Antisocial Relations and Personality Theories

Prejudice

An unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members, often involving stereotypes, negative feelings, and discriminatory predispositions.

Stereotype

A generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people.

Discrimination

Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members.

Implicit Prejudice

An unconscious, knee-jerk response operating below awareness, influencing behavior without conscious realization.

Studying Implicit Prejudice

Through methods such as testing unconscious group associations, considering unconscious patronization, and monitoring reflexive bodily responses.

Implicit Association Tests (IAT)

Reveal that people may unconsciously hold negative racial associations even if they deny prejudice.

Unconscious Patronization

Lower expectations, inflated praise, and insufficient criticism for minority achievements.

Other-Race Effect

The tendency to more easily recognize faces of one's own race and overestimate similarities within other races.

Mixed-Race Categorization

Based on their minority identity, reflecting unconscious biases.

Altruism

Unselfish concern for the welfare of others.

Helping Behavior Factors

Noticing an incident, interpreting it as an emergency, assuming responsibility, and being in a good mood, unhurried, or feeling guilty.

Bystander Effect

The tendency for bystanders to be less likely to help when others are present due to diffusion of responsibility.

Reciprocity Norm

The expectation that people will return favors, following a cost-benefit analysis.

Social-Responsibility Norm

The expectation that people should help those dependent on them.

Freud's Personality Theory Components

Id: Operates on the pleasure principle. Ego: Operates on the reality principle, balancing the id's desires with reality. Superego: Strives for perfection and acts as the moral conscience.

Repression

The unconscious blocking of anxiety-inducing thoughts or feelings, which may manifest in dreams or slips of the tongue.

Freud's Psychosexual Stages

1. Oral (0-18 months): Pleasure centers on the mouth. 2. Anal (18-36 months): Focuses on bowel/bladder control. 3. Phallic (3-6 years): Genital focus and coping with incestuous feelings. 4. Latency (6-puberty): Dormant sexual feelings. 5. Genital (puberty+): Maturation of sexual interests.

Reaction Formation

Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

Projection

Disguising one's own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Denial

Refusing to believe or perceive painful realities.

Self-Actualization

Fulfilling one's potential and striving for self-transcendence, focusing on greater missions beyond social acceptance.

Growth-Promoting Environments

Require genuineness, acceptance, and empathy.

Trait Theorists Focus

Stable and enduring patterns of behavior described through traits rather than explained by external factors.

Big Five Personality Factors

Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, and Extraversion (CANOE).

Assessing Traits

Using personality inventories like the MMPI, which objectively measure behavioral tendencies.