Chapter 12: Social Psychology PDF

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Professor Jeffrey Measelle lecture notes from chapter 12....

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Lake Wobegon Effect (Better-than-Average Effect) o You systematically think you are better than average o We deceive ourselves (lack self-knowledge)  We are prone to and maintain Self-Serving Biases: the tendency to overestimate situation-based explanations for the observed (negative) behaviors of ourselves  Fundamental Attribution Error: the tendency to overestimate personality-based explanations for the observed (negative) behaviors of others o Is positive self-bias good?  Some is okay, and even adaptive  It helps us attain our goals and avoid depression (Taylor & Brown)  Too much of anything is a bad thing  We need to be realistic about self-progress  Don't want to be a narcissist o Other self-biases: Spotlight Effect  Biased attention: we seriously and systematically over estimate how much people notice us  Tom Gilovich study o Why should we care about self-bias? Self-fulfilling prophecies  People tend to behave in ways that conform their own or others' expectations  Rosenthal Experiment: Teachers and IQ  Pygmalion Effect: the greater the expectations on people, the better they perform Cognitive Dissonance Theory o Leon Festinger: cognitive dissonance occurs when there is a contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior  Dissonance causes anxiety and tension; motivates you to reduce the dissonance  You reduce dissonance by changing your attitudes or behaviors or you rationalize or trivialize the discrepancy Prejudice and Stereotyping o Stereotyping: attributing traits to members of a particular group o Prejudice: a negative attitude or negative affect toward a particular group and its members o Discrimination: treating members of a particular group differently (generally worse) because of their group membership  Discrimination in Healthcare  Doctors are 40% less likely to order sophisticated cardiac tests for women and black people who complain of chest pain than for men and white people with the same symptoms  Doctors' IAT scores (a measure of implicit prejudice) predict their treatment recommendations  'Modern' and 'Benevolent' forms of prejudice

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Modern racism (subtle racism): a rejection of explicit racism, but with ongoing, unacknowledged negative attitudes  Benevolent racism/sexism/homophobia: "some of my best friends are.."  People are 'okay' with/act positively toward members of another group so long as they conform to expectations  Glick & Fiske (2001): benevolent sexism often coexists with hostile sexism o Causes of stereotypes and prejudice?  Realistic conflict: frustration from competing with another group for scarce resources  Economic competition is a driving force in the development or maintenance of negative intergroup attitudes  People with the "most to lose" often show the greatest amount of prejudice and related aggression  Us vs. Them - human tendency of in-group and out-group  Social learning - it is taught and learned o Can people control their prejudice and stereotyping?  Not very well  Devine (2000) found that people low & high in prejudice often have similar automatic emotional reactions  Low-prejudiced people "consciously" act to suppress prejudicial thoughts and feelings  Stereotype threat: if participants are told that women are worse than men at mathematics, the women's scores worsen and the men's improve Prejudice = Implicit Attitudes o Automatic prejudice - everyone is prejudiced about something  Rapid categorization of people  Evolutionary linked skill - survival o Almost never benign  Stereotypes support biased/racists/prejudiced attitudes that function automatically  Reflexively cross street at sight of particular type of man  Automatically attribute negative attitudes to people of different skin color, religious background, political learning, etc How do we measure something so automatic? o Implicit Association Test  The IAT is a computer task that measures the strength of automatic, implicit, or unconscious associations between concepts  The idea is that you're going to be quicker doing whichever classification best matches associations you already have Prejudice and Stereotypes II o How to combat prejudice and stereotypes?  Recognize prejudice  Control automatic prejudice  Increase contact among prejudiced groups

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Two groups must be almost equal in status View each other as typical of their respective group; not the exception  Engage in cooperative, non competitive tasks  Contact must be informal o Familiarity will decrease prejudice?  Mere exposure effect: phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them Summary o Prejudice and stereotype often exist at implicit levels (i.e., unconscious, fast acting) o Socially learned o Familiarity increases appreciation and lowers prejudice...