Psych MCAT: Social Thinking

What are examples of attributional processes?

fundamental attribution error, role of culture in attributions

What is your behavior attributed to?

attributional processes

What are attributional processes?

persons, situations, environment

What is internal attribution?

your disposition

your situation

External attribution

we tend to attribute someone else's behavior to their personality/disposition rather than their situation

Fundamental attribution error

we tend to jump to the assumption that fat people are lazy and over-eat, rather than more situational attributions such as a health problem.

Fundamental attribution error

individualist = attributes behavior to internal/dispositional factors (personality)

Culture: western cultures

attributes behavior to external/situational factors (like society, your tribe, your team mates).

Eastern and African cultures = collectivist

we tend to make excuses for ourselves and blame others.

Actor/observer difference

if we or our friends make bad grades, we say the material is hard and the professor sucks. If it's someone else making bad grades, we blame it on laziness.

Actor/observer difference

When put ourselves in other people’s shoes and assume they feel the same way we feel.

How self-perceptions shape our perceptions of others

test subjects see a video of a man raving about doing a boring task. If Bem told the subjects the man was bribed $20 to do this, the subjects came to the conclusion that the man hated the task in reality. On the other hand, if Bem told them the man was only paid $1, the subjects assumed the man actually enjoyed the task. Note, all these are assumptions based on self-perception, as the subject never met the man in the video.

Bem’s original experiment

Examples: body language changes the way you feel about someone. You are also more likely to perceive someone positively if you are in a relaxed, comfortable environment.

How perceptions of the environment shape our perceptions of others.

Power, prestige, and class

rich vs poor, have vs have-nots.

Eg: you come across a poor person, prejudice kicks in, and you classify that person as being a hobo. You come across a rich person, prejudice kicks in, and you classify that person as a snob.

Power, prestige, and class

emotional level prejudice = prejudice that leads to arousal of emotions

The role of emotion in prejudice

if you were robbed by someone of a certain race, you'll learn to associate those negative emotions with that race even if the next guy you meet didn't do anything.

The role of emotion in prejudice

cognitive level prejudce = prejudice based on rational thinking.

the role of cognition in prejudice

Eg: racial profiling - if you observe that a certain race commits crimes more often, you will treat everyone of that race with prejudice.

The role of cognition in prejudice

prejudice that leads to action

Discrimination

putting things/people into categories. It makes things simpler, but can lead to prejudice and discrimination.

Stereotypes

extreme dislike of a person or group based on a difference such as belief, HIV, etc.

Stigma

judging others based on our own culture and perspective.

Ethnocentrism:

you may look at face paintings of tribes and find them weird, but if you step outside your ethnocentrism, you realize that the tribes probably look at you and think your lack of face painting is weird.

Ethnocentrism

placing yourself at the center of the universe = judging others based on the assumption that your culture is superior / most correct

Ethnocentrism

no one's at the center, everything's relative = perceiving differences in others with an understanding that no one's more superior or inferior

Cultural relativism

if a race is stereotyped a certain way, people will have those expectations from you and create conditions to fit those stereotypes

Self-fulfilling prophecy

if the stereotype is your race being good at basketball, people will expect you to be good at it without even knowing you, TV ads will show your race playing basketball / wearing Air Jordans. In the end, this makes it easy for you to become that stereotype, thus, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

if you have a negative stereotype against you, you'll be overly-defensive about it. This causes anxiety that may impede performance.

Stereotype threat