social categorisation

Question 1

what is personal identity

Answer 1

personality characteristics

Question 2

what is social identity

Answer 2

groups you are a member of

Question 3

what is a category

Answer 3

collections of instances that have a family resemblance organised around a prototype.

Question 4

what are prototypes

Answer 4

cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category.
- standards against which family resemblance is assessed and category membership decided

Question 5

what did Rosch say about categories

Answer 5

they are not rigid but fuzzy

Question 6

why do we categorise

Answer 6

• save cognitive energy
• clarifies and refines perception of the world
• maintain a positive self esteem

Question 7

what are some common group distinctions

Answer 7

• sexual orientation
• profession
• age
• race
• class
• employment status
• nationality
• immigrant status

Question 8

what is illusory correlation in terms of stereotypes

Answer 8

• negative stereotypes may occur when people inaccurately pair minority groups with negative events/behaviours because they are both distinct

Question 9

what did Hamilton and Sherman find about illusory correlation stereotyping

Answer 9

• asked white american pps to estimate the arrest rate of various types of americans
• african americans were estimated to have higher arrest rates than they did

Question 10

what are the effects of stereotyping

Answer 10

• behaviour assimilation-stereotypes don’t just influence our perceptions of others, they can influence our own behaviour
• stereotype threat - can lead to poor performance
• prejudice and discrimination

Question 11

what task was used by Bargh et al to investigate behaviour assimilation

Answer 11

the scrambled sentence task - making sentences out of randomly ordered words
- 2 conditions - words associated with elderly and neutral words unrelated to age
- measured how long it took them to leave the room after

Question 12

what were the results of the scrambled word task

Answer 12

• pps primed with elderly words behaved in a way related to an elderly stereotype - moved more slow to leave the room

Question 13

what is the issue with bargh’s scrambled word task

Answer 13

• often don’t replicate
• people need to care about whats being primed
• papies - people who want to be thinner make healthier food choices after being primed with associated words e.g. diet but only works for people who want a healthy diet

Question 14

what did tan and barber find about stereotype threat

Answer 14

• examined whether age based stereotypes impact older chinese adults
• tested older chinese pps memory under a stereotype threat condition
• found poorer memory recall in stereotype threat condition

Question 15

what is prejudice

Answer 15

• strong, highly accessible negative attitude
• dominated by cognitive bias and negative stereotypes

Question 16

what is discrimination

Answer 16

behaviour based on unjust treatment of certain groups
- reluctance to help
- tokenism
- reverse discrimination

Question 17

what did Gaetner and Dovidio find about reluctance to help in discrimination

Answer 17

• pps were more reluctant to help a minority member than their own group when faced with an emergency but only when others were present

Question 18

what is tokenism in terms of discrimination and what did Monin and miller find about it

Answer 18

• process of favouring a member of a minority group in isolated episodes
• found that pps who were given the opportunity to hire a well-qualified minority candidate were willing to discriminate against other minorities in future hiring, as they had already proved that they were not prejudices

Question 19

what is reverse discrimination

Answer 19

opening displays pro-minority behaviour but as a way to deflect accusations of prejudice e.g. giving more money to a minority when feeling threatened

Question 20

what did Dovidio et al 1996 find about racism

Answer 20

decline of racist attitudes over 60 years

Question 21

what did Quillian and Lee find about discrimination 2022

Answer 21

found that hiring discrimination amongst among 170k apps for minority groups has not fallen over the past decades
- specific stereotypes changed, but negativity remains

Question 22

what is new/modern racism

Answer 22

conflict between evaluation towards out-group and values of equality and egalitarian attitudes
- a bit more implicit

Question 23

what are the three theories of subtle prejudice

Answer 23

• modern or symbolic racism
• ambivalent racism
• ambivalent sexism

Question 24

what is modern or symbolic racism

Answer 24

• blaming the victim
• support of policies that all happen to disadvantage racial minorities

Question 25

what is ambivalent racism

Answer 25

- high scores on pro-black attitudes - high scores on anti-black attitudes

Question 26

what is ambivalent sexism

Answer 26

- hostile sexism paints women in a negative light - benevolent sexism could be seen as apparently positive

Question 27

what causes prejudice

Answer 27

- historical/economical - linked to the psychological notion of frustration of aggression - psychological - individual differences in personality, group processes

Question 28

what is the frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 28

dollard et al - frustration causes aggression - psychic energy built up by frustration needs an outlet - scapegoat - linked to displacement

Question 29

what are the stages in frustration aggression

Answer 29

- identification of personal goals - psychic energy activated - frustration of goal achievement - source of frustration too powerful - scapegoat found; catharsis achieved by displacing aggression

Question 30

what evidence did hovland and sears find

Answer 30

- study about cotton workers - over a fifty period measures; the price of cotton, number of lynchings of black workers - as frustration increased lynching's increased

Question 31

what are authoritarian personality traits

Answer 31

- extreme reactions to authority figures - obsession with rank and status - tendency to displace anger - related to upbringing - harsh parental discipline

Question 32

what evidence did adorno et al find for authoritarian personality

Answer 32

- interviews about childhood - questions monitoring anti-semitism, ethnocentrism, political and economic conservatism, potential for fascism - correlation between the harshness of upbringing and measures of prejudice

Question 33

what are criticisms of the authoritarian personality explanation

Answer 33

- can't determine cause and effect - poor methodology - memory - ignores social context

Question 34

what did tajfel argue about social learning

Answer 34

rather than personality, hatred and suspicion of certain groups are learnt in early life

Question 35

what evidence did barret and short find about social learning

Answer 35

english children aged 4-5 years old - french and spanish were liked, followed by italians, germans were liked the least - due to parental prejudices - modelling and conditioning

Question 36

what evidence did minard find about conformity

Answer 36

- investigated attutudes of white miners - 60% would readily switch between racism and non racism depending on whether situational norms encouraged or discouraged prejudice

Question 37

what is the social identity theory

Answer 37

- we have a social identity as well as a personal one. made up of how we categorise ourselves in terms of social groups - intergroup differentiation - in group vs outgroup - depersonalisation - in group bias

Question 38

what did hogg and vaughan find about prejudice

Answer 38

- school teacher jane elliot - tried to highlight effects of prejudice to school children - blue eyed were children were inferior and had to wear a collar and lost privileges - brown eyed children were very quick to derogate those blue eyes

Question 39

what did akrami et al find

Answer 39

- explored whether personality or social psychology or a combination of both predicted sexism - sexism was best explained by considering the combined influence of both personality and social psychology conflicts - necessary to integrate various approaches to explain prejudice