Social Psychology PDF

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Social psychology: the scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined and implied presence of others – G. W. Allport o Behavior = what people actually do that can be objectively measured S...

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Social psychology: the scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined and implied presence of others – G. W. Allport o Behavior = what people actually do that can be objectively measured Some questions social psychology help answering to: Why do we fall for the fake news? Why do people choose the products they buy? What traits do we value when we choose a leader? Why do we obey authority (or sometimes we don’t)? Can we overcome discrimination? Can we make groups cooperate? FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS THE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE OF OUR MIND Since the 1960s digital computers have been used as a functional model of the human mind, intended as a “software”running on our brain, representing the“hardware” Recent research has shown a more complex relationship between physiology and cognition (e.g., “embodied cognition”) → The way we think about other objects, is perceived through our feelings and thoughts o We won’t be able to go from one another as easily o Nevertheless, some basic cognitive functions, such as attention and memory do have features that are similar to their digital counterparts ATTENTION Attention is the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon and to the exclusion of their stimuli Attention is the conscious focus on a specific stimulus (ex. An object), a piece of information, a process or a task o Perception, information processing and reasoning are not necessarily bound by attention Attention can be SELECTIVE/DIRECTED or AUTOMATIC 1) Directed/Selective attention: depends on the cognitive effort to screen out irrelevant information (inhibition) o EX: When you turn down the radio to park or to see better 2) Automatic attention/Salience: attention is automatically attracted by salient information o Information (ex. an external stimulus) is salient when: ▪ It is vivid ▪ It stands out from the context MEMORY 1) Short-term memory o Limited temporal span (18 – 30 seconds) o Attention-based, can be extended by reiteration o Limited capacity o Perceptually organized The most useful study of the process within the short-time memory is functioning is introduced by Baddeley’s model of working memory (1974;2000) Working memory is a limited capacity store for retaining information for a brief period while performing mental operations on that information o It is a multi-component system which includes the central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop and episodic buffer o It is important for reasoning, learning and comprehension o Working memory theories assume that complex reasoning and learning tasks require a mental workspace to hold and manipulate information The central executive is processing the received information brought by our attention and allocates data to the subsystems: 1  o The phonological loop: deals with spoken and written material o The visuospatial sketchpad: stores and processes information in a visual or spatial form o The episodic register: acts as a 'backup' store which communicates with both long-term memory and the components of working memory ▪ It stores not only the information received visually or verbally but also the events that surround us, the abstract sense of events that we perceive in time We use the elements of the working memory described separately, even though they work together overall Going back to the example of the “cat”, we may have a single idea of what this object is, however in terms of working memory the picture of the cat, its sounds and events connected to this object are separate pieces of information → It is the task of the central executive to link them and to interpret it As to the limits of the short-term memory “Magical number 7+-2” (Miller, 1956): the short-term memory can store up to around 7 items or ‘chunks’ of information Visuo-spatial short-term memory 2) Long-term memory o Long temporal span (virtually lifetime duration) o Items are recalled voluntarily or by association o Large capacity (limitless?) o Semantically organized Long-term memory is an associative network: items are stored as nodes associated by links o Complex information about ourselves, events, places, etc. is organized within schemas o For example, a “cat” can be placed in the category of pets, which also reminds us of dogs, together they share such characteristics as fur, animals, our homes, our families, our clothes, such behaviors as scratches or petting which may cause emotions like pain or joy and so on and so forth → A scheme of organized and interconnected information, which may be activated alone or together Embodied cognition and memory In a study on learning (Dutriaux &Gyselinck, 2016), participants were showed a list (or a series of pictures) of manipulable and non-manipulable items They were divided in two conditions: o In one they were free to move their hands o In the other they kept them crossed behind their back After the presentation, they were asked to recall as many words as they could → Manipulable items were recalled more easily in the hands-free condition, indicating that body posture interfered with memory encoding FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES CONSTRUCTING OUR SOCIAL WORLD GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY: the features and limitations of our cognitive system (the “hardware” + “software”) shape the way we think and interact with others SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: our social environment also affect the way we think and act o The scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others -Allport → The way our mind works in a way, determines or affects our representation of the world which is constrained by our mental abilities and capacities → Also our social nature society affects our perception of the world 2 TWO IDEAS OF RATIONALITY Absolute ‘olympic’ rationality: perfect representation of reality (EX: logic, philosophy, classical economics) Bounded ‘ecological’ rationality: no perfect representation, since relative (EX: Cognitive psychology, social psychology, behavioral economics) BASIC INFORMATION PROCESSING PRNCIPLES: Accessibility + Conservatism + Superficial/deep processing BASIC MOTIVATIONAL PRINCIPLES: Mastery + Affiliation + Valuing ‘me’ and ‘mine’ → These principles affect our reality and behaviors and they also account for the way the social world affects the way we think and how it motivates us to think about reality THREE BASIC INFORMATION PROCESSING PRINCIPLES 1. ACCESSIBILITY: concepts that are easily retrieved from memory are more likely to influence out information processing Accessibility is the likelihood of a concept being retrieved form long-term memory and used when processing new information The accessibility of a concept depends on three factors: o Recency: After a concept is retrieved from LTM, it remains easily accessible for some time o Frequency: when a concept is activated repeatedly it becomes ‘chronically’ accessible o Goals: Concepts deemed relevant to a task are more easily retrieved than concepts deemed irrelevant 2. CONSERVATISM: Once we have formed views, opinions and attitudes, we tend to maintain them Because our cognitive resources are limited, we update knowledge, beliefs and attitudes only when strictly necessary → Therefore, we tend to favor what confirms our prior positions over what disconfirms them → This can result in biased information processing Types of bias related to cognitive conservatism Primacy Effect: The tendency to hold information presented first in greater consideration than information presented later Confirmation bias: the tendency to seek and interpret information that corroborates our initial beliefs, and discount our counterargue information that disconfirms them 3. SUPERFICIAL/DEEP PROCESSING: We process information with different degrees of scrutiny, depending on our cognitive resources and motivation Kahneman, 2003: Information can be processed through two alternative systems, depending on the availability of cognitive resources and motivation 3  SYSTEM 1 – Heuristic processing: processes ‘background’ information and performs simple, common and routine tasks SYSTEM 2 – Systematic processing: usually processes salient information and performs complex, new and unusual tasks Gigerenzer: Under certain conditions, heuristic processing (System 1) can outperform systematic processing (2) even in complex tasks → Shifting between System 1 and 2 allows us to use the appropriate amount of resources for each task THREE BASIC MOTIVATIONAL PRINCIPLES 1. MASTERY: We are motivated to seek understanding of other people and events Having correct beliefs and making accurate impressions allows us to predict events and other people’s behavior → This allows us to exercise a sufficient degree of control on our social world 2. AFFILIATION: We are motivated to connect with other people and be part of groups Social connections and group membership are a source of support and protection, and provide us with information on how to deal with the world 3. VALUING ‘ME’ AND ‘MINE’: We are motivated to see ourselves and our groups in a positive light As a positive self-value is associated with self-reliance and social status, we strive for it in order to feel secure and desirable to others ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE ATTITUDES Latin ‘Aptus’ = fit and ready for action (something directly observable) o Nowadays: psychological construct, not directly observable, but preceding behavior and guiding our choices and decisions for actions Eagly & Chaiken, 1993: A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor (= a general feeling of evaluation) → Relatively enduring organizations of beliefs, feelings and behavioral tendencies towards an object o Attitude objects: can be any significant actual object, person, group, event or concept ATTITUDE FORMATION Attitudes are learned as part of the socialization process Attitudes are formed from 4  Direct experience: direct experience with attitude objects provides information about the attributes of an object → Shapes our beliefs or how much we like/dislike an object (EX: First visit to dentist painful, negative attitude towards going to the dentist) o Mere exposure effect: mere exposure to an object on several occasions can affect how we evaluate it (the first time you hear a song you may neither like/dislike it, but with repetition you strengthen one of both sides) → This effect diminishes over time Observed experience: attitude formation as a social learning process involving modelling o Modelling: tendency for a person to reproduce actions, attitudes and emotional responses observed/exhibited by real-life significant others → BEHAVIORAL APPROACHES Information shared by others (or the media): important part in shaping attitudes o Children (attitudes not so strongly held): impact on attitude formation o Adults: media shape public opinion (not only reflect) + usually a source of information to support and confirm one’s existing attitudes, rather than change them and acquire new ones Individual or group deliberation: one of the most significant sources of a person’s attitudes is their parents, and then their peer group o Studies found strong links between childhood environmental factors and later adult values → COGNITIVE APPROACHES ATTITUDE STRUCTURE One component Thurstone: Attitude as the affect for or against a psychological object → Basis for more complex models Two components Allport: affect + a state of mental readiness to act (= predisposition to decide what is good, desirable or not) o It also guides evaluative (judgemental) responses → Attitude as: private and externally unobservable (except from inferences on what we say/do) Three components Attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioral components o This division has an ancient heritage, seeing: thought, feeling and action as basic to human experience 1) Cognitive: knowledge and beliefs regarding the object 2) Affective: feelings and emotions associated with the object 3) Behavioral: past experiences and future intentions involving the object Also highlights that attitudes are: o Relatively permanent (persist across times and situations, not momentary feelings) o Socially significant (events or objects) o Generalizable (EX: Not if a book falling on your toe hurts, but if that experience makes you dislike books) ATTITUDE FEATURES A) Valence: how positive or negative our attitude is B) Strength: how mild, moderate or extreme is our attitude towards an object C) Accessibility: how easily we can recall our attitude towards an object o Recency o Frequency o Goals D) Self-awareness and disclosure: how aware we are of our own attitude towards an object, and how comfortable we are discussing it with others MEASURING ATTITUDES Attitudes are individual complex cognitive structures o This makes them particularly difficult to assess The study of the measurement of attitudes (and other psychological variables) is called psychometrics 5 TWO TYPES OF MEASUREMENTS ARE COMMONLY EMPLOYED 1) DIRECT (EXPLICIT) MEASURES Direct or explicit measures provide individuals a numerical or semantic framework of reference to quantify and report their attitude towards an object o When people are asked to agree or disagree with various statements about their beliefs o Very common in the 1930s (early days of attitude research) – EX: The US media used public opinion polls to predict election results a) Single-item evaluation scale: Statement – numerical scale – anchor b) Likert Scale: Multiple items (sometimes even including a reverse item*) – numerical scale – recurring response options (anchors) o Five-point response scale to indicate how much people agree/disagree with each of a series of statements o A person’s score is summed across the statements and the total is used as an index of the person’s attitude o Ambiguous scores or scores that do not correlate are considered unreliable and dropped * We use reverse items because sometimes it is the only way of formulating the question and also to check the participants’ attention c) Osgood’s Semantic differential: Statement – Semantic range – polarity o Osgood focuses on the connotative meaning that people give to words or concepts (ex. friend as good and enemy as bad) → One of the main underlying dimensions defining our attitude o Measures attitudes by having people rate a particular concept on a set of evaluative semantic scales → Across these scales an attitude score is averaged (easy to calculate as a measure, but often too simplistic, as it doesn’t take people’s opinions into account) → Nowadays, combinations of the Likert scale and Osgood’s semantic differential are used to successfully measure complex evaluations EX: Voters can be asked to evaluate various issues (through a semantic differential scale) and then to explain how they think each candidate stands out on specific issues (using a Likert scale) → Predict for whom they will vote 6 2) INDIRECT (IMPLICIT) MEASURES Indirect or implicit measures are based on the observation of individuals’ psychologic or behavioral reactions to a stimulus representing the attitude object o One big advantage to self-report measures: people may not perceive that their attitudes are being assessed, or they may do so, but be unable to control their responses (ex. polygraph/lie detector) o Drawbacks: most physiological measures are sensitive to variables other than attitudes a) Galvanic skin response: The electric conductance of the skin changes due to the activity of the sympathetic nervous system on peripheral blood flow and sweat glands b) Pupillary response: dilatation or constriction of the pupil, controlled by the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems c) Cortisol level in the blood or saliva: cortisol is used as an indicator of stress level (when a person’s identity feels under threat, when people are concerned to appear judges in an interracial encounter) The Implicit Association Test (IAT) Technique developed by Greenwald & Banaji (1999): consists in a series of trials in which a behavioral response (ex. pressing a button) is associated with multiple targets representing the attitude objects (ex. a sun and a skeleton, Obama and trump) o Associations are switched and combined differently throughout the test and response times are measured for each trial (lower time for Obama + sun and trump + skeleton → Implicit association) o Trials reflecting individuals’ implicit associations will have shorter response times than those reflecting counter-attitudinal associations The IAT was originally developed to investigate covert attitudes (= attitudes that individuals are reluctant to share due to social desirability concerns) Research has shown the existence and relevance of truly implicit attitudes (= attitudes individuals are not completely aware of) o Implicit attitudes can affect us in subtle but important ways a) Reducing (explicit) attitude consistency across time and situations b) Interfering with explicit attitude formation (ex. selective exposure) ATTITUDE CHANGE Attitudes can change through different processes, led by internal or external forces o INTERNAL: Deliberation (consciously changing attitude through reasoning), Cognitive dissonance o EXTERNAL: Exposure (changing our attitude by learning more about an object), Social Influence, Persuasion COGNITIVE DISSONANCE (INTERNAL) Attitudes, beliefs, emotions and behaviors are not always consistent with each other When we become aware of inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviors, we experience cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) The discomfort associated with cognitive dissonance can motivate us to change our behavior, or adapt our attitudes by: o Ignoring or denying them o Justifying them o Reframing them EXAMPLE: MEAT EATING Study by Bastian and colleagues (2012): analyzed cognitive dissonance between participants’ attitudes towards animals and meat eating o Researchers presented pictures and descriptions of live animals and meat dishes, and measured to what extent participants attributed mental properties to the corresponding animals ▪ This lamb will be transferred to another pasture, where it will go on grazing with other sheep ▪ This lamp will be taken to a slaughterhouse, where it will be killed, made into pieces and sold Moreover, the experiment continued by offering the participants to take part in a “marketing research” by the end of which they would receive either a a) meat snack or a b) fruit snack 7 EXPOSURE TO INFORMATION (EXTERNAL) James Vicary (market researcher) claimed that the insertion of subliminal messages promoting cake and pop- corn in movies, led to a significant increase in sales (Packard, 1957) Exposure to a previously unknown object does change the attitude towards the object, making it more positive over time → Mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968): this effect depends on cognitive conservatism = We tend to evaluate more positively concepts and objects that we are already familiar with ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR Attitudes were initially considered good predictors of behavior Later research (and practice, ex. marketing) showed that this is not always the case!!! o Sometimes, attitudes result in no behavior, or even in counter-attitudinal behavior What psychological factors interfere with the attitude-behavior link? Subjective norms = norms that people approve and support as a particular behavior o They are determined by the perceived social pressure from others for an individual to behave in a certain manner and their motivation to comply with those people's views (= product of what a person thinks others believe) Perceived control = belief that an individual has control over his inside state and behaviors in question AZJEN AND FISHBEIN: THEORY OF REASONED ACTION Subjective norm → Attitudes towards the behavior (product of the person’s beliefs about the target behavior, not object, and how these beliefs are evaluated) → Behavioral intention → Behavior → Usually an action will be performed if: a person’s attitude is favorable + social norm is also favorable → BUT not all human behaviors are under people’s conscious control → Azjen reviewed his theory AZJEN, 1991: THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR Focus on the role of behavioral control: a person’s beliefs (based on present and past experiences and obstacles), that it is easy or difficult to perform a behavior → It can relate either to the behavioral intentions or to the behavior itself Behavior is predicted by intentions and not attitudes directly o Intentions are influenced by attitudes, subjective norms regarding the behavior and perceived control over it o Perceived control also has a direct effect on behavior → The dotted lines in the graph below, show the additions introduced by the theory of planned behavior to the original one 8 18/10/2023 RESEARCH METHODS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Scientific research operates on two levels: o Theoretical level = developing abstract concepts and phenomena and relationships between those concepts o Empirical level = testing the theoretical concepts and relationships (= applying them to our reality and test/measure them – In Social Psychology, in a social context) FROM CONSTRUCTS TO VARIABLES Scientific research requires operational definitions that define constructs in terms of how they will be empirically measured (ex. temperature) o EX: Attitude is a theoretical construct in social psychology → To measure it, we need to translate it in an observable phenomenon OPERATIONALIZATION Construct Operational Definition Measurable variable EXAMPLE – Measuring Sadness: First, we define it theoretically (construct) o Then, we would measure it using different approaches, as for instance the observation of the facial expression of people (measured variable) VARIABLES: a variable is any physical or psychological characteristic that can have different values within a certain range o These values can be measured, directly (such as hair color) or indirectly (temperament or beliefs) Levels of Measurement Based on the type of values they can take, a variable can be 1) Categorical: when values represent different features of an object, individual or group o Gender, nationality 2) Discrete: when values represent finite quantities assigned to a certain feature o Numbers of trials in a task, anger on a scale 9 3) Continuous: when values represent any quantity within the measurable range of a certain feature o Response time, height, weight THE RESEARCH PROCESS 1. IDENTIFYING A PROBLEM/TOPIC AND RESEARCH QUESTION 2. CONDUCTING A LITERATURE REVIEW OF THE DOMAIN OF INTEREST The purpose of a literature review is threefold A) To survey the current state of knowledge in the area of inquiry B) To identify the key authors, articles, theories and findings in that area C) To identify gaps in knowledge in that research area 3. FORMULATING A HYPOTHESIS Proposition: a tentative and conjectural relationship between constructs that is stated in a declarative form Hypothesis = Statements or predictions (empirically formulated) regarding the relationship among variables o EXAMPLE: High school students who play a sport perform better in class than those who do not play a sport → In order to define and test the hypothesis, we need to understand the causal relationship among variables Variables can play different roles within a study, depending on their function in the hypothesis: 1) Independent Variables: variable whose variation is hypothesized to exert an effect on another variable o Manipulated: when the researcher actively controls its value, as in the case of experimental conditions (ex. experimental stimulus or treatment A or B) o Measured: when its different values are naturally present in the population or environment (ex. participants’ gender, age, nationality, anxiety etc.) 2) Dependent Variables: variable whose variation is hypothesized to be influenced by another variable o Always measured o Different values of a dependent variable are hypothesized to be associated with changes in an independent variable (across times, situations, conditions etc.) In the previous example: → Sport = Independent variable → Better studying performance = dependent variable 3) Intervening Variables: a variable whose variation affects the relationship between the dependent and the independent variable o Mediating variables: are influenced by an independent variable and, in turn influence a dependent variable → HOW X affects Y 10  o Moderating variables: represent conditions under which the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable is enhanced or reduced → WHEN X affects Y o EXAMPLE 4) Control Variables 4. CHOOSING A RESEARCH DESIGN Descriptive design: provides a scientifically accurate description of the variables in a certain phenomenon Correlational design: investigates the relationship between two or more variables Experimental design: test a directional (causal) relationship between two or more variables Research Designs – Can differ 1) The type of data they use o Qualitative design: relies on the observation and interpretation of the variables, usually in their natural environment o Quantitative design: treats variable values into numerical data, which can be then analyzed with statistical procedures 2) In the timing of data collection o Cross-Sectional Design: focuses on data collected at a specific period of time o Longitudinal Design: is conducted over a longer period, with time as one of the variable 5. RESEARCH EXECUTION: DATA COLLECTION 6. RESEARCH EXECUTION: DATA ANALYSIS → Pilot testing → Pilot Sample → Data Collection → Data Analyses 7. DISSEMINATION The final phase of research involves preparing the final research report documenting the entire research process and its findings in the form of a research paper, presentation or monograph 11  Title + Authors and affiliations Abstract has to be a brief (up to 250 words) summary of the research and results and answer the following questions: o What does the article talk about? o How was the phenomenon analysed? o What are the main results? o So what? INTRODUCTION General introduction: highlights the topic of the paper, and the research question related to it o Sub-sections present the scientific literature on the constructs related to the topic and answer the questions: ▪ What is the theoretical paradigm? ▪ What do we already know about this? Research overview: explains which specific aspects of the topic have been investigated, and which hypotheses have been formulated and tested EMPIRICAL STUDIES Every study usually begins with a short statement on its aims in relation with the overall research (for example, a method used) Participants and procedure: describes the main characteristics of the sample (gender, age, education), how they were recruited in the study, and what they did in it. Measures: describes how each variable has been operationalized and measured (e.g., how questions and items were formulated) Graphs and tables: report in detail some of the results Results: report the analyses conducted on the data, and their outcomes Study discussion: discursive summary of the main findings of the study GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Limitations and future research directions stresses the potential weak points in the research and proposes how some issues may be addressed in additional studies Conclusion: sums up the results and connects them with the larger picture (the existing literature and/or potential practical implications) REFERENCES Reports the sources of past studies cited in the article, using a standardized format (APA style, in psychology) OTHER SOURCES OF SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION Academic/scientific outlets(University websites and magazines, online databases) Traditional media(newspapers, magazines, TV, radio...) Online media (news websites, aggregator websites, podcasts) Social media (influencers, science communicators, «Science Twitter») 12 SOCIAL COGNITION In everyday conversation, we tend to use the terms thought and cognition interchangeably, BUT for social psychologists they are slightly different Thought = internal language and symbols we use, is often conscious or something we are aware of CONGITION (broader than thought) = conscious and unconscious process by which knowledge is communicated, such as perceiving, recognizing, conceiving and reasoning o Mental processing, can be largely automatic, often we are unaware of it SOCIAL COGNITION = refers to a way in which people process, remember, and use information in social contexts to explain and predict their own behavior and that of others o Cognitive processes and structures than influence and are influenced by social behavior → As an approach in social psychology: focuses on how cognition is affected by wider and more immediate social contexts and how cognition affects our social behavior HOW DO WE MAKE SENSE OF OTHERS – pt.1 IMPRESSION FORMATION We form impressions of the people we meet, hear of or encounter in the media: We form impressions → We communicate these impressions to others → We use them as bases for deciding how we feel and we act The process through which individuals form descriptive and evaluative judgements of a target person Impression formation is an inferential process: a global impression is derived from limited available items: o Physical appearance o Observed behavior o Communication THEORETICAL MODELS OF IMPRESSION FORMATION 1. BOTTOM – UP → Impressions are driven by the characteristics of the perceived target ANDERSON, 1965 - ALGEBRAIC MODEL Global impressions are formed as the sum of single traits: each trait has a fixed, positive or negative, values o EX: Whether a person is smart or not, tidy, insecure etc. → If someone has a warm personality value of +2, cold -2, smart +1, dumb -1 and so on o OR smart moderately positive, cold very negative → Overall slightly negative impression → By summing up all the values we get the final value of the person and create a certain, positive or negative impression 2. TOP – DOWN → Impressions are driven by the mental schema of the perceiver ASCH, 1946 – CONFIGURAL MODEL Asch’s is a gestalt-based model = perspective in which the whole influences constituent parts rather than vice versa → Impressions are formed as integrated wholes based on central cues → Impressions are formed as configurations of central (positive or negative) and peripheral traits According to Asch, central traits have a disproportionate influence and responsibility for the configuration of final impressions (peripheral traits have much less influence) To investigate this, Asch gave participants descriptions of a target person consisting of the same peripheral traits, but a single different central trait 13  o EX: Intelligent, skillful, cold, determined, practical, cautious → Overall = selfish, manipulative (-) o EX: Intelligent, skillful, warm, determined, practical, cautious → Overall = generous, helpful (+) → People reading the list with warm, generated a much more favorable impression of the target, than those who read the list containing the trait cold → The additional traits that people associated to the given targets, tent to be more negative for the first person with the negative central trait and generally positive for the second one o Then, the words warm/cold were replaced with polite and blunt, but the difference in impression was fare less marked (both overall, moderately positive impression) → Warm/cold are central traits and have much more influence than peripheral traits, such as polite and blunt Subsequent research has confirmed that warm is a fundamental dimension of social perception and impression formation How people decide whether a trait is central or not is still controversial: According to Gestalt theorists, the centrality of a trait rests on its intrinsic degree of correlation with other traits o In Asch’s experiment: warm/cold was central because it was distinct from the other traits’ dimensions and semantically linked to the response dimensions → Peripheral traits do not form any particular configuration on their own → Central traits are the ones which determine the impression of other people!!! 3. MIXED → Impressions are based on the characteristics of the target and flexible and complex social and contextual rules Current models of impression formation A different approach in the study of social perception is to look at how people describe others: Traits used in descriptions of others tend to converge along with two main dimensions (ROSENBERG ET AL.) a) Intellectual good/bad b) Social good/bad The experiment consisted of several adjectives and traits that people use to describe others, trying to analyze which ones were used together (associated) and coming up with an overall scheme behind these descriptions THE STEREOTYPE CONTENT MODEL FISKE AND COLLEAGUES (2002) analyzed the content of common stereotypes regarding social groups Their aim was to study how social targets (individuals, groups, categories) are mapped onto the two dimensions identified by Rosenberg et al. (intellectual good/bad and social good/bad) → There are several traits forming different clusters: ones that are both high in warmth and competence or high/low just in one of them 14 → Emotions associated to these clusters: For example, people felt pity for the group in the orange circle and envy for those in the blue one “BIG TWO” MODEL The two-dimensional model of social perception has been applied to individuals and groups, proposing a more defined labelling (Abele & Wojciszke, 2007) The two dimensions are: a) Agency: how competent and assertive people are (getting ahead) b) Communion: how people get along socially (getting along) → Based on the traits, we place people in one of these groups → Later studies have shown that within these dimensions there are some elements that are clustered and therefore there are sub-dimensions of impression formation THE SUB-DIMENSIONS OF IMPRESSION FORMATION Further splits have been proposed, initially for the communion dimension and then also for the agency dimension → Two fundamental dimensions on the basis of which we create a picture of the target Communion > Agency – WHY? Several studies have established that usually communion is more important than agency and social judgements o Communal traits are recognized and processed more quickly than agentic traits o Communal traits are sought first and more frequently that agentic traits o Communal traits are chronically more accessible that agentic traits The evolutionary hypothesis The tendency to prioritize communion derives from the fact that the ability to detect others’ intentions provides an evolutionary advantage Individuals able to discriminate efficiently between friends and foes were more likely to survive and pass this ability on to the next generation → This means, we give more importance to communion The informational asymmetry hypothesis When processing information about other people, we prioritize negative information (negativity bias) Negative communal behavior is more diagnostic than negative agentive behavior → We give more importance to communion 15  Negative clues about communion, are more revealing than negative clues about agency o EX: while a teacher evaluation of the student’s excellent work based on his grades is not overall disrupted by one bad grade, catching a student cheating on a test would give an overall negative impression negative clues about communion are more revealing than negative clues about agency. This has implications also on attribution and trait stability beliefs. This has implications also on attribution and trait stability beliefs “BIG THREE”, “BIG FOUR”… SOCIAL JUDGEMENT As we stated during the last lecture, through impression formation we create descriptive images of other people and then we use these impressions to make judgements and decisions about our interactions with them Social judgements are flexible-, content- and context-specific In many situations we can deviate from the default rules o What is a good friend like? o What is a good boss/employee like? o What is a good group member or leader like? o What is a good professional like? 1. EVALUATING PEERS/GOOD FRIENDS The importance attributed to agency and communion when selecting and evaluating peers (friends, classmates, teammates…) depends on the goal of the interaction Able & Brach (2013): analyzed the importance attributed to peers’ agency and communion traits in different relationships o Independence: classmate, neighbor o Mutual dependence: joint project, tennis doubles o Unilateral dependence: borrow notes, hitch-hike → Their findings showed that the importance attributed to agency and communion changed depending on how self- profitable they are in the interaction (how much positive returns would I get depending on the efficiency/friendliness of a person) 16 2. EVALUATING EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES Work relationships are often asymmetrical in terms of self-profitability From the employer’s perspective: employees’ agency is always profitable, while their communion is less relevant From the employees’ perspective: employers’ agency is usually profitable, but also communion can be relevant o Under certain conditions, the employers’ agency can be less relevant than their communion!!! In 2006 Polish researchers had asked the employees working in 2 different businesses to evaluate their employers. They found that in the competitive business the competence of the boss had the upper hand. On the contrary, companies that had no external competition gave a priority to the morality of their employer: → Distinction between leadership and competence is more relevant in work environments 3. EVALUATING GROUPS AND LEADERS Groups provide us support in both our affiliation and achievement needs We want the members of our ingroup to be agentic, particularly in the case of leaders We are also particularly attentive to group members’ morality, because it signals their adherence to the group’s norms Black sheep effect (Marques et al, 1988): ingroup members who deviate from group norms are judged more harshly than outgroup members performing the same behavior o This is because we do not care if members of other groups behave immorally or not 4. EVALUATING POLITICIANS Candidate evaluation is a widely used heuristic among voters (Lau &Redlawsk, 2001) The salience of candidates in vote choice is increased by: o The personalization and mediatization of politics (Hallin &Mancini, 2004) o A shift towards electoral systems that emphasize the role of candidates/leaders SOURCES OF CANDIDATE IMPRESSION FORMATION Voters use available cues to detect candidates’ dispositions and make inferences regarding their likely behaviour if elected in office. Such inferences can be based on: o Basic personal characteristics: gender, age, ethnicity, physical appearance, clothing o Information regarding candidates’ affiliation to relevant social groups: wealth, religion, profession o Candidate’s personality and behavior So which dimension is more important in the case of politicians? A) The case for communion o General primacy of communion in social judgements o When electing a representative many of the traits of the communion dimension are particularly relevant: ▪ The morality subdimension (honesty, sincerity, trustworthiness etc.) appears crucial in this sense o Political scandals, usually, have a negative effect on candidates’ chances of being elected 17  B) The case for agency o Strong leadership is needed to champion party (and voters’) positions o Elected officials’ competence is profitable to voters HOW DO WE MAKE SENSE OF OTHER EVENTS – pt.2 ATTRIBUTION Examples of attribution: Why so many likes to my posts? Why did I fail the social psychology test? Friedrich Nietzsche: One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and petty ones to fear We spontaneously seek explanations for behaviors and events Different theories have proposed different models of how we explain other people’s behavior, based on different factors 1. DISPOSITION VS SITUATION (HEIDER, JONES & DAVIS) → The most basic distinction is based on whether behavior can be attributed to an actor’s disposition or to the situation a. Situational Attribution: physical, temporal, biological and social circumstances and factors b. Dispositional attribution: psychological inclinations, attitudes and motivations We are able to infer disposition from: o Freedom: Was the actor constrained? o Commonality: Was the behavior (and outcome) exceptional? o Desirability: Was the behavior rewarded socially? Based on these considerations, we then determine that a behavior can be attributed to a person’s dispositions (correspondent inference – Jones & Davis, 1965) → The attribution process, however, is not always flawless CORRESPONDENCE BIAS Correspondence bias: tendency to make unwarranted dispositional attributions Jones & Davis, 1965: presented participants an essay written by a fellow student, whose position on the issue was said to be chosen freely or assigned by the experimenters o They then asked participants to rate the author’s disposition (pro or anti Castro) 18  OTHER ATTRIBUTIONAL BIASES OUTCOME BIAS: we tend to infer intention from the outcome, or the consequences of behavior PERSONAL RELEVANCE EFFECT: we tend to make more conclusive attributions regarding behaviors that affect us ACTOR-OBERVER EFFECT: We tend to make more dispositional attributions on other people’s behavior, and more situational attributions on our own behavior SELF-SERVING BIAS: We tend to make dispositional attributions for our positive behaviors and situational attributions for our negative behaviors GROUP-SERVING BIAS: same as above (at the group level) o Linguistic intergroup bias: 2. ACTOR-SITUATION COVARIANCE (KELLEY) KELLEY’S COVARIATION MODEL (1967): we infer the cause of a behavior by observing, or recalling from memory, how it covariates across situations and actors o Distinctiveness of the actor’s behavior, across situations o Consensus on the behavior within the situation, among actors Distinctiveness (Actor-specific) LOW HIGH Consensus LOW He does it everywhere He did it only there (situation- He is the only doing it He is the only one doing it specific) HIGH He does it everywhere He did it only there Everybody does it Everybody does it 3. LOCUS, CONTROLLABILITY AND STABILITY WEINER’S (1985) ATTRIBUTIONAL THEORY considers three factors: o Locus (internal vs external) o Stability (stable vs unstable) o Controllability (controllable vs incontrollable) EX: you failed an exam, Why did it happen? 19 CAUSALITY, RESPONSIBILITY AND BLAME We have both formal-logic and intuitive understanding of causality Social psychology studies: o The factors that lead to applying intuitive or formal causality →Superficial vs deep processing of information o The rules of intuitive causal attribution o The consequences of causal attribution in terms of responsibility attribution, blame assignment, and social reproach 1. INTUITIVE CAUSALITY When making causal attribution, we tend to prefer causes that are: o Closer in time and space, over remote ones →Accessibility o Coherent with our existing beliefs and worldview →Conservatism o Simple over complex ones →Superficial/Deep processing We also tend to prefer: Human causes over natural or mechanical causes o In an experiment by McClure and colleagues (2007), participants read different versions of a scenario, in which a forest fire was caused by both natural and human causes, but their order in time (distant vs. proximal) was manipulated → Participants considered the human cause more explanatory than the natural one, independently of its position in time Voluntary and controllable causes over incontrollable ones (ex. infectious attributions) o In another experiment, Girotto et al. (1991) presented participants a story including a controllable cause and several other uncontrollable ones (both human and natural), manipulating their order – Then they were asked to select which was the main cause of the outcome (= Mr. White arriving too late to save his wife) ▪ Controllable, human: Mr. White stops at the town pub for a beer with a colleague ▪ Uncontrollable, natural: A flock of sheep crosses the road while Mr. White is driving along ▪ Uncontrollable, human: A large truck turning around blocks traffic on road while Mr. White is driving along ▪ Uncontrollable, human: a large tree trunk falls on the road blocking it 20  → Participants selected the controllable cause (pub stop) more frequently than the incontrollable ones, regardless of its position in the story 2. CAUSAL AND RESPONSIBILITY ATTRIBUTION When they attribute responsibility for an event, in addition to considering purely causal factors, people make inferences based on additional retrospective and prospective elements: o The outcome of the event (outcome/hindsight bias) o The intentions of the actors (culpable control, Alicke, 2008) Inferences regarding intentionality are in turn affected by observers’ knowledge of the actors, their past behavior, motivations, and dispositions o These information may not always be relevant to the specific event EX: A young man is speeding on an empty street, he loses control of the car and crashes it, damaging public property o If he was thinking about a present = Lesser responsibility attributed for the accident o If he was on drugs = Greater responsibility attributed for the accident CAUSALITY PAINS George Taylor is a 35-year old professional One day he starts experiencing a strong, and growing in intensity, abdominal pain o Worried by the pain, he goes to his doctor, Dr. Mike Landini Dr. Landini visits him and concludes that, as it is the first time the patient has experienced this type of symptoms, it is probably the initial stage of a colitis, that is an inflammation of the large intestines o He tells Mr. Taylor to stay at home for a few days, follow a light diet and come back for a follow-up check in a week In the following days Mr. Taylor’s pain gradually subsides o As he feels better, he decides to go for a ski trip he had planned months in advance After a couple of days, however, the abdominal pain reappears, even stronger than the first instance Mr. Taylor has to visit the local Emergency Room of the mountain location o They diagnose him with an advanced-stage peritonitis due to intestinal volvulus, that is an inflammation due to the intestines twisting themselves in the abdomen Emergency surgery is needed, but the closest hospital is at the end of the valley and the ambulance takes several hours to bring Mr. Taylor there, due to severe weather Eventually, the doctors have to resect a considerable part of Mr. Taylor’s large intestines due to necrosis, that is tissue death from lack of blood supply Mr. Taylor consequently has to stay in hospital for 20 days after surgery, and to undergo a long convalescence in the following months WHAT CAUSED THE FINAL OUTCOME? o Dr. Landini’s negligence o Mr. taylor’s recklessness o Bad weather conditions Mr. Taylor sues Dr. Landini for malpractice, arguing that he is responsible for the physical damages he had from the emergency surgery and the deriving limitations to his everyday life o The judge asks a medical consultant to evaluate the case According to the consultant’s report …If Dr. Landini had taken the patient’s symptoms more seriously, he could have planned surgery before the situation had worsened. If Dr. Landini had prescribed some simple diagnostic tests, the emergency surgery could have been avoided. 21  …If Mr. Taylor had followed the doctor’s orders, the operation would have had smaller consequences. If Mr. Taylor had stayed home, he could have contacted the doctor as soon as the symptoms had come back, before the situation had worsened. …If the mountain town had an hospital, Mr. Taylor could have had surgery immediately after the diagnosis. If the road had not been closed by the severe weather, Mr. Taylor would have reached the hospital sooner. BACKWARD CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION: COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING We often make causal attributions by comparing actual outcomes with hypothetical ones Counterfactual thinking: is a form of mental simulation in which one (or more) antecedents of an event are changed in order to obtain a different outcome o “If I had brought an umbrella, I wouldn’t have been soaked by the rain.” o “If an accident had not occurred along the road, I would have arrived at my appointment in time” o “If you had taken the course more seriously, you wouldn’t have failed the exam.” When do people generate counterfactual thoughts? Routine norm break (Kahneman, 1986): When negative, surprising or exceptional events occur Social norm break (Catellani et al, 2001): When someone behaves inconsistently with social roles and stereotypes Counterfactual Focus Counterfactuals can focus on different actors, depending on whose actions or decisions are mentally mutated to obtain a different hypothetical outcome o EX: We would have not crashed…. If I had stopped at the yellow light OR If the other driver had slowed down Counterfactual direction: Counterfactual mutation can result in an hypothetical better or worse scenario o EX: If Roosevelt had not been president in 1940….The Nazis would have won WWII OR WWII would have remained a localized European conflict 22 SELF AND IDENTITY WHAT IS THE SELF? The self is a relatively modern concept: created as psychology developed o Before that people had intuitive idea of what is the self, what defines a person in psychological terms but it was not really and fully defined, it was elusive as object of study o When psychology started to develop, firstly it was focused on perception, how people react to visual/ stimuli and then develop sense of studying how people think. When studying this topic the issue of studying the self-arose The 1st definition was proposed in the 1890S BY WILLIAM JAMES, one of the first psychologists in America and he also was a philosopher: He divided the self into a o Subject-self: what we experience as people (I) when we consider ourselves as actors in some kind of behavior; as individuals who experience emotions, attitudes, motivation etc. o Object-self: we consider ourselves as objects with some properties/ objects that can be evaluated and observe/ evaluate others (me) → When talking of the self we have this double sense of what we are: both someone who looks at world and tries to understand and something which can be understood by ourselves o This was important as beforehand we considered the self as something which was not self-reflected and it was hardly defined Talking about the self a lot came from PSYCHOANALYSIS (ex. FREUD etc who developed the definition of what we mean when talking of ourselves/self in general). The initial approach was similar to the others: trying to deconstruct what we mean when talking about the self - He proposed 2 models: 1. Based on the idea of iceberg (early, most famous model 1900): the self is whole iceberg but we usually consider/ observe is only the tip of it = the conscious part o There is big part which is under water (subconscious part), below our threshold of conscience and that part contains source of emotion/ motivation/ thoughts → Its basic idea was that there is a lot in our mind going on without us knowing (we can be both conscious about how we fell/ think etc. but that is not the whole story) 2. Structural model (1923): he keeps subdivision between conscious and subconscious but he also splits into 3 parts which have different functions and calls them in with “Id, Ego, Super ego” a. Ego = I*: similar to what James said of the subject, part of us which is conscious and thinks of itself and other things. It is the controller of our psychic system b. Subconscious part of the self (below surface) contains two separate parts: “ID” which contains all our premoral drivers/ notions, our basic needs which he connected with centrality (this is the animal part of our psychic structure, part where our desire come from, our motivation and drive, part which is mainly subconscious) c. Super Ego: super because it is super imposition on what we are, it is our introjections of our role models/ what we learn from our parents and early reactions, we perceive the rules imposed on us and also social norms that we develop in and they become part of our self-structure in super ego which dictates parts of what the ego has to do to comply with social rules. *Ego is in this mediating position between 3 sources of problem: mediation between ourself and social environment; also has to do with our emotions (which can be released or have to be controlled) and with this other internalised rule which comes from super ego. It has a balancing act between what we want/ what we feel we have to do/ what reality allows us to do → eg he proposed some forms of mental diseases are the result of these different levels of balance that ego can strike with other parts/ reality as a whole. His models were then developed, and more recent models use some intuitions given by him bit in general psychology has moved on. 23 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND AWARENESS SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: is the subjective experience of our cognitive functions → Cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind (how conscious we are of what’s going on in our mind) o Has to do with Freud’s distinction of conscious and subconscious, found also in other researches o Some processes/ functions which are active in our mind below our consciousness, there are processes going on but we are not conscious of them but they still exist, we have some info without us fully knowing it SELF-AWARENESS: is the awareness of ourselves as objects in the physical or social world o Has to do with “me self”, what we think of ourselves o Has to do with the object self, what we think about who we are/ what we do/ how we evaluate ourselves and what we do etc How do we construct an image of who we are? We usually try to simply give a structure to info we have about ourselves → We create self-schemas = simplified versions of who we are within context or certain role o We think of ourselves as in relation to other significant people etc; within this info we have some info about ourselves which we use to make judgments about whether we are behaving in correct way/ we should change our behaviour etc. o Different types of info in self-schemas: think of properties, abilities, skills in a specific area (academic behaviour) and this determinate the type of information accessible when thinking of ourselves → These different schemas are made more or less accessible depending on the context (we try to select info which is most relevant to what we are doing) SELF-DISCREPANCY THEORY – HIGGINS 1987 Make comparisons between the different information we have of ourselves According to HIGGINS: individuals deal with three self-schemas 1) The actual self (how we think we are) o Objective info, info we can retrieve of ourselves (what we are doing, what we have done in recent past, how we would describe ourselves in certain situation) 2) The ideal self (how we would like to be) o In the same situation (academic context, party context, family context) what is the version of ourselves that we would like to be o We have a model of it; another model to keep in mind and will make some comparison with it 3) The ought self (how we think we should be) o What are the standard, rules, norms that define what I am expected to be/ what I think I am expected to be and can make comparison between what we are and what we think we should be like → The discrepancy between the Actual, Ideal and Ought self elicits in different emotions → These emotions in turn drive self-regulation, that is attempts to change one’s actual self to match the ideal or ought self There are 3 schemas and when thinking of ourselves, when we are self-aware, we will make comparisons and judge ourselves using the standard one, and then one of the two other selves: either the ideal or the odd In discrepancy theory these 3 elements are not equal, the real self is different from ideal self or is different from ought self → By observing/ perceiving this, we will experience emotions which can be different based on what is the reference point and which alternative self-schemas we use as comparison term. This has to do with cognitive dissonance: when we perceive that something is not coherent (ex. our actual behavior is not coherent to our ought self), we experience cognitive dissonance → This dissonance comes with peculiar emotions depending on reference point o Discrepancy btw ourselves and ideal self: dissatisfied, disappointed, will experience some sort of sadness (= not achieving what you wanted to) o Discrepancy between what we are and ought self: anxiety, worry, shame (= not fulfilling duties/expectations) → Based on these emotions we will change our behaviour, what we think of ourselves, and adjustment of behaviour is what we call self-regulation, process that drives our lives → Self-regulation = idea of changing one’s actual self to match the ideal/ought self 24 REGULATORY FOCUS THEORY What determines whether we focus on one comparison or the other? There is another theory, part of same model but the idea is that it depends on what kind of self-guide is more salient in our mind Depending on which self-guide is more salient, momentarily or chronically, individuals have different regulatory foci: o If ideal self is accessible, we will be more likely to compare our actual self with ideal self o If ought self is accessible (if we have tendency to think about what other people think of us); the comparison will be with our ought self There are two possible focus 1. PROMOTION REGULATORY FOCUS: motivation to pursue one’s hopes and aspirations o If our goals in life are accessible, we will regulate our behaviour in “approach self-regulatory strategies” = the way we plan our behaviour/ way we think about changing our behaviour has this orientation towards approach → try new strategies to reach our goals, look at opportunities in environment o Reference standard is the ideal o Leads to increased sensitivity to rewards, potential gains, and status-quo improvement 2. PREVENTION REGULATORY FOCUS: motivation to live up to one’s duties and obligations o When we are focused on how we are doing compared to other duties/other people’s expectations and our own ones o If our duties/ obligations are accessible in our mind we will enact “avoidance self-regulatory strategy” → concerned how not to get into trouble, pay attention to relation with others and problems we may have with others o Motivation to live up to one’s duties and obligations o Leads to increased sensitivity to punishment, potential threats and status-quo maintainment → This is important as depending on the focus we have (ideal or ought self) derive different types of behaviour and different ways of regulating our behavior which result in different outcomes → They may help us balance our different selves REGULATORY FOCUS MANIPULATION How do we read which approach is most effective? It can experimentally manipulated or induced in different ways 1) TASK PRIMING Set of techniques that aim at making some time of info accessible and thus force/ induce a focus – Ask people: o “Describe how your hopes and aspirations are different now from when you were growing up.” o “Describe how your duties and obligations are different now from when you were growing up.” o “Think about a positive academic outcome that you might want to achieve, and describe the strategies you could use to successfully promote this outcome.” o “Think about a negative academic outcome that you might want to avoid and describe the strategies you could use to successfully prevent this outcome.” → People will enter in promotion focus or will be in prevention focus → In both situations they will focus people in one of the situations, bringing them to be more sensitive to different types of stimuli 2) SUBLIMINAL PRIMING Type of task that presents images/ words to people and tries to influence them by presenting this contest o They will ask people to look at screen on which different words appear and some of these words will have to do with ideal self (promotion focus) By being exposed to these words they will perceive them, and this will activate different focus depending on what they are shown in each condition: done in a subtle way, so as not to make the task so evident This is another way to induce promotion/ prevention focus 25 Regulatory focus scale SELF-EFFICACY – BANDURA 1986 SELF-EFFICACY = the belief of being able to successfully execute tasks in order to achieve a certain goal Has quite specific meaning, defined as belief that each of us has regarding how successful we are able to execute tasks or navigate situations/ achieve goals It is task- and contentspecific (“How good am I at…”) o It differs from efficacy: which is one’s actual attainment o It differs from confidence, which is the general expectation to succeed in life Self-efficacy is INFLUENCED BY: o Mastery experiences (practicing): perceive myself as more efficient o Vicarious experiences (modelling) ▪ observation of other people’s behaviour, how good they are and how good we are compared to them ▪ this can be achieved through modelling → eg in programs they try to improve self-efficacy first by exposing people to other people’s experience with something; often used to cure phobias ▪ by looking at other people reactions we may believe we might have same reaction ▪ once this step has been achieved, we move to situation we are afraid of o Communication (persuasion) o Physiological feed-back (e.g., perceived tension) ▪ we use perception coming from our sense to understand/ interpret situations ▪ people use positive sensorial experiences to infer they should not be afraid of doing these things, it is like a signal we interpret and pushes up to do something which is not as bas as we thought ▪ EX: if we see someone failing we fear we will fail as well, if everyone passes with 30L then we may believe we will get same grade even if we do not touch the book SELF-ESTEEM – FESTINGER 1954 Self-esteem derives from the evaluation we do of ourselves, through self-comparison (ex. self-discrepancy) or social comparison → Evaluation of our self-vale in general o Self-esteem regulation depends on both internal and external mechanisms Not what we do, but who we are Comes from comparison which can be done with ourselves/ hope/ expectations, but it depends also on social comparison o I can improve/worsen self-esteem by looking at others and compare myself with them o Self-esteem regulation depends on both internal (internal self-guides) and external mechanisms Sometimes the two things collide – EX: Narcissist are bad at internal level, so they need external approval, and tend to behave in way that attract others people approval Self-Esteem and Social Comparison Social Comparison is the second big source of our self-esteem o Comes into play one of the drivers of info process = the basic motivations = motivation to value ourselves in positive way Since we are motivated to attain and maintain positive selfesteem, but also to have an accurate perception of reality, this affects our social comparison 26  As a result: do not compare ourselves to whoever happens to be around, but look for slightly inferior standards, look at people similar to us and possibly a little worse than us as when we compared ourselves to them we get an idea of how good we are doing and most likely to get a positive rewards (get out of the comparison in 1st place and this boosts our self-esteem) o EX: how good am I at football? I am somewhere middle, so I think of an upwards comparison (football star) to improve like him; and a downward comparison (my nephew) to boost my self-esteem When given the opportunity to compare ourselves we will choose that middle-worse comparison standard as it fulfils both the aspects we are looking for and allows us to come out of the comparison in a positive light Social, practical and technological constraints can alter the terms of social comparison → Resulting in biased self-evaluation IDENTITY: WHO ARE YOU? How would you describe yourself with one word?: Some people refer to physical characteristics, other to personality traits or social relations; some are positive, others are negative What is identity? What makes me stand out of the crowd o Some positive individual characteristic, something that I have more than others What makes me part of a certain crowd o Other people may share these certain characteristics with you SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY TAJFEL AND TURNER 1979: Social identity is “the portion of one’s self-concept deprived from membership in one (or more) social group” o This has a lot of consequences on how we think of ourselves, our relationships with others, and how we think of these people o Determines a lot of different attitudes/behaviors and affects the way we think about the things we do The relative salience of the personal vs. social identity depends on the context we are in: o When we are alone or in an inter-personal context, the individual part of our identity will be more accessible and we will define ourselves in terms of what makes us different o When we are in a context in which our membership is more important, our social identity will become more important, main driver of our self (= we will be motivated by belonging to a certain social group) Social identity not only affects what we think about ourselves, but also our cognitions, emotions and behaviours towards-others → When we are in an individual situation, our personal identity will be the one driving our personal thoughts and behavior → When we are in a group situation, our social identity will be more predominant when we make all sorts of judgements and behaviors What is a social group? In social psychology, a GROUP is defined as two or more people who share certain characteristics, develop shared goals and interests and form a collective identity (Turner & Bouhris, 1996) SHARED GROUP IDENTITY can be based on assigned characteristics (e.g., gender, age, nationality, culture) or chosen ones (personal interests, preferences) o They can be contingent or long-lasting The social group is about sharing a certain characteristic (= have this commonality) expressed as a shared goal, or in a shared past → It must be recognised by the people who have it, must be something we are aware of o What are the characteristics o They can be assigned. They can be also more controllable, more chosen 27 CONSEQUENCES OF SELF-CATEGORIZATION 1. Mastery motivation Why do individuals spontaneously categorise themselves and others into groups? What kind of needs do we satisfy, what kinds of motivations can we fulfil? → Mastery motivation Turner et al. (1987) investigated how groups serve as categories in which multiple objects can be classified and handled more easily o By thinking of people as parts of the group, the amount of info that we have to possess is much more reduced We tend to minimise intra-group differences and maximise inter-group differences → META-CONTRAST PRINCIPLE o We can combine people into larger identities which are less demanding: If we think of these individuals as groups, the amount of cognitive load when thinking about them is greatly reduced → This principle is called the meta-contrast principle (helps us to put reality in a more simple way, self- mastery motive) 2. Positive self-evaluation motivation Another motivation which drives the process: the desire to achieve a positive self-evaluation of ourselves: being part of a group, can be a source of sufficient differentiation and positive self-evaluation → OPTIMAL DISTINCTIVENESS PRINCIPLE (being part of a group gives us a positive perception of ourselves) Once we have self-categorised in a group, we are motivated to maintain the positive self-esteem we derive from it: Our attitudes and behaviours towards fellow group members (ingroup) and members of other groups (outgroup) reflect this motivation → INGROUP FAVOURITISM (= tendency to prefer people who belong to the same group as us) THE MINIMAL GROUPS EXPERIMENTS Tajfel and colleagues asked British schoolboys their preference for paintings by Vassily Kandinsky or Paul Klee, and then assigned them to one of two groups, allegedly based on that preference The kids then were asked to distribute money between several pairs of individuals identified only by group membership (Klee vs. Kandinsky, i.e. ingroup vs. outgroup) The results showed that the kids systematically assigned more money to recipients of their own group (= ingroup favouritism) They found that there was in-group favoritism. Even at the expense of the whole group. The interesting thing is that these groups didn’t make any sense They showed that it’s the fact of dividing people into groups that causes it and not the features of the groups themselves. It showed that the kids needed no indoctrination, it was simply the fact that they were in different groups. Seemed like kids wanted to maximize the welfare for their group. This also shows that this happened despite people from different cultures, ethnicities in the same group, so it overcame that. SOCIAL IDENTITY AND STATUS What are the features of group and how can we manage them to maintain a positive social identity? Self-categorisation does not necessarily lead to a positive selfevaluation as member of a group o Certain groups have high status, associated with positive selfevaluation o Other have low status (negative stigma), associated with negative self-evaluation Group status can change as a function of several factors, which are only partially in control of single group members: wealth, power, amount of resources a group possesses 28  o If we belong to a certain group based on our ethnicity (not permeable group) of course it will be hard to consider oneself not part of the group, because we cannot control that feature Individual and group strategies to obtain positive social identity A) When group boundaries are permeable (ex. group on political affiliation or music taste): o If one is a member of a low status group, one might be motivated to change the group o If it’s something that one can control → Individual mobility (= categorize yourself in a higher status group, and not emphasize that you were part of a lower status group) B) When group boundaries are impermeable, change is sought at group level: If my being part of a lower status group is seen as something unstable (= changeable), I will try to compete with the other groups → Intergroup competition: strong rivalry and antagonism → Forms of favoritism within the group: hopefully they will cause a change in status (EX: Civil Rights movement, minorities advocated for change) Ways to manage the situation without using social conflict, but trying to change the way we and other groups see the difference in status → People will try to re-categorize not just their membership, but the criteria to which the whole subdivision is created CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN IDENTITY Intercultural research by Markus and Kitayama (1991) showed that people from different cultures tend to attribute different importance to the personal and social components of their selves o We should also think about difference among different cultures: Not all cultures have the same conception of what is a group and how much the identity depends on the groups I belong to → Researchers found a basic distinction between cultures based on self-definition people give to themselves Cultures focusing on an independent self: self is seen as an individual phenomenon and the individual identity weights more than the social identity o Focus on autonomy o Everybody is preoccupied in keeping boundaries with how much something is influenced by others o Value like achievement more important than solidarity (threatened by conformity) o Competitive → People in western world are more keen on first model Cultures focusing on an interdependent self: were the social dimension weighs more o Focus is on finding elements to connect with others → Flexible boundaries o Solidarity (threatened by egoism and individualism which disrupt the social self) o Compliant with social norms o Cooperation as prevailing behavior → People form the other part of the world are usually more oriented on second model 29 PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION Discrimination: not all groups are treated equally (ex. in terms of gender or status) o An EX could be the difference in terms of representation or presence of women in roles of power SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION People spontaneously tend to categorize individuals into groups with certain common characteristics, in order to save cognitive resources, and satisfy affiliation and self-esteem needs Categorization is an essential process in the formation of social identities o Members of a category or group tend to be perceived more similar to each other and more different to the rest, than they actually are → META-CONTRAST PRINCIPLE The first step to create discrimination is to create categories: we tend to create groups, and we tend to emphasize differences among people in different groups Stereotyping = we see all of the people which belong to the same group as having the same characteristics Prejudice = some of stereotypes which are negative → Used by us to form our evaluation of people into a third group, and regulate our behavior accordingly Discrimination is not inevitable and there are also other factors that play into the concept of prejudice and discrimination o For instance: personal individual characteristics or personalities of the people we discriminate, make them more susceptible to stereotypes and prejudice (thus discrimination) → Differences among people are a factor affecting discrimination → Also the environment is a factor which fosters discrimination → Social factors: can make us more likely to think about stereotypes and base our judgement on them → People usually try to find reasons and justification to apply prejudice and so to behave in a discriminatory matter STEREOTYPING LIPPMAN, 1922 – Stereotypes: are socially shared beliefs and evaluations regarding the members of a social group THE CONTENT OF STEREOTYPES is the result of individuals’ perception, and of communication and social influence processes o Stereotypes can be distributed and become popular and widespread through communication → They are not just things we think, but rather what we discuss o We use them to refer to other people, and by using them we reinforce their acceptability and they become socially shared that’s why usually people in certain groups have similar ideas of people in other groups The content of stereotypes can diverge substantially from reality: the degree of accuracy is therefore a critical feature of stereotypes o Accuracy = how much stereotypes reflect actual characteristics of people in groups The valence of stereotypes can also be either positive, negative or mixed Formation: Stereotypes are usually formed from empirical and actual bases o People notice a certain characteristic → Propagated and become a sort of shared knowledge o This can be done though propaganda in the case of political matters or through advertising Stereotypes and advertising There have been studies which show how much advertisement is a vehicle of stereotypes o Voluntarily or non, commercial advertising can be used as a tool to propagate some stereotypes o An example is a car adv which shows the stereotype about cars are mainly for men, or the Barbie stereotype → Advertisers use stereotypes because they are a shared piece of knowledge and they are universally accessible to people 30 Stereotype Threat Stereotypes do not only shape the way we see people but also shape our behavior and of the people in the group Stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995): When awareness of stereotypes can affect by itself the cognitions and behaviour of members of stereotyped groups o When people become aware of the existence of the stereotype of the group they belong to, they can end up acting consistently with the stereotype of that group, unwontedly of that o When individuals are exposed to environmental or social cues of the existence of stereotypes, they tend to involuntarily conform with them EX: schoolgirls tend to perform worse in math tests when they are told about gender stereotypes on school subjects → The idea is that some gender may be better at humanitarian subjects and this usually applies to girls, and math sciences are better for men o They found that when there was no clue of the stereotype, the performance was similar, but when the context was gender twisted the boys were improving and the girls reduced theirs (observed just by manipulating how the exercise was presented) PREJUDICE Prejudice: individual negative attitude towards members of a social group and usually it is not towards a specific object but toward a social group It can be based on: personal experiences, information from others or socially shared stereotypes As other types of attitudes, prejudice has COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE and BEHAVIORAL components o We have a certain knowledge and ideas associated to the group, and also behaviors These attitudes can be formed and also changed, by our personal experience but also from what we observe by others, and communication When we start using a stereotype, this becomes the easy and accessible representation of a group o If this representation is mainly negative and contains some behavioral clues it will of course, result in a form of prejudice DISCRIMINATION The actual discrimination is what we can observe against social groups Discriminatory behaviour can range from overt acts of harrassment of target individuals or groups, to less evident forms, such as exclusion, separation, aversion o There are different types: o Some are more active, behaviors overly intended to harass or negatively affect other people in groups o Other forms are less pro-active and more passive, such as exclusion, aversion and separation depending on the behavioral component of the negative attitude o But there are also forms of favoritism and dis-favoritism against other groups → The more informal or spontaneous can become social norms, rules of behaviors that we share within a group Discrimination can become a social norm, and can be formalised as state law WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION? The relationship between prejudice and discrimination is not always consistent (LaPiere, 1923): sometimes people act on their prejudices, sometimes not, depending on situational and institutional support o As long as you don’t treat them differently form the others, everything is fine. Is it that easy? No o There are some intermediate spots and factors that turn attitudes (prejudice) into behaviors (discrimination), sometimes the action can be easy sometimes not 31 Slippery slope or feedback loop? The discrimination of jews Social categorization based on ethnic origins Stereotypes about the community, around for a long time. This representation used in different narrations contributes to the stereotypes and leads to negative prejudices Then this sometimes can become a form of actual discrimination (like in Germany in the 1930) The other processes that have been going on: o Communication (using the stereotype increases tendency to disseminate negative attitude, negative agenda used stereotype to promote view) political propaganda → works like a feedback loop o Institutional intervention (feedback look from discrimination), discrimination promotes prejudice by levering on the institutional level of the issue: By imposing new laws, saying that discrimination is needed, make people more confirmable in expressing the negative prejudice they have making it more socially accessible o Once you establish a social norm/rule will also increase the likelihood of people adopting it and expressing the negative attitudes Justifying Discrimination Even when stereotypes and prejudices are widespread, engaging in discriminatory behaviour can arise cognitive dissonance How do we deal with that cognitive dissonance, deriving from treating people unequally and expressing negative attitudes towards social groups? Find a motivation to reframe our behavior that might not be the best but still something we have to do Individuals often reduce such dissonance by denying the humanity of the discriminated target (= dehumanization) o By doing so, they put the target outside of the common human group, thus making discrimination legitimate and acceptable DEHUMANISATION Dehumanisation (and infrahumanisation): based on the reduced attribution of human properties to members of discriminated groups Depending on what kind of attribute is denied to discriminated individuals, two types of dehumanisation are possible (Haslam, 2006): o Animalistic (no rationality, civility, culture) → No agency ▪ Whenever you describe a group as animals (ex. savages, apes), you deny them of a specific human figure of people being rational and have some culture and elevate mental faculties o Mechanistic (no emotional responsiveness) → No communion ▪ Here, deny not only the proper human characteristic but the characteristics of any form of emotional responsiveness In an experiment conducted in Spain, Martinez (2012) asked participants to associate words related to humans, animals and machines to surnames referring to their ingroup (Spanish) or two different outgroups (Gypsy or German) o Both explicit and implicit (IAT) associations were tested o Associate a certain number of words to a number of people. Yellow words that denote some kind of human characteristics, violet associated with animals, and the blue associated with objects o The human words were more likely to be attached to the targets of the in- group, less so the other two 32  oThe animal words were more attributed to out groups and the same for the machine related words ohey demonstrated the dehumanization, and the two different types. oWhy do people discriminate? What are the factors that promote or reduce discrimination? THE MANY ROOTS OF PREJUDICE Movie-character of radical right wing activist. He was the son of a firefighter, and his father was killed, shot by a gang member. The fact that his father was killed by a black person, started the process to start having negative attitudes towards black people and joined the group 1. FRUSTRATION AGGRESSION HYPOTHESIS This first path from normal life to discrimination, represents the first hypothesis, of what can promote discrimination It has been observed that an increase in prejudice and in episodes of discrimination can be observed in periods of social and economic unrest → As it was the case with rates of racial incidents o When people were upset they were more likely to act out this frustration A tentative explanation of this tendency was proposed by Dollard and Miller (1939), with the frustration- aggression hypothesis: They argued that when an external force blocks an individual’s goal pursuit, the resulting “idle” psychical drive is redirected towards an alternative target, leading to aggression o Individuals and groups who are targets of prejudice become convenient scapegoats to attack o The idea is that people had some kind of needs and as they are unsatisfied for some external reason, people will redirect these needs against some kind of target Considering the story aforementioned, it is more likely to become angry and act out when there are some cases of frustration There is also a second story telling of the story: in the movie, the father was actually quite racist himself, and expressed form of negative attitudes. It is not only the fact that he was killed by a black man, but also gave them some elements before, to build this negative attitude before. Some ideas about