final social psych

altruism and helping

why do we help/fail to help others

• social exchange theory

• norm theory

• evolutionary psych

social exchange theory

• rational economic model - cost and benefit of helping/not helping

  • minimize costs

  • maximize rewards

• help when rewards > cost

norm theory

• reciprocity norm

  • if someone helps us, we are obligated to help others too

• social responsibility norm

  • moral social obligation to provide help when capable

evolutionary psych - helping

• kin selection

  • whom are we more likely to help - people who are related → most closely related ones

    • degree of genetic relatedness

    • true for other animals

  • reciprocity

Kitty Genovese incident and “bystander effect”

• Kitty was assaulted by man → neighbors heard, did nothing

  • most people assumed someone else called for help

• more bystanders → lower probability to help

Latane & Darley’s decision tree model

helping requires:

• noticing the problem

• interpreting the situation as a need for help

• assuming responsibility for giving help

smoke filled room study

• smoke started to fill room during study

• 1 person - left and told experimenter

• 3 people - noticed, but did nothing

bystander effect - smoke filled room study

• more bystanders → longer time to help

• when others do nothing → you conform with them

epileptic seizure study

• faked seizure on multi way phone conversation with varying # of people supposedly on call

• results:

  • # of perceived bystanders went up, % helping went down

  • diffusion of responsibility

psychological processes of bystander effect

pluralistic ignorance

• belief that if others aren’t responding, it must not be an emergency

diffusion of responsibility

• feeling that other bystanders will take responsibility in an emergency

summarizing bystander effect

• the likelihood of a given individual helping is reduced in the presence of bystanders when

  • situation is ambiguous

  • bystanders are strangers

  • others’ reactions are difficult to interpret

  • # of bystanders increases

Darley & Batson’s “Good Samaritan” seminarians

• priest gives sermon about Good Samaritan

  • primed with helping behavior

• all students encountered someone faking a heart attack

• seminary students in a hurry → only 10% helped

  • ex: priest is almost done, hurry up

• no rush → almost all helped

  • ex: mass just started, no rush

time constraint > empathy priming

affective state of potential helper - helping behavior

• guilt (McMillen & Austin’s “liars”)

  • ½ subjects manipulated to lie to experimenter

  • ½ subjects don’t

  • after experiment, experimenter asks for help

    • liars → more inclined to help, eases guilt

• sadness/reduced SE → more helping (negative state relief hypothesis)

  • helping others → makes you feel better about yourself

• positive affect → increased helping (Isen et al’s free gift + wrong number study)

  • found 50c in phone booth → more likely to help

religiosity - helping behavior

how deep & consistent one’s religious practice is

• public situation - high religiosity → more helping

• private setting - no difference in high/low religiosity

gender of helper

• men help more than women do (in studies)

  • always required helping strangers

• chivalric vs. committed helping

  • chivalric - men

    • require heroic interaction

  • committed - women

    • usually someone you know, more than one time intervention

personality and helping behavior

• Batson

  • pure altruism most likely happens when we feel empathy

• dispositional empathy

  • long term tendency to share feelings, etc

• empathy should override cost considerations in influencing helping behavior

empathy & cost of not helping study

• high empathy

  • given some statements from Carol about difficulties of car crash

• low empathy

  • only told facts

• some students told they won’t see her anymore, some occasionally

  • cost of not helping Carol → guilt

  • no guilt - if you don’t see Carol

• empathy > cost/benefit considerations - high empathy

target variables influencing helping behavior

• gender

  • women are more likely to be helped than men are

• similarity to potential helper

  • greater similarity = increased likelihood of helping

social cognitive learning and helping behavior

just like aggression, pro-social behavior may possibly be increased by watching others do it

prosocial TV & children’s altruism

• watched Lassie helping → more likely to help

seeing good → doing good

• 3 priming videos

  • ocean video

  • comedy

  • oprah helping 3 men become successful

• moral elevation (shows value of helping others) > regular mood elevation

why watching pro-social behavior increases helping

• cognitive factors

  • observational learning

  • priming pro-social schemas

• affective factors

  • moral elevation of mood

• neurobiological factors

  • activation of mirror neurons

  • increase in ‘tending & befriending’ hormones

definitions of prejudice

• negative attitude towards group/perceived person in group

  • different than Allport and Jones’ with assumptions

abc’s of prejudicial attitude

• affective - prejudice (gut feeling)

• behavioral - discrimination (unequal treatment)

• cognitive - stereotype (belief schemas)

stereotypes

• beliefs about social groups used to make inferences, predictions, attributions about individuals

discrimination

• differential treatment based on perceived group membership

  • negative behavior toward outgroup or preferential treatment of ingroup

even “no malice” favoring of your own religion or ethnicity over others still counts as discrimination

stereotypes problematic?

• direction/magnitude of difference - which side, by how much?

• accuracy vs. inaccuracy of stereotypes

  • Swim - gender stereotypes usually accurate, if not, usually underestimated

  • meta analysis - most stereotypes are accurate

    • most wrong - “national character” cliche

• evaluative tone - positive vs. negative stereotypes

  • too positive - high expectations

• preference for individuating info

• when stereotypes may help

  • knowing southeast asian norms (less eye contact = respect)

theories of prejudice: social sources

unequal status - prejudice as a justifying ideology

• institutional supports

• conformity to social norms

• social identity theory

institutional supports - prejudice

• segregation

  • similarities - keeps groups apart

  • blocks individuating info

• education

  • ex: 1930’s text taught 4 different human species

• langauge

  • habitual slurs reshape attitudes via dissonance, self perception

• media sources

  • 1950s tv show - showed negative stereotypes towards asians, black people

conformity to social norms - prejudice

• ex: prejudiced communities - expected to conform to bias

social identity theory (Tajfel)

• SE needs and group identity

  • favor our group, discriminate against out group

• in-group bias (Wilder)

  • same treatment even when groups are meaningless

  • minimal group paradigm research

    • ex: overestimators vs. underestimators

    • boys labeled over/underestimator of dots

      • rewarded their own group more often

      • even two categories creates conflict

theories of prejudice: affective sources

• frustration aggression theory

• realistic group conflict

• evolutionary - adaptive “xenophobia”

• personality factors

• authoritarian personality

cognitive sources - prejudice

• categorization & stereotyping

• outgroup homogeneity effect

• accentuation

• illusory correlation & confirmation bias

• similarity-attraction & group polarization

• ultimate attribution error

categorization and stereotyping

automatic stereotype activation

outgroup homogeneity effect

• “they all look alike”

• better at differentiating characteristics of our own race than others

accentuation

• overestimating differences between groups

  • exaggerating similarities with a group

  • amplify differences with a group

illusory correlation & confirmation bias (Group A/B study)

• participants read short story about group A (10 acts), group B (20 acts)

  • both groups had the same ratio of good/bad acts (80%)

    • A - 8 good, 2 bad

    • B - 16 good, 4 bad

  • despite same ratio, people perceived A as more negative - less exs.

• less info on a group → the few negative ex. are important → leads to illusory correlation

  • links group membership with bad behavior

similarity-attraction & group polarization

• similarity attraction in discussion amplifies existing attitudes

• pushes group towards extreme versions of their starting viewpoint

ultimate attribution error

• bad out group act → internal blame

• good out group act → external luck (they got lucky)

• mirror flips for in groups

social dominance orientation (SDO)

• some groups of people are simply inferior to others

• in getting what you want, sometimes it’s necessary to use force against other groups

• it’s okay if one group dominates in society

• it’s okay if some groups have more of a chance in life than others

theories of prejudice: sustaining interactive sources

• self-fulfilling prophecy

• internalization of negative stereotypes (doll study)

  • black & white children picked white doll > black doll given choice

    • said “white is better”

    • black children internalized anti-black stereotypes

• stereotype threat

  • impairing task performance by activating negative stereotypes about in group performance

  • creates anxiety that hurts performance

  • most affected:

    • high achieving, highly identified students (who care the most) suffer when the stereotype is made salient

blue eyes and brown eyes

• create “minimal groups”

  • minimal, appearance based groups + negative stereotypes → discrimination

    • “stigmatize” one group by creating negative stereotypes

    • ex: blue eyes get privileges, brown eyes don’t

change in the expression of racial prejudice

• people’s overt willingness to answer yes lessened

• video study - white hand or black hand holding iPod in listing

  • black hands - received less offers

    • less likely to use name in email when reaching out

modern racism scale

• denial of continuing discrimination

• antagonism towards demands

• resentment about special favors

  • sample items

    • discrimination against blacks is no longer a problem in the US

the role of automaticity in intergroup attitudes

• explicit

  • conscious beliefs (self-reports, modern racism scale)

• implicit

  • automatic associations (reaction time tasks)

• very low correlation - usually don’t match

— experiments on race based prejudice - indirect measures and implicit prejudice

• stereotypes & prejudice: automatic and controlled components

• bonafide pipeline

  • variability in automatic activation as an unobtrusive measure of racial attitudes

• on the nature of prejudice

  • automatic and controlled processes

bonafide pipeline study

• supraliminal priming - series of black and white faces

  • after each face, have to do word categorization test

    • recognize word as good/bad

Dovidio - automatic vs. controlled processes

• design & method

  • subliminal priming w/ black, white faces

  • word categorization task

  • participate in a jury-decision task (black defendant)

  • interview w/ black experimenter

    • video taped w/o them knowing

    • all white subjects

  • results

    • priming effects found for positive/negative words related to race of prime

    • no relation between self-reported prejudice and priming effects

    • self-reports related to juridic decisions

      • high score → more likely to convict

    • priming related to non-verbal indicators of arousal (eye contact, blinking, speech errors) during interview

      • high implicit prejudice → less eye contact, more blinking, etc (discomfort)

measuring implicit prejudice/stereotypes: the IAT

dependent variable

• reaction time to pairings of +/- words and stimuli associated with category (ex: faces or names of target group)

correlated with greater amygdala activation to brief flashes of black faces

• linked non conscious threat detection to implicit prejudice

applicant study

• strong - advanced degree

  • strong/weak - no prejudice effect

• ambiguous - degree in related field

  • forced to go back to stereotypic beliefs

  • white people were recommended more than black people

shock game study

• no insult

  • undershocked black victim

• insult

  • delivered more shock to black victim

  • can excuse discrimination on insult, not on race

    • self-deception

conditions under which stereotyping and prejudice are most likely

• high ambiguity

• excessive cognitive demands

  • bc stereotypes are automatic

• situational “excuses” are present

  • ex: insult

• self-esteem is threatened or reduced

  • in group is better than out group

• emotional arousal

  • misattribution

• group (vs. individual) interactions

• unfamiliar vs. familiar targets

  • familiar - have individuating info

eliminating prejudice

• contact hypothesis- doesn’t work unless they have

  • common goals

  • mutual interdependence

  • equal status

  • goal attainment

• ex: Aronson’s “jigsaw classroom”

  • each child had 1/6 of the lesson

  • success required teaching/helping classmates

  • less prejudice, higher grades/attendance

social psych in courtroom and jury room

• social cognition

• persuasion

• group processes

• informational and normative influence

• prejudice and stereotyping

— eyewitness testimony

• erroneous eyewitness testimony is the most frequent cause of false convictions

  • memory is reconstructive - missing info filled in by schemas

• video

  • person steals professor’s bag during lecture

  • 5 mins later, prof brought in thief saying “this is him”

  • prof asks if they think it’s a trick, most students agree

Buckhout’s “staged assault on professor” data

• shoved prof, knocked computer off podium, escaped

• 60% mis-ID rate (6 photos, 7 weeks after incident)

Loftus’ misinformation effect

• stop/yield film where post-event questions resulted in “false memories” - problem of source monitoring

  • info you encounter after event is woven into memory from before event

  • writing about it makes you believe it happens

stop/yield sign study

• all subjects see car stopped at stop sign before crash

  • ½ subjects asked “congruent” question

    • what happened after the car stopped at the stop sign

  • ½ subjects asked “misleading” question

    • what happened after the car stopped at the yield sign

• results

  • 60% of participants falsely remembered the car stopping at a yield sign

false memories

• recalling events that never occurred

• suggestibility and influence studies

  • people can accept memories as true

    • ex: particularly if they imagined writing a story when they were lost in the mall even if they weren’t

source monitoring error

remembering only the factual info and not the origin of the info

• ex: you know George Washington was 1st president, but don’t know where you learned it

reality monitoring error

where imagined memories feel real

eyewitness testimony - how accurate is it?

• relationship between witness accuracy and witness certainty is low

• neither witnesses themselves nor “experts” can distinguish false from accurate memories

• jurors aren’t good at detecing witness lying

— juror reliance on eyewitness testimony

• jurors heavily influenced by eyewitness confidence

  • regardless of having poor vision/bad viewing conditions

• having even one eyewitness → conviction rate ~70%

• hard to distinguish between real and false memories

Wells & Lindsay's staged calculator thefts

• both correct and incorrect witnesses were often believed by jurors

  • poor - no look at face

  • moderate - glance at profile of face

  • good - perpetrator turns to audience - full view of face

can jurors know when it’s inaccurate - details

• witnesses remembering many peripheral details → worse at ID’ing suspect

• divided attention → poorer encoding of suspect

• whom would you be most likely to believe - an eyewitness who could report other details with great precision, or one would could not do so as well

lineup procedure - photo lineup

• case of Dean Gillespie - falsely accused of crime based off eyewitness testimony

  • misleading photo in lineup - stuck out

• foils (innocents) should “resemble” suspect

• suspect and foils should be presented sequentially

  • avoids best guess problem

    • pick person who most closely resembles

• SFP problem - “leading” the eyewitness

lineup instructions and procedure

witness should be unsure if the suspect is present in the lineup

lineup instruction & procedure - effects on false ID

• witness told nothing - make false ID more often when suspect is absent

  • best guess problem - assume suspect is in the lineup

• witness told suspect may or may not be in lineup - prevents best guess problem

  • run lineups with suspect absent

defendant characteristics

• physical attractiveness

• similarity to jurors (similarity-attraction and false consensus effects)

  • both sides want to get jury that favors their argument

• “matching” principle in conviction & sentencing by race - disparity in death penalty cases (race of victim and defendant are both influential factors)

  • black defendants — violent crimes

  • white defendants — financial crimes

• effects occur when evidence is ambiguous or too complex for full comprehension → schemas

effects on judges’ instructions

• disregarding inadmissible testimony and pretrial publicity - priming and paradoxical rebound effects

  • “disregard” testimony/question by eyewitness - suppression → rebound

• legal definitions often fail to match juror “prototypes” of crimes

  • ex: rape - sex without consent

    • mostly committed by people women know

    • prototype — stranger + violence

• subjective determinations of “preponderance of evidence” and “reasonable doubt”

  • reasonable doubt - subjective - could be caused by legalese or cognitive limits

juror variables

• schematization - creating a plausible story for the jury

• personality factors - authoritarianism (conviction rate and sentencing severity)

• quality of evidence is the best predictor of jurors’ verdicts

• group related phenomena

  • minority influence

    • Twelve Angry men

      • murder case - capital punishment (11-1 first vote)

  • group norm formation, conformity, polarization

  • persuasion variables

• juror persuasion relies on logic and emotion

why have juries?

• group recall, collective memory

• forced deliberation → in-depth thinking → central route processing

• diversity of perspectives

• attention focused on all of the evidence rather than selective pieces

• restrains use of inadmissible evidence

• when evidence is unambiguous and can be understood, most juries convict with it

stereotypic information

accurate/inaccurate info about category membership

individuating information

specific member in that category

• ex: math genius woman vs stereotype - bad at math

bonafide pipeline results

• opposite facilitation effects of white/black subjects

  • white ss - white face - good, black face - bad

  • black ss - black face - good, white face - bad

    • good words - in group

    • bad words - out group

• no correlation between self-reported prejudice and facilitation effects

• facilitation scores predicted quality of subsequent interaction w/ black experimenter

  • subjects interviewed by black experimenter

    • black experimenter rated interaction after interview

    • white subjects that had facilitation effect - rated worse

frustration aggression theory - affective

• scapegoating data

  • ex: lower cotton price → more lynchings

realistic group conflict

competition for scarce things → prejudice

evolutionary - adaptive “xenophobia”

• avoiding unfamiliar others for survival

• genes predispose to fear strangers, environment

  • determines whether fear → prejudice

personality - affective

• status needs - social dominance orientation

authoritarian personality - affective

obedience + hostility to difference

• ex: strong leaders must use force, dissenters ‘stop’ or are ‘eliminated’