8 B Flashcards
(30 cards)
Violence: the roles of attitudes or beliefs: external influences on attitudes
Authoritarianism-the unquestioning acceptance of attitudes given by authority figures (religious leader, parent, teacher, etc.)
conservatism- unquestioning acceptance of attitudes provided by tradition (cultural beliefs, religious rituals, etc). things that have always been done so you dont question them
Violence: the roles of attitudes or beliefs
- a person doesnt have to be evil to perform evil acts
- what is right and wrong is different for everyone
- they can come from yourself
- or they can come from a group that you belong to
Soloman Asch
- the need to conform is a powerful motivator
- most of our beliefs derive from other people’s
- he showed a group of participants a test line and told them to compare it to the other lines to see which was equal length
- all but one were actors, they all said a wrong line, about 1/3 of the participants agreed with them even tho it was obviously wrong more than 50% of the time
why do people conform even if they have serious doubts?
non-conformity has high risks (social exclusion, humiliation, punishment)
-people will do crazy things when a group that they are the member of wants them to
attitudes and tolerance/intolerance: the choice- can people act in ways that you dont believe in? or are you the only right one?
how groups and people resolve this is whether there will be violence, or whether people will accept other’s points of view and such
the groupthink process
- antecedent conditions: insulation of the group, directive leadership, lack of methodical procedures for search and appraisal
- concurrence-seeking tendancy (consensus)
- symptoms of groupthink: illusion of invulnerability, direct pressure on dissenters, self-censorship
- symptoms of defective decision making: incomplete survey of alternatives, incomplete survey of objectives, bias when receiving information
Group polarization
if a group is slightly inclined towards an opinion, then they discuss it, after, they will be very inclined towards that opinion
how can intolerance breed violence and cruelty: cognitive dissonance
- people are tense and uncomfortable when things arent consistent with their values
- when someone or a group behaves in ways that you dont agree with, there is cognitive dissonance
- to reduce this people may: devalue the person or group (they are now an evil group to you, or they are no longer human, just an object, the consequnce of this is that you may be violent and cruel to something that isnt human) or people may act to bring them in line with your values (convincing them that your way is right)
fundamental attribution error
- attribution: the inference that you make about what caused an event
- the fundamentel attribution error: when we overestimate the role of a person’ s personality as the cause of their actions and underestimating the role of the situation (ppl think that it is the persons fault and that they may be lazy or inconsiderate, instead of it being because of traffic or something). and no consideration for them as a person.
the role of attribution: self serving bias
- people are kinder at interpreting their own behaviour
- the self-serving bias: when i do something wrong it is cause of the situation, when i do something right it is cause of my personality (it is different if we are looking at the things that other people do)
the causes of not helping: diffusion of responsibility
- people are less likely to help someone in need if there are more people there to help
- this can all lead to bystander apathy (not helping crime or accident victims)
- this can also lead to social loafing (not working as hard in a group as you would alone)
causes of not helping: just-world hypothesis
-people think that others get what they deserve
-this can lead to blaming the victim
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ethnocentrism
belief that ones culture or ethnic group is better than all the others
- this creats discrimination to other groups
- this is usually caused by nromal moticves and psychological processes, rather than low intelligence, evil, or phychological disturbances
social identities
- in a group there is a risk of groupthink
- people are members or many groups at once
- having a social identity as a part of a group influences yourr thoughts and behaviour (traditions and morals and etc)
posotive effect of group membership: in group solidarity
- sense of belonging (which we need)
- can give you purpose and help you make sense of the world
negative effect to group membership:
us vs. them thinking (eg. ethnocentrism, and groupthink)
- group membership places people in opposition to members of other group
- this can lead to “we are right, good, and better, and they are wrong, bad and inferior”
Henri Tajfel
went into a classroom and showed them some slides that had a different number of dots on them
- they had to guess the number of dots
- they were also told that they were either overestimators or underestimators
- when the boys were told what group they were in the other members of that group cheered and the other group booed
Sherif: robbers cave
boys were assigned randomly to two groups and pitted them against one another in competitions
- they instantly hated each other
- they began to raid each others cabins
- they started fights with one another
- eventually they had to work together as a whole group and many of the former enemies soon became friends
us vs. them thinking and stereotypes
- this is one of the main supports for negative stereotypes of other groups
- there is a natural tendency to assume that members of other groups share common traits
errors caused by the use of stereotypes
- charactaristics of the other group become exaggerated and strengthens a sense of us vs. them
- get a perception of the other group that is always in favour of the stereotype (you only seek out evidence that supports your stereotype)
- differences in the other group are underestimated, this further makes a sense of us vs. them, leading to unfair assumptions
roots of discrimination
us vs. them thinking can combine negative stereotypes and make you think that they are worse than you.
-the prejudice (strong dislike and hatred of members of another group) comes from negative stereotypes that you hear, so you think that they are inferior, the stereotypes are difficult to change
the overlap of discrimination and prejudice
there can be one without the other, or neither, or both
- if there is neither P without D then the person has the belief but doesnt show it
- if there is D without P it is acting against a group because of an outside factor, not because they are against the group
the components of prejudice against another group
cognitive component: beliefs and ideas
affective component: the feelings and emotions
behavioural component: predispositions to act ( an action)
some normal causes or prejudice
- prejudice will occur b\c it is a response to insecurity of themselves or their group
- P can be a component of cultural traditions and can bind a group together (a P belief that a whole group has)
- P can arise from ecomonic competition b\w groups (can be used to justify economic discrimination)
- in the extreme P can arise from war and act to maintain and escalate violent action toward the enemy group (cognitive dissonance) then it is hard to reduce conflict