Social Psychology

Question 1

what are the key ideas in the ‘social cognition’ approach to social thinking?

Answer 1

• focus is on individual thought processes
• percievers viewed as ‘information processors’
• we have limited cognitive resources so rely on ‘heuristics’
• however may utilise ‘effortful thinking’ when heuristics don’t work e.g. a male midwife
• people experience social stimuli and form impressions of them based on information stored in memory

Question 2

what has the ‘social cognition’ approach been criticised for?

Answer 2

the research in this area is often lab based

criticised for removing the social context from social psychology

Question 3

what are the key ideas of social identity theory?

Answer 3

• focus is on the group
• intergroup behaviour is driven by ‘shared identities’ with others (in group members and out-group members)
• we have a preference for positive social identity
• emphasises the importance of social context

Question 4

who is considered the father of social identity theory?

Answer 4

Henri Tajfel (1919-1982)

Question 5

what did neanderthals develop at the expense of social cognition? and what supports this idea?

Answer 5

good visual perception

this is supported by the large eye sockets (useful for low-level lighting conditions) and the ‘bun’ on their skulls

Question 6

what is dunbar’s number?

Answer 6

the number of relationships people are capable of maintaining, 150.

Question 7

explain the social brain hypothesis

Answer 7

• demands of living in larger social groups (~150)
• higher primates of bond by grooming (time comsuming)
• language developed as a means to bond through social interaction
• which is less time consuming than grooming and allows sharing if **mental representations **
• also, the ability to infer others have mental states differing to ours (theory of mind)
• all of this requires larger brains, thus evolution selected for those with this advantage

Question 8

what was Floyd Allport’s (1890-1978) belief about social psychology

Answer 8

it should focus on the individual and conscious processes

Question 9

what does Leon Festinger’s social comparison theory (1954) state?

Answer 9

We organise social thinking by comparing the self to others
using ‘upward comparisons’ and ‘downward comparisons’

Question 10

what is the self-concept? (Baumeister, 1999)

Answer 10

the set of beliefs or knowledge that a person has about him/her/them/self

Question 11

what does Higgin’s self-discrepancy theory state?

Answer 11

it talks about the actual, ideal and ought selves- arguing that we seek to try and minimise the differences between our actual self and the ideal and ought selves.

Question 12

what does Bem’s (1972) Self-Perception Theory state?

Answer 12

we form a sense of who we are in much the same way as we form as sense of who others are- by observing behaviour, and make attributions about the reasons behind that behaviour.
(similar to naive scientist)

Question 13

Three competing core motives influence how we search for knowledge about the self

Answer 13

• self-assessment; to seek accurate information about the self
• self-verification; to seek information that we are correct
• self-enhancement; to promote oneself – sometimes despite the evidence

Question 14

what is self-esteem? (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003)

Answer 14

Self-esteem is the evaluation of your self-concept as generally positive or negative

Question 15

Social Identity Theorists believe we seek to boost self esteem by…

Answer 15

thinking positively about our individual and group selves.

Question 16

what is social inference?

Answer 16

Social inference is the way in which we process social information to form impressions and make judgements

Question 17

what does the ‘motivated tactician’ view suggest?

Answer 17

we choose between systematic processing (naive scientist) and heuristics(cognitive miser) as and when necessary

Question 18

what is dual processing?

Answer 18

actively switching processing styles when forming impressions

Question 19

give the 3 forms of categorisation on Fiske and Neuberg’s (1990) continuum model from lowest attentional resources to highest

Answer 19

• categorisation
• re-categorisation
• individuation (piecemeal integration)

Question 20

what are ‘emergent attributes’?

Answer 20

emergent attributes refer to characteristics or properties that arise from the interactions between individuals within a group or a social system, rather than being inherent traits of individuals themselves

Question 21

how did Walter Lippmann define stereotypes? (1922)

Answer 21

stereotypes as the pictures we carry inside our heads

Question 22

we now think of stereotypes as..

Answer 22

…the collection of traits ostensibly typical of members of a particular social group

Question 23

why do people stereotype?

Answer 23

1) Stereotypes simplify information reducing cognitive demand
- Macrae, Milne and Bodenhausen (1994) participants allowed to stereotype had more cognitive resources left over to simultaneously monitor an audio track

2) It justifies existing social hierarchies: System Justification Theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994)
- Jost and Kay (2005) demonstrated that even ingroup members engage in system justification

Question 24

Four key criteria of automaticity…Bargh’s (1994) describes these components as the ‘four horsemen of automaticity’…

Answer 24

• Awareness
  Automatic processes are characterised by a lack of awareness of the process operation, or its effects
• Intention
  Automatic processes are initiated without the deliberate intention
• Control
  Automatic processes are uncontrollable (usually)
• Efficiency
  Automatic processes spare our cognitive resources

Question 25

what did Bargh (1996) prime in participants?

Answer 25

• politeness
  participants less likely to interrupt experimenter when primed with polite words
• age
  participants primed with stereotypes of the elderly took longer to exit the experiment

Question 26

who created the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) and the European Journal of Social Psychology (EJSP)? and what was their perspective?

Answer 26

Social psychologists at Bristol university

they developed Social Identity Theory (SIT)

Question 27

what did Tajfel and Turner (1979) say are the 2 important aspects of our identity?

Answer 27

Personal identity (I) – individual traits and interpersonal

Social identity (We) – group and intergroup

Question 28

describe the flow chart that Tajfel and Turner (1979) used to explain intergroup bias

Answer 28

1. In certain contexts, we think
   of ourselves in terms of our
   group membership (context dependent)
   +
   We are motivated to have a
   positive self-concept
2. One way in which we get this positive sense of self is through our
   social identity
3. If we see our group negatively, we will have a poor social identity, and low self-esteem

4.When our social identity is salient, we are motivated to see our
group as being better than other groups (intergroup bias)

Question 29

describe the design of the minimal group paradigm study (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament, 1971)

Answer 29

Designed to investigate the minimal conditions for discrimination

Participants (48 boys) allocated to one of two groups on an arbitrary basis….on basis of painting preference (Klee or Kandinsky)

Identities of other group members unknown (identified by numbers only)

Participants asked to allocate points (money) to a series of unknown ingroup members and outgroup members……(but not themselves) as reward for participation

Question 30

what were the findings of the minimal group paradigm study (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament, 1971)

Answer 30

A persistent tendency to allocate more points to their own group than the out-group

Minimal conditions for discrimination is simply categorization (not competition or authoritarian personalities, e.g., Adorno, 1950)

Question 31

explain the findings of the minimal group paradigm study (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament, 1971) through the lens of SIT

Answer 31

When we are divided into groups (categorized), we are motivated to see our group more positively than the outgroup

In ‘minimal groups’ there is no obvious difference

Most basic form of group identification is categorization

The only way we can positively differentiate ourselves is to ensure our group is ‘richer’ than the outgroup (allocate more resources to ingroup to boost social identity)

Question 32

what is the self-esteem hypothesis?

Answer 32

1. Intergroup discrimination –> (increased) self-esteem
2. Low self-esteem –> (increased) intergroup discrimination

Question 33

explain Oakes and Turner’s (1980) study. what does this study provide evidence for?

Answer 33

• Participants split into two groups
• Half took part in resource allocation task (and showed the usual ingroup bias of MGP)
  Half simply read a newspaper (control)
• Results
  Participants who had been able to discriminate (i.e. allocate more resources to in gp) subsequently showed higher self-esteem that control participants
• Therefore, intergroup discrimination –> (increased) self-esteem
  -supports the self-esteem hypothesis

Question 34

what are the 3 main critiques of the self-esteem hypothesis?

Answer 34

May not always apply in real life settings

Measures often fail to distinguish in group favouritism from out group derogation

Although group membership important for minorities, may be less important for majority groups (e.g., White British)

Question 35

what is BIRGing?

Answer 35

‘Basking In Reflected Glory’
We derive self-esteem from achievements of the group

Question 36

explain Cialdini, Borden, and Thorne’s (1976) study

Answer 36

Observed college students during the inter-college American Football season

Wins versus losses

Proportion of students wearing clothes / accessories with college insignia

more wins correlated with a higher proportion of college insignias

Question 37

what is CORFing? (Boen et al., 2002)

Answer 37

If the group is doing badly, we do the opposite – reduce our identification with the group

This is to avoid negative self-esteem from the group

Question 38

what are the 3 factors which determine the strategy you will use to maintain a positive social identity?

Answer 38

• Legitimacy - status of group legitimate or not (e.g., factory job versus management)
• Stability - status likely to change over time or not (e.g., football team versus disabled people / able bodied)
• Permeability - able to leave the group or not (e.g., football team versus gender or race).

Question 39

what are the 3 main strategies used to maintain a positive social identity when in a low status group?

Answer 39

1. Social mobility – individual moving out of social group into a different one
   - Used if there are legitimate, stable differences in status
   If there are permeable boundaries.
   (e.g., work hard for promotion to management)
2. Social competition – group challenge / compete with the high status group
   -Likely to be used if impermeable boundaries, and if high status group is unstable and illegitimate
   (e.g., women seeking equal pay at the BBC)
3. Social creativity
   Group strategy used if impermeable boundaries, and if high status group is stable, and seemingly legitimate
   - Re-define dimension of comparison (e.g., “black is beautiful” – focus on sports rather than power/wealth)
   - Find a new dimension of comparison (e.g., “we are a more creative / interesting / down-to-earth group”)
   - Change the comparative outgroup to a less successful one (e.g., “we may be worse than x group but we are much better than y group”)

Question 40

what were the findings of Ellemers et al.’s (1993) study

Answer 40

When group position illegitimate/unjustified  group identification (solidarity)

When potential for group improvement but impossible to move to other group - people serve group interests (social competition)

When groups’ positions are unlikely to change (stable), but it is possible to move (permeable) to the other (high status) group – people do that! Social mobility

Question 41

who developed ‘self-categorisation theory’ and what does it state?

Answer 41

Developed by students of Tajfel, who came up with SIT: Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, and Wetherell (1987)

Argues that when a group membership is made salient
- We define the self less in terms of our personal identity (unique, idiosyncratic characteristics)
- See ourselves as interchangeable representative of social group

-this process is called ‘depersonalisation’

Question 42

explain Jetten, Spears, and Manstead’s (1997) study

Answer 42

Participants divided into two minimal groups
Told other ingroup members are usually fair or discriminatory (ingp norm manipulation)
Allocate resources between those groups

when the ingroup norm is to distribute resources unfairly between in and out group – people just follow the group norm! They turn down their personal identity – submit to the group norm – even though under minimal group conditions.

Question 43

according to SIT what are the 2 types of threat to social identity

Answer 43

-Threat to group esteem (Branscombe et al., 1999) - arises when another group derogates us

-Threat to group distinctiveness – arises when we are too similar to a relevant outgroup
(however, in a way, this is just a threat to group esteem)

Question 44

explain Crisp, Stone and Hall’s (2006) study, what does it support?

Answer 44

Crisp, Stone, and Hall (2006) told University of Birmingham students that their university would be merging with Aston University. Participants showed significantly MORE intergroup bias when they thought that the two universities would merge compared to the control condition, but only if they reported high ingroup identification. These findings illustrate a threat to group distinctiveness.

Question 45

Three perspectives to human social cognition and behaviour

Answer 45

• Interpersonal processes
  The relationships between a small number of people (e.g., friends, family members, and romantic partners)
• Group processes
  The relationships of the members within a group (e.g., the processes by which group members influence others within the group)
• Intergroup processes
  The relationships between different groups, incl. prejudice and discrimination

Question 46

define intergroup bias (Hewstone, Rubin & Willis, 2002)

Answer 46

Systematic tendency to evaluate one’s own membership group (the in-group) or its members more favourably than a nonmembership group (the out-group) or its members

Question 47

the 3 kinds of intergroup bias:

Answer 47

• Attitude (prejudice)
  -Prejudice is a negative attitude or feeling towards the members of specific social outgroups
• Cognition (stereotyping)
  -Stereotypes are common characteristics assigned to members of a particular social group
• Behaviour (discrimination)
  -Discrimination is a negative behaviour directed toward members of social outgroups

Question 48

explain the study “Developing a national barometer of prejudice and discrimination in Britain” (Equality and Human Rights Commission, Research report 119) by Abrams, Swift and Houston (2018)

Answer 48

Ca. 3000 participants across the UK were asked about their experiences of prejudice and discrimination (the overall analyses below based on ca. 2170 participants)
42% of all respondents said they had experienced some form of prejudice in the last year
Prejudice because of:
Age: 26%
39% of young people aged under 35 years, compared with 22% of middle-aged and 20% of older adults
Sex: 22%
30% of women, compared with 13% of men

Physical or mental health condition: 22%
Race or ethnicity: 16%
Religion or religious beliefs: 12%
Sexual orientation: 7%

70% of Muslims surveyed experienced religion-based prejudice
64% of people from a black ethnic background experienced race-based prejudice
61% of people with a mental health condition experienced impairment-based prejudice, and
46% of lesbian, gay or bisexual people experienced sexual orientation-based prejudice

Question 49

what are the 2 diffrent types of prejudice?

Answer 49

• ‘old fashioned’, explicit prejudice
• ‘modern’, implicit prejudice

Question 50

explain ‘old fashioned’, explicit prejudice

Answer 50

Blatant expression of negative attitudes and stereotypes on the basis of group membership
Harbouring and expressing overtly racist attitudes, e.g., supporting racial slurs, believing outgroups have lower abilities, deeming physical violence against outgroups to be acceptable, etc.
Societal norms have increasingly discouraged prejudice and discrimination against ethnic minorities and marginalized groups
Legal protection based on “protected characteristics”

Question 51

Under the Equality Act 2010, it is against the law to discriminate against someone because of:

Answer 51

Age
Sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment
Race
Religion or belief
Disability
Marriage and civil partnership
Pregnancy and maternity

Question 52

explain Modern, implicit prejudice

Answer 52

Covert, subtle prejudice
Initial research on modern racism, then modern sexism
McConahay (1986): modern racism is characterized by three main beliefs:
discrimination is no longer a problem,
racial minorities are asking far too much in their push for equality, and
many of the gains made by minorities are undeserved.

-lacks affirmative action

Question 53

what is Affirmative action

Answer 53

: an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women

Question 54

what is aversive racism? (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1985)

Answer 54

• A situation where an individual holds two conflicting sets of views

1. On the one hand, they hold egalitarian values, believing that all people should be treated equally in society, regardless of ethnicity or other social group memberships.
2. At the same time, they have been exposed to negative stereotypes that exist in society about minority ethnic groups.
   - An individual experiences negative emotions about members of other groups, such as uneasiness, fear, and discomfort.
   - These individuals may not publicly express (or even hold) racist attitudes, but may nonetheless subtly discriminate against ethnic minority groups.

Question 55

what is meant by hostile sexism?

Answer 55

refers to the perception of women as holding a range of stereotypical and negative traits, such as being inferior, incompetent, irrational, and weak.

Question 56

what is meant by Benevolent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996)

what are the 3 components of it?

Answer 56

refers to attitudes that are very positive on the surface but deep down reflect a view of women as inferior to men

1. Paternalism: Women viewed as less powerful; deserve men’s protection
2. Gender differentiation: Exaggeration of differences between men and women
3. Heterosexual intimacy: Emphasis on women as objects of beauty and targets of romantic attraction

Question 57

what are the 2 basic dimensions of the stereotype content model?

Answer 57

1.Warmth (trustworthiness, friendliness)
2.Competence (capability, assertiveness)

Question 58

what were the finding’s of Greenwald et al.’s (2009) meta-analysis on the IAT?

Answer 58

Greenwald et al. (2009) conducted a meta-analysis on 122 research reports (184 independent samples, 14,900 participants)
Found that IAT measures predicted on average r = .274 of judgment, physiological and behavioural measures (e.g., nonverbal actions toward persons of the particular race)
Explicit measures predicted on average r = .361 of judgment, physiological and behavioural measures, but with much greater variability of the effect size

 Moderate effect size, but does not necessarily predict behaviour better than explicit measures

Question 59

explain Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977)

Answer 59

Bandura theorised that children learn attitudes either by learning through instruction or by observing and imitating.

This theory conjects that children should not show any prejudice at a very young age and this will increase over time with more exposure to their parents attitudes and values of the community they live in.

Question 60

explain Cognitive-Developmental Theory (CDT; Aboud, 1990)

Answer 60

• Prejudice is caused by information processing errors due to young children’s poor cognitive ability to perceive people in individual terms
• Cognitively immature young children are prone to prejudice because they cannot process multiple classifications
• Only with age, as cognitive development occurs, do children begin to make judgements in terms of unique interpersonal not intergroup qualities

Question 61

what is centration? at what age does it declne?

Answer 61

the tendency to focus on only one feature of an object while ignoring other relevant features

Around age 7, “centration” declines

Question 62

explain the theory of Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al., 1950)

Answer 62

• Trait/behavioural style: high regard for authority, rigidity, conventionality, and contempt for those worse off
• Difficult upbringing leads to an authoritarian personality – defensive reaction to the fear of weakness and inferiority
• These individuals are highly prejudiced

Question 63

explain Social dominance theory (Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006)

Answer 63

Societies are made up of group-based hierarchies
These are formed and maintained through discrimination
This is justified through hierarchy-legitimizing myths, e.g., groups actually ARE unequal, hegemony is the intention of God

Some people have a ‘social dominance orientation’ (SDO):
“general orientation towards and desire for unequal and dominant / subordinate relations among salient social groups”
High support for hierarchy legitimizing myths (status quo)

Question 64

explain Intergroup emotions theory (Mackie, Devos, & Smith, 2000)

Answer 64

Builds on Social Identity Theory and Appraisal Theory of Emotions
Group membership is an important part of our self-concept (boosts self esteem)
We therefore react emotionally when an outgroup does something that might affect the ingroup
Cognitive appraisal (belief or stereotype based on the event) –violation of rights
Emotional response -anger
Behavioural reaction –aggression (e.g., protests, strikes)

Question 65

explain the socialisation approach to reducing prejudice

Answer 65

According to this approach children’s intergroup attitudes reflect the community’s attitudes and values (Nesdale, 2004)
These attitudes are transmitted via sources such as parents, peers, TV and books
 Could use same sources (e.g., books, TV) to encourage positive intergroup attitudes

Question 66

evaluate the socialisation approach to reducing prejudice

• 3 studies

Answer 66

Litcher & Johnson (1969) evaluated a 4-week programme in which children read stories featuring counter-stereotypical African American characters
Prejudice levels lower following the intervention compared to control
But subsequent studies found them to be ineffective

Koeller (1977) exposed 11-year-old European American children to stories featuring Mexican Americans
Did not lead to more positive intergroup attitudes

McAdoo (1970) evaluated a multicultural intervention and found that it actually strengthened negative stereotypes!

Question 67

explain Nesdale et al.’s (2005) study looking into the effectiveness of increasing empathy to reduce prejudice

Answer 67

Two studies (Ns= 150, 123) examined the impact of emotional empathy on the ethnic attitudes of 5 to 12-year old white Anglo-Australian children.
Study I evaluated the relationship between empathy and attitudes towards a same (Anglo-Australian) versus different ethnicity (Pacific Islander) outgroup.
Empathy was unrelated to the children’s liking for the same ethnicity outgroup, but that liking for the different ethnicity outgroup increased as empathy increased.

Question 68

Reducing prejudice in adults:Intergroup contact

Bringing together members of different groups should reduce prejudice under right conditions (Allport, 1954)

what are the 5 conditions?

Answer 68

• Equal status
• Common (superordinate) goals
• Intergroup cooperation
• Support by authority
• Personal interaction