Social Psychology: Altruism, Prejudice, and the Justice System

A set of vocabulary flashcards derived from social psychology lecture notes focusing on altruism, theories of prejudice, and social cognition within the justice system.

Altruism

Acting to help someone else at some cost to oneself.

Social exchange theory

A rational economic model stating people evaluate costs and benefits to minimize costs and maximize rewards when deciding whether to help.

Reciprocity Norm

A social norm where people feel obligated to help those who have helped them in the past.

Social responsibility Norm

A moral and social obligation to help others if we are able to, regardless of whether they have helped us.

Kin Selection

The evolutionary theory that we are most likely to help those to whom we are most closely related genetically.

Example of Kin Selection

Helping your cousin before helping a stranger, but helping your sibling before helping your cousin.

Why is reciprocity an evolutionary trait?

Evolution has hardwired humans to engage in reciprocity because the only way homo-sapiens were able to survive was by staying together and being a part of a collective.

Explain the Kitty Genovese Incident and its relation to the bystander effect

in 1964 Kitty Genovese was walking home from work to a large apartment complex where she lived. She arrived outside her apartment complex in the early evening with her neighbors inside their apartments and their windows were open. Suddenly, she was attacked, hurt, and repeatedly raped outside of her apartment complex with many bystanders who must have heard the incident. 40 people who lived in the apartment admitted to hearing this but did not do anything to help her (no calling the police or stepping in). This incident highlighted the "bystander effect," where individuals are less likely to help a victim when others are present, as they assume someone else will intervene.

Latane & Darley’s Decision Tree

A model of situational influence identifying steps to helping: noticing the problem, interpreting it as an emergency, and assuming responsibility for giving help.

Explain the smoke filled room study (Darley & Latane, 1968)

Subjects are placed in a room and asked to complete a survey.

Some subjects are placed alone and other subjects are placed with other people.

subjects who were alone reported the smoke after 60 seconds on average, subjects who were with one other person reported the smoke after 80 seconds, and subjects who were in a group of five people took significantly longer to report the smoke (160 seconds).

The less people in a room, the faster someone reported the smoke.

This showed plural ignorance as when others in the room were not responding, subjects assumed the smoke to not be an emergency and did not as quickly

Explain the epileptic seizure phone call experiment

People were taking part in a group phone call.

One of the people on the phone call starts having an epileptic seizure (mispronouncing words, slurring, and eventually passing out).

Half the subjects believe they are having the phone call with just the person having the seizure and the other half of the subjects believe they are having a group phone call varying between 2-4 people.

The subjects who believed they were on the phone with just the person having a seizure, make an attempt to help 80% quicker.

The subjects who believed they were on the phone with others took significantly longer to help the person having a seizure.

This shows the diffusion of responsibility as the more bystanders the subject believes is in on this phone call, the less likely to assume responsibility for helping.

Pluralistic ignorance

The belief that if others are not responding to a situation, it must not be an emergency.

Diffusion of responsibility

The feeling that other bystanders will take responsibility in an emergency, which reduces the likelihood of any one individual helping.

Source Monitoring

The cognitive ability to distinguish the origin of where one encountered specific information.

Bystander effect

The phenomenon where the likelihood of an individual helping is reduced in the presence of other bystanders.

Factors that contribute to the bystander effect

The situation is ambiguous

When bystanders are strangers

Others reactions are difficult to interpret

The number of bystanders increase

Other factors influencing helping behavior

Time pressures

Affective State of potential Helper

Darley & Batson’s “good Samaritan” study and it’s relation to time pressure

A seminarian is someone who performs speeches and sermons for their church.

They study the word of god and interpret the bible.

The seminarians were primed with a sermon about helping thy neighbor and treating those around you as if they were yourself.

The seminarians were then told they had to deliver a homily (speech regarding how the word of god is interpreted in your everyday life).

Half of the seminarians are told you have to get over to the chapel immediately and had no time to waste.

The other half were told the mass just started and have 15 minutes to get to the chapel.

All of the seminarians encounter a man having a heart attack on the street and is asking for help.

None of the seminarians who were in a rush with less time stopped to help the man having a heart attack even when they were primed with the good Samaritan speech.

The seminarians who were not in a rush and had more time stopped to help the man having a heart attack.

Even when all the seminarians were primed with a sermon about caring for thy neighbor, the time pressure was the real factor in deciding if they would help or not.

Guilty Study (Mcmillen & Austins “liars”) and its relation to affective state being a factor of the potential Helper

Half of the subjects were manipulated by the researcher to lie to the experimenter.

The other half of the subjects were not asked to manipulate/lie to the experimenter.

The experimenter then asks all subjects for help with something to see which subjects were more likely to help.

The subjects who lied to the experimenter gave up 50% more of their time to help the experimenter compared to the subjects who did not lie to the experimenter.

The subjects who lied provided additional help to the experimenter, to relieve the cognitive dissonance they felt when they lied to the experimenter.

Negative State Relief Hypothesis

the theory that helping other people helps us feel better about ourselves. When people are sad or their self esteem is threatened, they tend to engage in more helping behavior than those who are not sad or do not feel their self esteem being threatened.

Explain how Positive Affect = Increased Helping

When people are in a positive state or mood, they want to stay in that mood state. So they engage in helping behaviors to sustain their positive state

Additional factors influencing helping behavior

Religiosity

Gender of the helper

Explain how religiosity influences helping behavior

People who are more deeply religious tend to give more help but there is a qualification of situational contexts. (public vs private). Religious people are more likely to help others in public compared to nonreligious people, but do not give any more help compared to people who are nonreligious when in private.

Explain how Gender influences helping behavior

Men are more likely to help compared to women in heroic/ chivalric intervention contexts (one-type interactions with a stranger where that person is in distress)

Women are more likely to help compared to men in long term or committed intervention contexts ( long term interactions with someone in distress)

Chivalric helping

One-time intervention helping often involving a stranger in distress, a behavior most associated with men in certain social contexts.

Committed helping

Long-term intervention or committed care for someone in distress, a behavior most associated with women tasks like community or elderly healthcare.

Batson argues that pure altruism is most likely to come into play when we experience ____ for the person in need

Empathy

Empathy

The ability to experience events and emotions the way another person experiences them; proposed by Batson to override cost considerations in helping.

Explain the Empathy & cost of not helping when costs make no difference Study

Subjects were college students who were randomly assigned to one of two groups

• Group 1: subjects will experience low empathy

• Group 2: subjects experience high empathy

The situation given was about a fellow college student named Carol who was in a terrible car accident that confined her to a wheel chair

Empathy is manipulated by what the subjects were told about carol

• Low empathy group was told carol was in a car accident and she will need help

• The high empathy group was told about Carol's situation and was given personal letters from Carol where she describes the pain she is experiencing, the adverse effects of the medication, and how difficult it was to be in a wheelchair.

Now the groups are also tested based on if the scenario is low or high cost

• Low cost group were told because Carol is in a wheelchair and it is difficult for her to move around, she will no longer be able to attend lectures. (cost is guilt, which is low because they will not have to see or interact with carol if they do not help het)

• High cost group were told Carol will still attend every lecture and position her wheelchair in the front of the lecture hall ( cost is guilt which is high because carol will be present and will see the people who chose to either help or not help her)

In the low empathy group who will see carol (high cost), 75% of people will offer to help

In the low empathy group who will not see carol ( low cost), only 35% of people will offer to help

In the high empathy group who will see carol (high cost), about 80% of people will offer to help

In the high empathy group who will not see carol (low cost), also about 80% of people will offer to help, leaving virtually no significant difference between the groups

This shows that empathy matters more than cost and benefit considerations (social exchange theory)

Target variables influencing helping behavior

Gender: Women are more likely to be helped

Similarly to the potential helper: greater similarity = increased likelihood of helping because we relate and feel more comfortable helping someone who we find similar to us.

Explain the prosocial children and altruism when helping Study (Myers)

Children were randomly assigned to watch a TV show episode with the dependent variable being the amount of time they spend helping the research assistant

• One subject group was assigned to watch Lassie where Lassie the dog is saving someone's life

• The second subject group was assigned to watch Lassie in an episode where lassie does not help or save anyone

• The third subject group was assigned to watch The Brady Bunch comedy TV series that involved no helping behavior, just fiascos.

The children who watched the Lassie episode with the helping behavior (lassie saving someone’s life) helped the research assistant for almost twice as long as the other two subject groups who observed no helping behavior.

This study suggests that witnessing helping behavior can increase our likelihood to help as well

Explain the Seeing good → doing good? study (Schnall, Roper, & Fessler)

This experiment wanted to see the amount of time a person helps the experimenter after watching something that made them feel good

The researchers theorized that maybe elevating people’s mood can increase the likelihood of them helping, instead of those primed with helping behavior.

• One subject group viewed a documentary called “Open ocean” which depicted the wonders of sea life (inspirational)

• The second subject group viewed a comedy show called “Faulty’s family” which followed a man trying to run a hotel and getting into wacky situations. (funny/ comedic)

• The third subject group viewed an episode of The Oprah Winfrey show called “Oprah’s helping” where Oprah spoke to 3 grown men who grew up in the violent intercity life but through the guidance of an older mentor, were able to get out and lead successful lives. (only example with helping behavior)

The people who witnessed the Oprah Winfrey show devoted the most amount of time to helping due to them watching helping behavior which facilitated a greater amount of helping behavior compared to just elevating people’s moods

The cognitive factors of why watching prosocial behavior increases helping

Observational learning: observing people behave in a prosocial way, can demonstrate how to help others and the results/ consequences to helping other people

Priming prosocial schemas: Bringing helping behaviors to the forefront of people's minds can change the way they act

The Affective factors of why watching prosocial behavior increases helping

Moral elevation of mood: a special kind of mood elevation that inspires people to act in a helping manner for the sake of moral elevation

The neurobiological factors of why watching prosocial behavior increases helping

Activation of mirror neurons: mirror neurons can become activated when watching someone else do something. Part of your motor cortex emulates what another person is doing

Increase in trending & befriending hormones: Changes in oxytocin levels can make people more friendly and can contribute to bringing about more social behaviors

Prejudice

A negative attitude toward a socially defined group, and any person perceived to be a member of that group

Stereotypes

The cognitive component of prejudice consisting of beliefs about social groups used to make inferences, predictions, and attributions about individuals.

Stereotypic Information

Information people claim to “know” about a group of people

Individuating information

Specific information about an individual's skills and personality that allows for more accurate judgments than group-based stereotypes.

Discrimination

The behavioral component of prejudice involving differential treatment based on perceived group membership.

Explain the Janet Swim study (1994) and how it relates to stereotype accuracy vs inaccuracy

Studied whether or not the stereotypes between men and women were accurate or inaccurate

Also studied whether men and women overestimate, underestimate, or accurately judge the size of the magnitude of the differences between men and women

Findings showed that people were able to estimate the gender differences accurately, along with the accurate magnitude.

When people did not guess it accurately, they underestimated the gender difference, instead of overestimating it

Why do people prefer individuating information?

You are a more accurate judge of character when you evaluate people’s personalities, skills, and abilities than their stereotype information (race, gender, sex)

When can stereotypes help?

To get a better understanding of why others perceive, act, and react differently from each other, and to form accurate judgments of what people are like. It is also used to dispel any inaccurate assumptions.

Social Source Theories of Prejudice

Unequal status (prejudice as a justifying ideology)

Institutional supports (segregation, education, language, and media)

Conformity to social norms

Social Identity Theory

System Justification Period

an unequal system justifying its inequality by changing the beliefs about the relative superiority and inferiority of social groups to fit the unequal structure of the society.

Explain the Institutional Supports for Prejudice

Segregation: When people are segregated, they never obtain any individuating information and use stereotypes to decide your opinions, which leads to prejudice.

Education: Education is thought to be a safeguard against prejudice, but if prejudice were taught in schools, then it cannot be a safeguard against prejudice. It instead acts as a perpetuation of these stereotypes

Language: if someone repeatedly uses prejudiced language, they will change their attitudes to match the language they use.

Media sources: media portrayals of other groups can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and if others are not exposed to these outgroups outside of the media, that becomes the only information they assume about that out group.

Explain how conformity to social norms relates to prejudice

If being prejudiced is the social norm, then people will act in a prejudiced manner to fit in with the norms of a given society.

Social Identity Theory

The theory that people favor their ingroup and disfavor outgroups to protect and enhance their self-esteem.

Minimal group paradigm

Experimental research showing that people favor their own group even when group membership is based on trivial or arbitrary criteria they would not normally be categorized by

Explain the over-estimators vs. under-estimators study and how it relates to the minimal group paradigm

School boys are asked to watch a video of dots flashing on a screen and guess how many dots are

Then the boys are split into 2 groups based on over or under estimators of the “correct” dot number

All the boys are actually assigned these groups by random assignment because the dot is not actually moving

Now the boys are placed in individual rooms and are asked to allocate funds to two people

One person is an overestimator and the other is an underestimator.

Depending on the group the boy who is making the allocation is in, determines which group gets more or less funds

Ex. The boy allocating the funds is an overestimator, he will give the boy who is also an overestimator more more funds than an underestimator and in fact take away funds from the underestimator ( a sign of discrimination)

This relates to the minimal group paradigm since the boys showed an ingroup bias towards their over or under estimator group when it was an arbitrary group placement

Affective Source Theories of Prejudice

Frustration-aggression Theory

Realistic Group Conflict Theory

Evolutionary Adaptative “xenophobia”

Personality factors

Frustration-aggression Theory

posits that frustration (the perception that you are being prevented from obtaining a goal) will result in an aggressive response towards others or a more convenient target

Explain Frustration-aggression Hovland & Sears “scapegoating” data

In the 1800’s, The numbers of lynching’s in the American south were inversely correlated to the price of cotton. Meaning, the rates of lynching went up when the prices of cotton was down because the farmers and plantation owners could not take their frustration out on the market, so they took their aggression out on an accessible easier target which was slaves.

Realistic Group Conflict Theory

the idea that the goods in society (privilege, wealth, status, power) are limited and the gain of one group’s social category is the loss of another group's social category

Evolutionary Adaptative “xenophobia”

the fear of unfamiliar people may be an evolutionary and adaptive part of humans. Human ancestors who survived most likely stayed within their own tribe as it was the safest and those who risked their lives going outside the tribe died and did not pass on their genes. People are now more genetically hardwired to acquire prejudice.

The Personality Factors that contribute to prejudice

Social dominance orientation and Authoritarian personality

Social dominance orientation

An anti-egalitarian perspective held by individuals who feel comfortable with social inequality and believe it is necessary for society.

Authoritarian personality

A personality type that views those different from themselves as a threat and believes society requires strict uniformity imposed by authority.

The cognitive Source Theories to Prejudice

Categorization & Stereotyping

Out group Homogeneity Effect

Accentuation

Illusory correlation & confirmation bias

Similarity-Attraction & group polarization

Ultimate Attribution Error

Categorization & Stereotyping

people automatically create schemas (the characteristics associated with that category) which we use to influence judgements and our perceptions of what the other person is going to be like.

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

The tendency to view members of outgroups as more similar to each other than they actually are.

Accentuation

The tendency to overestimate between group differences. People like to create contrast between groups and to use categories as they keep our minds in order.

Illusory correlation

Perceiving a relationship between two variables, such as a minority group and a negative behavior, when no such relationship actually exists.

Confirmation bias

The tendency to process information by looking for or interpreting data that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs.

Explain the Hamilton & Giffords group A/B Study and how it relates to illusory correlation and confirmation bias

Half of the subjects were given 10 examples of group A’s behavior (8 good and 2 bad behaviors)

The other half of the subjects were given 20 examples of group B’s behavior (16 good and 4 bad behaviors)

The ratio between the groups behaviors was the same (4:1) but the subjects with group A rated them more unfavorably compared to the ratings for group B

The fewer overall instances made more of an impact on people’s judgements of the group.

This ties back to prejudice because people have more instances/ interactions of in group behavior than out group behavior. So when bad behavior is committed by an out group, it is enough to influence our judgments about that group.

This ties into illusory correlation because people start seeing a correlation between the one instance of bad behavior and the out group when the correlation is not really there.

This ties into confirmation bias by showing how people create a false association between a group and a behavior, and then, due to the distinctiveness of that information, overemphasize it to form a biased, stereotypical impression

Similarity-Attraction & group polarization

people who are high in prejudice tend to spend time with other highly prejudiced people. People low in prejudice tend to spend more time with other low prejudiced people. The same “type” of people are attracted to each other due to similarity (similarity attraction) and when you're with a group of people who also agree with your opinion, it skews your opinion more heavily in that direction (group polarization).

Ultimate Attribution Error

Mistakenly attributing an outgroup's successes to external factors and their failures to internal, dispositional factors.

sustaining interactive source Theories of Prejudice

Self fulfilling prophecy

Internalization of negative stereotypes

Stereotype Threat

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A psychological phenomenon where an initially false expectation leads to behaviors that cause the expectation to come true.

Explain clack & Clarks doll preference study and its relation to Internalization of negative stereotypes

black children were given the opportunity to choose between a white doll and a black doll.

The children the majority of the time chose a white doll.

When asked why, the children stated that the white doll was better than the black doll because white is better.

This case study was used in Brown v. Board of Education to show that separate is not equal and negative stereotypes were being internalized by black children.

Stereotype Threat

The anxiety felt by individuals in situations where they fear their performance will confirm a negative stereotype about their ingroup.

Explain the Change in the expression of racial prejudice from 1963-1997

In 1963 people were polled and asked “if a black family were to move into your neighborhood, would you move and would you do something to keep them out?”

• 80% in of people in the 1963 said they would move and 55% said they would do something about it

• As decades pass, the statistics go down for moving and for doing something to keep them out. It is important to note that it became illegal to prevent people from moving in based on racial discrimination.

It is also important to note that even though the questionnaire is anonymous to prevent lying, self deception could still happen.

Explain the hand holding a phone study and its relation to prejudice

This study used in vivo data by placing an ad online to sell an iPod using a white hand, a black hand, and a white hand with tattoos.

The black hand received 17% fewer responses to the ad compared to the white hand

The tattooed hand did just as bad as the black hand

70% of people were less likely to use their name when contacting the black seller and 56% more likely to be concerned about making a long distance payment.

This study tested what people would actually do and was a more indirect way to see if prejudice would occur

Modern racism scale

A subtle self-report measure of prejudice that assesses explicit attitudes towards prejudice, discrimination, and attitudes.

Explicit (conscious) attitudes

the beliefs and feelings that we are consciously aware of that can be measured on the modern racism scale

Implicit (non-conscious) attitudes

Unconscious beliefs and feelings that are not accessible through conscious awareness but can be measured through tests like the Implicit Association Test (IAT).

Explain The Variability in Automatic Activation as an Unobtrusive Measure of Racial Attitudes study (Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995)

Subjects were primed superluminally with black and white faces and told this was a memory test to see if they remember the faces

Subjects are also told that after each face, they are going to see a word flashed on the screen and have to recognize and categorize the word as good or bad (opposite facilitation)

On average, white subjects were able to recognize good words faster when it followed a white face and bad words faster when it followed a black face.

The opposite effect happened with black subjects

This is a test of implicit attitudes because when tested on the moderate racism scale beforehand, there was no correlation between the scores from the scale and the white and black face association test because the moderate racism scale only can test for explicit biases.

After the subjects did the word pairing, they were interviewed briefly by a black experimenter and he rated the quality of the interaction

The facilitation scores predicted the quality of the interaction with the experimenter

Those who associated white faces with good words and black faces as bad words received a worse rating from the black experimenter.

Opposite facilitation

how quickly and accurately someone can identify a word and place it in the correct category.

Explain “On the Nature of Prejudice: Automatic and Controlled Processes” study (Dovidio, Kawakami, Johnson, Johnson & Howard, 1997)

This experiment had a similar setup as the previous experiment, using black and white faces with good or bad word associations, but this time the faces were subliminal, happening at a 20th of a second. So the subjects do not know they are seeing a white or black face before making the word associations, they just see a blur.

In addition, the participants are going to participate in a Jury decision task after the word association test where the defendant is black

Finally, they will be interviewed after everything by a black experimenter

Subjects who took the modern racism scores (the explicit test on racism taken beforehand) and scored highly were correlated to the Jury decision subjects as they were more likely to convict the black defendant

Subjects who were interviewed by the black experimenter and tested for a strong facilitation effect, were very likely to feel discomfort

So those who had high levels of implicit bias showed more physical measures of discomfort (avoiding eye contact, less smiling, fidgeting)

Moral of the study: explicit attitude tests can predict outward decisions such as Jury decisions and deliberate thought, and implicit attitude tests can predict unconscious signs of discomfort

Explain the relationship between The Implicit Association Test and the amygdala

The amygdala becomes active when experiencing a negative feeling and negativity in the amygdala corresponds to IAT scores

Those who score higher in implicit prejudice show a stronger amygdala reaction

Explain the Expression of prejudice: Interpreting Social Ambiguity Study (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000) and its relation to ambiguity in prejudice

White and black applications were sent in for a job and the applications all varied from strong, weak, or ambiguous in qualification level.

Black and white candidates with strong applications showed no significant difference because both groups are strongly qualified and race no longer is a factor

Black and white candidates with weak applications also showed no significant difference because both groups are weakly qualified

When black and white candidates with ambiguous applications showed a significant difference with strong preference for white candidates over black candidates

The reason for ambiguity playing such a large factor because it forces us to rely on our schemas and use stereotypical beliefs to use as our judgements

Another reason is the good and bad applicants have individuating information that helps determine if they are good or bad candidates. Ambiguous candidates have unclear information whether they are good at the job or not so they rely on schemas

Explain the Expression of prejudice: Aggression when “Justified” Study (rogers & Prentice-Dunn, 1981) and its relation to aggression in prejudice

Half the subjects overhear an insult from a research assistant who is either white or black

The other half of the subjects don't over hear an insult

All the subjects are given the opportunity to administer a shock to the same research confederate who either said an insult or did not say not

For the subjects who heard no insult, they were more likely to shock the white confederate for longer and at a higher voltage and showed more favoritism to the black confederate (on average 10 more volts at a low voltage level)

For the subjects who heard the insult, more of the subjects shocked the black confederate at a higher intensity and for longer periods of time (on average 20 more volts on a high voltage level)

The subjects in the insult condition can justify their aggression towards the black researcher because of the insult and believe they are not discrimination based on race.

In Conclusion, If people are able to write off their aggression as something other than prejudice, they'll be more likely to engage in it.

Conditions under which stereotyping & prejudice are most likely

When ambiguity is high

Excessive cognitive demands

Situational “excuses” are present

When self-esteem is threatened or reduced

Emotional arousal

Group (vs. individual) interactions

Unfamiliar vs. familiar targets

The contact hypothesis

suggests that interpersonal contact between members of different groups, under specific optimal conditions, is one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination

The optimal conditions the contact hypothesis can occur under

Common goals: the group is trying to achieve the same goals

Mutual interdependence: the groups are dependent on each other for aid

Equal status: the groups are equal and not ranked above/ below each other

Goal attainment: the goal they are striving to achieve is possible through working together

Explain Aronson’s “Jigsaw Classroom” and contact hypothesis

elementary school children are split up into six groups of 5 kids each with diverse groups

Each group was responsible for mastering or being knowledgeable in one of the subject areas given

Then the groups picked one student from each group to be the “expert”

The experts from each group took turns going around the room, teaching the other groups the subject area they mastered

The only way for all the kids to understand all the subject areas was to work together and give each other the needed information

The jigsaw experiment provides optimal conditions for the children to work under which reduced prejudice (common goals, mutual interdependence, equal status, and goal attainment)

Social psychological Factors in the court room and the jury room

Social Cognition: everything we know about the social mind and how it works has to do with court room settings

Persuasion: the prosecutor is trying to persuade the jury there is no reasonable doubt of the claim presented, and the defendant is trying to convince the Jury of the opposite.

Group Processes: When a Jury has to make a decision, is it not typically unanimous amongst all jurors and group processes like group polarization can take place

Informational and Normative Influence: it is ideal that informational influence is the primary source of influence the jurors use to make decisions in a court case, but a jury is composed of 12 people who may not know the difference between normative or informational influence, leading them to make decisions based on normative influences.

Prejudice and Stereotyping: people will often rely on their schemas and beliefs based on prejudice and stereotype attitudes

The most frequent cause of false convictions

erroneous eyewitness testimony because people often only have some features of the person correctly which leaves them to rely on their schemas to add or assume incorrect information.

One of the most important components of case that can sway the verdict

An eyewitness testimony

Explain Buckhout’s “staged assault on professor”

During a lecture someone ran up to the lecture stage, shoved the professor out the way and knocked the computer down before running out the door.

Then students who witnessed this were asked to go to the campus police and were asked to look at photos to and try identifying the suspect 7 weeks later

60% of students misidentified the suspect from the photo lineup

Loftus Misinformation Effect

When information encountered after an event becomes woven into an individual's memory, leading to incorrect recall of the original event.

Explain Loftus misinformation Effect Stop sign Study

Subjects all watched a video of a car stop at a stop sign and get into a car accident once they continued driving

Half the subjects are asked a congruent question (a question that aligns with what actually happened) “what happened after the car stopped at the stop sign?”

The other half of the subjects were asked a misleading question “what happened after the car stopped at the yield sign?”

Then all the subjects are asked the final question “Did the car stop at a stop or a yield sign?”

When subjects were asked the congruent question then asked the final question, over 70% of them said stop sign

When the subjects were asked the misleading question then asked the final question, about 60% of them said yield sign.

When question contents contradicted what they had actually seen, it led them to misremember what they had originally seen.

False memories

Recalling events that in fact never occurred

Source Monitoring error

occurs when we are not able to distinguish between where we encountered the information and what the information was

Example of source monitoring

Everyone knows George Washington was the first president, but people don't typically know where they first heard that information because the information itself was more important than the one who said it.

Reality monitoring error

A mistake in which an individual remembers what they imagined happened rather than what actually occurred.

The relationship between witness accuracy and witness certainty (confidence)

very low with a weak positive correlation, meaning eye witnesses tend to be way more confident than they are accurate

Best guess problem

The issue in simultaneous lineups where a witness picks the person who most closely resembles their memory of the suspect, even if the actual suspect is not present.

Paradoxical rebound effect

The phenomenon where attempting to suppress a thought makes it more likely to surface when the mind is fatigued or occupied.