Midterm 3 - textbook

Question 1

group size and conformity

Answer 1

more likely to conform in a bigger group

but effect of gorup size levels off pretty quickly (only up to about a gorup size of 3 or 4)

Question 2

normative social influence

Answer 2

the influence of other people that comes from the desire to avoid their disapproval and other social sanctions

Question 3

informational social influence

Answer 3

the influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct and proper, or effective

Question 4

the effect of informational social influence and group size

Answer 4

why? the larger the number of people who express a particular opinion, the more likely the info is of merit but then when group gets too big unlikely their views are independent

Question 5

the effect of normative social influence and group size

Answer 5

larger the group, more people to displease so conformity is more likely
but differnce between 2 and 4 people is much larger than the difference between 12 and 14 people

Question 6

group unanimity and conformity

Answer 6

all asch’s participants needed was one ally then conformity suddenly dropped to only 5%
-presence of an ally weakens both informational social influence (maybe Im not crazy) and normative social influence (at least ive got someone to stand by me)
the ally does not need to show the correct answer, just needs to break the groups unanimity

Question 7

anonymity and conformity

Answer 7

eliminates normative social influence so should reduce conformity
in asch when could write on a piece of paper, confomrity decreased

Question 8

normative vs informational social influence

Answer 8

informational social influence, by guiding how we come to see the issues before us, leads us to internalize - we don’t mimic we accept the groups response
normative in contrast has a greater impact on public compliance than on private acceptance. to avoid dissaproval we sometimes do one thing but continue to believe another

Question 9

internalization

Answer 9

private acceptance of a proposition, orientation or ideology

Question 10

expertise and status effect on conformity

Answer 10

expertise and status of group members influences rates of conformity (higher status to experts)
experts = more likely to be right (informative)
status = acts on normative, hurts to disaprove of high status individuals
seen in study of navy members, highest ranking person group would conform more than the lower ranking group members

Question 11

culture and conformity

Answer 11

interdependent more susceptible to informative and normative social influence
they conform more
used asch paradigm to show it

Question 12

tight cultures

Answer 12

strong norms regarding how people should behave and don’t tolerate departure from those norms

Question 13

loose cultures

Answer 13

norms aren’t as strong and their members tolerate more deviance

Question 14

study comparing tight vs loose nations

Answer 14

tight = autocratic governments, punish dissent, have sharp controls on what can be said in the media + more laws and monitoring to ensure the laws are obeyed (tight in one dimension, tight in all. same with loose)
tighter the nation the fewer behaviours (ie crying in public) that are allowed

Question 15

why are some countries tight and others lose

Answer 15

tighter = higher population densities, fewer natural resources, unreliable food supplies, less access to safe water, greater risks of natural disasters, territorial threats from neighbours, higher prevalence of pathogens
behavioural constraints are associated with / maybe even caused by, ecological contraints

Question 16

gender and conformity

Answer 16

differences in how various cultures socialize boys and girls, but one thing in common: all sex type to some degree
women are raised to value interdependence and nurture important social relationships more so than men
men = autonomy and independence
women tend to conform more than men - but only for a bit
greatest difference with face to face contact (asch original study)

Question 17

event specifics on conformioty

Answer 17

we are more likely to conform when they are confused by the events unfolding around them

Question 18

when do groups compete

Answer 18

when there are limited resources

Question 19

realistic group conflict theory

Answer 19

a theory that group conflict, prejudice and discrimination are liekly to arise over competition between groups are for limited resources

Question 20

realistic group conflict [redicts

Answer 20

prejudice and discrimination increases under conditions of economic difficulty eg high unemployment
stronger when groups stand more to lose from another groups economic advance (eg working class most racist / anti aa getting rights)
resources can also be which god to worship and what values should be taught

Question 21

ethnocentrism

Answer 21

glorifying ones own group while vilifying other groups

Question 22

jigsaw classroom

Answer 22

cooperative learning procedure to make the classroom less competitive
students divided into small groups of about 6 students - balanced in terms of ethnicity, gender, ability, leadership, etc
each student required to master one part of the material
students had to depend on one another to learn the rest of the material - ie the knowledge had to fit together like a jigsaw
jigsaw classrooms, students develop more positive attitudes towards different ethnic groups than students in traditional classrooms

Question 23

define minimal group paradigm

Answer 23

an experimental paradigm in which researchers create gorups based on arbitray and seemingly meaningless criteria and then examine how the members of these “minimal groups” are inclined to behave toward one another

Question 24

tajifel minimal group paradigm experiment

Answer 24

participants estimate how many dots on screen
assigned to group of under or over estimators (actually totally random)
then asked to assign members to people from their group and from the other group
maximise relative gain for members of their ingorup over the outgroup

Question 25

define social identity theory

Answer 25

the idea that a persons self concept and self esteem derive not only from personal identity and accomplishments, but also from the status and accomplishments of the various groups to which the person belongs
explains ingroup favouritism

Question 26

what does social identity theory lead to

Answer 26

boosting the status of the ingorup
basking in reflected glory
denigrating the outgroups to bolster self esteem

Question 27

boosting the status of the ingroup

Answer 27

makes self esteem increase
rate self esteem as higher having acted favourabley towards the ingroup
if group criticised, if identity witht he gorup = strong then feel criticised themself

Question 28

basking in reflected glory

Answer 28

taking pride in the accomplishments of other people in ones group such as sports fans
we won vs they lost
will distance ourself from the group when we lose

Question 29

demigrating outgorups to bolseter self esteem

Answer 29

criticise another group makes people feel better about their own group
damage participants (tell half they did bad in an IQ test they sat)
watched job interview
made clear to half the applicant was jewish (no participants were jewish)
participants who self esteem had been damaged rated the candidate negatively if they thought she was jewish
denigrating members of the outgorup can bolster self esteem

Question 30

IAT black vs white doctor experiment

Answer 30

black doctor expermeriment - if praised thought of him as a doctor, if criticised thought of him as a black man
IAT results
positive feedback, faster to recognize words related to medicine
from white doctors, feedback didn’t matter, were equally fast in both conditions

Question 31

circadian rhythms and stereotypes

Answer 31

more likely to invoke stereotypes at the low point in their circadian rhythms
so we fall into stereotypes when we lack mental energy

Question 32

stereotypes and freeing up cognitive resources

Answer 32

experiment had to watch lecture and judge a person
when stereotype used, did better on the lecture test as had freed u cognitive resurces
ie remembered relevant trait information better, but also performed better on the test on indonesia

Question 33

social class stereotype example

Answer 33

hannah - either shown as middle class or working class kid
participants then shown same video of ambiguous performance on math and science test
rated as poorer than her class mates when perceived as working class, and better than her class mates when percevied as middle class

Question 34

distinctiveness and illusory correlations

Answer 34

because we attend more closely to distinctive events, we are also liekly to remmeber them better, and as a result they may become overrepresented in our memory
so negative behaviour by the minority group will stand out
can be shown with as little as hearing statements about groups a and b, hear more about a (made to be the majority) so rate b more negatively
only needs one instance to set this off

Question 35

paired distinctiveness

Answer 35

the pairing of two distinctive events that stand out even more because they occur together

Question 36

expectations and biased information processing

Answer 36

to stereotype= to overgeneralize
people are more liekly to generalize when they already suspect this may be typical of group members
so stereotypes can be self reinforcing - actions that are consistent are reinforced, but variations from the stereotype are forgotten
study - race of someone in a video effects how the behaviour is perceived (playing around vs being aggressive)
also shown african americna rated as more athletic basketball player

Question 37

self fullfilling prophecy

Answer 37

study on interviewers and interviewees in class
has been replicated with gay and lesbian participants

Question 38

explaining away exceptions

Answer 38

people dont give up stereotypes easily
people who dont fit the stereotype easily removed - exceptions
= subtyping

Question 39

what is subtyping

Answer 39

explaining away exceptions to a gievn stereotype by creating a subcategory of the stereotyped group that can be expected to differ from the group as a whole
ie to the racist these are the exceptions that prove the rule
subtying shows people treat evidence differently

Question 40

concrete vs abstract processing of information related to stereotypes

Answer 40

the more concrete the description, the less it says about the person involed; the more abstract the description, the more it says about the person
shown in italian palio competition
participants maintained positive views of their own group by describing negative actions of members of their own grpup on a more concrete level (low levels of abstraction) so the individual was less implicated in the action

Question 41

cateogry boundaries

Answer 41

arbitrary
but can have significant effects on the way we perceive things
research shows merely dividing a continuous distribution into two groups leads people to se less variability within each group and more vqriability between the two groups

Question 42

outgroup homogeneity effect

Answer 42

the tendency for people to assume that within group similarity is much stronger for outgroups than ingroups

• more interactions with the ingroup
• nature of our interactions

Question 43

own race idenitifcation bias

Answer 43

the tendency for people to be better able to recognise and distinguish faces from their own race than from other races

Question 44

devine study on automatic and controlled processes

Answer 44

activation of stereotypes = automatic (even in non prejudice people)
primed either stereotypical or neutral words (very quickly so couldn’t consciously read)
found equally for prejudice and non prejudiced people, the priming of stereotypical words meant the black man was perceived worse
but when controlled processing in play (ie list some characteristics of black people please), prejudice vs non-prejudiced people are separated

Question 45

fein and spencer 1997

Answer 45

threatened self esteem of participants (poorly in an iq test vs fine in one)
watch videotape of applicant
half made clear applicant was jewish
those whose self esteem had been threatened rated the candidate negatively if they thought the candidate was jewish
in taking it out on the candidate, the participant self esteem levels increased
denigrating the outgroup bolstered self esteem

Question 46

sinclair and kunda 1997

Answer 46

non black participants praised or criticised by a white or black male doctors
iat test one
ie reacted quicker to medical words when priased by black but quicker to black when criticised
no effect for white doctors

Question 47

ambivalent sexism

Answer 47

benevolent sexism often coexists with hostile sexism
so seemingly positive stereotypes are not benign
prohibit progress towards equality as praises those who conform to the status quo
also not helpful ie women treated paternalistically performed worse on iq test as self odubt aroused by their treatment

Question 48

do we consider all available information when making decisions

Answer 48

no
ther eis a maximum load
so we use shortcuts, rules of thumb to guide our behaviour

Question 49

6 short cuts we use

Answer 49

reciproctiy
scarcity
authority
consistency
liking 
consensus

Question 50

reciprocity

Answer 50

olbliged to give when you receive
ie owe favours
eg resturant studies
ie give gift when bring bill (mint, liquor), we say it doesn’t change tip but will increase tips by 3%. double gift then tips sky rocket. even more tips if waiter gives an “extra” gift - ie personalised and unexpected

Question 51

scarcity

Answer 51

people want more of those things they cna have less of
sales increased when flights been told was going to be cut
scarce resource so people wanted it more
tell people what is unique and what they stand to lose if they dont agree with you / act how you want them to

Question 52

authority

Answer 52

people will follow the lead of credible, knowledgeable experts
eg physio cna get people to exercise and cp,ply more if diploma on the wall
more likely to give parking change to dresse dup in a suit then casual
make someone else make you look brilliant (doesn’t matter who does the introduction - they can benefit off it, people dont care)
expert introduciton in real estate = more contracts sold

Question 53

consistency

Answer 53

looking for and asking for commitmnets that can be made
if agree to place small post card supporting a drive safely campaign, then way more liekly to put up big and horrible sign that said the same message
voluntary and active public commitments in writing
reduced missed appointments at health centres by making the patient wirite details on appointment card

Question 54

liking

Answer 54

3 important factros
- similar
-complements
-cooperate towards mutual goals
negotiation studies online
time = money vs exchange of personal info (find something in common) and then negotiate
second group came to successful agreements which were worth more
genuine compliments before business

Question 55

consensus

Answer 55

people will look to actions and behaviours of others to determine their own (particulalry when uncertain)
towel reuse survey!
environmental benefit vs other guests do this (be like your other guests, particularly the guest in your room)