Social Psychology #2 Flashcards
Attribution
Attributions
The explanations we come up with to describe why other people have acted the way they have or why events have turned out in a specific way.
We come up with explanations of with why people do what they do, which are not necessarily accurate ## Circle and Triangle
Heider & Simmel (1944)
“Most observers developed elaborate stories about the circle and the little triangle being in love, about the big-bad grey triangle trying to steal away the circle, about the little triangle fighting back and rescuing the circle.”
Big: mean, vengeful, people conjure up love story and such. Also always a he
Reasons for making attributions
Effectance motivation
Anthropomorphizing Study (Waytz et al. 2010)
Why attribute human thoughts, desires, & character traits onto objects and non-human animals?
Study 1 & 2: More likely to give human attributes to gadgets that were malfunctioning or unpredictable
Study 3: More likely to anthropomorphize object when asked to predict the objects next move.
Study 6: Ps instructed to anthropomorphized shapes reported greater understanding and predictability for stimuli.
Effectance motivation – desire for understanding, predictability, and control over one’s environment
Why make attributions?
Attributions allow us to:
- Understand past/present behaviors
- Predict future behavior
- Respond in appropriate ways
Types of attributions
Types of Attributions
1. Personal (internal/dispositional) attributions
– The causes of a person’s behavior are located “inside” that person (e.g., their personality, preferences).
*We are more likely to make personal attributions to others
2. Situational (external) attributions
– The causes of a person’s behavior are located in the
person’s environment.
How do we determine what attribution?
Why does it matter?
When are you more likely to help this person?:
A) If she’s homeless because she’s lazy
B) If she’s homeless because a tornado destroyed her house
People overwhelmingly choose B, as this is situational
C) If she’s homeless because she is an alcoholic
More likely to help if we attribute another’s problem to uncontrollable situational factors (Weiner, 1980)
Controllability: choice or not is important.
Disease more likely to help, choice less likely
Kelley’s Covariation Model
# Kelley’s Covariation Model Theory of attribution
• Three kinds of covariation are useful:
Consensus: How are other people reacting in the same
situation?
Distinctiveness: Is the person’s behavior consistent across
different situations?
Consistency: Is the person’s behavior in this situation the
same across time?
Low consensus, low distinctiveness, high consistency - Internal
Tom is the only person laughing
(Low Consensus)
Tom laughs in all his classes.
(Low Distinctiveness)
Tom always laughs in this particular class.
(High Consistency)
This supports an Internal/personal attribution.
e.g., Tom is the kind of guy who laughs a lot.
High consensus, high distinctiveness, high consistency - External
Everyone is laughing.
(High Consensus)
Tom only laughs in this class.
(High Distinctiveness)
Tom always laughs in this class.
(High Consistency)
Then we should make an external attribution.
e.g., This professor is funny / funny looking.
Correspondent Inference Theory
Castro Study
Infer behavior represents personal trait when the behavior:
– is freely chosen (not situationally constrained)
• Who are you more likely to assume is a feminist?
– is not expected
• Who are you are you likely to call stingy?
– produces few rather than many desirable outcomes
• Who are you more likely to call a gold digger?
Two husbands: Rich, smart, kind, or rich, mean, narcissist
We are more likely to point to the latter
Castro Study (Jones & Harris, 1967)
- Participants read another person’s essay.
- IV1: Essay is Pro-Castro OR Anti-Castro
- IV2: Essay author described as freely choosing to write essay OR forced to write essay
- DV: Perceptions of author’s attitude toward Castro
Result: even forced, not by choice, respondents still attribute internally, just to a less degree
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
Quiz Study
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
• When people explain the behavior of others, they tend to:
– underestimate the role of external factors and overestimate the role of internal factors
• Make person attributions even when powerful situational forces are at play
Also, more likely to make FAE when coginitively taxed
Quiz Study (Ross et al., 1977)
• Participants randomly assigned to different roles in a “quiz show”:
– Questioner: Make up hard questions
– Contestant: Try to answer them
– Observer: Audience
Results: questioners rated themselves and contestants as equally intelligent, but observers rated questioners significantly more intelligent
Questioners naturally know the little-known area of their own, but observers attribute it to their intelligence
Culture and Causality
Culture and Causality
Americans tend to see the fish leading the others (a personal attribution).
Chinese see the fish being chased by the others (a situational attribution).
Another study: the older an American, more likely to make dispositional attributions, the older an Indian, more likely to make situational
Difference larger into adulthood, reinforced by culture
Western cultures emphasize the individual (Figure is salient)
– Resulting in more personal attributions
East Asian cultures focus on background or field surrounding
– Resulting in more situational attributions
Attributional Motivational Biases
Motivational Biases
Defensive Attribution Hypothesis: People are motivated to make attributions that serve to defend their preferred beliefs about self, others, and the world.
Self-Serving Attribution Bias (SSB)
Protection of self-esteem, group-serving, self-serving
Self victory: self, internal
Self failure: other, external
Just World Hypothesis
Just World Hypothesis
Need to believe that we live in a world where people get what they deserve, and deserve what they get
Bringing things onto themselves, thinking they deserve it
This can motivate people to make internal attributions for people who experience negative outcomes
Victim-blaming of sexual assult
“Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans because it was planning a sinful homosexual rally” –Hagan
Experimental Evidence
• Lerner & Simmons (1966):
– Watched another student get shocked
– If participants were unable to compensate victim, they
evaluated victim more negatively
Participants convinced they are randomly picked, if unable, then assign blame to victim
Lincoln & Levinger (1972): Participants derogated an innocent victim of a police attack unless they were given the opportunity to lodge a complaint against the police.
Jones & Aronson (1973): Participants assign more responsibility to a rape victim if she was a virgin or married than if she was a divorce
Virgin or married seen as more tragic, divorced seen as less so, as divorce was less accepted in the 70s
Face Preference
Nature Arguments
Threat Detection
Face to Trait Perception
Face Preference
We instinctively see faces in things that have no faces in themselves
Is this nature or nurture?
Nature Arguments
Face preference in infancy
• Infants have innate sensitivity to faces (Goren et al., 1975)
Specialized Brain Regions for Face Perception
- Fusiform Facial Area (FFA): Invariant features
- Superior Temporal Sulcus (STS): variant features
Just need to understand that there are areas in the brain dedicated to this
Basic universal emotions: Anger, Fear, Disgust, Surprise, Joy, Sadness
Underwear or fist: context, not just face matters
Body language, surroundings
Threat Detection
People are faster at seeing angry faces and more accurate
Also more sensitive
People have similar inferences from the same faces, even if very briefly, very automatic
Face to Trait Perception (Willis & Todorov, 2006)
– Ps viewed unfamiliar faces
– Manipulated duration of presentation: • 100ms, 500ms, or 1,500ms
– Judged degree to which person was:
• E.g., Attractive, likeable, competent, honest, extraverted etc.
Two axes: dominance, warmth
Face perception: Ecological Perspective
Halo Effect
Ecological Perspective
• Adults w/ baby-faced (vs. mature-faced) perceived:
– Less dominant, weaker, less intelligent, naïve, honest, kind, warm
– Similar across diverse cultures
• Possible explanations:
– Programmed to respond gently to infantile features
– Learn to associate infantile features with helplessness and then generalize to baby-faced adults
Nice or Strong Face Study (Cogsdill et al., 2014)
– Different age groups:
• 3-4 year-olds, 5-6 year-olds, 7-10 year-olds and adults
– Presented pair of images:
• Which of these people is very nice?
Results:
High consensus with niceness across age groups
3 to 4 years-old are a little lower
Somewhat of a learning effect
Halo Effect
• Perception of one trait influences the perception of other traits in a person or object
Physical attraction is a great example
Video: height influences one’s perception, much differences in perceived income and personality
• Halo Effect Accuracy Study (Kleisner et al, 2014)
– Photographed 40 men and 40 women then had them take IQ test
– Other participants rated intelligence and attractiveness of targets
Results:
Rate strong correlation, men’s slope lower than women
Actual: zero correlation
Real World Consequences
• Hamermesh & Biddle (1994)
– Lifetime earnings; $230,000 more for people at high end of attractiveness spectrum
• Todorov et al. (2005)– Using competence judgments from faces predicted 70% of U.S.
Congressional Election Winners
• Blair et al. (2004)
– More Afrocentric facial features predicted stiffer criminal sentences including increased likelihood of capital punishment
First Impressions, Primacy Effect & Belief Persistence
Lay Epistemics
First Impressions, Primacy Effect & Belief Persistence
Primacy study (Luchins, 1957)
• Ps read 2 paragraphs about “Jim”– One paragraph depicted Jim as reserved and quiet
– One paragraph depicted Jim as popular and social
- IV: Manipulated paragraph order
- DV: Measured Jim’s perceived Introversion/Extraversion
Result:
Outgoing then withdrawn: more withdrawn
Withdrawn then outgoing: more outgoing
Primacy Effect: Explanation #1
- Once impression is formed, we pay less attention to subsequent information.
- Lay Epistemics (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983)– Collect just enough data to form coherent impression/explanation
– “Seize” on that impression/explanation
• More likely to “seize” (exhibit primacy effect) if:
– Cognitive resources are limited (e.g., cognitively fatigued or busy)
– Need for closure is high (individual difference)
Primacy Effect: Explanation #2
• Change of Meaning Hypothesis
– Impression effects interpretation of later information
• Misinterpretation Study (Lange et al., 2011)
– Ps listened to degraded recording of someone speaking
– IV: Told tape was of job candidate or criminal suspect
I hugged him just for the money.
I made sure I wasn’t around while they were being filled.
I left him there all muddy, lyin’ on the floor.
I mugged him just for the money.
I made sure I wasn’t around while they were being killed.
I left him there all muddy, dyin’ on the floor.
Perseverance of Beliefs
Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing
Perseverance of Beliefs
- Belief Perseverance: The tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited.
- E.g., Firefighter Study
Firefighter are risktakers, or fire fighters are cautious. End of the study, told them that’s a lie, but they still believe it
• How do we reduce this effect?
– Consider why an alternative theory might be true
- Confirmation Bias: The tendency to seek, interpret and create information that verifies existing beliefs
- Confirmatory Hypothesis testing
– Prepare Q’s for interview w/ stranger
– IV: Initially told that interviewee was either Introvert or an Extrovert
– DV: Assessed type of questions participants asked interviewee
Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing Study
Introvert Q: e.g., “what factors make it hard for you to really open up to people?”
Extravert Q: e.g., “What kind of situations do you seek out if you want to meet new people?”
Phone Study, self-fulfilling prophecy
Phone Study (Snyder et al., 1977)
Male conversant shown fake picture of female conversant, attractive or not
Male conversant talked to female conversant, while listener listens to recording of conversation
RESULTS:
Male conversant Judged women as more sociable, humorous, friendly when shown attractive picture
Listener Also judged women as more sociable, humorous, friendly in attractive photo condition
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy as a Three-Step Process
Perceiver’s expectations → Perceiver’s behavior toward the target → Target’s behavior toward the perceiver → Step 1
Stereotype and Cognitive schemas
Stereotype: Shared representations about the characteristics, attributes, and behaviors of members of various groups.
Association of certain things
The brain makes connections and associations, automatically activate stereotypes
• Cognitive schemas: help organize information about people on the basis of their membership in certain groups
Stereotypes are types about social groups, happened to be more influential impactful
- When are stereotypes used?
- What functions do they serve?
- What affect do they have on our attitudes & behaviors?
- Why are they so resistant to change?
Knowledge = Prejudice?
Influence behavior? Donald study
• Stereotype Knowledge Study (Devine, 1989)
– Measure of explicit racism (modern racism scale)
– Listed stereotypes of African Americans
– Rated extent to which each stereotype was true
• Results:
– High & low prejudiced, equal # of stereotypes
– Low (high) prejudiced people rejected (accepted) stereotypes
• Stereotype Knowledge Study 2
– Modern racism scale
– IV: Subliminal exposure to social category
• 20% or 80% of words identified social category of African-American or a stereotypical associate (e.g., black, afro, jazz)
Hostility is a stereotypes of blacks
– Read ambiguous paragraph about Donald, who isn’t even black
– DV: Rated Donald’s hostility
Results: 80% condition rated Donald as more hostile. (Same for High and Low prejudice)
What does this research tell us?
- Knowledge of stereotypic beliefs does not necessarily mean an individual is prejudiced
- Stereotypes can be accessed without our awareness
- Stereotypes can influence our impressions of others, even if we do not endorse them
Steps to Stereotyping
- Categorization
- Activation
- Application
Stereotyping Categorization
Situation influences
Person behavior
Prototypicality
Categorization
Nerds, jocks, punks, the prototypes in every high school movie, we identify them quickly and effortlessly, with high consensus. This is an effective strategy in the world
• Situational Influences
– Social context matters (Mitchel et al., 2003)
• E.g., “Solo Status”
We identify the trait that differentiates the person from other people
These are automatic processes
In a majority, a certain identity would not be salient
For a minority, it would be salient
– Target person’s behavior (Macrae et al., 1995)
• Asian woman categorized by gender/race based on behavior
Using chopsticks, or putting on makeup
• Prototypicality
– How well does a person fit a particular category?
– More prototypical = more readily categorized
- e.g. Racial Phenotypical Bias (Maddox, 2002)
- Greater prototypicality → increased stereotyping (Blair, 2002)
Stereotype Activation
Weapon/Shooter
CEO/Secretary
Shoving Study
Automatic Stereotype Activation Study
– Presented with black or white faces
– Word stem completion task
- Hos___
- Ste___
- Wel___
People more likely to activate bad sords
Effects of Stereotype Activation
• Weapon Study (Payne, 2006)
– P’s asked to discriminate between Guns and Tools
– Primed with White or Black face – DV: Reaction time
• Results: Ps detected guns faster following a black face
Shooter Study (Correll et al. 2002)
- Photos of armed and unarmed Black and White men
- Decide to “shoot” / “not shoot”
- DVs: Errors; Speed to respond accurately
Results:
People are more likely to wrongly choose SHOOT if black
More likely to wrongly choose NOT SHOOT if white
SHOOT faster for black, NOT SHOOT faster for white
*Police do better than college students, but still have a bias
Also, external validity is in questions: how much does this translate into external situations
CEO/Secretary Study (Biernat & Kobrynowicz, 1997)
– Review resume of male or female applicant
– Job is masculine (“chief of staff”) or feminine (“executive secretary”)
– DV: Perceived competence in position
Results:
Males judged more competent for chief of staff, women more competent for secretary
*This is a more deliberate decision, rather than a split-second one. The only difference is sex
Stereotype fit: how prototypical it is how much it fits
“41 Shots”: A Focus on the Tragic Shooting of Amadou
Diallo The shooting of an unarmed African man by New York City
police officers triggered a great deal of controversy and
inspired social psychology experiments designed to contrib-
ute to an understanding of the issues involved.
- Several studies have found that perceivers tend to be more
biased toward seeing an unarmed man as holding a weapon
and posing a threat if he is black than if he is white. - Training may be effective in reducing the tendency of civilians
or police officers to exhibit this bias. - This bias is evident even among perceivers who do not endorse
negative stereotypes or prejudiced attitudes. Awareness of the
stereotype seems to be a key factor.The Hoodie and the Gun: Revisiting the Trayvon Martin
Killing Social categorization, distrust of outgroup members, preva-lence of particular stereotypes in the culture and through the
media, confirmation biases, illusory correlations, and auto-
matic stereotype activation all may have contributed to the kill-
ing of Trayvon Martin and to some of the reactions to the case.
Shoving Study
- Video of interaction between a White and Black man (argument & one shoves the other)
- IV: Race of the shover
– White OR Black
DV: Characterization of the “shove”
–. . . as violent
- Black shover: 75%
- White shover: 17%
–. . . as playful
- Black shover: 6%
- White shover: 42%
*Ambiguous situation: we draw on stereotypical image
Stereotype Application Cognitive Resource Motivated Stereotyping: Asian Woman Memory Bias: John Time of Day Refencing
Effect of Stereotypes: Attributions
Participants asked to explain the successful performance of man or woman on “masculine” task
Result:
Males attributed their performance on masculine tasks more to their ability, less to luck (I think)
Attribution reinforce stereotype, which causes more attribution of this kind
Stereotype Activation vs. Application
- Social Categorization→Stereotype Activation
- Does Activation always→Stereotype Application?
- If not, why & when?
Cognitive resource model
Cognitive effort uses resources→mental fatigue/resource depletion
Stereotype suppression requires cognitive resources
Model Prediction: Stereotype use should increase when cognitive resources are strained
Time of day example
Morning people: morning few stereotypes, afternoon and night more stereotypes
Evening people: morning more stereotypes, afternoon and night fewer stereotypes
Motivated Stereotyping
– View tape of Asian woman in office
– Ps asked to form impression of her life and career choices or not
– Results: Those asked to form impression described the woman using more stereotypically Asian traits
• Conclusion?
They need to form an impression but can’t, so they draw on the stereotypes
John Example
There’s 5 that correspond to the gangster, 5 to the doctor, people remember the ones that correspond better to the ones they remember
Memory Bias: remember things that fit our memory and stereotype better
Makes it hard to get rid of stereotypes, shapes the way you see the world
“Refencing”
- What happens when we are presented with someone who appear to disconfirm the stereotype?
- We often perceive stereotype inconsistent individuals as exceptions to the rule
And ignore the inconsistency
Stereotype: Self-fulfilling Effects White black interview Stereotype Threat Black IQ test Women Calculus test
Self-Fulfilling Effects
Automatic activation of negative stereotypes → Treat target poorly → Target behaves poorly in response → Negative stereotype confirmed → Step 1
• E.g., Word et al. (1974)
- White participants sat further from black interviewee, made more speech errors, held shorter interviews
- Result: black candidates performed objectively worse
Stereotype Threat
An individual’s fear of supporting a negative performance stereotype can ironically impair their performance, thus supporting the stereotype.
• Effects of stereotype threat reflect interrelated mechanisms:
– physiological stress
– thinking about one’s performance is distracting
– suppressing negative thoughts/emotions requires a great deal of effort
Stereotype Threat Study: Steele & Aronson (Study 1, 1995)
- Participants:
- African American
- Caucasian American
- Procedure:
- Completed a 30 Verbal-SAT items
- Manipulation:
- Valid test of IQ
- Invalid test (laboratory exercise)
- DV: number correct on test
Results:
AA did worse in valid test of IQ, but did just as well in invalid test
Golf Strokes
Condition: kinds of stereotype threat
Natural abilities, sport intelligence, control
Results:
Natural abilities: white had more strikes
Sports intelligence: blacks had more strikes
Control: whites had more strikes
Why are stereotypes so difficult to get rid of?
Stereotypes are self-maintaining
Biased information processing
Affect what we attend to and remember, and how we interpret ambiguous information
Attribution & Subtyping
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Stereotypes affect both behavior towards members of stereotyped groups as well as the behavior of stereotyped group members
Stereotype Threat
- Stricker & Ward (2004)
- Male & Female students took AP calculus test
- Manipulated the order of demographics questions
– Indicated gender before or after test
• DV: Test Performance
Results:
Inquiry before test: girls did worse than boys
After: less difference
• In 2004, there were 88,809 boys, 81,521 girls
who took the exam
- All other things equal, 4,763 more women would receive AP Calculus AB credit if the timing were changed.
- Each year.
Prejudice and Psychology ABC
Affect (prejudice) - Behavior (discrimination) - Cognition (stereotype)
Overt Recism
Over the years, the percentage of people saying they are willing to admit blacks to employment, as a friend, neighbor, kinship increased significantly
Modern Racism
The New Face of Prejudice
Race & Helping Study
• White participants work with a partner who is performing poorly at a task
– Partner was either White or Black
– Task was either difficult or easy
• DV: Rates of helping
Results:
Equal for difficult tasks
Easy: much higher for white than for blacks
*Attribution explains helping difference. Black people considered lazy, lack of effort
Modern Racism
A form of racism that surfaces in subtle ways when it is safe, socially acceptable, and easy to rationalize.
Suppression: reduces expression of prejudice
Justification: increases under the guise of rational
Aversive Racism
Moral Licensing
The New Face of Prejudice
• Aversive Racism: Combination of sincerely held egalitarian beliefs, and unconscious/unrecognized negative feelings/associations
– Motivated to prove fair-mindedness
– Establishing moral credentials in one context can license them to express prejudice in another context
• E.g., Panhandler/Job Candidate Study
– Low Explicit Bias/High Implicit Bias
*Moral licensing: when proven to themselves that they are not racist, they are more likely to let prejudice surface later
Similar in environmental issues. Buying green products make people feel good
Negative emotional associations: Study
Smiley-Faces & Stereotypes Study
- Saw neutral info about Moldova and Slovenia
- Each country subliminally paired w/ smiley face or unhappy face
- Is each trait more descriptive of Moldova or Slovenia?
– Warmth-relevant traits
• E.g., Friendly, warm, good-natured, courteous, trustworthy, liars, stubborn, quarrelsome, threatening, aggressive, conceited
Result: Paired with smiley faces subjects had much greater endorsement of warmth-relevant stereotypes
*Creating negative emotional associations. Prejudice leads to stereotypes, but it can go both ways
Implicit bias and resulting behavior
Implicit Bias
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Faster & make fewer errors for white/good & black/bad
Moderate to strong implicit bias in favor of socially valued groups (even for stigmatized group members!)
Development of Explicit vs. Implicit Racial Preferences
Explicit steadily decrease as one grows older
But implicit stay the same throughout
People learn to suppress as they get older
Explicit (knowledge) and implicit (association) learning are different
Predicting behavior from Implicit & Explicit attitudes
• Implict/Explicit Racial Attitudes Study McConnell & Leibold (2001)
– Assess Explicit attitudes (w/ questionnaire)
– Assessed Implicit attitudes (w/ race IAT)
– Interaction with a Black experimenter coded for:
• friendly verbal comments, speaking time, speech errors, smiling
IAT scores predict uncontrolled nonverbal behavior
Explicit measures predict controlled verbal behavior
IAT (anti-Black)
Friendly comments: no effect
Speaking time: significantly inverse
Speech errors: significantly positive
Smiling: significantly inverse
Explicit anti-Black prejudice
Friendly comment: significantly inverse
Others: negative but not significant
Explicit bias → WHAT was said → speaker perspective (controlled verbal behavior)
Implicit bias → HOW it was said → listener perspective (uncontrolled non-verbal)
Interracial Interaction
Interracial Interaction
- The preoccupation with not being, or appearing to be racist can hinder interracial interactions
- Suppressing negative attitudes depletes cognitive resources (although we get better with practice!)
- Fear of exhibiting racist behavior
–→avoid interracial interactions
–→try to adopt “color blind” approach
• Make racial minority groups feel less comfortable
Can be interpreted as
Causes and Reason for Prejudice
The Cause(s) of Prejudice & Intergroup Conflict
Social Categorization
- Processes is fast, effortless, and largely unconscious, inherent to human condition
- What makes social categorization unique?
– We are members/nonmembers of the categories we use
- One of the most basic categorizations we make…
- Ingroup/Outgroup (Us/Them)
Ingroup/Outgroup
Outgroup homogeneity effect: View members of an outgroup as less varied than members of one’s ingroup
Cross-race face recognition bias
– Memory test for same and other race faces
– Purportedly from own university (ingroup) or not (outgroup)
– Results: Regardless of race, better memory for ingroup faces
Ingroup favoritism: Tendency to evaluate members of one’s own group more favorably than members of “other” groups.
Class survey: people consistently rated themselves better than people from other group did
Study: Korean v. Japanese participants: Faster responses to own group + pleasant
Elements of Ethnocentric Perception
WE:
Virtuous, superior
Trustworthy and coorperative
Dutiful, obedient
Loyal
THEY:
Contempible and immoral
Untrustworthy and uncooperative
Disobedient
Treacherous
Minimal Group Paradigm
What is this?
Tajfel Matrix
Choosing pair of money, giving us much means giving them much too, while giving us little means giving them less
Not just seeing self group as good, but better than other group
Why prejudice?
Three theories
Why?
Evolutionary: favoring ingroup members → better chance of survival
Self-esteem maintenance: seeing group as more deserving than outgroup maintains positive view of self, reaffirm our own value
Social Identity Theory (SIT)
• Our identity is comprised of:
– Personal Identity
– Social Identity
• Why do identify with groups?
– Use positive social identities to maintain self-esteem
• E.g., BIRGing & CORFing
Prejudice as Self-Esteem Maintenance
• If we identify with a group…
– Then a threat to one’s group represents a threat to the self
– And putting outgroup down = self-esteem defense
Rocky Study Branscombe et al. (1994)
IV1: Showed clip from Rocky IV (USA Losing vs. Winning)
IV2: Chance to express prejudice or not
DVs: Prejudice & Self-Esteem
RESULTS
- –USA losing→lower Self-esteem
- –USA losing→Increased prejudice
- –Chance to express prejudice→increased self-esteem after
viewing USA loss
After negative personal feedback, participants derogate outgroups (A), which restores their self-esteem (B) (Fein & Spencer, 1997)
Realistic Conflict Theory
Limited Resources → Conflict between groups → Prejudice and Discrimination
Resources can also be about winning, sports, etc. like in sports
How to Reduce Prejudice
Sherif’s Robber’s Cave Study
Attempted to create & then eliminate prejudice in more realistic group setting
Boys were randomly assigned to one of two groups
Two groups introduced through competition (scarce resources) with rewards, escalated very intensely
Team name, flag, color, capturing the flag, etc.
Attempted to eliminate prejudice– Present dilemmas that require intergroup cooperation
Passing rocks, pulling trucks, work together
Group Evaluation (unfavorable)
After competition: rate own group almost to 0, other almost to 100
After cooperation: both much closer
Why did cooperative task reduce prejudice?
Superordinate goal → more inclusive ingroup
Both groups of boys recognized their both identity as campers
Shifting of us/them boundaries
*Critique: doesn’t eliminate prejudice, just changes us and them
Rebound Effect
Skinhead Suppression Study (Macraw, et al., 1994)
IV: Received stereotype suppression instruction OR not
Shown two paragraphs (in sequence) and asked to write a short story after viewing two photos of skinheads
DV: # of stereotypes in description of each skinhead
Results:
First description: no instruction more than suppression
Second: suppression more than no instruction
Rebound Effect
People suppressing stereotypes later show:
Better memory for stereotypic traits
Decreased memory for individuating information
Greater use of stereotypes in general
Depletion of mental effort, ST success LT failure
Reducing implicit bias
What about reducing implicit bias?
If stereotypes are learned and become automatic through repetition, then we eliminate these negative implicit associations in the same way?
Unlearning Stereotype Associations
“What fires together wires together”
IAT Study
Pretest: measure automatic stereotype activation for target group
Training: negating the association
Posttest: same as pretest
Prediction: associations weaker after training?
Picture of target (Skinhead) + Stereotype word (angry) = “No”
Picture of target (Skinhead) + Nonstereotype word (friendly) = “Yes”
Results:
Reduced automatic stereotype activation
Negative correlation between number of trials and automatic stereotypic activation
Effects still visible 24 hours after training
Intergroup contact study
Does it reduce prejudice?
Intergroup Contact
Contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954)
Intergroup Contact → Reduces prejudice (only under certain conditions)
Forsyth et al. (2009): Meta-analysis 515 studies
Face-to-face contact reduced prejudice in 94% of studies (contact & prejudice; r = -.21)
Increase knowledge about outgroups
increases empathy and perspective taking
Reduces anxiety about intergroup contact
Can reduce stereotyping
Conditions for reducing intergroup prejudice
Four parts
Conditions for Reducing Intergroup Prejudice
- Equal Status
- Cooperative Activities
- Personal Interaction
- Social Norms
- Equal Status
Equal status in contact situation
If status in unequal
Derogate lower status outgroup members under conditions of task failure
Individuals take on stereotypic dominant & submissive roles
- Cooperation
Groups must work cooperatively in pursuit of superordinate goals
Robbers cave
Effects of Team v. Individual sports
Jigsaw classroom
Schools often fail to meet the conditions for reducing preju-
dice, in part because competition is too high. One program
that is designed to foster intergroup cooperation and interde-
pendence suggests that the right kinds of contact can improve
attitudes and behaviors in a school setting.
Everybody has a piece to contribute
- Personal Interaction
The opportunity for member of different groups to interact one-on-one to get to know each other as individuals as potentially become friends
Cross-Group Friendship Study
Extended/Indirect contact effect
Research on the extended contact effect, also known as the
indirect contact effect, demonstrates that having an ingroup
friend who has a good and close relationship with a member of
an outgroup can reduce one’s prejudice toward the outgroup.
Study: first, high implicit racism more than low implicit racism
Second, almost the same
Third, high implicit racism lower than low implicit racism
- Social Norms
Authorities, law, or social norms must establish a clear expectation for attitude change in the direction of lower prejudice and behavior change in the direction of less discrimination.
People at companies with affirmative action policies had more positive out-group attitudes (Taylor, 1995)
Two interpretations
First: authority led to the decrease of prejudice
Also: people self-select to be at AA companies
Foley (1976): compared racial attitudes among prison inmates at:
A racially tolerant prison ward or
A racially prejudiced ward
Results: One month later, those assigned to the racially tolerant ward showed decreased prejudice vs. those assigned to intolerant ward
Seating Arrangement Study
Seating Arrangement Study
Minimal group paradigm
Manipulated seating arrangement
Participants sat with their group at separate tables
All same table
All individual tables
DV: Evaluations of other participants
Results:
Group: favor group, dislike outgroup
Single: both favor, ingroup a little more
Individual: ingroup more, but less comparatively. Outgroup nonsignificantly less
Different Intergroup Contact and Stereotype Change
Different Models of Intergroup Contact
Decategorization: Personalization Model
Viewing others as individuals → reduced negative group-based evaluations
Shortcoming: increased liking for outgroup individual may not generalize to entire outgroup
Recategorization: Common ingroup identity model
More inclusive category extends ingroup favortism to former outgroup members
Shortcoming: can lead to bias against common outgroups
Intergroup Contact & Stereotype Change:
Contact → witness stereotype inconsistent evidence
Disconfirming attributes of individual generalized to group → stereotype change
Requires that outgroup members seen as typical of their group while still disconfirming aspects of the group stereotypes
Outgroup category must be salient for generalization to occur
Culture, Social Tuning & Prejudice (Skorinko et at. 2015)
Culture, Social Tuning & Prejudice (Skorinko et at. 2015)
Social tuning: orienting our behaviors to others
What is the hypothesized relationship between culture and social tuning?
Why should this affect expressions of prejudice?
Study 1: Cross Cultural/Quasi-Exp study
US (individual) showed no prejudice against homosexuals, regardless of T-shirt message
HK (collective) Neutral: more prejudice against homosexuals; Egalitarian: less against homosexuals
Paying attention to other people’s behaviors are much more from interdependent values
Study 2: Experimental Study
Individual prime: neutral less prejudice, egalitarian much more prejudice
Anti-tuning: individual tendency to distinguish oneself from others
Collective prime: neutral more prejudice, egalitarian much less prejudice
Ironic Effects of Antiprejudice Messages (Legault et al., 2011)
Ironic Effects of Antiprejudice Messages (Legault et al., 2011)
What’s the difference between Controlled and Self-determined Motivation to Regulate Prejudice?
Why does Controlled Motivation backfire?
How might this apply to programing & policy?
Study 1
Controlling brochure: society demands everyone of being better
Autonomy brochure: building a better society is up to everyone
Prejudice: controlling > No > autonomy
Study 2
e.g., “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.”
Implicit race bias: controlling prime > neutral > autonomy
Scripts
People have preconceptions, or “scripts,” about certain types of
situations. These scripts guide our interpretations of behavior.
Nonverbal/behavior Perception
Behavioral Evidence
People derive meaning from behavior by dividing it into dis-
crete, meaningful units.
- Nonverbal behaviors are often used to determine how others
are feeling. - From facial expressions, people all over the world can identify
the emotions of happiness, fear, sadness, surprise, anger, and
disgust. - Body language, gaze, and touch are also important forms of
nonverbal communication.
Attribution Biases plural
Attribution Biases
People depart from the logic of attribution theory in two major
ways.
First, we use cognitive heuristics—rules of thumb that enable
us to make judgments that are quick but often in error.
Second, we tend to commit the fundamental attribution
error—overestimating the role of personal factors and under-
estimating the impact of situations.
Deception detection
People frequently make mistakes in their judgments of truth
and deception, too often accepting what others say at face value.
Base-rate Fallacy
base-rate fallacy The finding that people are relatively insensitive to consensus information presented in the form of numerical base rates.
availability heuristic
availability heuristic The tendency to estimate the likelihood that
an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind.
covariation principle
covariation principle A principle of attribution theory that holds that people attribute behavior to factors that are present when a behavior occurs and are absent when it does not.
counterfactual thinking
counterfactual thinking The tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes that might have occurred but did not.
information integration theory
information integration theory The theory that impressions are based on (1) perceiver dispositions (what that person values and feels salient at the time) and (2) a weighted average of a target person’s traits (again, people value different traits to different degrees, and sometimes including moderate traits makes the stand out traits seem not very good).
implicit personality theory
central traits
implicit personality theory A network of assumptions people make about the relationships among traits and behaviors.
central traits Traits that exert
a powerful influence on overall impressions.
Implicit racism implications on whites and minorities
- Implicit racism is associated with poorer treatment by doctors
and health care providers of patients from racial and ethnic
minority groups. - Interracial interactions can feel threatening, can provoke anxi-
ety, and can drain cognitive resources, particularly among peo-
ple relatively high in implicit racism. - Worried about appearing racist in these interactions, whites in
particular may try to avoid interracial interactions or they may
go out of their way to avoid any mention of race even when it
is relevant.
Sexism: ambivalent or benevolent
Sexism: Ambivalence, Objectification, and Double
Standards Although similar in many other ways, sexism differs from
other forms of prejudice and discrimination in part because gender stereotypes are more than just descriptive: They also indicate what the majority of people in a society believe men and women should be. Sexism is also unusual in that ingroup and outgroup members are so intimately familiar with each other.
Ambivalent sexism reflects both hostile sexism, characterized
by negative and resentful feelings toward women, and benev-
olent sexism, characterized by affectionate, chivalrous, but
potentially patronizing feelings toward women.
Individuals from countries with the greatest degree of eco-
nomic and political inequality between men and women tend
to exhibit high levels of both hostile and benevolent sexism.
Women are often treated or presented in the popular media
in objectifying ways in which they are viewed more as mere
bodies and objects and less as fully functioning human beings.
There are some striking sex differences in occupational choices
and in the treatment individuals experience in the workplace.
Women often face a difficult dilemma: If they behave consis-
tently with gender stereotypes, they may be liked more but
respected less.
For both women and men, being in a job that is traditionally
seen as more typical of the other gender can be especially
challenging.
- Boys and girls tend to show gender-stereotypical preferences
for things like toys at very early ages. - Gender stereotypes are so deeply ingrained that they bias
perceptions of males and females from the moment they are
born. - Perceived differences between men and women are magnified
by the contrasting social roles they occupy. - The mass media foster stereotypes of various groups.
- Portrayals of men and women in advertising and other forms
of media can influence the behavior and attitudes of men andwomen.How Stereotypes Distort Perceptions and Resist Change A fundamental effect of stereotyping is that it influence people’s perceptions and interpretations of the behaviors of group
members, causing them to perceive confirmation of their
stereotype-based expectancies.
Consequences of stigmatization
Being Stigmatized
People are stigmatized when they are targets of negative
stereotypes, perceived as deviant, and devalued in society
because they are members of a particular social group or
because they have a particular characteristic.
- When members of stigmatized groups perceive others’ reac-
tions to them as discrimination, they experience both benefits
and drawbacks to their self-esteem and feelings of control. - Stigmatized targets are at increased risk for serious and long-
term physical and mental health problems.
Reducing Stereotype Threat
Individuals tend to be more protected against stereotype
threats when they are made to feel a sense of trust and safety
in the situation.
A study of middle schoolers showed that the simple inter-
vention of asking students to think about values that were
important to them dramatically improved the performance of
African American students.
Stigmatization
stigmatized Being persistently stereotyped, perceived as deviant, and devalued in society because of membership in a particular social group or because of a particular characteristic.
social dominance orientation
social dominance orientation A desire to see one’s ingroup as dominant over other groups and a willingness to adopt cultural values that facilitate oppression over other groups.
system justification theory
system justification theory A theory that proposes that people are motivated (at least in part) to defend and justify the existing social, political, and economic conditions
relative deprivation
relative deprivation Feelings of discontent aroused by the belief that one fares poorly compared with others.
social role theory
social role theory The theory that small gender differences are magnified in perception by the contrasting social roles occupied by men and women.
Stereotype Content Model
Stereotype Content Model
• Two dimensions of group stereotypes
– Warmth & Competence
–Hi Warmth/Hi Competence→Pride
»E.g., Middle-Class; Ingroup
–Hi Warmth/Lo Competence→Pity
»E.g., Disabled; Old people
–Lo Warmth/Hi Competence→Envy
»E.g., Rich; Asians; Jews
–Lo Warmth/Lo Competence→disgust
»E.g., Poor; Homeless
Many group stereotypes vary along two dimensions: warmth
and competence.
The stereotype content model proposes that stereotypes
about the competence of a group are influenced by the relative
status of that group in society and that stereotypes about the
warmth of a group are influenced by perceived competition
with the group.
Lay Epistemics
• Lay Epistemics (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983)– Collect just enough data to form coherent impression/explanation
– “Seize” on that impression/explanation
