social psych final

social exchange theory

- to minimize costs and maximize rewards (almost an economic theory)

norm theory

- consists of the reciprocity norm and the social responsibility norm

reciprocity norm

- we are obliged to help people who have helped us in similar ways

- ex. if you help lend me $5 i'll lend you $10 but not $50K so some level of parody here

social responsibility norm

- if we have the ability to help someone, we have the responsibility to do so

- universal across cultures and religions

evolutionary theory

consists of reciprocity and kin selection

kin selection

- much more likely to help someone who is closely genetically related to you

- rationale: much more likely to carry out/propagate our genes by helping parents, siblings, kids

reciprocity

- historically homo sapiens needed other people to survive

- if you were rejected by the group you couldn't survive

- too selfish = steal too many resources from others

- too giving = easy to be exploited

- reciprocity is MUTUAL EXCHANGE

kitty genovese incident (bystander effect)

- kitty genovese was a young woman who was stabbed in an open area near her house

- people were awake & windows opened

- no one called the police so she was raped and stabbed for 45 minutes

bystander effect

- the more people are present, the less likely any one of them is likely to get involved

- textbook definition: the likelihood of a given individual helping is reduced in the presence of bystanders

bystander effect STUDY

more bystanders/people in the room -> time it took to get help increase

factors impacting the bystander effect

more likely to happen when:

- situation = ambiguous

- there's a high # of ppl

- bystanders are strangers

- other's ppl's reactions are hard to interpret

latane & darley's "decision tree" model of situational influence

- noticing the problem

- interpreting the incident as a need for help

- assuming responsibility for giving help

diffusion of responsibility

- the more people there are, each person feels less responsible in the situation

- suspected issue in the kitty genovese incident

- relates directly to the third link in the decision tree

pluralistic ignorance

the belief that if others are not responding, it must not be an emergency

darley & batson's "good samaritan" seminarians

- only some of the priests who were on time constraints actually helped while 100% of the priests who had time helped

- takeaway: amount of spare time is a major factor in determining whether someone would help

- religiosity leads to more helping behavior than religious ppl but only IN PUBLIC

negative state relief hypothesis

- the more sadness one experiences/reduced self-esteem -> more helping behavior exhibited

mcMillen & austin's liars

- person who lies to experimenter gives 2x as much, on average, than ppl who were asked to tell the truth to the experimenter

- takeaway: affective state of potential helper (ex. guilt) can greatly influence helping behavior

gender of helper

- men help more than women do in experimental studies

- men more likely to help in heroic ways

- women more likely to help in long-term ways

empathy in the population

- empathy distributed in the population like a bell curve

- some ppl have very lil and others have loads

carol wheelchair study

?? (idk what this is)

prosocial behavior

- like aggression can be increased by viewing others engaged in it

- ex. experimenter showed lassie (dog show) helping video, regular lassie video, and brady bunch

- takeaway: watching helping behavior increased the time spend helping over other two shows

prosocial behavior schnall, roper, & fessler (2010) STUDY

- experimenter showed 3 grps of ppl 3 shows: open ocean, faulty towers, or oprah helping episode

- ppl who watched oprah helping episode increased time helping

- takeaway: demonstrating helping behavior more effective than just putting ppl in a good mood

cognitive factors of prosocial STUDY

- observational learning

- priming pro-social schemas

affective factors of prosocial STUDY

"moral elevation of mood"

neurological factors of prosocial STUDY

- activating mirror neurons (shown to be effective in rhesus monkeys)

- increase in befriending hormones (higher levels of oxytocin in those who help)

prejudice

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

- key words: attitude, socially defined, perceived

cheat sheet for social biases

- prejudice = affective

- stereotype = cognitive

- discrimination = affective

stereotypes

- cognitive component of biases

- beliefs ppl have abt social groups used to make inferences, predictions, and attributions abt individuals

- even if wrong, ppl tend to believe these strongly

- stereotypes = schemas (help bc we're cognitive misers)

stereotypic info

- beliefs abt groups but only used when there's no individuating info

individuating information

- specific info abt a person that may or may not fit w/ a group

- ppl use this when available -> resort to stereotypes when its not

- ex. believe on average that women are worse at math but wouldn't believe that a woman is dumb if she has an 800 math SAT

discrimination

- differential treatment based on perceived group membership

- behavioral component of bias

- feelings, beliefs, and actions have a great deal of congruency

- consists of treating the ingroup > outgroup

swim (1994) STUDY

- gender stereotypes are generally accurate

- when not, ppl usually underestimate gender differences

- generally accurate abt magnitude of differences

metanalysis STUDY of gender differences

- most stereotypes accurate

- only stereotypes that are inaccurate are national stereotypes

- ex. italians are mobsters, germans are uptight

evaluative tone

- positive vs negative stereotypes

- are you perceived as being better at smth or worse

unequal status

- prejudice as a justifying ideology

- has to do w/ cognitive dissonance

- "ppl face unequal suffering bc they are acc below us"

institutional supports

- segregation (happens naturally but leads to lack of knowledge abt other groups)

- education

- language (using slurs will make you more prejudiced; self-perception/cognitive dissonance)

- media (sometimes ppl's only source of info on other groups)

social identity theory (Tajfel)

- group identity serves self-esteem needs (part of your self worth)

- ex. if we identified even/odd number seats in class & give rewards to random ppl -> give rewards to ppl in your ingroup

- view in-group members as extensions of ourselves

in-group bias (wilder)

- minimal group paradigm necessary to produce in-group bias

- ex. "overestimators" v. "underestimators"

- even if groups are inane/inconsequential -> still produces discerning behavior

hovland & sears scapegoating STUDY

- when the price of cotton is low -> less lynching but opposite if crop price is high

- takeaway: frustration is a sufficient cause for scapegoating behavior

realistic group conflict theory

- the theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources

- evolutionary basis bc dangerous to stray from tribe & need to compete w/ other tribes to survive

- also considered "adaptive xenophobia"

- personality factors can impact this

status needs (pratto & sidanius) STUDY

- basically just developed social dominance orientation & authoritarian personality tests

outgroup homogeneity effect

- all ppl in the outgroup are similar to each other physicall/mentally

- "they all look the same to me"

accentuation

- overestimate between group differences

ultimate attribution error

- inclination that outgroup success is external and outgroup failures are internal

- ties to social identity theory (ingroup is successful bc of personal qualities -> we have good personal qualities)

- self-fulfilling prophecy component

clark and clark's doll preference STUDY

- young black kids asked to pick between white and black dolls -> many picked the white dolls and called black dolls ugly

- takeaway: continued discrimination can lead to internalization of negative stereotypes

modern racism scale

- identifies 3 key components of racism

- denial of continued discrimination ("discrimination against blacks is not a problem in the US")

- antagonism towards demands ("blacks are too demanding for equal rights")

- resentment abt special favor ("blacks have gotten more economically than they deserve")

different attitudes

- implicit (non-conscious) attitudes

- explicit (conscious) attitudes

- weak positive correlation btwn the two

- takeaway: you can't tell implicit attitudes from explicit attitudes

devine (1989) stereotypes STUDY

- activation of stereotypes is the same in high/low prejuediced individuals

- takeaway: clocking a stereotype is an automatic process

fazio et. al implicit biases STUDY

- interested in how fast ppl responded to bad/good words based on the race shown

- ppl classified good word faster if followed by white face & classified bad word faster if followed by a black face

- no correlation btwn scores on modern racism scale and facilitation effects

dovidio et. al implicit biases STUDY

- basically the fazio study but instead of supraliminal faces it's subliminal faces (flashed before conscious can process)

- priming effects found for positive and negative words related to race of price

- no relation to self-reported prejudice

related concepts of dovidio STUDY

- self report related to jury decisions bc it's a conscious process so necessary to check before assembling a jury

- priming related to non-verbal indicators of arousal (it's the feeling you can't quite grasp but it's uncomfortable)

dovidio & gardner (2000) hiring STUDY

- when applicants are strongly/weakly qualified, little to no difference in hiring decisions

- small difference favoring black ppl but not statistically significant

- when candidate ambiguously qualified, white ppl hired more than black ppl

- takeaway: schemas are used when there is no individuating information

situational factors of stereot

- more likely to stereotype when:

- highly ambigious situtation

- excessive cognitive demands (law of least effort)

- situational excuses (scapegoats) present

- when self-esteem threatened/reduced

- emotional arousal high

- group v individual interactions (more stereotypes btwn 2 diff groups v 2 diff ppl)

- when there is low familiarity (no individuating info)

eyewitness mistakes

- erroneous eyewitness testimony is the most frequent cause of wrongful convictions

- investigators can (un)knowingly influence eyewitness testimony

buckhout's "staged assault on prof" STUDY

- Ss asked 6-7 weeks later to identify assaulter from a lineup of 6 photos

- 60% misidentification rate

loftus misinformation effect

-occurs when post-event info get erroneously intertwined w/ memory of the event itself

- results in false memories

- follows the lost in the mall experiment where they planted a false memory of ppl being lost in the mall in childhood

- takeaway: person's subjective feelings abt an event is not an accurate guide to whether it's real or not

- memory is reconstructive/malleable

source monitoring error

- when you remember the info but not where and when you encountered it

car and sign questions STUDY

- all Ss saw car stop @ stop sign & asked a question -> asked weeks later where car stopped

- congruent question: what happened after the car stopped at the stop sign

- misleading question: what happened after the car stopped at the yield sign

false memories

- recalling events that in fact never occurred

- individuals who once accepted as true certain memories that they now believe to be false ???

reality monitoring error

- misattributing memories to the wrong source of experience

- neither witnesses nor experts can distinguish fake from accurate memory

- jurors not good @ identifying a lying witness

juror study

- shows juror reliance on eyewitness testimony and perception of accuracy

- poor viewing conditions -> not full frontal view, bad lighting, further

- good viewing conditions -> full frontal view, good lighting, close to them

eyewitness mistakes 2

- eyewitness testimony increases the jury's rate of conviction even when the witness is LEGALLY BLIND !!

- human observors have no ability to discern eyewitnesses who have mistakenly identified an innocent person

- those who attend more closely to other details are more likely to misidentify another subject

lineup procedures to be used for accuracy

- foils should "resemble" suspect

- foils should be presented sequentially to avoid best guess problem (most important)

- use double-blind method to avoid self-fulfilling prophecy

effects of false identification STUDY

- when witnesses given info abt the lineup, much less likely to make a false identification

- especially helpful when the suspect isn't in the lineup

- takeaway: informed decisions abt whether suspect is in the lineup helps decisionmaking

defendant characteristic - attractiveness

- higher physical attractiveness -> less likely to get a conviction

defendant characteristics - similarity to jurors

- similarity attraction

- false consensus effect

- getting a jury similar to defendant is a benefit

- ex. if an indicated sex criminal seems like you -> "not likely to do it"

defendant characteristic - race

- matching principle in conviction/sentencing by race

- ex. convict more white ppl for white collar crimes & black ppl for property damage/violence

- disparity in death penalty cases (race of victim/defendant important)

defendant characteristics impact

- effects occur when evidence/case is ambiguous or too complex for full comprehension

judges' instruction

- lay person translation of the actual law/crime defendant is accused of

- "ignore what has been said; it's inadmissible"

judges' instructions - testimony

- disregarding inadmissible testimony and pretrial publicity

- v important for ppl to focus on what's acc happening inside court

judges' instructions - legal definitions

- need instruction when legal definitions often fail to match juror "prototypes" of crimes

- ex. rape not j an aggresive stranger physically forcing someone to have sex -> can also be a relative, husband, etc.

judges' instructions - burden of proof

- subjective determinations of "preponderance" or "beyond reasonable doubt"

- once again ppl have diff definitions

schematization

- creating a plausible story for the jury

- narrative story abt what happened

- opening statements used for this (focused on emotions not facts)

personality factors on sentencing

- ppl high in authoritarianism -> much more likely to convict/give harsher sentences

- smth v punitive abt them (tend to perceive anyone different as a threat so must treat them punitively)

what is the best predictor of a jury verdict?

- the quality of evidence

- may be exceptions to this but legal scholars made this determination from large samples (unbiased)

group related phenomena - minority influence

- consider how do they help change minds? (ex. 12 angry men)

- however, the most likely scenario when there's only one dissenter is that they'll agree w/ the majority decision

group related phenomena - behavior

- in 12 angry men many jurors willing to capitulate to normative influence

- "i don't know why i just believe he's guilty" after everyone expressed that opinion

benefits of a jury (why not a judge)

- forcing deliberation requires in-depth thinking

- more central route (systematic processing) is increased

- representativeness/diversity of perspectives (each person brings a special knowledge/info to jury room)

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

- group recall > individual memory (transactive memory almost always superior)