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Psych 280 Exam 4
| Question or Term | Definition or Answer |
|---|---|
| Prosocial behavior | Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person. |
| Altruism | Any act that benefits another person but does not benefit the helper and may even pose some risk to the helper. This is the act of helping purely out of the desire to benefit someone else, with no benefit to oneself. |
| How does evolutionary psychology explain helping behavior? | We are genetically hardwired to help others out. This explains genetic factors that evolved over time based on the principles of natural (survival) and sexual selection. Genes may produce instincts to act or respond in certain ways to situations. |
| Why do we help people today who are not our relatives? | Our ancient ancestors typically lived with our family members. We help without thinking about the fact that we are helping relatives. Helping was a general drive that continued after living with family stopped being the norm. |
| Kin selection | A tendency to help people who we are genetically similar to. If we help them, we are helping someone who shares our genes. Those genes are more likely to be passed onto their children, and include a tendency to want to help others, even at a great cost. |
| How is kin selection related to evolutionary psychology? | People are more likely to help genetic relatives than nonrelatives in life-and-death situations, such as a house fire. |
| Reciprocity norm | The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future. |
| How is the reciprocity norm related to evolutionary psychology? | This is an adaptive behavior that gets passed on genetically. A group of completely selfish individuals have found it more difficult to survive than a group that had learned to cooperate. Due to its survival value, this has become genetically based. |
| Why would learning norms be associated with evolutionary psychology and prosocial behavior? | Learning norms may be genetic. It is adaptive to pick up useful norms, like helping, from members of society. The best learners were likely to survive. Emotions also often motivate behavior. |
| Why would gratitude be associated with evolutionary psychology and prosocial behavior? | This may have evolved to facilitate reciprocity which helped groups survive. |
| What is direct fitness? | Asks the question if an individual has the qualities that facilitate their survival. Prosocial behavior does not so much help. |
| What is indirect fitness? | Asks the question if group members have the qualities that facilitate the survival of the group. Prosocial behavior will help here. Our ancestors were related to their groups, so prosocial behavior endured. |
| How does social exchange theory explain helping behavior? | This does not trace this desire back to our evolutionary roots. Helping gets rewarded with the costs not being too high. |
| What is the social exchange theory? | Rational, economic model of social behavior that is not related to genetics. It predicts that we only help others when the benefits outweigh the costs. In relationships, we try to maximize the ratio of social rewards to social costs. |
| What are some of the rewards of helping? | Emotional payoff, such as increased positive emotions from helping and lowered negative emotions from removing distress; social approval, meaning that people will like you more; reciprocity, meaning that it is more likely to get future help |
| What are some of the costs of helping? | May put you in danger, and the requirements may be painful or difficult. Embarrassment may also arise. Also, it may require a large time investment. |
| Why do people feel empathy? | We often match the facial expressions and body language of those around us, inducing us to feel what they're feeling. Mirror neurons can allow us to feel like we're doing what others are doing, even when we're just imagining them. |
| What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis? | Empathy causes altruistic helping. If you don't feel empathy, you help if the benefits exceed the costs. If you do feel empathy, you help regardless of the costs and benefits. |
| Toi and Batson (1982): What was the background? | Students heard and evaluated unaired news stories from the campus radio station. One story was about a student who had broken both of her legs and missed a month of class, including a class the participant was taking. |
| Toi and Batson (1982): What were the major findings? | If escape was difficult, students were more likely to help because they would feel punished if they didn't. If escape was easy, help depended on empathy. Low empathy showed that students were unlikely to help. High empathy showed altruism. |
| Why does altruism not exist according to the social exchange theory? | Argues that if you feel another person's pain, helping may lower their pain. This also lowers your pain, which means you're also benefiting. So, benefits = no altruism. |
| According to proponents of social exchange theory, why did Toi and Batson (1982) not find evidence for the empathy-altruism hypothesis? | It is argued that people's motives for helping are sometimes purely altruistic, however people do not often help purely out of the goodness of their hearts. |
| What are the limits of empathy due to bias? | We are more likely to feel empathy for attractive people, people who are similar to us, and people from our in-group. As a result, we may be selective in who we help. |
| How are personality traits related to prosocial behavior? (altruistic personality) | Some people may have more of this than others, meaning that they acquire the qualities that causes an individual to help others in a wide variety of situations. |
| How is prosocial behavior related to gender? | One gender is not more likely to help than the other. Gender norms influence how people choose to help. |
| What differences in help giving do we find between men and women? | Men are more likely to help in dangerous situations, while women are more likely to help with nurturing others. |
| What kinds of cultural differences exist in prosocial behavior? | Group membership. People are more likely in all places to help anyone they define as a member of their in-group than those they perceive in out-groups. |
| What is simpatia? | Prominent in Spanish-speaking countries, and refers to a range of social and emotional traits: friendly, polite, helpful, etc. People in countries that value this helped a blind man on the street more than countries that do not. |
| How does social learning theory explain prosocial behavior, and what evidence is there to support this view? | We don't just learn new behaviors through rewards and punishments, but we also can by observing others. If the observed behavior leads to rewards, we're even more likely to perform them, and less likely when it leads to punishment. |
| Isen and Levine (1972): What was the methodology? | Participants in a mall made a phone call on a payphone. Only some found a dime in the coin return. Then, a confederate walked by an dropped some papers. |
| Isen and Levine (1972): What were the major findings? | 84% of the participants who found a coin helped the confederate who dropped the papers, and 4% of the participants who did not find a coin helped the confederate. |
| How is mood related to prosocial behavior? | It does matter how one may feeling at a given time. Whether people are feeling good, bad, or neutral has surprising effects on how helpful they will be. |
| Why are you more likely to be helped in a rural environment? How does the urban overload hypothesis explain this? | Cities produce environments that are not conducive to helping. People are in a hurry, distracted, or overwhelmed by stimuli in the environment. |
| How and why is residential mobility related to prosocial behavior in a community? | People who have lived for a long time in one place are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors that help community. This provides a greater attachment, more interdependence, and greater concern with one's reputation in the community. |
| What is the five stage model of helping? | Noticing an event, interpreting the event as an emergency, assuming responsibility, knowing how to help, and deciding to implement help. |
| Step one of the five stage model of helping | Noticing. To help, you have to notice that something has happened. You're less likely to notice a problem in a crowd of people, since others' behavior can be distracting, and others may block your view. |
| Step two of the five stage model of helping | Interpretation. People won't help if they don't interpret an event as an emergency in which help is needed. Larger groups of people make you less likely to judge a situation as an emergency due to social influence. |
| Step three of the five stage model of helping | Assuming responsibility. Once you've made up your mind that the situation calls for help, you need to decide whether or not you're responsible for providing it. Crowds make people feel less responsible for helping. |
| Step four of the five stage model of helping | Knowing how to help. If you assume responsibility, you will only provide help if you know what to do and feel that you can actually do it. For example, "Can you perform CPR?", "Do you know how to swim?", "Can you fight off a mugger?" |
| Step five of the five stage model of helping | Deciding to help. You are less likely to help if the potential costs of helping are too high. For instance, embarrassment about a false alarm; trying to help may make the situation worse; helping may put you into personal danger |
| How and why does the presence of a large group of people make people less likely to pass through the first three stages of the model? | Crowds influence responsibility, because the more people that are present, the less likely are any one of them to actually provide help. Everyone thinks that someone else will provide assistance. |
| Pluralistic ignorance | We often think that we're the only person who believes something. Sometimes, most people feel the same way, but nobody knows it. People make assumptions because no one says what they think. "I'm the only one in class that doesn't understand the lecture". |
| Bystander effect (diffusion of responsibility) | The more people present, the less likely are any one of them to actually provide help. Everyone thinks that someone else will provide assistance. |
| Darley and Batson (1973): What was the experiment based on? | Experimentally tested the effect of thoughts and time pressure on helping behavior. |
| Darley and Batson (1973): What were the major findings? | Thought manipulation had no effect. Participants in a hurry were less likely to notice and help. The situation had the strongest influence on prosocial behavior. |
| Latane and Darley (1970): What was the methodology? | Subjects sat in a room with another subject (a confederate) filling out surveys (or they were alone). At some point, smoke starts pouring into the room through a vent. The confederate (when present) is trained not to respond. |
| Latane and Darley (1970): What were the major findings? | When participants in groups saw smoke, they checked others' faces and concluded it wasn't an emergency. Participants who were alone went with their gut instincts and left. |
| Darley and Latane (1968): What was the methodology? | Created a controlled situation in which a person must seek another person in order to be helpful. Will more bystanders inhibit the likelihood of responding and speed of responding to an "emergency" created in the lab? |
| Darley and Latane (1968): What were the major findings? | Additional people dramatically reduced likelihood of helping. Participants were interviewed after the experiment was over. They cared about the person and knew it was an emergency, they just didn't know if they should be the one to get help. |
| Positive psychology | Traditionally, the focus has been on stopping bad, unhealthy behavior, but it has been starting to shift to increasing good, healthy behavior. Empathy drives helping, and seeing things from other's perspectives. |
| What is the potential drawback of requiring people to engage in prosocial behavior? | Even if we know what kind of intervention is needed in a specific situation where help is needed, we also have to weigh the costs of attempting to help. When people are forced to do something, they lose their intrinsic interest in the activity. |
| Compassion | Recognizing that everyone is suffering in some way, and making a commitment to help others with their suffering. |
| How is prosocial behavior related to religious beliefs? | Religious people are more likely to help than other people are, only if the person in need shares their religious beliefs, encouraging cooperation with like-minded individuals. When it comes to helping strangers, religious people are no more helpful. |
| What has been found regarding diffusion of responsibility in cyberspace? | When one is addressed by name on a social media site, they feel more of a responsibility to help, regardless of the amount of bystanders. |
| How can media like music or video games increase prosocial behavior? | Video games may make one more cooperative, as well as listening to positive songs, since people's empathy towards someone in need of help is increased, and the accessibility of thoughts about helping others is increased. |
| Aggression | Any behavior, verbal or physical, intended to harm a person who does not wish to be harmed. |
| Violence | Extreme form of aggression that has serious physical harm (for instance, serious injury or death) as its goal. |
| What is the difference between aggression and violence? | Anyone is capable of minor aggressive behavior (slamming doors, yelling) if the situation is right. However, extreme aggressive behavior (murder, assault, school shootings) requires multiple causal factors to be present. |
| Hostile aggression | Stems from feelings of anger and is aimed at inflicting pain or injury. |
| Instrumental aggression | An intermediary step toward a nonaggressive goal. |
| What is the difference between instrumental and hostile aggression? | One is a step towards an aggressive goal, while the other is a step towards a nonaggressive goal. |
| What is important to remember about the causes of extreme aggression like mass shootings? | There has to be multiple causal factors present for extreme aggression to occur. |
| What is Freud's instinct explanation for aggression, and how is it related to catharsis? | People are innately aggressive; it is just who we are. Catharsis states that aggression builds up like steam in a steam engine, threatening to explode. People must release their aggression or they will experience mental illness. |
| How could aggression have been evolutionarily adaptive for men? | It established dominance. They provided greater protection and resources for offspring. "Jealous" aggression kept others away from their mate and helped ensure paternity. These people had more children and passed on the trait. |
| How can evolution create both a drive to be prosocial and a drive to be aggressive? | These behaviors are tools we can bring into use when a situation demands it. Constant, indiscriminate helping and aggression would not be adaptive. |
| How does culture influence aggressive behavior? | Everyone is capable of aggression. The social environment plays a stronger role than biology in influencing whether we choose it. Times can change, and aggression can become more or less accepted. |
| What is the Southern Culture of Honor? | Southern, white males show extreme sensitivity to threats to prestige or honor, and accept violence as a response to these threats. Argument-related homicide rates are higher in the south, especially in rural areas. |
| Cohen (1996): What were the methods? | Tested to see if the men were insulted. If they weren't they walked down a hallway to turn in a questionnaire. If they were, they walked down a hallway, a confederate slammed a file cabinet, bumped participant, then swore at them. |
| Cohen (1996): What were the major findings? | Testosterone levels of insulted southerners increased, while northerners were unaffected. Aggression is a more acceptable response to insults in Southern culture. |
| How is aggression related to gender? | Men and women have different role models for aggressive behavior. As a result, our culture encourages different kinds of aggression for men and women. |
| What differences in aggression do we find between men and women? | Men are more likely to engage in violence and inflict more serious injury. Women are more likely to engage in relational aggression (harming a person through manipulating the relationship), and gossiping, shunning, or spreading rumors. |
| Discomfort/Heat and aggression | Bad odors, physical pain, heat, and humidity all contribute to aggression. For example, pitchers are more likely to hit batters as the temperature increases. |
| How and why does alcohol influence aggression? | Intoxication makes aggression more likely to occur. It inhibits cognition, loss in self-awareness, loss in inhibitions, and people also expect to be more aggressive when drinking. |
| "Think-drink" effect | When people expect alcohol to have certain effects on them, it often does. When people expect that alcohol will "release" their aggressive impulses, they often do become more aggressive, even when they're drinking something nonalcoholic. |
| What is the social learning theory? | People can learn by watching a model's behavior and rewards or punishments the model receives. If they see the behavior rewarded, they're likely to imitate model, and if they see the behavior punished, they are unlikely to imitate model. |
| How does the social learning theory differ compared to the classic behavioral approach to learning? | One requires that the rewards or punishments must happen to you, while the other states that people don't have to directly experience rewards or punishments to change behavior. |
| What is operant conditioning? | People learn behaviors by directly experiencing rewards or punishment. If you experience a reward for a behavior, you're more likely to do it, and if you experience a punishment for a behavior, you're less likely to do it. |
| Bandura (1961): What were the methods? | Children observed an adult playing with an inflatable doll ("Bobo"). Some saw the adult treating the doll aggressively, while some saw the adult treating the doll nicely. The child was then given a chance to play with "Bobo" to see how they would behave. |
| Bandura (1961): What were the results of the study? | If they saw the aggressive adult, they treated the doll in an abusive way and imitated exact actions of adult. If they saw the nonaggressive adult, they treated the doll nicely and almost never showed aggression. |
| Why is media violence a significant problem? | TV, movies, and video games often feature aggressive and violent behavior. Watching violence makes a person more likely to act aggressively or violently. |
| Johnson et al (2002): What were the methods? | Experimenters tracked 700 families over 17 years measuring the time spent watching TV during adolescence and early childhood to see if that would predict violent acts later in life. |
| Johnson et al (2002): What were the results of the study? | Time spent watching TV over a long course of time does predict violent acts later in life, however, parenting practices could not explain these results. |
| How does exposure to media violence increase aggression? | Watching violence does increase the frequency of aggressive behavior, angry emotions, and hostile thoughts. Longitudinal studies have found that the more violence children watch, the more aggressively they behave later as teenagers and young adults. |
| What are social scripts? | Describe approved ways of behaving when we are frustrated, angry, or hurt. Violent media shows the public how to commit violence while simultaneously making it look cool. |
| Why do aggressive scripts lead to more aggressive acts? | If you have these scripts, you are more likely to predict that a confrontation will lead to aggression or violence. |
| What is desensitization, and why are desensitized people more likely to aggress? | Normally, violence upsets people and inhibits them from violent behaviors. Frequent exposure to violence makes violence less unpleasant, making it a more comfortable behavioral choice. |
| Sensitization | Our bodies can respond over time to repeated stimuli with progressively more arousal. |
| Habituation | Our bodies can respond over time to repeated stimuli with progressively less arousal. |
| Anderson and Dill (2000): What was the experiment based on? | Participants were told that they were taking part in a study on learning and motor skills. |
| Anderson and Dill (2000): What were the major findings? | Participants who played the violent video game had higher levels of accessibility for hostile words, and blasted their partner with longer, more intense noise blasts. Violent media is a risk factor, not a guarantee of violent behavior. |
| What is unique about violent video games that makes them likely to increase aggression compared to violent movies or TV? | Violence is more common and the player chooses to be violent toward others. Protagonists are presented as hero's, and violence is an acceptable response. Aggression is rewarded, and there are few peaceful options for resolving conflict. |
| What do we know about the cause and effect relationship between violent media and violent people? | Aggressive people are drawn more so to watching violence. Violent media can lead to violence, while violent people can also choose violent media. |
| What is Dollard's (1939) Frustration-Aggression hypothesis/theory? | We aggress when people thwart our goals. These negative emotions cause aggression. Aggressing reduces these emotions. Frustration increases anger, which makes you more likely to aggress, but it doesn't guarantee aggression. |
| Frustration | A major cause of aggression. It occurs when a person is thwarted or disrupted while on the way to an expected goal or gratification. |
| Displacement | Concept within the frustration-aggression hypothesis that states that we often can't aggress against the thwarter, but if we can, we would find an easier target. |
| What factors influence how frustrated you become? | Goal proximity; closer to your goal = more frustration. Example, you're the next person in line to get a product and they run out. Unexpected frustration; example, unexpected road construction on a trip. |
| Braker, Dembo, Lewin (1941) study | Kids were put in front of a room of attractive toys. Half were let right in to play with them, half were made to wait a long time. Those made to wait tended to run in and play very aggressively with the toys, destroying some. |
| When are you more likely to aggress when frustrated? | If it is safe to retaliate against the person causing your frustration, the person causing your frustration can't retaliate, and if the person is not physically near. |
| When are you less likely to aggress when frustrated? | If the situation was understandable and you know why it happened, if the situation was legitimate and there's a good reason for the behavior, and if the situation was unintentional and they never meant for it to happen. |
| Weapons effect | An increase in aggression that can occur because of the mere presence of a gun or other weapon. This is physical as well as psychological. |
| Relative deprivation/frustration | The perception that you (or your group) have less than what you deserve, less than what you have been led to expect, or less than what people similar to you have. For example, having wealthy neighbors or unrealistic expectations. |
| Absolute frustration | Describes those who are poor, and will not necessarily feel frustration. |
| What is the difference between absolute and relative frustration? | One will lead to frustration, while the other will not so much lead to frustration. |
| Provocation | Aggression frequently stems from the need to reciprocate after being bothered by another person in an aggressive way. |
| Under what conditions is provocation more or less likely to lead to aggression? | You're less likely to respond with aggression if the provocation was unintentional and if there were mitigating circumstances. This can however lead to aggression for both sexes since anger reduces impulse control. |
| Johnson and Rule (1986): What was the methodology? | Students were insulted by the experimenters' assistant. Half were told before the insult that the insulter had just received an unfair bad grade, and half were told this information after the insult. |
| What is the hostile attribution bias and how does it contribute to aggression? | Asks if a provocation was intentional. If it was, violence is likely, and if it wasn't, violence is less likely. Sometimes it's not clear why a person has provoked you. Aggressive people may have aggressive schemas and interpret behavior as intentional. |
| Priming | The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept. Spreading activation is when activation of one thought activates related thoughts. |
| Aggressive cues | Any object that is associated with aggression and that can prime aggression. |
| Cognitive priming | Simply being in the presence of an aggressive cue makes violence more likely. |
| Berkowitz and LePage (1967): What was the methodology? | Participants angered people by shocking them in a room with either badminton equipment, or a gun lying around. |
| Berkowitz and LePage (1967): What were the major findings? | In a separate task, people in the gun condition gave more intense shocks to another subject, which demonstrates that aggression can be primed. |
| Narcissism | Describes someone with overly inflated self-esteem and someone who is easily provoked by criticism. |
| Why is narcissism related to aggression? | These people typically don't care about others. Relationships exist only to boost their fragile self-esteem. They are very easily provoked because their self-esteem is not well-grounded and they are always vulnerable. |
| Antisocial personality disorder | Describes someone having a low empathy for others, no concern with whether behavior is right or wrong, antagonistic or manipulative toward other people, and unlikely to feel guilt or remorse. |
| Why is the antisocial personality disorder related to aggression? | These people have few inhibitions against aggression, either moral or emotional. People with this are likely to end up in prison. |
| Dark triad | Three personality traits that tend to occur together: narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism. Each of these contributes to aggressiveness. |
| How is catharsis supposed to relieve aggression? | Anger can build up inside of us. You can "release" this anger by acting aggressively toward a safe target or by watching others behave aggressively. Releasing the anger will make you less likely to want to behave aggressively. |
| Is catharsis actually effective? | Studies have shown that it does make people "feel" better at some level, but it doesn't reduce aggression and tends to lead to more aggression over time. |
| What did Geen et al (1975) find about acting aggressively that failed to support this view? | Participants were provoked and angered by being given shocks, then half were given the opportunity to shock someone else, half were not. Then, everyone was given an opportunity to give shocks. Those who had already given shocks gave more intense shocks. |
| What are effective methods for reducing aggression, and why do they work? | Social learning works. If someone provokes you, deal with it in a calm, respectful manner, and others may imitate you. Taking deep breaths or count to 10, distract yourself with an unrelated activity, which makes most strong emotions dissipate after time. |
| What is the best method for dealing with someone who makes you mad? | Calmly let them know that you're mad about it. Explain in a non-judgmental, non-punitive way what made you angry. This should reduce the tension and allow you to communicate about the problem. |
| Why do psychologists not encourage violent punishment for violent behavior? | Many parents punish their children's misbehavior by shouting at them or hitting and grabbing them, but this usually backfires, making the child more angry and resentful and teaches them to reciprocate that behavior. |
| What is the challenge hypothesis? | Testosterone and aggression are only related when opportunities for reproduction are high. |
| What is the dual-hormone hypothesis? | Testosterone only relates to dominance behaviors when cortisol is low. Testosterone only predicts aggression when there is a chance to gain something from that aggression. |
| What are sexual scripts? | Schemas of how sexual encounters play out between potential partners. These may explain why people are confused or angry over the word "no" in a sexual context. |
| How do sexual scripts contribute to sexual assault? | Some men have a desire to dominate, humiliate, or punish their victims by using rape. They are often unable to emphasize with women, and feel entitled to have sexual relations with whatever woman they choose. |
| How can we counter dehumanization using empathy? | Once video game players get into the habit of dehumanizing the enemy, that habit can be carried over into how players come to regard others. People find it difficult to inflict pain on a stranger, unless they can find a way to justify it (dehumanizing). |
| Prejudice | A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership in that group. Many people face this because of nationality, race and ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation (negative attitudes). |
| Why is prejudice dangerous? | Targets can experience loss of opportunities, stress, depression, and diminished self-esteem. It can escalate to hatred, violence, or even murder. |
| How is prejudice related to emotions? (affective) | It is an emotional response toward a specific group. It depends on the type of emotion and the strength of the emotion. This is typically a mild to strong negative emotional response. |
| How is prejudice related to behaviors? (behavioral) | Discrimination is what describes this, which is unwarranted hostile behavior toward a member of a group which is based on their group membership. |
| How is prejudice related to cognitions? | Stereotypes, which are a generalization about a group of people in which identical characteristics are assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual variation among members. |
| Stereotyping | This is a cognitive process, not an emotional one. Consists of a list of qualities you associate with a group; you can associate positive or negative qualities with a group. |
| How are stereotypes related to schemas? | Schemas help us organize and categorize all the information in our environment, and are essential for us to function in the world. Stereotypes are schemas for a group of people, but people are not like objects. |
| Why is understanding a person different from understanding an object? | People have hidden, unobservable qualities. How you treat a person may change a person. |
| Categorization | The tendency to group similar things together, which allows schema formation. Is a basic ability that all intelligent forms of life have. When you do this, you look past individual differences and focus on similarities. |
| Distinction | Seeing your group as different from other groups. |
| How are categorization related to stereotyping? | People focus on how members of these groups are similar and ignore individual differences. These perceived similarities are stereotypes. |
| Out-group homogeneity effect | The tendency to perceive more variability among in-groups than out-groups, and it helps preserve stereotypes. |
| Why do we think about in-groups differently than out-groups? | We don't ignore individual differences when thinking about our own group. We have more opportunities to learn about individual differences with our own group. It is easier to recall specific individuals when thinking about our own group. |
| How does stereotyping influence the interpretation of behavior? | Ambiguous behaviors are interpreted in stereotype consistent ways. In effect, the world you see is populated with people acting stereotypically. It can be unclear sometimes whether it is socially acceptable to express prejudice. |
| Sagar and Schofield (1980): What were the methods of the study? | Experimenters studied the stereotype that African-Americans are aggressive. The participants were sixth graders saw pictures and descriptions of ambiguously aggressive behaviors by black and/or white children. |
| Sagar and Schofield (1980): What were the results of the study? | Both black and white children rated the black kids' behavior as meaner compared to the white kids'. |
| How do stereotypes affect memory? | The processes of encoding and retrieval. As a result of these processes, people regularly "see" their stereotypes confirmed. Memory for people or events will likely be consistent with stereotypes, and people feel as if their stereotypes are rarely wrong. |
| Encoding | The process where you can bias what you put into memory, and you may just pay attention to stereotype consistent information. |
| Retrieval | The process where you can bias what you take out of memory, and you may recall consistent information, even if it isn't true. |
| What is the illusory correlation and how does it maintain stereotypes? | When targets of stereotyping behave in stereotype consistent ways, we notice it. We're more likely to notice minorities. We "perceive" the two events as related, when they actually aren't. |
| What are attributions and how do they maintain stereotypes? | Asks the question if the cause of a behavior is the person or the situation. The way we make these for behaviors can help maintain stereotypes. |
| Fundamental attribution error | The process where we tend to attribute the cause of behavior to a person's traits and ignore situational influences. Sometimes the situation causes the behavior, but we ignore this and bolster our stereotypes. |
| Ultimate attribution error | The process of generalizing the cause of one person's behavior to an entire group. |
| Bodenhausen and Wyer (1985): What were the methods of the study? | Researchers had college students read fictionalized files on prisoners to make a parole decision. Sometimes the crime matched the common stereotype of the offender. Hispanic male: assault and battery; wealthy Caucasian: embezzlement |
| Bodenhausen and Wyer (1985): What were the results of the study? | When crimes were consistent with stereotypes, students' recommendations for parole were harsher. Most students ignored additional relevant information that was inconsistent with the stereotype (such as evidence of good behavior in prison). |
| What causes people to blame victims for their victimization? | This is the tendency to blame individuals (make dispositional attributions) for their victimization. We want to see the world as a fair and just place where people get what they deserve. |
| How can you use attributions to ignore information that disconfirms your stereotype? | You can avoid making a dispositional attribution about that person's behavior. Maybe something about the situation caused the behavior, or they don't really represent the group they belong to. This helps the stereotype remain intact. |
| Subtyping | We can label people who aren't consistent with stereotypes as exceptions. Exceptions aren't really evidence then against the validity of the stereotype. This prevents the stereotype from being disconfirmed. |
| Self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotypes | Describes that the perceiver has a false belief about a target (can be based on stereotypes), and they treat the target in a manner consistent with that false belief. The target then responds to the treatment in a way that confirms that false belief. |
| Why does the self fulfilling prophecy happen? | We tend to match other people's behavior. Your behavior may generate a norm. There is also never a chance given to disconfirm that stereotype. |
| Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid (1977): What were the methods of the study? | Prior to interacting with a woman over an intercom, men were shown a picture of the woman that was either attractive or unattractive. Men's expectations for the interaction were then measured. |
| Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid (1977): What were the results of the study? | Men expected the attractive woman to be more sociable, poised, and funny. Impartial judges rated the resulting conversations more positively if the man thought he was talking to an attractive woman. |
| What is Devine's (1989) Dissociation Model? How is it related to controlled and automatic processing? | Explains that we all have stereotypes, but only some people are prejudiced. Stereotypes can be automatically applied when we're not careful. If we're motivated, we can go back and refute an automatically applied stereotype. |
| Controlled cognitive processes | We are motivated to think. Some characteristics of this cognitive process are conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful. |
| Automatic cognitive processes | We are not motivated to think. Some characteristics of this cognitive process are unconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless. |
| Gilbert and Hixon (1991): What was the independent variable of the study? | Manipulation of cognitive busyness. High busyness had to rehearse an 8 digit number or scan an image; low busyness had no additional task. |
| Gilbert and Hixon (1991): What were the results of the study? | Under high cognitive busyness, Asian stereotypes were less cognitively accessible than under low busyness, but they were more likely to use stereotypes to judge the experimenter. |
| How can stereotypes help our self-esteem? | People can use stereotypes to boost their self-esteem. For the Spencer, Fein, Wolfe, Fong, and Dunn (1998) experiment, low self-esteem participants were more likely to activate stereotypes, even under load; they felt better when they could activate them. |
| Sinclair and Kunda (1999) study | Participants were evaluated by a black doctor. If the feedback was negative, they activated their black stereotype rather than a doctor stereotype. Explains that people can use stereotypes to defend their self-esteem. |
| Stereotype threat | Explains that a victim of prejudice may internalize stereotypes and experience anxiety about confirming that stereotype. This may cause arousal or self-handicapping that interferes with performance. |
| Steele and Aronson (1995): What were the methods of the study? | Black and white college students were given items from the SAT test. Some subjects were told that the test measured general intelligence, while some subjects were told it did not. |
| Steele and Aronson (1995): What were the results of the study? | When black students thought the test measured intelligence, they became nervous that they would perform more poorly and confirm a stereotype. This lead to overall poorer performance on the test. |
| Realistic Conflict Theory | Competition for limited resources that leads to conflict and prejudice; strongest prejudice against minorities often comes from people in similar economic situations and during hard times. Frustration often leads to prejudice. |
| Social Identity Theory | We want to be members of the best group in order to boost our self-esteem. To achieve this, we can enhance our own group (ingroup-love) or derogate other groups (outgroup-bias) or both. |
| In-group bias | Positive feelings and special treatment for people we have defined as being part of our in-group. Negative feelings and unfair treatment for others simply because we have defined them as being in the out-group. |
| What causes in-group bias? | Self-esteem. Individuals enhance self-esteem by identifying with specific social groups. Self-esteem is enhanced only if the individual sees these groups as superior to other groups. |
| Minimal groups paradigm | Where strangers are put into groups using trivial criteria. Group members behave as if those in the same group were friends or family; they like their group better and think they have better traits, and also gave more rewards to their group members. |
| How does economic and political competition lead to prejudice? | When times are rough and resources are scarce, in-group members will feel more threatened by the out-group. Incidents of prejudice, discrimination, and violence toward out-group members will increase. |
| Old-fashioned racism | Describes when people openly admitted racist attitudes. This isn't as common now because norms have changed. |
| Modern racism | Describes that people typically hide racist attitudes. However, indirect measures still reveal racism and prejudice. |
| How do we assess modern racism? | The bogus pipeline; participants are connected to a fake lie detector, making them more honest. IAT; measures speed of positive and negative reactions to target groups. Modern racism scale; measures "acceptable" ways to express prejudice. |
| Why don't persuasive messages lower prejudice? | When people are presented with an example that seems to refute their existing stereotype, most don't change their general belief. Disconfirming evidence instead challenged them to come up with more reasons for holding on to that belief. |
| Why doesn't intergroup contact lower prejudice? | It can lead to increased prejudice, because cognitive processes related to stereotyping prevent change and maintain stereotypes. |
| What factors enhance the ability of contact between different groups to lower prejudice? | Superordinate goals; a common goal for both groups helps make everyone equal, and it creates a new group, making in-group favoritism occur. Friendship; close inter-group friendships are one of the best ways to eliminate stereotyping and prejudice. |
| Example describing what is wrong with positive stereotypes? | Asian Americans have been labeled a "model minority", a culture of people who are hardworking and intelligent. But, many of them object to this because it sets up expectations for those not interested in succeeding and who don't like being categorized. |
| Benevolent sexism | Women are idealized as being better than men for stereotypically female qualities like being caring and good cooks. Due to this, women also want men to hold doors for them, and those who support this are less likely to advocate for women's equal rights. |
| Hostile sexism | The belief that women are inferior to men, as well as the endorsement of negative stereotypes of women. |
| What is the difference between benevolent and hostile sexism? | They are strongly correlated, meaning that benevolent sexists are likely also hostile sexists. |
| What is everyday discrimination? | Microaggressions occur, which are the "slights, indignities, and put-downs" that many minorities face. As well as hiring discrimination, which results in people resorting to strategies that minimize their social identities. |
| Ethnocentrism | The belief that your own culture, nation or religion is superior to all others. It is universal because it aids survival by increasing people's attachment to their own group and their willingness to work on its behalf. |
| Empathy | The ability to recognize and feel what another person is feeling. It is implicated in social behaviors like helping, aggression, and prejudice. |
| Toi and Batson (1982): Regarding helping the student | After students heard the story, they received a personal letter from that professor, stating that the student requested lengthy tutoring to catch up with what she missed in the last month of class. Would the participant provide this timely assistance? |
| Toi and Batson (1982): Regarding manipulating empathy | Before listening to the stories, students were asked to either be as objective as possible and not think about the person in the story's feelings, or to take the perspective of the person in the story and think about their feelings. |
| Toi and Batson (1982): Regarding manipulating ease of escape | After reading the letter, students were told that they will never see the student because she can't come to class, or that they will see the student in class, and it will be easy to identify her. |
| What are the limits of empathy for a single person? | Empathy does not often connect us to a larger group of people. As a result, we may not care or feel empathy about a problem facing thousands, or millions, of people. |
| In-group | The group with which an individual identifies as a member. |
| Out-group | Any group with which an individual does not identify. |
| Will we help? (based on group membership) | If it's a member of our in-group, we help when we feel empathy, and we often feel empathy for in-group members. If it's a member of our out-group, we help when it furthers our self-interests. |
| Examples of social learning theory | Children observing their teacher give rewards to a needy child were more likely to donate their reward. Participants who observed someone help with a flat tire were more likely to help in that same situation. |
| How do good moods contribute to helping? | Helping can prolong a good mood. Good mood increases self-attention, making us more aware of our values, and we also are able to see other people more positively. With reciprocity, "the universe did me a favor and I should return the favor". |
| How do bad moods contribute to helping? | Negative emotions can lead to an increase in helping under certain conditions. It might seem that negative emotions would decrease helping since feeling happy leads to greater helping. |
| How does guilt contribute to helping? | These feelings can increase help giving. If you're having second thoughts about how you've treated someone, helping someone may help repair your feelings and self-concept. |
| Example of how guilt contributes to helping | Harris et al (1975) found that Catholics donate less to charities after confession. |
| How does sadness contribute to helping? | People are motivated to do things that make them feel better. |
| Negative-state relief hypothesis | People help in order to alleviate their own sadness and distress. |
| Amato (1983) and helping | Suppose you are walking down the street one day when you see a man suddenly fall and cry with pain. His bandaged shin is bleeding heavily. In small towns, 50% of people offered help. In large cities, only 15% of people offered help. |
| What happens if city dwellers move to rural environments? | The environment should now be more conducive to helping, and they should be more helpful as a result. |
| Darley and Batson (1973): Independent variables | Participants were 40 theology students. Control group had to give a speech on seminary careers, and helping group talked about the Good Samaritan. The hurry group was told "you're late", on time "you have several minutes" and early "you have lots of time" |
| Darley and Batson (1973): Dependent variable | On the way to the talk, participants passed a man slumped in a doorway. He looked sick with his head down, eyes closed, unmoving. He also coughed twice and groaned. What % of participants stopped to help him? |
| Pluralistic ignorance and interpreting emergency situations | When you think an emergency may have occurred, you calmly look around to see how everyone else is reacting. Everyone is calmly looking to you for the same reason. Everyone is concerned but people assume there is no emergency because everyone else is calm. |
| Darley and Latane (1968): Creating the emergency | Participants were put into a room alone with an intercom. They didn't see any of the other "participants". They were told to use the intercom for a group discussion of college student problems. When someone was talking all microphones turned off. |
| Darley and Latane (1968): The emergency | After the discussion started, the participant heard one of the group members having a seizure. It is being tested whether or not that participant would get help. |
| Darley and Latane (1968): Manipulating group size | Participants were told how many people were involved in the group discussion (two, three, or six people including themselves). |
| Why does the Southern Culture of Honor exist? | Culture consists of knowledge and beliefs that a group found to be helpful in the past. The American south was settled by people who came from a herding culture. Herders must maintain an image of toughness, otherwise someone may take their animals. |
| Cohen (1996): Experimental study | Studied male northern and southern students from the University of Michigan. |
| Griffit and Veitch (1971) study | Experimental study with cool and hot rooms. Participants in the hot rooms were angrier and more aggressive. |
| What are scripts? | Describe expectations for how events typically occur. These develop through observation, and help you predict how people will act. |
| Anderson and Dill (2000): Independent and dependent variable | Participants played either a violent or non-violent video game for 15 minutes. Then, they completed measures of aggressive thoughts and behaviors with a noise blast, seeing how long and intense it is. |
| Anderson and Dill (2000): Measuring aggressive behavior (dependent variable) | Participants then take part in a "competitive" reaction time test with a partner, and the winner can blast the loser with noise. They always lose the first trial (provocation), and always win the second trial (response). |
| Johnson and Rule (1986): What were the major findings? | When given the opportunity to aggress against the assistant, participants who knew about the bad grade before the insult aggressed against the assistant to a lower degree. |
| Priming and aggression | If you witness violence or see objects associated with violence, this may prime violent thoughts. If you're primed with aggression repeatedly, aggressive thoughts are more accessible, and aggressive behavioral options are more likely to be chosen. |
| Narcissistic personality | Describes an exaggerated view of self-importance, deep need for attention and admiration, lack of empathy and concern for others, strong sense of entitlement, and someone who is arrogant and boastful. |
| Psychopathy | Describes an antisocial personality with low empathy and remorse. |
| Machiavellianism | Desire to manipulate others to achieve one's goals, and the belief that the ends justify the means. |
| Catharsis and aggression | Suggests that one way to reduce feelings of aggression is to do something aggressive. "Get it out of your system" has been a common piece of advice. |
| What is the best method for apologizing to someone who made you mad? | Taking responsibility and giving a sincere apology will defuse aggression. Apologizing lets the person know that you won't let it happen again. Even if it's not your fault, try to find something to apologize for. |
| Relationship between stereotyping and prejudice | Prejudice requires stereotyping, but not all stereotypes lead to prejudice. Knowing a stereotype doesn't mean you endorse it, but it can still affect you. Once formed, stereotypes are extremely resistant to change. |
| How do we categorize people? | Some of the first things we notice about someone are age, gender, and ethnicity. This process is automatic, and it quickly provides information, especially when under stress. |
| Gilbert and Hixon (1991): Accessibility vs. influence | This study asks if stereotypes can influence your judgments without your awareness, if a stereotype is active in your mind, and if you're using a stereotype to judge someone. Only sometimes we have plenty of time and energy to process information. |
| Gilbert and Hixon (1991): Do you have time to think? | For this study, the low cognitive busyness category had lots of time + energy to think; controlled processing occurs and can question our stereotypes. The high cognitive busyness category had less time to think; automatic processing occurs+ we use schemas |
| Gilbert and Hixon (1991): What was the dependent variable of the study? | The participants had to interact with an Asian experimenter, and experimenters tested if Asian stereotypes were accessible, and if Asian stereotypes influenced the participants' evaluation of the experimenter. |
| Why is the Gilbert and Hixon (1991) study important? | Even if you're not a prejudiced person, stereotypes can still affect your judgments. When you're having a stressful day, you're more likely to use stereotypes, and you may not be aware that you're doing this. |
| Scapegoating (how economic and political competition leads to prejudice) | When frustrated or unhappy, people tend to displace aggression onto groups that are disliked, visible, and relatively powerless. This is a form of aggression dependent on what an in-group approves of or allows. |
| Sources of prejudicial beliefs | Family and culture. Simply by living in a society where stereotypical information abounds and where discriminatory behavior is the norm, the vast majority of us will unwittingly develop prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behavior to some extent. |
| The Contact Hypothesis | The idea that promoting or forcing contact between groups will reduce prejudice. This rarely works. |
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