Social Psychology of Inequality Flashcards

A vocabulary set covering psychological concepts, economic games, and theories related to inequality, social comparison, and fairness based on lecture notes.

Dictator Game

An economic task in which a single decider unilaterally chooses how to allocate a sum of money to a recipient who has no power to reject the offer.

Ultimatum Game

An economic task in which a decider proposes a resource split and a recipient chooses whether to accept or reject it, where a rejection results in zero payout for both players.

Inequity Aversion

A psychological preference for equal outcomes and a tendency to reject allocations perceived as unfair, particularly when an individual receives the lesser share.

Subjective Social Status

An individual's personal perception of their standing in a hierarchy, which is mediated psychologically and may not directly align with their objective status.

Stratification

A system of sturdy, stable intergroup inequalities overlaid across multiple dimensions at a broad societal level.

Segregation

The separation of groups that restricts access to information about other groups, thereby maintaining ignorance of existing resource disparities.

Mythology of Linear Racial Progress

The belief that society is marching toward racial equity automatically, naturally, and inevitably over time.

Veil of Ignorance

A hypothetical decision-making context where individuals evaluate societal resource distributions without knowing what position in the hierarchy they will be randomly assigned to occupy.

Relative Deprivation Theory

The psychological theory proposing that feelings of unfairness arise when social comparisons indicate that one's group receives less than what is perceived as deserved relative to another group.

Equity Theory

The theory stating that individuals experience distress when outcomes are unequal despite individuals performing the same type and amount of work.

Capuchin Monkey Fairness Study

A famous experiment conducted by Frans de Waal demonstrating relative disadvantage, in which a capuchin monkey rejects cucumber after seeing a partner receive a grape for performing the same task.

Willful Ignorance

A psychological strategy used to resolve the contradiction between explicit societal commitments to egalitarianism or meritocracy and the existence of deeply entrenched group inequalities.

Misperception of Equity-Enhancing Policies

The cognitive bias where members of an advantaged group perceive policy changes designed to assist a disadvantaged group as harming their own group, even when explicit assurances state their group's resources are unchanged.