PSYC 308 Final

Population of indigenous people in Canadian prisons?

25% of total population - 3% of Canadian population

How likely are black people to get a prison sentence in America?

30% more likely to get sentenced than white people for committing the same crime

• Those who ”look more black” 2x more likely to get the death penalty

Success of tall men?

Get higher status jobs, paid more than short men

• 14.5% of US men are above 6 feet, 58% of Fortune 500 CEOs are above 6 feet

Equality in the workplace?

Women paid 80-90% of men’s salary for the same job

are biases towards various human traits going down? (Charlesworth and Banaji, 2022)

Yes - explicit biases are decreasing more than implicit both both are going down in the categories of sexuality, race, skin tone, age, disability, body weight

• age had the least change (22%) and race had to most change (98%)

• trends in attitudes are mostly the same for liberals and conservatives

prejudice (affect)

negative affect or affective response toward a certain group and its individual members

discrimination (behaviour)

negative behaviour or actions towards members of a particular group based on their membership in that group

• unfair treatment because of group membership

• can discriminate without prejudice

stereotypes (cognition)

beliefs about attributes that are thought to be characteristic of members of particular groups

• thinking about a person not as an individual but as a member of a certain group

contemporary prejudice

some people experience conflict between what they truly think and feel and what they think they should think and feel; conflict between competing beliefs and values; conflict between abstract beliefs and gut reactions

• shift in theoretical approaches noteworthy with race relations in US

• theory of modern racism (Gaertner and Dovidio; 2986, 2004)

modern racism

white people may reject explicitly racist beliefs, but still feel animosity towards black people or are highly suspicious of them

• harbour unacknowledged negative feelings and attitudes toward other racial and ethnic groups that stem from ingroup favouritism and desire to defend the status quo

• will emerge if they sense a suitable rationalization is available for it

parochial altruism

endemic intergroup warfare in ancestral environments shows evolutionary evidence of in-group preference - small, cohesive, cooperative but mutally hostile bands

• innate tendency for altruism towards ingroup and hostility towards outgroup - us vs. then thinking

• flexible and socially constructed - why content of prejudice can be different across content but us vs. them mentality remains

• evolutionary psychology explanation for prejudice

pathogen avoidance

strangers were potential sources of novel pathogens for which immune defence is unprepared

• behavioural immune system

• avoidance of people who are perceived as outgroup members

• areas with high pathogen prevalence are more ingroupish, more fear of pathogens leads to more prejudice and stronger immune reaction

• evolutionary psychology explanation for prejudice

behavioural immune system (Schaller, 2011)

psychological processes that infer infection risk from perceptual cues, and that respond to these perceptual cues through activation of aversive emotions, cognitions and behavioural impulses

cultural explanations for ingroup-outgroup favouritism

• cultural dissimilarity = dislike

• conversely, similarity, familiarity = liking

• Brewer and Campbell (1976): study with 30 African societies - people felt most positive towards groups that were geographically

multiculturalism vs. colour-blindness

• difference is okay vs. treat everyone the same

• belief in value of multiculturalism is associated with less ethnocentrism (Ryan et al., 2007)

• adoption of multicultural outlook improves intergroup relations, improves experiences of disadvantaged groups (Vorauer, Gagnon, Sasaki, 2009)

distal explanations of prejudice

evolutionary and cultural explanations of ingroup behaviour

proximal explanations of prejudice

socioeconomic, motivational, cognitive perspectives

realistic group conflict theory

group conflict, prejudice, discrimination are likely to arise over competition between groups for limited desired resources

• socioeconomic explanation for prejudice

• high employment and economic recession = more anti-immigrant attitudes

• groups who perceive themselves as at risk from other group’s advance are more prejudices (resenting immigrants for taking jobs)

• The Robber’s Cave Experiment (Sherif et al., 1961)

• proximal

ethnocentrism

the other group is vilified and one’s own group is glorified - realistic groups conflict theory

The Robber’s Cave Experiment (Sherif et al., 1961)

divided boys at a summer camp into 2 groups - they first spent time with only their groups and built norms and hierarchies, then they were brought together and the boys naturally became competitive towards the other group and more cohesive within their group

• also found that subordinate goals brought both groups together - goals that both groups cared about and had to work together on to achieve (working on them reduced conflict)

• differences in background or appearance or a prior history of conflict are not necessary for intergroup hostility to develop - only need to be in competition with each other

the jigsaw classroom (Aronson, 1978)

students separated into 6 person learning groups with a lesson divided into six parts that are all required to complete the lesson - each student learns one lesson then teaches the group

• they need each other to do well on the test and prejudice goes down

• used in school environments to encourage multiculturalism

• proximal

minimal group experiments (Tajfel and Turner)

participants assigned to groups on meaningless criteria and then given the opportunity to distribute resources - participants still show ingroup favouritism despite the meaningless criteria

• cannot be explained by realistic conflict theory

• motivational perspective

social identity theory

benevolent sexism

chivalrous ideology marked by protectiveness and affection toward women who embrace conventional roles - often coexists with hostile sexism (dislike of nontraditional women)

measuring attitudes about groups

• survey people on their trait associations (respondent bias)

• self-report on attitudes/beliefs about members of different groups

• implicit association test

• priming (measure prejudices that people might not know they have) - affect misattribution procedure (AMP)

affect misattribution procedure (AMP)

measures how people evaluate a stimulus after a given prime instead of how quickly they respond to it

economic perspective of prejudice

roots of intergroup hostility is in competing interests that can pit groups against each other

• realistic group conflict theory

• Robbers Cave experiment

motivational explanations of prejudice

1. Threats to self (lack of control, randomness, reminders of mortality, loss of self-esteem)

2. system justification: when people motivated to justify socio-political system they are part of (rationalizing injustice, blaming disadvantaged groups)

• social identity theory, minimal group paradigm

cognitive explanations for prejudice

cognitive processes (explicit, implicit) that produce and maintain stereotypes, and how stereotypes in turn affect prejudice and discrimination

• stereotypes are inevitable

• simplify task of taking in and processing volume of stimuli surrounding us (therefore come out more when we are overloaded)

• illusory correlations and distinctive events

• more likely to generalize behaviours and traits that they already suspect of a group’s members (those behaviours are then noticed more)

• explain away exceptions to stereotypes (subtyping)

• outgroup homogeneity effect, paired distinctiveness

illusory correlations

see correlations between events, characteristics, categories that are not actually related - come out when processing distinctive events

• attend more closely to distinctive events, so remember them better and are overrepresented in our memory (negative behaviour from minority groups is more distinctive and memorable)

• paired distinctiveness

paired distinctiveness

pairing of 2 distinctive events that stand out because they occur together

self-fulfilling prophecy

people act toward members of certain groups in ways that encourage very behaviour they expect to see from groups

• ex. a teacher who believes a certain group is less smart gives them less attention in class

subtyping

Explaining away exceptions to a given stereotype by creating a subcategory of the stereotyped group that can be expected to differ from group as a whole - critically analyzing contradictory evidence to our beliefs through attribution to external causes

• describe own group members negative actions on more concrete level

• describe out group members negative actions on more abstract level

outgroup homogeneity effect

tendency for people to assume that within-group similarity is much stronger for outgroups than for ingroups

• we have more contact with members of our ingroup so we encounter variation within ingroup more often

own-race identification bias

tendency for people to be better able to recognize and distinguish faces from their own race than from other races. - interact with ingroup more

automatic and controlled stereotype processing

our reactions to different groups of people guided by this - can override but not eliminate

• can be triggered even if we do not want them to be

individual approaches to prejudice reduction

• media/school programs to promote acceptance of outgroups

• perspective taking (cognitive)

• loving-kindness mediation (behavioural)

intergroup approaches to prejudice reduction

• not contact hypothesis (disproved)

• groups need to have equal status

• groups must have a shared goal requiring cooperation (subordinate)

• community support of intergroup contact

• encouragement of one-on-one interactions between group members

causes outgroup members to be seen as individuals (personalization), positive feelings generalized to whole group, think of themselves sharing a common identity

multiculturalism

culture and ethnicity are central to people’s identities

• increases perspective taking, encourages positive evaluations of group members

• White people can view it as an identity threat

colour-blindness

culture and ethnicity as skin deep

• can lead to more prejudice/discrimination

primed stereotypes

procedure used to increase accessibility of a concept or schema

implicit vs. explicit attitudes

uncorrelated

• implicit matter for discrimination especially when cognitive resources are taxed, fatigue, time pressure, when motivation appears unbiased

• explicit matter for discrimination when conscious reflection is possible/desirable

• changing impllict involve re-learning new associations

can playing together reduce prejudice? (Mousa, 2020)

Randomized Christian Iraqi refugees to play soccer with other Christian Iraqis or Muslims - playing with Muslims improved attitudes/behaviours Christians had towards Muslims

• effects did not generalize non-soccer contexts

strategies to reduce prejudice/conflict

• superordinate goals and identity

• unlearning implicit associations

• perceived similarity between groups

• multiculturalism as a cultural value

• positive, equal status contact with one-on-one interactions with people of other groups

• perspective taking

social identity theory

self-esteem comes not only from personal identity and accomplishments but also from status and accomplishments of various groups we belong it

• rate things higher when they are associated with our identity

• want to boost our social groups because of this

• basking in reflected glory

• social groups are part of every individual’s identity, so people are motivated to denigrate outgroup members when their groups are under threat

basking in reflected glory

taking pride in the accomplishments of other people in one’s groups (when sports fan identifies with a winning team)

group

collection of individuals that have relations to one another that make them interdependent to some degree

nature of group living

groups vary in degree of group entitativity and hierarchy

group entitativity

mutual interdependence and cohesion

• low = people waiting at a bus stop

• moderate = co-workers in a unit

• high = army unit fighting and dying together

group hierarchy

arrangement of individuals in group in terms of relative power

• low = book club

• moderate = sports team

• high = political party

evolutionary benefits of group living

• protection from predation and human violence

• collective hunting of big game

• cultural learning (our collective brain needs groups)

social exclusion is painful (Eisenberger, Lieberman, Williams, 2003)

• greater activation of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) when excluded

• does dependent (feeling more upset = greater activation of dACC)

• tylenol and advil may be able to heal a broken heart

social facilitation

effect of presence of others on performance

• Zajonc’s theory: does presence of others increase or decrease performance?

Zajonc’s social facilitation

mere presence of others enhances dominant (well-practiced) response, inhibits less dominant (not well-practiced response)

• arousal level - more inclined to do what we’ve already automatically inclined to do

evaluation apprehension

concern about looking bad in the eyes of others, about being evaluated

• instead of mere presence, newer research has found that this has a stronger effect on social facilitation

social loafing

decreased effort put forth by individuals when working in a group - counter to social facilitation

• Ingham 1974: blindfolded participants pulled harder in tug of war when they thought they were alone

• burglars working in groups more likely to get caught

• Why? diffusion of responsibility

less social loafing when

• task is challenging and involving

• individuals are identifiable

• members are friends

• groups are cohesive

• in collectivistic cultures and among women

wisdom of the crowd

prediction markets more accurate than expert opinion, average judgement converges on the correct solution

• crowd has a diversity of opinions

• individual opinions are independent of one another

• crowd should be able to aggregate individual opinions into one collective decision

why wisdom of the crowd? (Harvey, 2013; Phillips and Lloyd, 2006)

• hard mentalities are detrimental to wise decisions and creativity

• aggregated info yields better and more creative solution - diverse views weaken confirmation bias and combine best features of ideas

• as long as individuals’ judgements are independent of one another - homogenous groups are not wise

Groupthink

social pressures to reach consensus in highly cohesive group which leads to suboptimal decisions

• disastrous decisions (Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs invasion, 2nd Iraq war)

• why smart individuals can end up making bad decisions as a group

conditions that foster groupthink

• stressful situation

• like minded members of group (homogeneity)

• isolation from outside info and influences

• lack of clear procedures

• strong, authoritarian group leader

symptoms of groupthink

• illusion of invulnerability (can’t do any wrong)

• dissent is discouraged

• self-censorship, illusion of unanimity

• one-sided debate (collective rationalization)

• unwillingness to consider alternatives

• self-censorship

strategies to reduce groupthink

• encourage criticism and diverse viewpoints

• input from outside sources

• generate different ideas, approaches before decisions are made

• watch out for illusion of invulnerability

group polarization

group decisions tend to be more extreme than those made by individuals - contributor to social division

• caused by persuasiveness of information brought up by group and the desire to risk take when in groups

the paradox of diversity (Muthukrishna, 2023)

diversity improves creativity, innovation, problem-solving, but diverse groups are more conflict prone than homogenous groups

benefits of diverse groups

• more creativity, better decisions (broader reservoir of info, powerful antidote against confirmation bias)

• cultural role models take down stereotypes, facilitate positive social change

• rectify past imbalances and injustices

• powerful antidote against prejudice (positive contact)

challenges of diverse groups

• social interactions are less smooth

• lower levels of trust, more concerns about disrespect

• greater perceived interpersonal conflict

• less social cohesions

more diverse countries are not prone to internal conflict unless social fractionization is territorial

good ways to handle the diversity paradox

• establishing common culture

• increasing communication

• creating shared experiences, rituals, social identity

• self-awareness, emotional literacy

• cultural experts

• subordinate goals

• teach about discrimination

power

ability to control one’s own outcomes and those of others - person’s capacity to influence

• relational nature manifests in social hierarchy

social hierarchy

arrangement of individuals in terms of their rank or power relative to power of other group members - form quickly as they help solve problems of group living

gaining power

1. path of virtue: individuals do things good for their group and group members recognize these contributions

2. path of vice: individuals dominant others through force, fraud, manipulation, weakening of people around us

approach/inhibition theory of power

when people experience elevated power, they should show approach behaviour - less concerned about evaluations and more inclined to act on goals

when people are less powerful, they are more vigilant and careful in making judgements, more restrained in taking action

power’s influence on social cognition

become overconfident - overestimate accuracy of knowledge and success of their actions, are somewhat out of touch

power and behaviour

when feeling powerful, we feel freer to act on goals and desires - disinhibits

deindividuation

experience a loss of individual identity when in a group

• anonymity and diffusion of responsibility

• diminished self-observation and self-evaluation

• creates impulsive, irrational, destructive behaviour characteristic of mobs

individuation

attention of the self - act carefully in accordance with sense of propriety

• self-awareness theory

• decreases only in the presence of large crowds

self-awareness theory

when people focus their attention on themselves, they become more concerned with self-evaluation and how their behaviour conforms

spotlight effect

people’s conviction that other people are paying attention to appearance and behaviour than is actually the case

is boxing aggression?

You are consenting to be hit but you are also hitting someone else, still with an underlying theme of aggression 

• BDSM → full consent to inflict pain - people want this and don’t register it as harm being inflicted 

• Corporal punishment: aggression, but we excuse this

• Is there a cultural script that says this is ok?

• Has to do with consent - basically yes and no

spread of violence in society

• violent deaths from warfare are lower in state societies with centralized authority

• large variability among non-state societies

• the past was not peaceful and there still are wars and genocides - but wars and fatalities from wars are on steep decline

general aggression model

broad approach to understanding causes of aggression through a focus on situational factors, construal factors, biological and cultural contributions

hostile aggression

behaviour intended to harm another either physically or psychologically - motivated by feelings of anger and hostility

instrumental aggression

behaviour intended to harm another in service of motives other than pure hostility (attracting attention, acquiring wealth, advancing political or ideological causes)

consensual aggression

aggression that is mutually consensual, follows a particular cultural script - sports, acting, sexual activity, etc.

hot weather and aggression

related to higher rates

• 2.6% more violent crimes occur in summer than the cooler months in the US

• more acts of violence occur in cities with higher temperatures

• baseball pitchers more likely to hit batters with the ball as weather gets hotter

violent video games and aggression

appears to increase aggressive behaviour, reduce prosocial behaviour (helping, altruism), increase aggressive thoughts and emotions, increase blood pressure and heart rate

• effects observed in children and adults US, Europe, and Japan

social rejection and aggression

when participants experienced rejection, fMRI images saw that the anterior cingulate, which processes physical pain, lit up

• people who report chronic sense of rejection are more likely to act aggressively in their romantic relationships

does economic inequality increase violence?

income inequality appears to predict higher homicide rates

• powerful feelings of social rejection may trigger violence

• inequality undermines feelings of trust and goodwill among people

construal and anger

how people interpret situation plays a vital role in whether they will act aggressively

• participants more likely to deliver more aggression when a weapon was present in the room (presence/possession of a weapon makes people act more aggressively)

dehumanization

attribution of nonhuman characteristics to groups other than one’s own - unleash aggression because its easier to harm others who seem less like ourselves

• intensifies as loyalty to valued social groups increases

distancing from the causes of aggression

people can modify their feelings of anger or tendencies toward aggression by looking at frustrating issues from a distance

dignity cultures

• inherent self-worth

• authenticity is a virtue

• individualistic cultures

• less hierarchical, strong rule of law

face cultures

• socially conferred self-worth determined by performing social obligations

• modesty and harmony are a virtue

• confucian cultures

• stable social hierarchies, strong rule of law

honour cultures

• socially conferred self-worth, determined by social image of toughness

• defence of one’s reputation (including insult related violence) - high sensitivity

• mediterranean cultures, US South

• unstable social hierarchies, weak rule of law

• willing to use violence to avenge wrongs, more aggressive

culture and sexual violence

rape-prone cultures that emphasize male toughness and cultures that relegate women to lower status in society

rape-prone cultures

men used rape as an act of war against enemy women as a ritual act or a threat to remain submissive

evolution and aggression

1. Inclusive fitness

2. violence in stepfamilies

inclusive fitness

reproductive success and passing on of genes

violence in stepfamilies

natural selection rewards parents who devote resources to own offspring - more violence against stepfamily

gender and aggression

• men more likely to be involved in violent/criminal behaviour - socialized, precarious manhood hypothesis

• long history of violence against women by men

• men more likely to be victims of violence

• combo of hormone levels, cultural learning and socialization

• women tend to display more relational/emotion aggression