Social Psych Exam 3 - final BACKWARDS Flashcards
Prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination
Biases against others
Generalized attitudes (usually negative) towards members of a social group
Can be explicit or implicit
Prejudice
Beliefs about a group
Traits are thought to be characteristic of the entire group
Established from shared beliefs within culture (learned from media, peers, parents, observations, etc)
Descriptive or Prescriptive
Stereotyping
Unfair treatment of members of a particular group simply because of their membership
interpersonal vs organizational/systematic
Discrimination
unearned favored state, often denied because violates our belief of the world as fair
Privilege
Unequal status, behavior –> attitudes rationalize inferior status of lower-status groups in society
Social inequalities
Motivation to have one’s group dominate other social groups
* View people in terms of hierarchies
* Once inequalities exist, prejudice helps justify the economic & social superiority of those who have wealth & power
Social dominance orientation
Conformity
Social Norm intervention
Social Sources of Prejudice
The concept that some people are distinct from others because of physical appearance, typically skin color
- categorization based on physical appearance
- social construction
- very large genetic diversity within a “racial category”
- flawed & destructive construct
Race
people whose ancestors were born in the same region. Usually share a language, culture, and/or religion
Ethnic group
prejudice is the result of one group blaming another innocent group for its problems; Frustration and aggression
Scapegoat theory
prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources; economic theory
intergroup competition over resources often results in animosity – but does not always result in overt conflict
Includes competition over cultural resources
Realistic Group Conflict Theory
Frustration and Aggression (scapegoat theory)
Economic theory, competition (Realistic group conflict theory)
Social Identity theory
Motivational sources of prejudice
Group desiring to increase resources at the expense of another group
Perception of or actual scarcity of resources
Subordinate groups advocating for fairer distribution of societal resources
–> Backlash to growing power of marginalized groups
Realistic Group Conflict Theory Situational Antecedents
part of the self-concept that consists of our group memberships
-Categorize into ingroups vs. outgroups
-Identify with our ingroup
-We Compare against the outgroup
Minimal groups: ingroup preference, but no outgroup hate
Group status + self-esteem
Social identity
-People don’t have enough cognitive resources to keep track of what is going on around them (e.g., attentional blindness)
-cognitive misers: People don’t expend enough mental capacity on judging others
-schemas and heuristics - used by people which affect how they perceive, judge, and treat others
Theories:
- Activation of one element of a schema activates the whole schema (stereotype)
- Schemas are applied to incoming information (encoding) and to remembered information (retrieval)
Cognitive sources of bias
Separate/dissimilar characteristics captures attention
easy to associate minority-group members w/ negative traits
people tend to associate novel groups with rare attributes (behaviors that set them apart from the population at large)
Distinctiveness & Illusory Correlations
extent to which someone fits the observer’s concept of the essential features characteristic of that category
Prototypicality
a person of mixed race is classified as a member of the minority or socially subordinate group
Hypodescent
subgroup within stereotyped group, “exception”
Subtyping
-When people avoid referring to race in situations, perceived as more racially biased
-makes children less likely to identify overt instances of bias
-People exposed to these arguments display greater degree of explicit and implicit racial bias
Costs of racial color blindness
Colorblindness vs multiculturalism
- multiculturalism has more positive outcomes for people of color compared to color blindness
(Recognizes that race should not dictate outcomes—without denying that race represents a distinctive social identity that is real and often does matter in society)
* However, both approaches have some potential pitfalls
Remedies to prejudice
view that group differences are based in sort of natural and deep differences within people
* Leads us to really think of the boundary between groups as very rigid and strong
* Linked to prejudice when there are status differences
Essentialism
when groups each rationally pursue its own self-interest to the destruction of its own self-interest and that of other groups
* Mutually destructive behavior
Examples:
* Prisoner’s Dilemma (card game)
* Tragedy of the Commons (marbles game)
Social trap
Regulation - Change the payoff structure
Small group size limits - Diffusion of responsibility, Deindividuation
Communication
Appealing to Altruistic Norms
Resolving social dilemmas
Self-serving bias
Self-justify
Fundamental attribution error
Preconceptions
Group polarization
Groupthink
Ingroup bias
Stereotypes
mirror-image perception
Conflict: self-serving biases
reciprocal views of each other often held by parties in conflict
Mirror-image perception
-Contact
(housing vs school desegregation –> self-imposted segregation)
-Cooperation
-Communication
-Conciliation
prejudice + anxiety minimize contact, pluralistic ignorance
When contact works: Friendship, equal status, cooperation
Cooperation: interdependence, shared external threats
Superordinate goals
Jigsaw groups
Peacemaking
a situation in which individuals need one another to succeed
interdependence
goals that unite all members in a group & requires cooperative effort
Superordinate goals
each student relies on other students in their group to acquire information necessary to succeed
Jigsaw Groups
individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in presence of other people
* Diffusion of Responsibility
* Pluralistic Ignorance
bystander Effect
Prosocial behavior that benefits others without regard to consequences for oneself
Altruism
Situational factors: time pressures, Diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance (bystanders)
–> helping:
1. make it clear you need help (counters pluralistic ignorance)
2. Identify someone to ask for help (counters diffusion of responsibility)
When do people (not) help
unclear who should take action when others are present
Diffusion of Responsibility
in ambiguous situations we look to others to determine whether there is an emergency or not
Pluralistic ignorance
Evolutionary theories: “selfish gene” - promote our own genes
- Kinship selection
- Reciprocity
hidden egoism
true altruism
Why do people help
People are more likely to help a close relative than a distant relative
Kinship selection
Expectation that people will help those who have helped them
Reciprocity
people who help others are usually motivated by ___ (social reward, reducing their own distress)
Low empathic concern for the other was associated with less helping
Hidden Egoism
People who help others usually do so purely to help others, because they feel emphatic concern
High empathic concern for the other was associated with helping
True Altruism
human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize benefits and minimize costs
Social Exchange Theory
Increasing positive emotion
Reducing negative emotion
–> Distress
–> Guilt
~ Private guilt
~ Public image
Benefits of Helping
Empathic Concern: an automatic, emotion-like impulse to help
* Feeling Empathic Concern leads to helping (not just to relieve our own distress
The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
putting oneself in another’s shoes
Cognitive empathy
vicarious experience of another’s feelings
* Sympathy & compassion: motivate helping
Emotional empathy
Similarity
Proximity
Functional Distance (Interaction)
Mere Exposure
Factors in friendship and attraction
evolutionary explanation - conditioned response: stimulus is safe (evolutionarily adaptive)
Mere exposure
males & females as biological categories based on chromosomes, genitals, & secondary sex characteristics
sex
biological components of sex (chromosomes, hormones, & internal & external genitalia) do not consistently fit typical male or female pattern
Intersex
characteristics people associate with males & females
Gender
sense of being male or female differs from their birth sex
transgender
Attribute different qualities to infants based on gender
* Explain exact same behavior differently based on gender
* Reward gender consistent behavior & punish gender inconsistent behavior
* Children observe & copy behavior and attitudes of others
Gender Socialization
Gender identity: develop by age 2-3 (After, children perform gender consistent behaviors to receive rewards)
Gender stability: age 4-5, understanding sex remains (largely) unchanging
Gender constancy: age 6-7, recognition that sex is (largely) fixed & does not change as a result of external, superficial feature changes
Cognitive-Development Theory
Beliefs and expectations about what each sex is supposed to wear, feel, do, and think – formed through observation of traits, behaviors, roles
Gender ____ (see the world in terms of gender and regulate their behavior accordingly) vs a___ (don’t place emphasis on gender, less likely to see the world through that lens gender
Gender schema
Children observe adult tendency to divide world based on sex, leads children to believe there must be inherent natural differences between male and female
Developmental Intergroup theory
Although biology predispose men & women to different tasks, the behavior of women & men is sufficiently malleable that individuals of both sexes are fully capable of effectively carrying out all roles
Social-Role Theory of Gender Differences in
Social Behavior
Shared environmental influences explain 0-1% personality traits
Genetics explains 40% of individual variations in personality traits
Peer transmitted culture
Nurture
