Psyc 124 Midterm 2

Racism

Prejudice and discrimination based on a person's racial background, or institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one racial group over another. The modern forms of racism sometimes operate consciously but more frequently operate outside people's conscious awareness. Racism operates unconsciously and unintentionally implicit racism. In just about any setting, examples of subtle but impactful racial discrimination, which often operates implicitly, can be found.

Sexism

Prejudice and discrimination based on a person's gender, or institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one gender over another.

Stereotype

A belief or association that links a whole group of people with certain traits or characteristics.

Prejudice

Negative feelings toward persons based on their membership in certain groups.

Discrimination

Behaviour directed against persons because of their membership in a particular group.

Implicit racism

Racism that operates unconsciously and unintentionally.

False

Interracial interactions tend to go better and to reduce the perceptions of racism if a color-blind mentality is used, which denies or minimizes any acknowledgment of racial differences.

Ambivalent sexism

A form of sexism characterized by attitudes about women that reflect both negative, resentful beliefs and feelings and affectionate and chivalrous but potentially patronizing beliefs and feelings (e.g., "Women seek special favours under the guise of equality"), and benevolent sexism, characterized by affectionate, chivalrous feelings founded on the potentially patronizing belief that women need and deserve protection (e.g., "Women should be cherished and protected by men").

Stigmatized

Being persistently stereotyped, perceived as deviant, and devalued in society because of membership in a particular social group or because of a particular characteristic.

Stereotype Threat

Steele proposed that in situations where a negative stereotype can apply to certain groups, members of these groups can fear being seen "through the lens of diminishing stereotypes and low expectations".

Steele (1997) called this predicament stereotype threat, for it hangs like "a threat in the air" when the individual is in the stereotype-relevant situation.

Steele argued that stereotype threat plays a crucial role in influencing the intellectual performance and identity of stereotyped group members. He later broadened the scope of his analysis to include social identity threats more generally.

These threats are not necessarily tied to specific stereotypes but instead reflect a more general devaluing of a person's social group.

According to Steele's theory, stereotype threat can hamper achievement in academic domains in two ways. First, reactions to the "threat in the air" can directly interfere with performance—for example, by increasing anxiety and triggering distracting thoughts.

Second, if this stereotype threat is chronic in the academic domain, it can cause individuals to disidentify from that domain—to dismiss the domain as no longer relevant to their self-esteem and identity.

Stereotype Threat: The experience of concern about being evaluated based on negative stereotypes about one's group.

is the fear that one will be reduced to a stereotype in the eyes of others

Social Categorization

The classification of persons into groups on the basis of common attributes.

Ingroup

Groups with which an individual feels a sense of membership, belonging, and identity.

Outgroups

Groups with which an individual does not feel a sense of membership, belonging, or identity.

Outgroup homogeneity effect

The tendency to assume that there is greater similarity among members of outgroups than among members of ingroups.

Dehumanizing Outgroups

People may not only process outgroup faces more superficially but also sometimes process them more like objects and lower order animals than like fellow humans. Dehumanization has played a role in atrocities throughout history, such as in the Nazi propaganda that characterized the Jews in Germany as disease-spreading rats and blacks as half apes.

Terror Management Theory

people cope with the fear of their own death by constructing worldviews that help preserve their important values.

Being reminded of one's own mortality makes people put things into greater perspective, thereby tending to reduce ingroup/outgroup distinctions and hostilities

False

System justification theory

A theory that proposes that people are motivated (at least in part) to defend and justify the existing social, political, and economic conditions.

Social dominance orientation

A desire to see one's ingroup as dominant over other groups and a willingness to adopt cultural values that facilitate oppression over other groups.

Relative deprivation

the belief that they fare poorly compared with others.

People may become resentful of other groups because of a sense of relative deprivation belief that one fares poorly in relation to others.

Even if not personally threatened, perceptions of threat to an ingroup can trigger prejudice.

Feelings of discontent aroused by the belief that one fares poorly compared with others.

Superordinate goal

A shared goal that can be achieved only through cooperation among individuals or groups.

Realistic conflict theory

The theory that hostility between groups is caused by direct competition for limited resources.

social identity theory

According to this theory each of us strives to enhance our self-esteem, which has two components:
(1) a personal identity and
(2) various collective or social identities that are based on the groups to which we belong.

Two basic predictions arose from social identity theory:
(1) Threats to one's self-esteem heighten the need for ingroup favoritism, and
(2) expressions of ingroup favoritism enhance one's self-esteem

social identity theory is based on our very natural tendency to do three things:
- We find it useful to CATEGORIZE things.
- We find it useful to IDENTIFY and associate ourselves with certain groups. (E.g. "I'm a male")
- We find it useful to COMPARE and CONTRAST our groups with other groups, with a favorable bias towards our own group.

ingroup favoritism

participants consistently allocated more points to members of their own group than to members of the other group.

The tendency to discriminate in favour of ingroups over outgroups

Social identity theory

According to social identity theory, people strive to enhance self-esteem, which has two components: a personal identity and various social identities that derive from the groups to which we belong. Thus, people may boost their self-esteem by viewing their ingroups more favorably than outgroups.

The theory that people favor ingroups over outgroups in order to enhance their self-esteem.

Collectivists

are more likely than individualists to value their connectedness and interdependence with the people and groups around them, and their personal identities are tied closely with their social identities.

do show some biases favoring their ingroups—indeed, being oriented strongly toward one's ingroup can be highly valued in their cultures—and may draw sharper distinctions between ingroup and outgroup members than individualists do.

Socialization

refers to the processes by which people learn the norms, rules, and information of a culture or group. We learn a tremendous amount of information (often without even realizing it) by absorbing what we see around us in our culture, groups, and families.

Social Role Theory

According to Alice Eagly's the perception of sex differences may be based on some real differences, it is magnified by the unequal social roles that men and women occupy.

The process involves three steps:
First, through a combination of biological and social factors, a division of labor between the sexes has emerged over time both at home and in the work setting.
Second, since people behave in ways that fit the roles they play, men are more likely than women to wield physical, social, and economic power.
Third, these behavioral differences in turn contribute to the perception of men as dominant and women as domestic "by nature" when in fact the differences may merely reflect the roles they play.

stereotype content model

In addition to seeing which groups of people occupy what roles in society, we also see how various groups are viewed in society along particular dimensions

According to the stereotype content model, many group stereotypes vary along two dimensions in particular: warmth and competence.

The stereotype content model proposes that stereotypes about the competence of a group are influenced by the relative status of that group in society—higher status is associated with higher competence.

Stereotypes about the warmth of a group are influenced by perceived competition with the group—greater perceived competition is associated with lower warmth.

For example, a wave of immigrants who enter a country with low status but are seen as competing for jobs and resources may be perceived as low in both competence and warmth.

How Stereotypes Survive

Ø And once established, stereotypes are easy to maintain, even becoming self-perpetuating
Ø Conformation bise (subtyping)
Ø Obama is different other black people
Ø Some of the consequences of ingroup-outgroup perception include the tendency to:
1. perceive members of the outgroup as more homogenous, as more alike than different
Ø referred to as the outgroup homogeneity effect
2. perceive members of the ingroup as more heterogenous, as more different than alike
Ø We tend to draw illusory correlations, i.e., to perceive certain characteristics as going together (e.g., tall people are smart, heavy people are jolly),
Ø The attributions we make about other people can reinforce our cognitions about others
Ø Subtyping effects
Ø Confirmation biases occur when we pay attention to information that confirms our biases and discount information that does not
Ø Self-fulfilling prophecies occurs when the other person becomes the person we think them to be

illusory correlation

An overestimate of the association between variables that are only slightly or not at all correlated.

Subliminal Presentation

A method of presenting stimuli so faintly or rapidly that people do not have any conscious awareness of having been exposed to them.

People's very quick judgments are not influenced by a stereotype unless they actually believe the stereotype to be true.

False

Intergroup Contact

which states that under certain conditions, direct contact between members of rival groups will reduce intergroup prejudice.

Contact hypothesis

The theory that direct contact between hostile groups will reduce intergroup prejudice under certain conditions.

Jigsaw classroom

A cooperative learning method used to reduce racial prejudice through interaction in group efforts.

Children do not tend to show biases based on race; it is only after they become adolescents that they learn to respond to people differently based on race.

False -Childten learn about social categories quite early and use stereotypes when they are very young. Children show biases in favor of their racial ingroup on both explicit and implicit measures.

Interracial interactions tend to go better and to reduce the perceptions of racism if a color-blind mentality is used, which denies or minimizes any acknowledgment of racial differences.

False-Research has shown that this approach often backfires and makes members of racial minority groups more rather than less uncomfortable; a multicultural approach that acknowledges and positively values racial and ethnic differences is often more effective

An African American student is likely to perform worse on an athletic task if the task is described as one reflecting sports intelligence than if it is described as reflecting natural athletic ability.

True -Research suggests that African American students are likely to experience stereotype threat and therefore underperform if the task is described as one that is diagnostic of their sports intelligence. White students tend to show the opposite effect: Their performance is worse if the task is described as reflecting natural athletic ability.

Being reminded of one's own mortality makes people put things into greater perspective, thereby tending to reduce ingroup/outgroup distinctions and hostilities.

False-Research has shown that when people feel threatened by thoughts of their own mortality, they tend to seek greater affiliation with their ingroups and exhibit greater prejudice against outgroups, in part to reaffirm their sense of place and purpose in the world.

People's very quick judgments are not influenced by a stereotype unless they actually believe the stereotype to be true.

Even very brief exposure to a member of a stereotyped group can activate the stereotype about the group, even if the person does not believe the stereotype. False

ABC's

Prejudice = Affect/Feelings
"negative feelings about others because of their connection to a social group" (2021, p. 156)
Discrimination = Behaviour
"behaviors--specifically negative behaviors
directed against persons because of their
membership in a particular group" (2021, p. 156)
Stereotypes = Cognition
"beliefs or associations that link whole groups of
people with certain traits or characteristics" (2021. p. 156); overgeneralizations that can be more or less true (and could be positive)

Attitudes

An attitude is a positive, negative, or mixed evaluation of an object that is expressed at some level of intensity—nothing more, nothing less.
Attitudes can vary in strength along both positive and negative dimensions. In other words, we can react to something with positive affect, negative affect, ambivalence (mixed emotions), or apathy and indifference.

Attitude Scale

A multiple-item questionnaire designed to measure a person's attitude toward some object

Bogus Pipeline

A phony lie detector device that is sometimes used to get respondents to give truthful answers to sensitive
questions.

Facial electromyograph (EMG)

An electronic instrument that records facial muscle activity associated with emotions and attitudes.

Implicit Association Test

A covert measure of unconscious attitudes derived from the speed at which people respond to pairings of concepts—such as black or white with good or bad.

Evaluative conditioning

The process by which we form an attitude toward a neutral stimulus because of its association with a positive or negative person, place, or thing.
shown that implicit and explicit attitudes toward neutral objects can form by their association with positive and negative stimuli, even in people who are not aware of this association.
That's why political leaders all over the world wrap themselves in a national flag to derive a benefit from positive associations, while advertisers strategically pair their products with sexy models, uplifting music, celebrities, nostalgic images, and other positive emotional symbols.

Theory of planned behavior

This limitation formed the basis for Fishbein's (1980) theory of reasoned action, which Ajzen (1991)t heory of planned behavior. The theory that attitudes toward a specific behavior combine with subjective norms and perceived control to influence a person's actions.

central route to persuasion

The process by which a person thinks carefully about a communication and is influenced by the strength of its arguments.

Peripheral route to persuasion

The process by which a person does not think carefully about a communication and is influenced instead by superficial cues

Elaboration

The process of thinking about and scrutinizing the arguments contained in a persuasive communication.
Anthony Greenwald (1968) and others then argued that persuasion requires a third, intermediate step: elaboration.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Theory holding that inconsistent cognitions arouses psychological tension that people become motivated to reduce.

insufficient justification

A condition in which people freely perform an attitude-discrepant behavior without receiving a large reward.
According to Festinger (1957), unless you can deny your actions (which is not usually possible), you'll feel pressured to change your attitude about the task. If you can convince yourself that the experiment wasn't that bad, then saying it was interesting is all right.

Insufficient deterrence

A condition in which people refrain from engaging in a desirable activity, even when only mild punishment is threatened.

Just as a small reward provides insufficient justification for attitude-discrepant behavior, mild punishment is insufficient deterrence for attitude-discrepant non-behavior.

As cognitive dissonance theory predicts, however, only those faced with the mild punishment—an insufficient deterrent—later showed disdain for the forbidden toy.

Those who con fronted the threat of severe punishment did not. Once again, cognitive dissonance theory turned common sense on its head: The less severe the threatened punishment, the greater the attitude change produced.

The Elements of Persuasion

Ø The Communicator (The "who")
Ø Credibility
Ø Expertise
Ø Likeability
Ø Trustworthiness
Ø Attractiveness

Ø The Message (the "what")
Ø How long should the message be?
Ø How "different" a message?
Ø How much fear should be aroused?
Ø What about mood?

Ø The Audience (the "to whom")
Ø Need for Cognition
Ø Self-Monitoring
Ø Culture
Ø If we are "forewarned"
Ø we can become inoculated
Styles of knowing

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Ø inconsistent cognitions arouse psychological tension that people become motivated to reduce
Ø Can lead to irrational and sometimes maladaptive behaviour

Conformity

The tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, or behavior in ways that are consistent with social or group norms.

When all members of a group give an incorrect response to an easy question, most people most of the time conform to that response

False- In Asch's classic conformity experiments, respondents conformed only about a third of the time.

Informational influence

Influence that produces conformity when a person believes others are correct in their judgments.

Normative influence

Influence that produces conformity when a person fears the negative social consequences of appearing deviant.

Private conformity

The change of beliefs that occurs when a person privately accepts the position taken by others. public conformity A superficial change in overt behavior without a corresponding change of opinion that is produced by real or imagined group pressure.

public conformity

A superficial change in overt behavior without a corresponding change of opinion that is produced by real or imagined group pressure.

Minority influence

The process by which dissenters produce change within a group.

Moscovici's Theory

According to Moscovici, majorities are powerful by virtue of their sheer numbers , whereas nonconformists derive power from the style of their behavior. It is not just what nonconformists say that matters but how they say it.

Idiosyncrasy credits

Interpersonal "credits" that a person earns by following group norms.

Individualism:

A cultural orientation in which independence, autonomy, and self-reliance take priority over group allegiances.

Collectivism

A cultural orientation in which interdependence, cooperation, and social harmony take priority over personal goals

Compliance

The first is the complexity of a society. As people come to live in more complex industrialized societies (compared, for example, with a simpler life of food gathering among desert nomads), there are more groups to identify with, which means less loyalty to any one group and a greater focus on personal rather than collective goals.

Second is the affluence of a society. As people prosper, they gain financial independence from others, a condition that promotes social independence as well as mobility and a focus on personal rather than collective goals.

The third factor is heterogeneity . Societies that are homogeneous, or "tight" (where members share the same language, religion, and social customs), tend to be rigid and intolerant of those who veer from the norm. Societies that are culturally diverse, or "loose" (where two or more cultures coexist), tend to be more permissive of dissent, thus allowing for more individual expression.

In conformity situations, people follow implicit or explicit group norms. But another common form of social influence occurs when others make direct requests of us in the hope that we will comply. Situations that call for compliance take many forms.

Changes in behavior that are elicited by direct requests.

The Norm of Reciprocity

The norm of reciprocity contributes to the predictability and fairness of social interaction. But it can also be used to exploit us. It's clear that the norm of reciprocity can be used to trap us, unwittingly, into acts of compliance.

foot-in-the-door technique

The point of the foot-in-the-door technique is to break the ice with a small initial request that the customer can't easily refuse. Once that first commitment is elicited, the chances are increased that another, larger request will succeed.

A two-step compliance technique in which an influencer sets the stage for the real request by first getting a person to comply with a much smaller request.

Lowballing

A two-step compliance technique in which the influencer secures agreement with a request but then increases the size of that request by revealing hidden costs. door-in-the-face technique A two-step compliance technique in which an influencer prefaces the real request with one that is so large that it is rejected.

Another two-step trap, arguably the most unscrupulous of all compliance techniques, is also based on the "start small" idea. Imagine yourself in the following situation.

An effective way to get someone to do you a favor is to make a first request that is so large the person is sure to reject it. (TRUE)

door-in-the-face technique

A two-step compliance technique in which an influencer prefaces the real request with one that is so large that it is rejected.

that's-not-all technique

A twostep compliance technique in which the influencer begins with an inflated request, then decreases its apparent size by offering a discount or bonus.

Obedience

Behavior change produced by the commands of authority.

In experiments on obedience, most participants who were ordered to administer severe shocks to an innocent person refused to do so

False

Social impact theory

The theory that social influence depends on the strength, immediacy, and number of source persons relative to target persons.

Bibb Latané proposed that a common bond among the different processes involved in social influence leads people toward or away from such influence

According to Latané, social forces act on individuals in the same way that physical forces act on objects.

Consider, for example, how overhead lights illuminate a surface.

Immediacy refers to a source's proximity in time and space to the target.

The closer the source, the greater its impact.
The strength of a source is determined by his or her status, ability, or relationship to a target.

The stronger the source, the greater the influence.

Social impact theory also predicts that people some -times resist social pressure.

Finally, the theory predicts that as the number of sources increases, so does their influence—at least up to a point.

The Continuum of Social Influence As the number of people in a group increases, so does the group's impact on an individual

False - Increasing group size boosts the impact on an individual only up to a point, beyond which further increases have very little added effect.

Conformity rates vary across different cultures and from one generation to the next

True - Research shows that conformity rates are higher in cultures that are collectivistic rather than individualistic in orientation and that values change over time even within cultures.

Compliance An effective way to get someone to do you a favor is to make a first request that is so large the person is sure to reject it.

True- This approach, known as the door-in-the-face technique, increases compliance by making the person feel bound to make a concession

Obedience In experiments on obedience, most participants who were ordered to administer severe shocks to an innocent person refused to do so

False - In Milgram's classic research, 65% of all participants obeyed the experimenter and administered the maximum possible shock.

What Is a Group?

A group may be characterized as a set of individuals who have direct interactions with each other over a period of time and share a common fate, identity, or set of goals.

A group can also consist of people who have joint membership in a social category based on sex, race, or other attributes; this characteristic is especially relevant.
Groups vary in the extent to which they are seen as distinct entities, such as whether they have rigid boundaries that make them distinct from other groups.

Group: A set of individuals who interact over time and have shared fate, goals, or identity.

Roles

People's roles in a group—their set of expected behaviors—can be formal or informal. Formal roles are designated by titles: teacher or student in a class or, vice president or account executive in a corporation. Informal roles are less obvious but still powerful.

Robert Bales (1958) distinguished between two fundamental types of roles: an instrumental role to help the group achieve its tasks and an expressive role to provide emotional support and maintain morale.

The same person can fill both roles, but often they are assumed by different individuals, and which of these roles is emphasized in groups may fluctuate over time, depending on the needs of the group.

Roles are a set of expected behaviours, can be formal or informal Rules of how to behave - Implicit or Explicit Could be instrumental (i.e., to help achieve a task) or expressive (i.e., to provide emotional support and maintain morale)

Norms

Norms provide individuals with a sense of what it means to be a good group member. Figuring out the unwritten rules of the group can take time and cause anxiety.

Groups often exert strong conformity pressures on individuals who deviate from group norms.

Ø Norms are rules of conduct for members, can be formal or informal
Ø Can be strictly enforce, which makes breaking a social norm can be difficult, even traumatic for the group member, as in being a whistleblower

Group cohesiveness

The extent to which forces push group members closer together, such as through feelings of intimacy, unity, and commitment to group goals.

Social Conhesition

How well do they get along with each other? Do they hang together as a group of individuals?

Task Cohesition

- Which means, How well does everyone work together? Are they cohesive in communicating?

The Zajonc Solution

Zajonc proposed a three-step process:
1. The presence of others creates general physiological arousal, which energizes behavior. Based on experimental psychology research and principles of evolution, Zajonc argued that all animals, including humans, tend to become aroused when in the presence of conspecifics— that is, members of their own species.
2. Increased arousal enhances an individual's tendency to perform the dominant response. The dominant response is the reaction elicited most quickly and easily by a given stimulus.
3. The quality of an individual's performance varies according to the type of task. On an easy task (one that is simple or well learned), the dominant response is usually correct or successful. But on a difficult task (one that is complex or unfamiliar), the dominant response is often incorrect or unsuccessful.

Social Facilitation

According to Zajonc, the presence of others increases arousal, which strengthens the dominant response to a stimulus.

On an easy task, the dominant response is usually correct, and thus the presence of others enhances performance. On a difficult task, the dominant response is often incorrect, and thus the presence of others impairs performance.

two effects of the presence of others—helping performance on easy tasks but hurting performance on difficult tasks—are known as social facilitation.

Zajonc proposed that social facilitation is universal, occurring not only in human activities but also among other animals, even insects.

Social Facilitation

A process whereby the presence of others enhances performance on easy tasks but impairs performance on difficult tasks.
Ø By enhancing arousal
Ø Seen in humans, rats, chickens, ants, and cockroaches

Mere Presence

The proposition that the mere presence of others is sufficient to produce social facilitation effects.

Evaluation Apprehension Theory

A theory that the presence of others will produce social facilitation effects only when those others are seen as potential evaluators.

Distraction-Conflict Theory

A theory that the presence of others will produce social facilitation effects only when those others distract from the task and create attentional conflict.

Social Interference

The opposite of social facilitation - a weakening of or disruption in performance of non-dominant responses owing to the presence of others

Social Loafing

Bibb Latané and colleagues (1979) found that group-produced reductions in individual output, which they called social loafing, are common in other types of tasks as well. For example, imagine being asked as part of a psychology experiment to cheer or clap as loudly as you can.

Social loafing is not restricted to simple motor tasks.

What factors can reduce the incidence of social loafing, and they offer these three strategies:
(1) limit the scope of the project— projects that are very large and complex should be broken into smaller components;
(2) keep the groups small; and
(3) use peer evaluations.

Making each group member a "manager" of different segments of the task can also help reduce loafing.

social loafing

A group-produced reduction in individual output on tasks where contributions are pooled.

cyber loafing

one form of social loafing at the workplace has come to be known as cyberloafing, which involves personal nonwork use of online technology, such as online shopping, watching videos, or messaging friends; cyberloafing can be a huge drain on workers'

collective effort model

The theory that individuals will exert effort on a collective task to the degree that they think their individual efforts will be important, relevant, and meaningful for achieving outcomes that they value.

Deindividuation

the loss of a person's sense of individuality and the reduction of normal constraints against deviant behavior.

Deindividuation is often a collective phenomenon that occurs in the presence of others.

Attentional cues

focus a person's attention away from the self. In this state, the individual attends less to internal standards of conduct, reacts more to the immediate situation, and is less sensitive to long-term consequences of behavior (Diener, 1980).

- when self-awareness declines, a change in consciousness takes place e.g., attend less to internal standards of conduct more responsive to the immediate situation
less sensitive to the long-term consequences of your be