Social Psychology Flashcards

Question

Gender and Cultural Differences in Aggression

Answer 1

- Gender Differences: - males more physically aggressive - females more relationally aggressive - why? - physical aggression and violent crime less prevalent in Asian cultures than in North America/ Europe

Answer 2

- an **attitude** is a belief that includes an emotional component - attitudes only moderately correlate with actual behaviours unless - they are highly accessible - firmly held and stable over time

Answer 3

- **Recognition Heuristic:** more likely to believe something we’ve heard many - more likely to by Crest if we hear about it more than Colgate - which city has a larger population? San Diego or San Antonio - recall, heuristic is a mental shortcut or rule of thumb - stereotypes are heuristics about a group of people - **Personality** - ex. looking at personalities of Conservatives vs Liberals (US) - political opinions are beliefs with a personal/ emotional component - conservatives = higher on fearfulness and intolerance of uncertainty - Fear, threat, intolerance of uncertainty - higher for conservatives, lower for liberals - political psychology - origins of political beliefs - some argued that it shouldn't be conservative vs liberal but moderate vs extreme

Answer 4

change frequently - attitudes don’t always do a good job at predicting behaviour - **Cognitive Dissonance:** - a feeling of discomfort caused by a discrepancy between an attitude and a behaviour or between two competing attitudes - psychological discomfort - ex. smoking when you know its bad for you - either change the behaviour of change the attitude - free choice - knowledge of consequences of the behaviour

Answer 5

1. **Insufficient Justification** - If people act in an attitude-discrepant (goes against their attitude) way without receiving a large reward **see example in notes** 2. **Justifying Effort:** - we alter our attitudes to justify our suffering 3. **Justifying Difficult Decisions** - exaggerate positives of chosen object exaggerate negatives of other object

Answer 6

- **Self-Perception Theory:** - we acquire our attitudes by observing our behaviours - chicken egg kind of thing - **Impression management theory:** - we don’t change our attitudes, but report that we have for consistency

Answer 7

- dual process model says that there are two pathways to persuading others: - the **central route** focuses on *informational content* - ex. should I get the new iPhone or get the Google Pixel? this route would focus on the features of the 2 phones and which is better suited for you - the **peripheral route** focuses on more *surface aspects* of the argument - ex. cool sleek ads, fun colours of the iPhone - more about aesthetics or reputation

Answer 8

- foot-in-the-door - donate once and then they get you by asking to donate again - door-in-the-face - start with big request and pull back to smaller request - low-ball technique - “but you are free” technique

Answer 9

**Stereotypes** - beliefs - positive or negative- about a group’s characteristics that we apply to most members of that group - heuristics or mental shortcuts - building blocks of prejudice - illusory correlations - confirmation bias - when we have a particular idea or belief or stereotype - we tend to seek out information that is consistent with that belief - and don’t seek out disconfirming evidence - ex. anti-vaccine people seek out and pay more attention to sources that tell them that vaccines are dangerous - but ignore evidence saying they’re safe - Corell et al 2014 - simulated computer game - looking at racial prejudice - specifically the stereotype that black men are more prone to violence - they were white men targets in the game and also black men targets - “shoot” participants - they had to decide whether the person was dangerous and if you should shoot them - they would either reach for a wallet or a hand gun - the study concluded that black men were more likely to be shot - Stereotypes can result in **ultimate attribution error** - attributing negative behaviour of some group entirely to their disposition (internal personality, attitude, beliefs) - “women are bad leaders because they are too emotional” - dispositional explanation for why women are bad leaders - underestimate situations factors - also attribute positive behaviours to luck as rare exceptions

Answer 10

- In-Group Bias - we favour those within our group compared to those not in our group - Out-group homogeneity - the tendency to view people outside of our group as similar to each other

Answer 11

- Scapegoat Hypothesis - need to blame other groups for our misfortunes - Just-World Hypothesis - we have a need to see the world as fair, even if it’s not - Conformity - going along with others’ opinions to avoid social rejection - societal norms are very powerful - ex. Canadian beliefs surrounding gay marriage pre vs post legalization - the norm changed - people who have certain traits lead to increased prejudice - authoritarian people value social hierarchy - religious group association / religiosity (how religious you see yourself) - external religiosity - participate in religion as a means to an end (community/ gaining something from religious participation) - internal religiosity - having strong religious beliefs - associated with less prejudice overall

Answer 12

- decline in racism over the past few decades in US and Canada - not that people stopped having prejudiced attitudes, it just went underground - explicit vs implicit prejudice - Implicit Association Test (IAT) - press button - left or right - One set had black people paired with negative words - second set had black people paired with positive words - they wanted to test the speed and based on this they would test your implicit prejudice - further research shows that this is not a good measure of prejudiced attitudes but it might reflect an awareness of stereotypes

Answer 13

- The Robber’s Cave - randomly assign boys to separate groups - foster group cohesiveness - put groups in competition - developed negative attitudes and aggression towards out-group - The researchers expected these results but were more interested in reducing the hostility - how did researcher reduce inter-group hostility? - superordinate goals - goals the boys needed to accomplish but could only accomplish if both groups worked together - this inspired Jigsaw classrooms - introduced in classrooms where racial tensions existed - they basically forced kids of different racial backgrounds to work together to accomplish shared goals - led to significant decreases in discrimination

Answer 14

- stereotypes → prejudice → discrimination - act of treating members of out-groups differently from members of in-groups - prejudice refers to negative attitudes - discrimination refers to negative behaviour - discrimination can be created easily - minimal intergroup paradigm - making artificial groups with like blue or yellow jerseys

Answer 15

**Contact Hypothesis**: Under **certain conditions**, direct contact between members of rival groups will reduce discrimination Conditions: 1. equal status 2. enjoyable interactions 3. cooperative activities 4. disconfirm other group’s negative stereotypes