Week 4 - Prejudice, discrimination, and prosocial behaviour Flashcards
Why and when do people help?
- Social disorganisation in cities
- the Urban Overload hypothesis
- small town ppl more likely to help than ppl from larger cities (only 15% helped)
Social disorganisation:
quality of interpersonal relationships in LARGE cities is poor; heterogeneity of population + distance impact helping
Urban overload hypothesis:
in crowded environments, people are constantly bombarded with stimuli and demands on their attention. Therefore they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed.
- urban ppl moved to calmer, less stimulating environments = as likely as others to help
- urban or rural environment impacts helping
green spaces and pro-social behaviour
- parks, gardens, playgrounds promote prosocial behaviour in children
- learn to take turns, sharing equipment
Describe Latané and Darley’s cognitive model
(The Kitty Genovese’s murder)
this is called the Bystander Effect.
- the greater number of bystanders who observe an emergency, the less likely someone is to help
- no safety in numbers
- diffusion of responsibility
positive impacts of Bystander Effect
- when we know we are being watched, we consciously behave in a pro-social way
What did Latané and Darley’s cognitive model say about mood state and personal attributes?
.
5 steps of bystander intervention
- Notice the event: won’t help if in a hurry
- Interpret as a problem: pluralistic ignorance -> if no one else is concerned, it is not an emergency
- Assume personal responsibility: decide if it is our responsibility to help
- Know how to help
- Implement help - Act: safety of victim and bystander is important
How can we increase helping behaviour?
- increasing volunteering
- positive psychology (increases human virtues of empathy & altruism)
- increasing skills & confidence
What is prejudice?
- definition
- ABC components
a hostile or negative attitude towards people in a distinguishable group based solely on their membership in that group.
- judging someone without knowing them on the basis of their appearance
- ABC components of prejudice.
Affective - emotions
Behavioural - actions & discrimination
Cognitive - beliefs or thoughts = stereotypes
Cognitive component of prejudice
- heuristics (short cuts) allow us to understand the world quickly
- stereotypes are generalisations and labels of others from a particular group
- “the law of least effort” - quick understanding of something/someone due to limited pre-exisiting exposure
Affective component of prejudice
- feelings of hostility or friendliness towards a group
- explicit prejudice: negative attitudes, not expressed publicly
- implicit prejudice: unconscious negative feelings, hidden from self
Behavioural component of prejudice
- discrimination: behaviour towards a group (negative) which leads to:
- reluctance to help (social distance)
- tokenism: little assistance to a member of of minority group (symbolic) e.g. token “ethnic” friend trope in movies & performative activism
- micro-aggressions: painful actions, insults towards members of minority
identifying implicit & suppressed prejudices
- bogus pipeline: fake polygraph/ lie detecting test
- Implicit Association Test (IAT): positive or negative words presented, time taken to pair word with faces measured.
findings: negative stereotypes about ppl who are diff
impact of prejudice on victim:
Self-fulfilling prophecy
- manifestation of action through your beliefs
- eg. if society believes one group is stupid, that group is more likely to act in accordance to that group
- placebo groups - reduces prejudice
- Pygmalion effect - if the leader raises the expectation of the group, people work towards fulfilling the leader’s belief
Stereotype threat
- anxiety of not acting in accordance to a cultural stereotype
- “reflecting badly on your race”
e. g. study of Black and white students performance in miniature golf.
- group told that the game measured “Sport intelligence” –> Black athletes performed worse
- group told “natural athletic ability” –> Black athletes performed better
Stereotype treat and gender study
- experiencing stereotype threat depends on which category you identify with
e.g. men > women in maths
IV- info given to women about maths test
DV - women’s performance on the test
- when told test measures gender differences, women performed worse than men
- told no gender differences, women and men performed the same
causes of prejudice (5)
institutional discrimination
- laws/rules which reflect racism in an organisation/ system.
- favours dominant group
e. g. unfair selection for jobs
pressure to conform (normative conformity)
- to gain acceptance & avoid social rejection
- socially rewarding
- higher in collectivist cultures
Us vs Them theory - Social identity theory
- in-group bias & source of self-esteem
- ethnocentrism
Blaming the victim
- no empathy & we want to see the world as a fair place
Scapegoating
- victims take responsibility of something they didn’t do
