psyc - stereotypes and more

stereotypes

widely held beleifs about a person’s characteristics when they belong to a certain group

these are not always harmful

they can be truthful 

EX: italians are loud and talk with their hands 

issues with stereotypes

• prejudice

• discrimination

• dangerous split-second decisions

prejudice 

megative attitudes towards members of a group

ex: have bad expectations,

discrimination

behaving differently towards a member of a group

ex: making comments, banning them

dangerous split-second decisions 

• preceives suspect has a weapen when they don’t

• AKA  spontaneously triggered stereotypes 

what is beautiful is good

based on looks 

pretty people are happier, social, assertive, adjusted, smarter 

better social skills and popular, and persuasive 

do not differ in happiness, mental health and self esteemde

defensive attribution

• blame the victim mentalilty

• self-protective and irrational !!!

• defenese mechanism to make you feel like it couldn’t happen to them because they are smarter than the victim

  • bad things dont happen by chance. it’s somehow the victims fault

prejudice vs discrimnatory

• action that is prejudiced and not discriminatory:

  • they treat outgroup fairly 

  • but they dont like outgroup 

• action that is discrimnatory but not prejudice 

  • they do not treat outgroup fairly

  • not out of their own dislike but someone els

old fashioned discrimination 

• outward 

• easy to see 

  • ex: segregation m

modern discrimination

• private negative attitudes that are only shown when it is safe/justified to do so

ex: dont vote for balck peeps

two types of discrimination

• modern

• old-fashioned

• both are signs of systemic racism

system racism

practices policies and priviliges that give infair advantage to the ingroup

ableism

• form of prejudice and discrimination aimed ait peeps with disabilities

• beleif that able-bodies are the ideal standard or cultural norm

• disabled people should be repaired or gain lesser satus in society

jerry lewis telethon for charirty and the problem with it

• comedian that tried to raise money for peoples with MDA

• he presented poster kids with MDA on stage, and would have people take pity on them, make them seem pitiful, and look down on them, would cry

• this way he would raise money

jerry lewis

• our life is a curse, trapped in a prison == wheelchair

• MDA kids are half people

• telethon itself promotes the beleif that they die or are cured. no possible life in between. (not about supporting the in-betweeners)

• patronizing

MDA POV

• in fact wheelchair is symbol of liberation for them

• he is married. has family

how was the jerry lewis telethon ableist ? 

focus on cure and not accpetance 

half people 

either die or get cured 

did not consider how they can function as adults as they are

how can we stop ableism ?

• inclusion

• media

• accessibility

ex: starbucks deaf-friendly store in DC, which hired deaf employees

robber’s cave expeirment

WHO:

• SHERIF COUPLE

PURPOSE:

• studying inter-group conflict

• trying to prove the REALISTIC CONFLICT THEORY

  • competition arises when they are competing for limited rresources

SET UP:

• kids who all had similar cultureal backgrounds

• random assignment to groups

• STAGE 1: bonding stage. groups created a culture, and bonded. groups were separate

• STAGE 2:groups were introducted to each other through competition. winners would gain exclusive resources and prizes

• STAGE 3A: TRY reducing frIction WITH co-existences activities.

• STAGE 3B: TRY reducing frIction WITH team work activites (superordinate goals).

CONCLUSION

• opposing group were given highly bad reputations and were treated badly

• fighting for limited resources creates enmity. (fist fights, burned flags, raids)

• simple coesitience did not releive tension

• working together did releive tension (prejudice and discrimnination )

4 factors necessary for group conflict resolution 

• superordinate goal 

• cooperative efforts must have succesful outcomes 

• must have equal status contact 

• Group members must establish meaningful contact with each other (sobstantial team work, not trivial )

persuasion

• communicating to change

source factors (persuasion )

Two parts of source factors, and their componenents.

1. credibility

   1. expertise (releveant to msg )

   2. trustworthiness (ex: dont trust salesmen)

2. Likability

   1. Attractiveness makes you more likable

   2. Similiarity ( in ways RELEVENT to the msg ) (ex: politicians emphasize their family )

message factors (persusasion )

1. fear appeal, happines appeal… vs logic 

   1. in general strong emotions make people more likely to be persauded 

   2. ex: showing happy people in a resort

2. one-sided vs two-argument

   1. more persuasive when you go over the pros and cons

   2. in fact being vague on the cons doesnt CHANGE THINGS

3. repetition

   1. information that is repeated becoems more persuasive

channel factors

• in person ,online, ovever phone e.t.c

• will change the acceptability of msg (some mediums have prejudices )

receiver factors

1. personalityt

   1. deep thinkers like deep arguments, superfiical epopel like superfiical arguments

   2. easily persuaded when you r in agood mood

2. expectations

   1. expecting persuasion REDUCES the effect of their argument

3. preexisting attitudes

   1. when msg is inconsstent with beleifs its harder to persuade them

elaboration likelihood model

• explains congnitive process underlying attitude change

• says that there are 2 diff routes to process information 

  • peripheral

  • central

• cental route is better longer lasting, resistant to change, better predict behavior

peripheral route

• persuaded by peripheral cues, ambient cues (music, attractivenesss )

• NOT THE ACTUAL MESSAGE

• mindless processing

central route

• persuaded by logic, AND THINKING IT THROUGH

• mindful processing

tow conditions for central route overwriting the peripheral route 

• motivation

• attitude

motivation

makes you more likle to use central route

ability

ability to grasp the message

makes you more ikely to use central route

conformity

• beleif about what other people think that causes a change in behavior

• it is normal

• not necesarily good or bad

our self-consciousness of our own conformity 

• is very bad

• we think that our actions are not influenced by confomrity 

• we are blind to it at times 

confomrity/ ‘Visual perception’ study

• WHO: ASCH

• SITUATION:

  • GROUP A:

  • 4 of 5 are confederates. told to lie about largest line by experimenter after 3rd trial.

  • 1 of 5 are actually participants

  • have to say which line is correct

  • GROUP B:

  • 3 of 5 are confederates. told to lie about largest line by experimenter after 3rd trial.

  • 1 of 5 also a confederate. told to tehll the truth

  • 1 of 5 are actually participants

  • have to say which line is correct

• HYP:

  • people will conform

conclusion of asch confirmity study 

they saw two distortions when people conformed with the group:

• distortion of judgemnt:

  • informational conformtiy.

• distortion of response:

  • normative conformity.

the say 2 things occur when people had a partner, and did not conform:

• people deny that partner bolstered their confidence

• disunity breaks the power of the groups

normative conformity / influence

to avoid negative social conseuqneces

informational conformity / influence

• people defer their judgement to the group

• (the group/majority cant possibly be worng right? )

cons of conformity

1. bystander effect (less likely to give help when you are in a group )

2. risky behavior

three reasons bystander effect occurs

1. diffusion of responsiblity

2. evaluation apprehension

3. informational influence

evaluation apprehension

avoid emberassment

informational influence 

others are not doing anything so there must be nothing that needs to be done 

diffusion of responsiblity

feeling less responsible because anyone can do it, and someone else must have done it

compliance 

going along with social pressure even when it is going against your own better judgement/beleifs 

obedience

form of compliance due to the messager is someone with authority

obedience/compliance experiement

• WHO: MILGRAM

• WHY: explain why German’s obeyed hitler

• WHAT:

  • shock, and Increase voltage with every wrong answer

  • Shocked learner. would scream more and more.

  • Experimenter, would be therre re-assuring them that they can continue

  • told that the experiment was about learning.

  • the shock machine was labeled with (danger shoch, mid shock, )

• CONCLUSION:

  • 2/3 would give fatal shock

  • vast majority will show obedience, despite disagreei

  • human behavior is defiend by sutation and not character

  • obedience/compliance is real

what influenced participants willingness to obey ? 

• shifts responsiblity to authoritative figure,

• pressured to continue. 

• demands to increase voltage was graadual

other studies have founded similar results to Milgram experiement

TRUE

there are 4 elements of persuasion 

• source - persuader

• revierver - being persuaded

• message - obvi

• channgel - tv, website, voice, face to face…

4 sets of variables influence the
process of persuasion

• source factors

• message facotrs

• channel factors

• receive factors

humanism

WHAT:

• theoretical orientation that emphasizes

1. free will,

2. innately have potential and drive for personal growth,

3. humans are conscious and rational beings, who are awesome, and largley not controlled by uncosncious 

WHO THEY HATE: 

• criticise behaviorism and psychodnymaic theorists

• their narrative shows people as helpless, controlled by past & environment with little capcacity of self-direction

WHO: 

• Rogers, Maslow

person-centred theory

• based on extensive meetings with clients.

• when a person is in touch with their true self they are healthy,

• creaetd by Carl Rogers. win a nobel peace priz.

self ( Rogers) 

is widely known as the self-concet:

a colection of believs about one’s nature. ex: i am easy going.

self-concept does not always reflect reality 

person-centred theory and how personality is defined 

incongruence

disparity between self-concept and experience then you become unhelathy

incongruence is normal ( people distort ot make themselves look better ) 

extreme incongruence can result in psych distress and disorders 

congruence

self-concept is same as your experience then you become helathy and grow to become a better person

self-growth is dependent on how congruent your self and experience is

carl roger’s experiment

• studied people who do not experience uncoditional love

• conditional love foster incongruence, lowe-self-woth, and distory/block memories.

• grow up beleiving that love is conditional and twist memories to avoid pain ( they can’t absorb a hit ) 

• so congruence and incongruence is largely dependent on whether you experienced unconditional love from your parents 

theory of self-actualization 

• created by Maslow 

• every human being has hirearchy of needs that drives what they do

• when a person satisfies one level of need, they desire to acheive the next level of need

• degression whe lower needs are not being satisfied

• the lower needs are base level, higher needs are more complex

Hierarchy ( pyramid) of needs by maslow

need for self-actualization ( striving for self-growth )

aesthetic needs ( one with nature and experience its beauty, express beauty within  ) 

cognitive needs ( missed explanation of each row →  2:16) 

esteem needs ( )

belongingess and love

safety and security

physiological needs ( hunger, thisrt sleep )

personal growth needs refer to …

top 3 needs in the Hierarchy ( pyramid) of needs by maslow

what makes a person self-actualizing according to Maslow?

Not everyone gets to the top 3 pyramids. people who do are:

• tuned into reality

• at peace in themselves

• open and spontaneious

• EQ

• thrive on their work

• sense of humour

• profound emotional high

• balance polarity in personality ( ex: logical and creative, childlike and mature )

humanistic perspective contributions

identified self-concept

hihglight the pimportant of pysch health

foundations of positive psychology ( focuses on people’s strengths and not their problems )

critcisms of humansitc perspective

• hard to test ( ex: how do u operationalize personal growth )

• inadequate eveidence

• unrealistic view of human nature ( hard to find self-actualizing peple )

behavioral genetics 

created by Eysneck 

persoanlity is largely determined by genetics 

lots of support for Eysneck’s theories 

fraternal vs identical twins 

identical twins → share 100% of dna 

fratenral twins → share 50% of dna

heritability ratio

how much a trait is detemrined by genetics

heritability of height, intelligence and criminality

80, 50-70, 50-75

eysneck’s identical twin studies

• they share more BIG 5 OCEAN personality traits than fraternal twins

• even when raised in different homes

• proves that genetics effects personality

evolutionary psychology

examines behaviours in terms of their adaptive value

observed behavior is cause of evolution and natural selection 

personality has a biological basis cause evolution has favored specific traits

bio contributions 

well-supported by research 

bio critcisms

• has hindsight bias ( to mold one’s interpretations of the past to fit findings )

contemporary approaches to personality

focus on a specific trait and attempt to explain its development

and relationship with various others traits and

behaviours

ex: narcissism, why, what, behave how, and related to what ?

narcissism

ATTRIBUTES: 

• entitilement

• self-inflation

• tendency to exploit others

ATTRIBUTES FOUND IN HIGHLY NARCISSTIC PEEPS : 

• try to stand out in crowd 

• elevated levels of aggressive behavior 

• likable but only at first ( arrogant and selfish  )

Narcisstic personality inventory 

is a test that measures your narcissism 

measures normal amount of narcissism (does not diagnose narciisim disorder)

takes 5-10 min to complete

0-40 scoring and avg score is 15-16

perfectionism ( most influential model)

• NEED FOR PERFECT IN A WIDE VARIETY OF DOMAINS IN YOUR LIFE

• on the rise in society… due to pressure to excel

self-oriented perfectionism

• high standards for your self

• self-criticial

order-oriented perfectionism

• imposing demands for perfection on others

• domineering, hostile 

• hyprocritical 

socially-prescribed perfectionism

• ones beleif that others demand high expectations from them

• tries to fulfill these imaginary demands 

consequences of perfectionism in general

• increased risk of eating disorders

• increased risk of relational difficulties

• increased risk of anixety and depression

high scores of socially prescribed perfectionism 

• high levels of anger hopelessnes distress and suicide

culture vs big 5 personality

• generally consistent over all cultures

• the statistics of the lowest and highest OCEAN TRAITS ARE IN  in Lec 11

5 types of mental disorders relevent to criminality

• psychotic

• personality

• intellectual diability

• substance abuse

• paraphilias

paraphilia 

• disorders of sexual arousal to atypical objects and situations

mental disorders vs criminality

• higher level of certain types of disorders

• lower level of people with disorders engaging with crime in general

most relevent personality disorder to  criminality

• anti-social disorder

anti social personality disorder 

• persistent disregard of people’s rights, feelings, and well-beings 

• struggle to disable stable interpersonal relationships 

• experience significant impairemtn in social and occupational functionning through out their life

• PSYCHOPATHY  is a more sever form of ASPD 

• NOT ALL people with ASPD become criminals 

• they can’t feel emotions. they only feel DULL emotions

• begin in childhood and early adolescence ( teens) 

ask a psychopath

• is a lawyer 

• wear glasses that give you distorted feel on life

• not in touch with emotions,

• only feels happy emotions. no guilt no fear.

• danger to myself. welcome death

• such a weak sense of self. no sense of s

• dont feel nervous, and body is nervous. i feel adrenalie spike/jittery but no feeling associated with it. ex: like me

• i dont care.

• not a problem till mid-30s because then people expect you to be emotionally mature enogu to care for others.

• in teens years people are impressed by your confidence.

• i did not hav an alternative to manipulate. i did not know how to not manipulate. i wanted relationships.

• ever 3 years her life blew up 

personality traits, criminals are more likely to have

higher scores

Impulsivity

Risk taking

Aggressiveness

Machiavelianism- “a person who takes advantage of the weaknesses and

failings...of others for his own purposes”

big 5: neuroticism, some studies also found higher scores in agreeableness

and conscientiousness!

intelligence vs criminality 

• they have lower than average intelligence scores

• dontt learn from mistakes 

• could be that lower intelligence makes you more likely to be manipulated

• ( also could be that criminals with higher intelligence do not get caught tho )

age and gender vs criminality

adolescence

→ criminality peaks around 14 ( looks like a bell curve)

male

→ most criminals are male

3 cognitive distortions asscoaited with criminality

• hostile attribution bias

  • see aggression when there is none

• lack of empathy

  • ASPD .

• neutralisation and attribution processes

  • rationalize their actions

akert’s theory on crime

• social and NOT psychological

• operational conditioning

  • consequence of crimes, and past consequence for crime plays big role in choice to do crime

• observational learning

  • integral part of becoming a criminal

  • especially if you see the benefits

family and criminality

INCREASES CHANCES 

• neglect/inconsistency, and punishment-heavy parenting is bad 

• one-parent home 

DECREASES CHANCES 

• responsive parenting → responding to chil’s needs 

• demanding parenting → appropriate rules and expectations 

psychological test

measures a sample of a person’s behavior to identify ability, aptitudes and personality traits

should always be interpeted with caution, and should not be used to diagnose disorders or a foundation of any decision

LIMITATIONS

• social desirability

  • look cool by looking good

• faking bad

  • look cool by looking bad

• timing matters ( may have to postpone )

  • headache, anxiety, distressed will make test invalid

  • sleep

  • not eaten

evolutinary psych vs personality

BIG 5 OCEAN are apparent across all cultures this proves that evolution created personality cause it was essential to surviival 

experiment executed by David Buss 

personality disorder 

enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly

from the expectations of the individual’s culture

starts in teenage years  ( adolescenece )

remains stable over several years 

standardized questinnaire

( missed oct 18 first 5 min )

standardization - uniform procedures to administer and score a test 

test norms - provide information on how a person did in comapriston to others 

ask about typical behavior in various circumstances

utlikiezes likert scales and t/f 

scientifically supported !!!!

social desirability is an issue 

projective tests

ask people to respond to ambiguous stimuli in ways that revel the patient’s needs, feelings and personality traits

time consuming, not supported empircally 

two types that we discussed: 

1. thematic appreception test

2. Rorschach

thematic aperception test ( tat )

patients have to tell stories about the simple scene

they would tell the doctor what is happening and what they are feeling

ex: scene → mountains. patient → someone is lost. interpetation → patient is high in neuroticism.

Rorschach Test

clinician goes through 10 blobs with clients

it’s than what we see . what did they focus on or ignore. did colors distract…

patients in the same mental health category or illness often report similar approaches

he created a system to classify people based on their responses

Steps to the Rorshach

step1: what they see

step2: ask how they see, how they approached the task.

Scoring the Rorshack

Content: class of objects in response (animal, human )

Location: what parts of the blob was used (blank space, colored space, left, right, all, none)

Determinants: colour, form movement, reflection ( what they used to determine what they see )

pros of projective tests

• harder to know the answer that will get you out of the mental hospital

• may be more senstive to latent or unconscious aspects

• still popular today

cons of projective tests

limitic sceintific support

suscuptible to deception (say something crazy cause u want to look crazy )

focalism 

tendency to overestimate how much one
will think about an event in the future (how much impact an event will have on us) and
underestimate the influence of other events on
thoughts and emotions 

ex: because i did not get into college i will never be happy. when in reality friendships, work, family events wil change that. 

initial sense of self  infants

• they do not have a sense of self

• they have no separation from their parents