70% of people prefer reversed image of themselves, while 70% of people prefer normal image of their friends
Factors other than proximity in interpersonal relationships: Reis 1997
- Claimed that proximity doesn’t always work - other factors at play (personality differences, conflict of interests)
- If initial interaction is negative and this experience is reinforced, then dislike will occur
Emotional arousal and interpersonal relationships: White et al. 1981
White et al. (1981) found that men who ran on the spot rated women as being more attractive - people who are more emotionally aroused rate others as more attractive
Emotional arousal and interpersonal relationships: Dutton & Aaron 1974 (electric shocks)
Found that people expecting electric shocks rated members of the opposite sex as being more attractive
Emotional arousal and interpersonal relationships: Dutton & Aaron (rope bridge vs. sturdy bridge)
- Conducted a study in which men who crossed a deep ravine (by means of a narrow rope bridge) or a river (on a sturdy bridge) were met by a female experimenter
- Found that men who crossed the deep ravine on the narrow rope bridge were more likely to phone up and ask for a date
Physical attractiveness and interpersonal relationships: Wakil et al. 1973
Found that out of 32 desirable traits for a partner, men ranked physical appearance 12th and women ranked it 22nd - don’t want to admit how much physical attractiveness matters
Physical attractiveness and interpersonal relationships: Green, Buchanan, & Heuer (1984)
- Analysed computer dating services which used photo matching
- For both sexes, physical attractiveness was the major determining factor of date choice
Physical attractiveness and interpersonal relationships: Walster et al.
- Used a dance to assess students’ reactions to their partner on blind date
- People rated for attractiveness by independent observers on arrival - found that the more attracted you were rated, the more you were liked by your date
Gender differences in attraction: Whipple 2018
- Both men and women affected by looks, but men (both straight and gay) are more so than women (straight and lesbian), who focus more on other aspects of the person as well
- Whipple found that 90% of men agreed to sex when approached by an attractive woman, while only 10% of women agreed to sex when approached by an attractive man
Benefits of being attractive: Ravin & Rubin 1983
- Adults less aggressive to attractive children
- More likely to be hired for jobs
- More likely to be given better grades
- Ravin & Rubin studied decision-making process in casualty wards, found that you were announced dead sooner if you weren’t attractive
What’s considered attractive: Facial features
- Men prefer: Childlike profile, big eyes, small nose and chin
- Women prefer: Expression of dominance, small eyes, square jaw, and thrusting chin
What’s considered attractive: Torso
- Men prefer medium bust, hips, waist, and bottom
- Women prefer: V-shaped men - broad shoulders and small bottom
What’s considered attractive: Age and height
- Men prefer younger, smaller women
- Women prefer older, taller men
Cultural effects on beauty: Ingleby (1981)
Fat and diseased babies by Western standards are considered beautiful in other cultures
Similarity and attractiveness: Kandel 1978
- People tend to be attracted to others who are similar to themselves - most important determinants are similarity of attitudes, values, and activities
- Kandel found that best high school friends resembled each other in terms of age, race, and grades
Similarity and attractiveness: Craddock 1990
Found that married couples who shared the same egalitarian or religious beliefs were happier
Ending relationships: Men vs. women
- Men fall in love quicker, women fall out of love quicker (end relationships 60% of the time) and are better through separation
- Divorce rate 1 in 3
Loneliness
Rejection causes pain (lasts for 2 years after end of relationship) - social paincan be felt in same part of brain as physical pain
Social facilitation: Definition and general examples
How the physical presence of others influences our behaviour:
1. We are more likely to laugh if others laugh
2. The larger the crowd, the more we eat
3. Cockroaches run faster in the presence of other cockroaches
Effect of others’ presence on performance: Schmitt 1986
- Respondents completed simple and complex tasks
- When others present → simple task ability improved, complex task ability decreased
Drive theory of facilitation (explanation for Schmitt’s 1986 findings): Zajonc 1980
- Presence of others leads to increased arousal –> arousal strengthens display of our dominant response
- Performance is enhanced if our dominant response is appropriate, performance is impaired if our dominant response is inappropriate
Effect of others’ presence on performance: Michaels et al. 1982
- Investigated pool players’ accuracy in the presence of others
- Accuracy of good players increased from 71% to 80%, accuracy of poor players decreased from 35% to 25%
Diffusion of responsibility (idea that as group size increases, individual responsibility decreases): Kitty Genovese
Struggled with her killer for 30 mins, reportedly watched by 38 of her neighbours - no one helped or called police
Diffusion of responsibility: Latane & Darley
- Participants sat in waiting room on pretext of taking part in experiment, smoke came out of vent
- 75% of those waiting alone reacted immediately, less than 1% of those waiting with others reacted
Deindividuation: Definition
- When people are surrounded by others, they lose self-awareness and begin to feel anonymous
- When aroused, the loss in self-awareness works to disinhibit those impulses which are normally kept under check - impulses depend on situation
- General idea is the bigger the crowd, worse the actions
Deindividuation: Mann 1981
Examined cases of threatened suicide in crowd presence, found instances where victim was abused and taunted
Deindividuation: Zimbardo 1970
Found that decrease in self-awareness leads to increase in anti-social behaviour
Deindividuation: Beaman et al. 1979
- In a Halloween study, 34% took extra sweets, but only 12% of those presented with a mirror took extra (mirror made them self-aware)
- Indicates that an increase in self-awareness → decreased anti-social behaviour
Conformity: Solomon Asch
- Brought 10-12 people into lab (all confederates, save one)
- People were asked to judge which line matched the sample line, with actual participant going last
- Found that two thirds of participants would go along with wrong answer but say right line by themselves
Influence can change beliefs: Newcomb
- Looked at social and political attitudes in small liberal U.S. college, recruited students from conservative backgrounds
- Started off conservative, by the time they left were liberal
Who carried out the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) in the early 1970s?
Philip Zimbardo, in the basement of Stanford University’s Psych Department
What was the aim of the SPE?
To find out how social roles affect individual behaviour - especially the roles of guard and prisoner
Who took part in the SPE?
- Advertised for male college students to take part in a 2 week prison simulation, tested 75 participants to ensure that they were all “mature, emotionally stable, normal, and intelligent”
- 24 participants were selected
What was the initial set up of the SPE?
- Prisoners wore chains on one ankle, smocks without underwear, rubber sandals, cap made from nylon stockings
- Prisoners given numbers as identification
- Guards wore khaki uniforms, sunglasses, carried a whistle and night stick
- Guards were referred to as “Mr. Correctional Officer”
- Zimbardo was the prison superintendent and Jaffe (his student) was the assistant warden
How were SPE participants (prisoners) transported to the study grounds?
Arrested by police, fingerprinted, blind-folded, stripped naked, deloused, taken to detention cell (6 x 9 feet to hold three people)
What were the three phases of the SPE?
- Settling in period
- Guards taking their role more seriously
- Guards becoming galvanised
What characterised the SPE settling in period?
Guards and prisoners didn’t take roles seriously, prisoners made fun of guards
What happened during the SPE “guards taking their roles more seriously” period?
One prisoner was thrown into “the hole” (closet), prisoners swore at guards, refused to follow orders and barricaded themselves in their cells
What happened during the SPE “guards becoming galvanised” period?
- Called for reinforcements
- Broke into barricaded cell, stripped prisoners and forced ringleader into the closet
- Harassed and intimidated prisoners, divide and conquer (those not in rebellion given special privileges)
- Over next 4 days, guards becoming increasingly brutal (roll calls last hours, prisoners made to: do push ups, clean toilets with bare hands, and play homoerotic games)
How many days until the SPE was stopped?
6 days
What happened to Zimbardo over the course of the SPE?
Began to act like an authority figure and became more concerned with prison security than the wellbeing of the participants
What do the findings of the SPE suggest?
Ordinary people can be transformed by their immediate context/social role to perform brutal acts
Who drew on the SPE findings?
- Browning’s 1992 “Ordinary Men” book claims that Nazis were ordinary men put in a certain role
- Used to explain torture of prisoners in Abu Gharib, assaults in Naru detention centre, U.S. police violence
Critique of the SPE: Demand characteristics (cues that indicate research objectives to participants –> can make participants behave differently)
- Zimbardo suggested push ups as a good punishment, suggested putting grass burrs in prisoners’ blankets
- Zimbardo’s lack of intervention might have made guards think they were doing well in the experiment
Critique of the SPE: Were participants “normal”? (Carnahan & Macfarland, 2007)
- Compared personality profiles of people who agreed to take part in study on prison life
- Found that those who agreed were more: Authoritarian, machiavellian, narcissistic, and socially dominant - less empathetic and altruistic
What proportion of guards became sadistic?
- Third of guards were sadistic, another third were kind, and final third were fair
- One guard resigned because he couldn’t go through with it
Critique of SPE: Guards may have seen themselves as research assistants
Zimbardo’s student Jaffe told guards “You have to get involved, be what we call a tough guard”
Critique of SPE: Us vs. them
Zimbardo used terms like “we” for the guards and himself, “they” for prisoners –> us vs. them, sadistic guard behaviour
Studies inspired by the SPE: Lovibond et al. 1979
- Australian prison study under democratic, participatory, or authoritarian conditions
- In democratic and participatory conditions, guards were told to treat prisoners with respect and include them in decision-making, but not in the authoritarian condition
- Found that in the authoritarian condition, guards’ behaviour became toxic
Studies inspired by the SPE: Reicher & Haslam 2006
- BBC prison study looking at behaviour of men assigned to either prisoner or guard roles for 2 weeks
- Guards not told what to do, study overseen by an ethics committee
- Found that guards disagreed amongst themselves about their role, prisoners developed shared identity and resisted guards –> guards disillusioned and prisoners developed sense of efficacy
Conclusions about the SPE:
- People need to identify with roles to take them on, change behaviour
- Shared identity of the oppressed group can help them resist
- For high status group, shared identity can lead to brutality when promoted by tyrannical leader
- Certain kinds of people may be attracted to certain contexts
- Context can be transformed by individual, individual can be transformed by context
When was SPE prisoner 8162 released?
Before Day 3 due to fake mental breakdown, which sorta turned into a real one?
What did SPE guards do after false escape rumours?
Upped level of harassment, took down and then rebuilt prison
Milgram’s Obedience Experiment (MOE) - who, when, and where?
Carried out by Stanley Milgram at Yale University in the 1960s
What motivated the MOE?
World War II, and particularly Adolf Eichmann’s 1961 trial (claimed he was simply following orders - what might an ordinary person be capable of with certain orders?)
MOE set up:
- 40 participants, aged 20-50, recruited through advertisement in local paper
- Met by experimenter who introduced them to another participant (actually a confederate) - participant was always the teacher, confederate was always the learner
- Told them they were in an experiment about the effect of punishment on memory
What happened during the MOE?
- Learner strapped into chair with electrodes attached to body, explains that they have a heart condition and are worried - assured by the experimenter that the shocks cause “no permanent damage”
- Teacher taken to separate room where they sit in front of shock generator (30 switches ranging from 15 [slight shock] - 450 [danger XXX])
- Teacher asked learner questions (gave response via intercom), told to shock them when they made a mistake, increase shock by 15 volts each time - at this stage, teacher given sample shock of 45 volts
- If teacher got to 450, told to continue with that level for further errors. If a participant continued to the maximum level, they were instructed to continue at 450 volts for subsequent errors.
Levels of learner (confederate) response in MOE:
- 75 volts - grunt (ugh)
- 150 volts - demanded to be released (get me out, my heart is bothering me)
- 180 volts - screamed (I can’t stand the pain)
- 225 volts - agonised screams
- 315 volts - intensely agonised screams (let me out repeated multiple times)
- 345 volts - silence
Findings of the MOE, reasons for those findings
- Findings: 65% of teachers (participants) went to 450 volts
- Reasons:
Responsibility transferred to the experimenter (legitimate authority figure)
Gradually built up to the 450 volts
People identified with the experiment and experimenter
Experimenter was direct, legitimate as an authority figure, and consistent
What are four factors that influence obedience?
- Remoteness of victim
- Closeness and legitimacy of authority figure
- Diffusion of responsibility
- Characteristics of the teacher
Factors that influence obedience: Remoteness of victim
- When teacher (participant) and learner (confederate) were in the same room, obedience dropped to 40%
- When teacher had to make contact with learner by pressing their hand onto a shock plate, obedience dropped to 30%
Factors that influence obedience: Closeness and legitimacy of authority figure
- Obedience highest when authority close by and seen as legitimate
- When experimenter left room, gave orders by phone, or an ordinary participant gave instructions, obedience dropped to 20%
- When experimenter called halt to study, but learner wanted to go on, obedience dropped to 0%
- Two arguing experimenters –> obedience at 0%
Factors that influence obedience: Diffusion of responsibility
- When another person gave shock and real participant performed a lesser role, obedience was at 93%
- When people made to feel fully responsible or told to give shocks to close relatives, obedience was at 0%
- When teachers tested in groups and others in group decide to stop, obedience is only 10%
Factors that influence obedience: Characteristics of teacher
- When women are teachers, they obey just as much as men
- Authoritarians more likely to obey
- If people identify with the victim, they are less likely to obey
Ethics of the MOE
- Over 50% reported experiencing some level of discomfort
- Milgram claimed that no-one who took part suffered lasting damage - most said the experiment was enriching and instructive (<1.3% regretted taking part)
Studies inspired by the MOE: Slater et al. 2006
Virtual reality simulations of the MOE, findings consistent with Milgram’s
Studies inspired by the MOE: Haslam et al. 2015
Immersive digital realism - where actors are trained to play the role of normal participants, findings consistent with those of the MOE
Studies inspired by the MOE: Burger 2009
Only went up to 150 volts (80% of participants in the MOE that went this far proceeded to 450 volts), findings consistent with those of the MOE
What do the MOE findings mean?
- People are obedient to the extent that they identify with the experimenter (look to others that they trust and identify with to determine how to act)
- People like Eichmann were true believers
Levels of prodding in the MOE:
- Please continue
- The experiment requires you to continue
- It is absolutely essential that you continue
- You have no other choice but to continue - final prod doesn’t work
Definition of prejudice
The holding of derogatory attitudes or beliefs, the expression of negative affect or the display of hostile or discriminatory behaviour toward members of a group on account of their membership in that group - Brown & Lepore 1996
Describe the authoritarian personality (Adorno et al. 1950)
- Personality type that is overly deferential to those in authority and hostile to those considered inferior
- Associated with very conventional value system in which right and wrong are very distinct
- Minority groups openly derogated
Adorno
- Coined concept of the authoritarian personality, worked from a Freudian perspective (claimed that authoritarian personality was derived from childhood)
- Theorised that the authoritarian personality was the result of:
Harsh and demanding parents who stifle child’s basic instincts (e.g. wanting to be violent when not getting own way) –> displacement of child’s aggression to other disempowered groups –> end up being over-deferential and submissive to authority figures, hostile to minorities
Describe the Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT)
Attitudes reflective objective interests of in-group, two implicit assumptions:
1. If interests of two groups coincide, relations between groups will be harmonious
2. If there is conflict of interest, relations will be hostile
Robbers Cave experiment (Muzafer Sherif, 1950s) set up:
- Adults in camp trained researchers
- Boys aged 12, all from white middle-class homes and screened before study (only those from stable homes admitted - effects of experiment can’t be attributed to social or psychological deprivation)
What happened in Stage 1 of the Robbers Cave experiment?
- Boys divided into two groups, underwent normal camp activities
- Initially given tasks that emphasised cooperation - participants developed their own norms, names, hierarchies, etc.
What happened in Stage 2 of the Robbers Cave experiment?
- Two groups (the Rattlers and the Eagles) brought together, brought into competition
- Series of contests with prizes for winning group, nothing for losing one
- First part of this stage: harmony between groups; second part: hostility (name-calling, fights, raids on each other’s cabins)
- Found that even before being in competition for resources, once learning of the other group’s existence wanted to compete and prove themselves better
Minimal group paradigm (MGP)
The MGP is an attempt to create an “empty environment” where researchers can systematically add variables that might elicit discrimination; ensures that no other factors that influence prejudice can impact results (group membership assigned arbitrarily)
MGP (Tajfel et al. 1971) set up:
- Code numbers and group membership labels used to designate in-group and out-group members
- To guard against self-interest, participants denied opportunity to allocate resources to themselves
Describe the MGP experiment (Tajfel et al. 1971)
Participants presented with a matrix for distributing money, were instructed to choose how much they gave to in-group vs. out-group
Findings of the MGP (Tajfel et al. 1971)
People show discrimination against out-group, possibly due to wanting to be accepted by members of the in-group
