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Cognitive Dissonance

• Cognitive dissonance occurs when individuals change their attitudes to align with their behaviors to relieve discomfort from inconsistency.

• Example: Individuals who are underpaid may adjust their attitudes to justify their situation.

Social Identity

• Social identity pertains to one's self-concept derived from group memberships (Tajfel, 1979).

• Groups affecting social identity include social class, family, university, sports teams, etc.

• In-group: The group to which one belongs, contributing to pride and self-esteem.

• Out-group: Groups to which one does not belong, often viewed with bias.

• Biases toward in-groups can be both positive and negative, potentially leading to prejudice.

Prejudice and Stereotypes

• Prejudice: Negative attitudes toward individuals based on their group membership (race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.).

• Stereotypes: Clusters of characteristics ascribed to members of a specific social group, often inaccurately.

  • Stereotypes can include unrelated qualities.

  • Example: Assuming older people are not good with technology just because of their age.

• Intersectionality: Acknowledgment that individuals identify with multiple social groups (e.g., a Black woman who is queer).

• Prejudices are based on exaggerated differences between in-groups and out-groups, despite real similarities.

Cognitive Components of Prejudice

• Stereotypes can lead to overgeneralizations about group characteristics, which may not be valid.

• Prejudice involves feelings towards individuals based on group membership.

• Discrimination emerges when actions reflect these negative attitudes.

• Stereotypes serve as a lens through which social information is processed, often simplifying social complexities.

Problems with Stereotyping

• Misattribution: Stereotypes can obscure true causes of behaviors in individuals (e.g., attributing a young girl's poor computer skills to gender).

• Stereotype Threat: Awareness of stereotypes can lead to anxiety and poor performance (e.g., women fearing performance in math).

• Positive Stereotypes can impose unrealistic expectations and be harmful (e.g., the stereotype that all Asians are good at math).

• Stereotyping creates fixed expectations, neglecting individual diversity within groups.

• Evidence contradicting stereotypes is often dismissed, illustrating cognitive biases.

• In-group Bias: Favorable attributions toward in-group members and negative attributions toward out-group members.

• Out-group Homogeneity Effect: Perception that members of an out-group are more similar than they actually are.

Causes of Prejudice

• Tensions increase during competition for resources among in-groups and out-groups.

• Prejudice also rises during social change, as groups resist power shifts perceived as threats.

• Ethnocentrism occurs when individuals view their culture as central and judge others based on their norms.

Implicit vs. Explicit Attitudes

• Explicit Attitudes: Conscious beliefs and feelings about social groups.

• Implicit Attitudes: Automatic, unconscious evaluations that can differ from explicit beliefs.

  • Change requires effort and is often shaped by societal norms.

  • Microaggressions reflect implicit biases.

• The Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures implicit attitudes based on response times to categorize words/people.

The Robber's Cave Experiment

• Two groups of boys at a summer camp became hostile through competition.

• Rivalry diminished when the groups cooperated on common goals, indicating prejudice can be reduced through collaboration.

Conformity

• Conformity: Adjusting opinions/behaviors to align with group norms.

• Solomon Asch's study demonstrated that 76% of participants conformed to at least one incorrect choice made by group members.

• Normative Social Influence: Desire for social acceptance drives conformity.

• Informational Social Influence: Seeking correctness influences behaviors based on group information.

• Factors that increase conformity: unanimous group consensus, public responses, lack of prior commitment, ambiguous tasks, self-doubt, desire to belong.

Cultural Differences in Conformity

• Individualistic cultures (e.g., Western) view conformity negatively, emphasizing personal independence.

• Collectivistic cultures (e.g., Eastern) regard conformity as socially appropriate, even when privately disagreeing.