Social Psychology Notes PDF

Notes: 08/26/2024 Things to consider: Ask how the content might apply to me as individual, others or impact daily life Complete the readings before class, and the highlighted sections....

Notes: 08/26/2024 Things to consider: Ask how the content might apply to me as individual, others or impact daily life Complete the readings before class, and the highlighted sections. Deadlines on Fridays What is social psychology? Social psychology is the study of humas as social animals, mostly in social situation in order to analyze their feelings, thought, and behaviors. o Factors to consider: i. How these social interactions impact or influence us? ii. how we think or influence each other iii. conformity & interactions, values iv. What lead to negative and positive social interactions. v. How would others (real or imagined) react to us? Real: actual people around Imagined: how my friends would react to this post. Social Physiology is the scientific study of: Social Thinking Social Influence Social Relations Perception (ourselves and Culture Prejudice others) Pressures to conform Aggression Believes Persuasion Attraction & intimacy Judgment Groups of people Helping Attitudes Social psychologies answers questions as: Related to scientific enterprise How social identities and roles shapes individual’s thoughts or self-perception? How you play the role of being a daughter, or being a student? How media (TV or social media) influence or persuade us? How are we influence by people? How we respond to them? o Example: When we meet someone new, what influence if we like or dislike them. ClassQuestions: 1. Venting anger relives or reinforces anger?  According to research, on average venting anger tends to reinforce anger, making you ruminate into the emotion, and it would long longer than if you choose to take a time to calm down. 2. Physical attractiveness led to believe they possess more or less intelligence? In average, if we find someone attractive, we tend to associate them with the idea of positive trails, believing that they’re smarter, funnier, etc., also known as Halo Effect. 3. If you ask for a favor, they will like you more or less? Usually, if you ask for a reasonable favor or simple, people are very likely to agree, which might lead to the building of a relationships. Behavior and attitude are directly related, one impact the other, an attitude can lead to a behavior, and in the other way as well. 4. Paying people to donate blood led to more or less donations? Money might impact the feeling of it, making the donation feel riskier, kind of darker, but at the same time it could be a positive intensive to led people to take action because of the transactional value on it. However, both cases are right, people that want to help (intrinsic motivation) and people that want an intensive to it (extrinsic motivation) Why we do Social Psychology Research: The real answer is not always obvious o There are alternative and exceptions Use of knowledge to improve: o Social services & education o Physical & mental health o Business & marketing o Social policies & laws that structure of society o Other areas (criminal justice, politics, environmental sustainability) o Help people get happiness 08/28 Different Levels of Explanation: Personality Psychology: focus on Individual. What makes people different from each other? Personality trails Experiences People uniqueness, according to different reactions to same situation o Example: Focus: what personality traits make it more/less likely to teens to feel anxious? Social Psychology: Individual  Other people and situations Average of people reactions in certain situation, the consistent pattern in responses Social influence and how it works o Example: In what kind of social situation are teens more/less likely to feel anxious? Sociology: Group level. Institutions (media, education, political, legal) How people change these institutions? o Example: What systematics factors (media, education & schools, health care) increase/decrease anxiety among teens? The pennies game: Personality Psychology: o Divided between cooperative or cooperative. Framing the situation: o Telling a group it was “Wall Street Game” o Telling the other half “Community Game” Which have more influence, personality or situation? If people are tell it’s a community game, not mattering the personality trail (competitive or competitive) they chose to be cooperative, while people where told that it was the Wall Street Game the competitive option. In this case or scenario framing the situations have more influence than personality traits. Power of Situation: Framing or construal: how the situation is presented? What seems to be correct way? It has a big impact in behavior, even more in new situations where people seek for others to tailor their actions. Types of situations: Strong Situation: unfamiliar, formal, public, short duration, specific expectations for how the event should go. o Have big influence in behavior. Weak situations: familiar, informal, private, long duration, no specific expectation. o Personality will matter more than the situation itself. Stronger situations will have bigger influence, while weak situations are more a matter of personality, wherever, there are always exceptions. What other factors about the situation might increase the “cooperative” choice? o If you know/trust the other person o If you have a chance to talk with the “stranger” to discuss strategy. o If the game is played multiple times, how “stranger” choice impacts the choices. (if strangers keep choosing B, Player 1 is no longer going to be cooperative) We can design situations to bring out more cooperative or competitive behaviors in people. Names Questions: Do people look like their names? People fix their personality over time according to their name. Do parents choose names that fits their child? According to research, in average people will chose adult names right 30% of the time while they weren’t able to guess kid’s names. So, there’s possible that while we get older, we change to fit our name. This is an example of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Social Influence: how people around us have an influence on us. Who is present? What is their relationship to each other? What social roles does each person have? Who has more power/respect/trust? How people around are push us to success or tear us down to failure., they influence our thinking, behavior. Why?? Good outcome: Impacted by different motivations Look for others to know what the right thing is to do because we want to be correct. We want to be connected to groups or people. Want a sense of control, this is what I can expect about this new situation. Want to feel good about ourselves, we don’t feel lost or confuse. Summary: Is hard to predict how we’re going to act in new situations. We tend to think our behavior came from ourselves, underestimating how social situations can impact us, oversimplifying complex situations, gain a feeling of false security. Research in Social Psychology: What makes Psych “scientific”? o Differs from other fields that try to explain social behavior (Philosophy, Literature) o A process using the scientific method.  o From hypothesis (educated prediction from previous studies), collect data (behavior, attitude, opinions from people), Analyze results (use the date to see if its trustful or not to the initial hypothesis) o Largely based on empirical methods o Observations or measurements. How psychologist take a concept (anxiety) and turn it into a number or scale? (Next class) 09/04 Conduct Research: Defining Variables Variable: a quality or characteristic that varies: 1. Between people (gender, extroversion): comparing between people, their differences. 2. Over time (math skills, anger): how it changes over time, how anger grows, how their math skills increase, what makes someone angry and then makes them calm down over time 3. Between situations (low vs high pressure situations): how people thought, and behavior is impacted by the situation Operationalization: how we take the variable and turn in into something we can measure. 1. “Translation” a variable into something that we can measure or manipulate Class Question: The Marshmallow Test Variables: Personality Patience, self-control, delaying gratification, temptation over time, positive reinforcement. Operationalization: Time before eating, counting how many times they were tempted. Situation factors: alone or with someone else, or friend. Original Study: Personality, Micshel 1960s- 1990s Variables: “self-control” or “delayed gratification” Operationalization: “eat marshmallow?” (yes or no); or “time they were able t wait” (seconds) § Measured at 4 – what might it predict at age 16? The ones who waited: o Related to: better at planning ahead, coping with problems, maintaining friendships, higher S.A.T score. Later Study: Social Situation, Kidd 2013 Unreliable vs Reliable Conditions Researcher fails to bring child new crayons & stickers Vs. researchers does what she says she will. Kids in the reliable environment waited longer before eating the marshmallow, kids that were in the unreliable environment they will eat the marshmallow right away. The environment has a big impact in the kids’ following actions. Conduct Research: Types of Studies Descriptive: o Goal: is to try to describe a specific psychological concept or process (a variable. o Qualitative: in-depth interviews or observations § Gather detailed notes rather than measuring with numbers. Uses the notes to then get to a conclusion. Example: What makes life worth living? (video) What did you notice in story that made MJ’s life full? She finding love, the chance to be accepted and proud of, and ultimately having a family with such openness about who she is, led her to be able to experience the true beauty of love and made her fill fulfilled. Even though the quantitative research (scale 1-10) helps a lot, it lack deepness. Correlational: o Goal: investigates relationship between two or more variables that research has no control over. How are variables linked to each other? o Survey: People answer questions about themselves. Ex: in scale from 1-10 how satisfied you feel how many times did you ate fruits and vegetables this week? Positive Correlation Zero Correlation Negative Correlation A variable increase so the Variables react A variable increase, and other increase independently. the other decreases A variable decrease, the Variables are unrelated. A variable decreases, the other decrease as well. other increases. Ex: Hand-Eye Coordination Ex: Self- Disclosure and and relationship Satisfaction. Ex: Expressing Contempt Relationship Satisfaction (anger, dissatisfaction about the other) and Relationship Satisfaction. Being with friends and Laughter – Positive correlation. Being on vacation and Anxiety – Negative Correlation. Studying and Laughter – No correlation Correlation isn’t equal to causation: Correlation doesn’t show is causation, using correlational research we know that variables are connected, but we don’t know the cause, or which variable impact which. Ice Cream and Drownings  § Can’t be certain that one variable causes change in other. § Two major problems: The directionality problems: o Does social media use lead to greater jealously? o Does high jealousy lead people to use social media more? The "third variable” problem: o Does a third variable cause both? o Poor communication in a relationships o One partner is “famous” Experimental: o Goal: examine a cause & effect relationship between variables. Experimenter or researcher has control over one of the variables. § Independent variable (IV): manipulate by researcher (cause) o Randomly assign people into two (or more) groups. o Ex 1. Scroll partner’s social media for 20 minutes vs Watch TV show for 20 minutes. 2. No medication vs Medication. § Dependent variable (DV): measured afterwards (effect) o Ex: 1. Score on jealously questionnaire. 2. Number of anxiety symptoms reported to therapist. Ethics & Research: (started on 1917) Imagine researchers wanted to conduct the Social Media & Jealously Experiment. o Imagine being a participant – what could be possible bad outcomes if you participate in this study? Accidents in the lab, increase of trust issues, end of the relationship. In the design of a research study is important to have in count and consider all the “what if”. All colleges & hospital researchers have studies reviewed and approved by an “Institutional Review Bord (IRB)” o Research Ethics Committee Must Consider: o How to reduce risk (physical & emotional) vs Weighing benefits o How to ensure privacy & confidentiality  o Informed consent - participants must choose to be in the study and be free to quit at any time. 09/09 The Social Self Focus on how we think about ourselves and how it’s influence by the people around us. 5 things about myself: 1. I’m female (physical quality) 2. I’m a student (social role) 3. I’m creative (attributive) 4. I’m tired!!(attributive) 5. I’m a human (global) “I” and “me”: (William James 1890) “I” is like a reader – self-awareness o The active “knower” self “Me” is like a library – self-concept o The contents of the self Self-Control/Regulation: Part of self-awareness o Think about your own wishes, desires, goals, values. o Make choices based on how to best achieve those. Think about the Marshmallow Test o Easier when you’re older, alert, focused o Experienced – have designed good coping strategies to avoid temptations. Depends on situation & your past experiences. Grit & Growth Mindset (newer area) o Grit: passion and perseverance in an effort to achieve long-term goals § Unique from intelligence or talent § Learn to have a growth mindset (beliefs) o Growth Mindset: the idea that mentality isn’t fixed Growth Mindset Fixed Mindset o You may start with more/less talent. Nut o You are either born with a talent, or you talent is changeable & can be improve are not. Talent is innate and cannot be with effort. changed.  o Failure is a natural part of learning o Success or failure indicates whether or not process. Feedback can help you improve you have a talent. Effort is not very your talent. Effort can lead to success. important. Self-Concept: How we describe ourselves? Physical qualities, social role, attributes, global. Cultural Differences: Example § Independent Cultures- US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, higher social class. o Individualistic, need for distinctiveness o Think of self as distinct social entity with voluntary social bonds o My attributes are generally stable § Interdependent Culture- Asia, Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, working class. o Collectivistic, desire harmonious social relations o Think of self as inextricably linked to others § Think of your social role & obligations o My attributes vary depending on situation & group Independent vs Interdependent Self-contractual: Independent Culture: see bonds as voluntary (a line of dots). Interdependent Culture: bonds are relatively fixed (a close line) Independent: o Desire for distinctiveness & individuation o Particularly high in individualist cultures Depends on situation: more aware of one aspect of your identity when surrounded by dissimilar others. Better than Average effect: (Zell, 2020) o People tend to overestimate our positive qualities & abilities and underestimates negative qualities o Almost everyone is better than average! o Why? Who did you compare yourself to? § Vague question: tend to make downward social comparison § Compare ourselves to bad others § Helps boost our self-esteem o If comparing self to specific individual, bias disappears. (ex: me vs mom in responsibility) Self-Esteem: (Crocker 7 Knight 2005, Leary & Downs 1995) Falls under the umbrella of self-concept Overall positive or negative evaluation you have of yourself. Based on: o Evaluation of success or failure in domains you care about § Contingencies of self-worth Monitoring of how well we’re being accepted into a social group § Sociometer theory Your social identities (gender identity, ethnic identity, religious identity, interest identity, etc.) can be an important source of self-esteem. Social Identity Theory: (Tajfel & Turner 1979, Abrams & Hogg 2001) Identification with a group is important source of self- esteem. 1. Positive distinctiveness- focus on what about your group, and therefore you – higher self- esteem. 2. Bask in reflected glory- when your ingroup does something good, you feel good – higher self-esteem. 3. Actively try to boost status of ingroup- favor your ingroup & its members. When your ingroup is doing well – higher self-esteem. 4. BUT when your individual self-esteem is threatened- more likely to show bias & prejudice towards outgroups. 09/11 Social Cognition: Thinking & making decisions about people & situations. Constantly trying to make sense of the social world. But we’re not able to process all the stimuli we encounter at any moment ( we see, heard, so much, so we need to be able to choose what stimuli we should be paying attention to, be able to break down 15 pieces of information into 2 to make a choice) o Distraction & “cognitive load” o So we create shortcuts… Controlled vs Automatic Processing: Controlled process Automatic process – “mental autopilot” Conscious Processing outside of consciousness Effortful Relatively effortless Purposeful Habitual Ex: Deciding to get married, or what Ex: Which side of the road use to don’t university to choose run to people Class Question: Think of a fish, what we think about is the prototype. Prototype: most typical example of a category or schema. Includes many of the characteristics that we associate with the schema. If we think about the category, and the characteristics, our prototype will be the one that meet most of the criteria. Development of schemas: ⁃ How we develop schemas? During childhood, get to interact with object and get to decide what it’s. For example, the child read about helicopters, and then see an airplane in the sky, he needs to decide how they are different. Takes a while to learn what are these different categories. Ex: When we see a police car, one that is the prototype of a police car and one that isn’t the usual type of police car. After being pull over by the unusual one we’ll start to be aware of more types of police cards. Automatic Processing & Schema: Schema: knowledge structure with organized information. The general characteristics of a category of people or events  o Let’s us organize info & interpret situations and people. Ex: when we’re in a store and see a person with an uniform, because of that we have an idea of how they’re going to treat us. Types of Schemas: Person schemas: Events schemas – Scripts: Characteristics we expect people to have. What we know we must do in situations. Ex: professors, Rhode islanders, men & Ex: restaurants, wedding, fire alarm) women) Class Question: ⁃ Think about a woman: o Children also learn gender Schema: social expectations, traits, interests, emotions. What they do, with which type of toys they plan? o Begin to separate world into categories of “men” & “women” o Strict separation at first. o Over time, children observe more women and expand schema to include wider range of characteristics. (women are also astronauts) o Create new schemas - new categories, learn that people do not always identify as man ot a woman. May be non-binary or gender fluid. Effects of Schemas: First impression of events or persons evokes a schema o Subsequent information filtered through the schema’s expectations. “Gap filling” o Once events or person is placed in a schema, often assume that characteristics of the category are true. o Person – assuming stereotypes o Event – assuming script Priming: trying to initiate an schema. ⁃ Showing a symbol as giving letters or numbers as a clue. The symbol can be a B or a 13. Priming different schemas: How fast were the car goings when they hit each other? How fast were the car going when they smashed into each other? Wording questions can evoke different schemas. Decision Heuristics: Heuristics is a mental shortcut / rules for making decisions quickly. Allow fast and efficient processing of information. o Often correct…but can lead to systematic biased. Use heuristics more when you’re already under cognitive load. o More automatic processing. Availability Heuristic: the availability or possibility or something happening. How quickly you can think in an example, then we’ll make the judgment that it’s more common or likely. Frequent media coverage (or experience of self, friends, & family) can make some events seem more likely than they are actually more. Make likelihood estimates based in how quickly readily instances of events come to mind. o Come to mind easily = more frequent or probable o Difficult to remember = infrequent or improbable. ‘ It’s actually temporal, for example after an hurricane people will increase their insurance, 5 or 6 years later it had fall again. Anchoring Heuristic: ⁃ How much should I pay?’ The starting value (anchor) biases your judgement direction. Ex: If we’re told a high price and then a lower one, the high one is the anchor, making the lower look as a better deal. Over time, we might create our own anchor. The Anchoring Heuristic is more likely to occur when we don’t know how much things cost. False Consensus Effect: I think that, on average, lots of people are like me. Ex: how many people liked the movie? As we don’t know, we assume most people liked the movie too. Our own experience serves as an anchor. I. We interact with similar people II. Larger issue with filter bubbles on websites / apps/ social media (where are we getting information from other people) algorithm. Potential positive & negative effects: Algorithm (act as heuristic) Positive: A personalized experience. Gives you information that you’ll be actually interested about. Negative: Put you in a filter bubble, insolate you from other information. Hard to have a meaningful discussion, unfaithful info. Our bubble just gave us a biased perception of “typical” opinions and behaviors of others. 09/16 Social Cognition: An intersection between Social Psychology and Cognitive Psychology. Thinking & making decisions about people & situations Automatic vs Controlled Processing. Controlled Processing Exercise: Who would you award custody to? Award: looking for positive traits Deny: looking for negative traits. Confirmation Bias: tend to seek out info to confirm our views: Are we trying to find evidence that something is good or bad? Often looks for evidence that supports what we already believe (& do not actively look for info that challenges belief) Confirmation bias can help support conspiracy theories. For example, if you’re looking for pentagrams, you’re very likely to find it. It can be easy to find the information to support your views and really try to find opposing info, especially online. If we’re really trying to do something and we miss it by a really little amount of it, it’s more frustrating. Counterfactual thinking: imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might of happened (particularly if we were “close” to happening), but didn’t. Functional – helps you learn and improve performance. Studies have shown that people are more upset if they: o Get a B+ rather than a B- o Changed a right answer to a wrong answer that had the answer wrong to begin with o Win a silver medal rather than a bronze. Social Attributions: Explaining Behavior Casual Attributions: What did a person behave that way? Why did an event happen? o Causes or explanation of behavior. Internal (dispositional) attribution: o Due to characteristics of the person who is behaving -ex: personality ability o Stable, controllable o Assume that person likely to behave similarly in other situations External (situational) attributions: o Behavior due to characteristic of social situations -Ex: strong situations, threatened, influence of other or media o Temporary, uncontrollable o Assume other people would likely behave similarly in the same situation. Once we get to know someone – can use past behavior to help determine attribution. Three types of information: Consensus: Do other people behave in the same way in this situation? § High consensus – external indicator, low concessions – internal indicator Distinctiveness: is this person acting differently than they usually do in other different situations? § High distinctiveness – external indicator, low distinctiveness – internal indicator. Consistency: in this person acting similarity to what they usually do in every similar situations? § Needs to be high, otherwise it is very difficult for us to make attributions either way. When we’re driving a faces other person driving error, we’re likely to making attributions of other people’s behavior. Fundamental Attribution Error: We tend to make internal attribution, dispositional attributions about the other’s person behavior. Less likely to consider external, situational attributions. True for other people’s behavior, bad or good! Why do we do this? You may have less knowledge about the person’s past behavior.  o Cant’s use “distinctiveness” indicator. Perceptual salience: o External / Situational factors are often difficult to notice Ex: I. Cultural norms, what happened to them hours earlier II. Bit if external factors are salient, we use them. Cross-cultural differences: o FAE more common I individualistic cultures (U.S) than collective cultures. Attributions of our OWN behavior: Self-serving bias: - Use external factors, situational attributions when explaining our own bad behavior. Want to blame something else. - Use internal, dispositional attributions when explaining our own good behavior. Want to take credit. Emotions: Brief. Specific response – psychological & physiological – to stimuli (events, objects, or people) Something happen, an event, or a person do something, and I have this emotional response, and then this emotion just go away after minutes. Components of emotion: 1. Appraisal Process: interpret/ evaluate a stimulus (see shark, dangerous) 2. Physiological Response: breathing hard, heart racing, sweating, etc. 3. Expressive Behavior – facial & bodily: eyebrows up, eyes wide, pull arms in & shrink away. 4. Subjective feeling – explain within with words or metaphors: “jumped out of my skin!”, “butterflies in my stomach” 5. Action Tendency – common behavioral response: Avoidance; run (swim) away, hide. 2, 3, and 4 are likely to be happening at the same time. Emotional expressions as communication: Useful in determining others person’s temporary emotional state. o How they feel, their intentions or likely behavior. Rely on several nonverbal channels: o Facial expressions o Body language / body expressions o Touching. o More channels (see & hearing them) = better accuracy.  6 Basic facial expressions: 1. Happiness 2. Fear 3. Sadness 4. Disgust 5. Surprise 6. Anger Additional expressions: o Variation sin intensity o Combinations of basic expressions Horror = fear and surprise Facial Expressions – Universal? (Ekman & Friesen -1971) Told a brief story: o Her child has died, and she is sad o He is angry about a fight. Then choose which facial expression goes with it. o Across US, Japan, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, 70-90% accuracy. o Fore people of Papua New Guinea – no exposure to Western people or media or Western Language- 68-92% accuracy. But more recent research shows emotional expressions & interpretation more complex that just still photographs. ◦ When might the same face convey a different meaning by situation? The service industry, when costumer services workers are meant to be smiling even when they are not happy. The picture of the girl that appears to be in huge pain but when they zoom out, she’s just super excited for see her favorite band. ◦ When might your face not convey your emotions? When we use our emotions to convey a specific emotion or feeling, and we don’t necessarily feel that way, when we choose to smile when we are feeling sad. 09/18 Body language: What shows powerful (vs timid) body language? Powerful: spine straight, eye contact, open posture Timid: close up posture (make yourselfer small), cross arms, don’t eye contact. How we stand or our body language: o Impact how others perceive & interact with you. o Impacts how you perceive yourself – try it! Some examples: Pride: dominance o Expansive posture, chest up, head up back, arm thrusts. o Indicates dominance – gaining status through a socially valued action § Others response to your status. Embarrassed: submissive o Look down, small smile, head down to one side (exposing neck), touch face. o Indicates submission – remorse, shows you know you did something wrong. § Reduce conflict & builds trust. Touching: Builds bonds and intimacy (feelings of closeness) o Considered essential for child development § Attachment to parent helps the baby to create a bond between the child and parent & care giver. Children that live and really crowed orphans and they don’t experience this they will have problem developing bonds. o Important for romantic attractions § Boost of oxytocin hormone: parents interacting with their child (bread feeding), in romantic ways as hugs, sex, orgasm. o Helps teamwork in coordination § More NBA teams touch, better later season. Small touch between strangers: (on average) o Like librarian more, leave larger tip for server, more likely to help person who ask. Emotional display rules: Examples of why peoples expressions don’t match their emotions. Which emotions are masked & which are expressed boldly? o Ex: Situation – Hide emotions playing poker, exaggerate laughter at comedy show, lying. o Ex: Gender Rules – socially defined expectations. § Women smile more in public but some as men when alone. § Women cry more in public but same as men when alone. § Men display anger more than women – one of few emotions men encouraged to express. o Ex: Cultural differences § Expressive (boldly display your emotions) vs Stoic (smaller emotional display, especially for negative feelings) U.S. Culture & Toxic Positivity: (Muschetto & Siegel, 2019 – Lomon & Ivtzan, 2016) U.S. values excited happiness (vs calm/contented happiness)  § Social pressure to always express happiness & not shows negative feelings. ◦ How might this lead to problems? Encourage to happiness and pull-down negative feelings, making people hold their emotions in, creating a sense of pressure. § Avoiding or hiding (rather than facing) negative feelings. § Mental health stigma. Social Function of Emotions: Action Tendencies of some emotions motivate us to interact with others: o Pride – feel connected to others in social group. § Build social ties to rely on each other, Boots self-esteem. o Anger – sense of fairness, must right the wrong. (the emotion is stronger when the people making us feel that way is someone who knows us who know we dislike it, than when the same action is done by a stranger) § Stand up for yourself & beliefs, Join a social movement. (need to address & face something) o Guilt – focus on how you hurt another person. § Repairs relationships, stop you from doing wrong in first place (anticipated guilt). It helps manteing relationships. § Shame: feelings there’s something wrong about you as overall, not from a behavior. Trolley Problems: change the trolley path vs push the man off the bridge. Emotions & Decision-making Something like “level of involvement” with killing o Low Involvement – Condition A § Indirectly involve – less emotional § Decision tend to relies more in controlled processing: rational calculation of the outcomes using numbers. § o High Involvement – Condition B. § Directly involved – triggers emotional § Decision relies upon automatic processing, gut feelings. Does it feel right or wrong? o Often gut feeling – positive or negative – come first (automatic), which influences how we reason about the issue (controlled). Psychology & the Law: Jury Decision Making: Other Attributions: Fundamental Attribution Error: o Still tend to focus on internal/dispositional explanations for why the accused behaved as they did. Emotional Attributions: o Angry when crime seems intentional or consistent behavior. § More likely to attribute blame. o Sympathetic when crime seems situational or rare behavior § Less likely to attribution blame. Is more often to focus on individual trails than situation 1. Wife 2. Mugger 3. Husband 4. ferry captain 5. lover Why the scenario matters to much in attribution blame? Believe that we get what we deserve. Good things happen to good people to good people & bad things happen to bad people. § Make us feel safe, like we have control of what happens to us. But also lead to victim-blaming § If something bad happens to someone, look to see if they are immoral & deserve it – look for internal attributions. ⁃ Good news: Victim-blaming reduce if: § We try to perspective-take with the victim. § If we can do somethings to help victim. Ex: Jury decision making – 12 Angry Men (1957) – what happens when they vote? Social influence & pressure, people might just have followed others since they didn’t know what to do, framing of the situation it was important but wasn’t handle as important as it’s. Influence of Schemas/Stereotypes Bias in how law enforcement, legal teams, & juries view defendants and plaintiffs. § Ethnicity, gender, status: Stereotypes (from Schemas) o Physical Attractiveness & Halo Effect Halo Effect: if you consider that someone have a good characteristic, you tend to assume that they have more positive characteristics or traits. § Type of crime: Event scripts ⁃ Diversity of Juries can help: If the jury is fully white, black people were more likely to be convicted than white people. But if in the jury was at least one black person, the anterior bias goes away. Eyewitness Testimony: (accuracy) Memory Errors: new information or misleading information becomes integrated into old memory. Our memory doesn’t work as a video recorder, if we were paying attention then it will go into our memory, if we don’t it won’t. In our day-to-day life we don’t need to be so specific, so these errors aren’t that big deal, but it’s in jury. The most recent memory contaminates the original one (Distortion). Is better not to ask the witness to describe or create face composition before eyewitness identification. Create False Memory: (why recovered or repressed memories are often inaccurate) It starts with a priming (and add with Bugs Bunny on it), and then the way questions are made (did you meet Micky & Minnie Mouse, and Bugs Bunny?) this could lead them to assume that as they met the first 2, then they must have meet Bugs Bunny) With this resolution we can pull actual memories of meting characters and insert Bugs Bunny on it. ⁃ Interviews questions can evoke schemas & gap-filling in memory. Average memory error rate in Loftus’s studies = 31% Accuracy of eyewitness testimony is NOT related to the confidence of the eyewitness. Exam Review: Chapters 1,2,3,4 & Psychology & The Law. 50 questions Pencils & eraser Review sheet: Class notes & PowerPoints. Textbook- topics in the study guide. Video clips from class. Study guide: no of the how the improve the eyewitness testimony  09/30 Attitudes & Behaviors Attitude: 1.) 4 2.) 5 3.) 6 Behavior: 1.) Yes 2.) No 3.) No 1 Match 2 Not Match 3 Not Match With this question, we’re measuring our attitude about eating fruits and vegetables, addiction, and reading chapters before a lecture. What are attitudes? (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) General positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, or issues. o Reactions based on our past learning histories. In this case, attitude is very similar to opinion. How we feel about things (our attitude) comes from experiences, or classical conditioning. Classical Conditioning: make positive or negative associations with things. ◦ Personal experience or advertising. For example, if we have a dog and we really like him, bark or the mess they made would not look so annoying because we love him so much. Advertising use celebrities or attractive models hoping that the positive opinions that we have will be translated to the product as well. Operant Conditioning: rewards & punishments ◦ It can shape attitude as well. For example, if we do something and we got rewarded for it we’re more likely to keep doing it, in contrast, if a kid is wearing an orange shirt, and is make fun because of it, she’ll start seeing that shirt negatively. Cognitive-Based: Primarily on the relevant fact, to make you feel positive or negative. ◦ Does the toothpaste clean teeth well? Positive attitude can come from facts, reviews start, as well. Reference group: People we identify with and who’s opinions we value. ◦ What do they like? What they think is important? Items that we like or dislike, clothing, can come from the reference group. People attitudes and behaviors, usually don’t match. Why? (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2009) Perceived behavioral control: barriers, what’s on the way (cost, ability, time, convenience) Subjective norm (perceived behavior of others) If behavioral control is high, is mean that they can overcome the barriers, if its low is mean that the barriers is an obstacle to them. Theory of Planned Behavior: 1. Attitude toward the behavior: I’m physical fitness 2. Subjective norm: My neighbors or friends love doing it. 3. Perceived control: I could easily do this. 4. Behavior intention: I’m going to start next week. 5. Behavior. If one of the first 3 get blocked, we’re less likely to do the behavior. Public Health Interventions: Remove barriers & Clarify Social Norms: ◦ What are the barriers making people not have a car set safety check even though that have a positive attitude about it? Make an event to have professionals installing it for you, making it more convenient. ◦ The advertising about that % people will speak up if they see their friend texting while driving, clarifying the social norm, showing it’s not as common as we might believe. When do Attitudes better predicts behavior? Formed though direct experience. For example, about buy a product, if I had used and liked the product before, I’m more likely to buy it again. Strong attitudes – Extreme, important, knowledgeable. Specific attitudes – about the specific behavior. For example, how much do you care about recycling? Did you recycle yesterday? Isn’t the same if the ask does you care about the environment?  Accessible attitudes – reminder messages, framing. For example, ask someone about the environment, then ask they about organic fruits and vegetables just after they had saw a sign that the organic food as a positive environmental thing. When behaviors influence attitude: Justifying our behaviors. When Prophecy Fails: Descriptive/Observational study o Researchers joined UFO cult, The Seekers. Prophecy from Planet Clarion o World will end in flood midnight Dec. 21, 1954. o Followers quit jobs, gave away possessions, ready to join flying saucer. Researchers wanted to see what happens when people have a strong believe about something and they end up being wrong. Before Dec. 20 – very private, must be a true believer to gain access to group. 12:10 am – no alien visitors, stunned silence o Attitude is challenged! 4:45 am – receive new message, ‘The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction” Dec 21 – call newspapers, campaign, spread their word to a broad audience – Proselytize! o Don’t want to change attitude about aliens or cult (they already put a lot of effort into this) o Instead, try to get more people to agree with them – strengthen attitude. Conclusion: is someone is really into an attitude or believe and there’s something challenging it, some people will accept that they were wrong, but others will find ways to keep these attitudes. This cult research is an example of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance: You perform behavior that opposes your attitude, you feel uncomfortable, dissonance Makes you feel your hypocrite, or stupid, or immoral. ◦ Attitude + Behavior = Dissonance. ….so have something to do something to relieve dissonance. o Change attitude to match behavior – fairly common. o Change behavior to match attitude – only if attitude is very important. o Rationalize or justify (make excuse for) the attitude or behavior – why there is not really a mismatch. ◦ When attitude + behavior align = Consistency. Cognitive Dissonance & “Initiations” Negative attitudes about initiations behavior: to join team, must do silly, embarrassing, or mean things they tell you to = Dissonance. o Some will say no. But others will go through with it anyways to join team. o Effort Justification: need to justify (rationalize) the embarrassing initiation you put yourself through. § Effect: stronger positive attitude about team – more committed. § Consistency: the behavior was worth it. Self-Perception Theory: When we’re unsure of our attitudes, we infer them by looking at our behavior. More straight forwards than cognitive dissonance. Why did we do behavior? If no obvious situational reason, attribute behavior to our self/attitudes. 1. Behavior 2. Self-Perception 3. Attitude Ex: 1. I recycled a can 2. why did I do that? 3. I care about environment. Attitude Because I now see myself as the “kind of person” who does things to help the environment. Over-Justification Effect: If you reward people for doing what they already enjoy doing, they can lose their intrinsic interest. Child likes math game, no specific reward for playing o Self-perception, Ask themselves: “Why am I doing behavior?” o “I must really like math!” – Attitude: positive towards math. Child likes math game & teacher gives rewards for playing. o Self-perception, Ask themselves: “Why am I doing behavior?” o “Because I like getting prizes”- Attitude: positive towards prizes (but nor necessarily positive towards math) Once the rewards is removed, behavior decreases to less than it was initially. ⁃ No longer see yourself as the kind of kid who likes math. Rewards for behavior alter our self-perception of why we perform behavior. Rewards are good but can backfire.  10/02 Attitude & Behavior Both processes occur: o Cognitive dissonance tends to occur when we have a strong or personally important attitude. § If behavior & attitude don’t match, then we need to do something to relieve dissonance. o Self-Perception tends to occur when we have neutral or ambiguous attitudes. § Then I use my behavior to decide what my attitude is. Exposure therapy, produces dissonance, increase the levels of anxiety, forcing the subject to realize that nothing bad really happens if they ride and elevator, so they might start to don’t see it as scary. Persuasion & Advertising Elaboration – Likelihood Model of Persuasion Controlled Processing – Central Route o Conscious o Effortful o Purposeful o Thinking about content of message Persuasiveness depends on the strength of the message’s content o If viewers is motivated, critical & able to process info o Personally relevant, important or expensive o More enduring strong/behavior change. A lasting change. Automatic Processing – Peripheral route o Processing outside consciousness o Relatively effortless o Habitual o Rely on peripheral cues of messages. Persuasiveness depends on the way message is packaged. o If viewer is unmotivated or distracted o Not personality relevant, unimportant, inexpensive o Less enduring weaker attitude/behavior change. Less endure to change attitude & behavior. Source: Who said it? o Credibility – Central and Peripheral 1. Expertise – doctors, scientist, financial planners 2. Trustworthiness ⁃ Ally activities – arguing against their own self-interest. Ex: if someone is doing an argument and they aren’t gaining nothing from it, a man wearing a feminist quote on his t- shirt. ⁃ Hidden Camera – don’t know they are being tapped & offer a positive review. More for the peripheral route: 1. Physical attractiveness Halo Effect Heuristic: “What is beautiful is good” 2. Similarity Heuristic: “if they are like me, I can trust them!” Expert vs Similarity Experts are more influential when they information is about facts o Is this medicine safe? Similar others are more influential when the information is about opinions o Will I like Dove lotion? Message Characteristics: What was said? o Strong argument – Central route ⁃ Easy to understand, logical ⁃ Explicit: what is exact attitude, belief, or behavior you want audience to take away? o One-sided or two-sided arguments more persuasive? ⁃ One sided: ◦ if audience initially agrees ◦ If audience is not well-informed ⁃ Two sided: ◦ if audience initially disagrees ◦ If audience is well-informed. o Message is vivid – Peripheral route ⁃ Surprising, or eye-catching images ⁃ Tell a Story – people can easily follow. The advertisement about the rounda cleaner. Evoking emotions can be very vivid. o Fearll- Peripheral (central if grabs your attention) ⁃ Works ONLY when coupled with a solution – otherwise people might deny problem. o Humor: can increase attention but can also backfire. ⁃ Better if humor is relevant to product/image. ⁃ Better if humor is mild and makes fun of all people rather than subset of population. o Repetition – peripheral route ⁃ Logos, jingles, point-of-purchase ⁃ People will remember it more, and often like it more. Mirror exposure effect more exposes we get to something, more likely we’re to like it more. Example Advertisement: Source characteristics: credibility – trustworthy Offer the two-sided argument. Message characteristics: vivid – repetition Audience Characteristics: Most important – is audience paying attention & do they care? o Central & Peripheral Route. Age – children and young adults more open to new ideas / more persuadable. Need for Cognition – How does one enjoy effortful cognitive activities? o Use central route more often. No gullible OR unswayable personalities o We can ALL be persuaded. Specific Strategies Aligning issues with people’s values (central route) - Ex: Military Spending Loyalty & Authority: military unifies us, ensures that US is the greatest nation in the world Fairness: through the military the advantaged can achieve equal standing and overcome the challenge of poverty and inequality. Depending how we frame the message, it will resonate differently with different folks. - Environmental Issues Harm/ Care: harm & destruction caused by humans are causing the environment and emphasizes why it’s important to people to protect the environment Purify/Sanity: how polluted and contaminants the environment has become a major problem and how important it’s for people to clean and purity the environment.  Foot-in-the-Door Technique (aka slippery slope): o Doing a small task makes it more likely you will do a additional large task! As people self-perception might not be so strong, making them do the behavior first makes them get this change in self-perception, and makes more likely to do more behaviors later about it. Door-in-the-Face Technique: If you make a large request first, people will be more likely to agree to smaller follow-up request. Control Group: o Would you be willing to serves as a unpaid chaperon for juvenile delinquents on a day trip to the zoo? Experimental Group: o Would you be willing to serve as a unpaid chaperon to juvenile delinquents 2 hrs./wk. for 2 years? (inflated request) o No? ok would you be willing to serve as a unpaid chaperon to juvenile delinquents on a day trip to the zoo? 10/07 Pro-Social Behavior: Voluntary behavior that is carried out to benefit another person o Helping, supporting, volunteering, donating. What do YOU think motivates pro-social behavior” o Personal values o Emotions – feeling bad or empty for others o Protective of people who cannot help themselves o Social – do with other people o Building bonds – so you can receive help in future o Feels good o Self-enhancement – gain status, skills, experiences Personal Distress: Egoistic motive o Witnessing someone in need of help is distressing o Desire to reduce own uncomfortable emotions o “Selfish” motive  Cost/Benefit Analysis o Benefits: reduce distress, feel useful, receive praise from others… o Costs: fear of embarrassment or punishment, loss of time, discomfort... § May fail to help because it is too costly Empathetic Concern: Altruistic motive o Empathy – feeling their emotions, taking their perspective. -Mirror Neurons: biological root empathy. (video) § Activate when watching someone act & when you act yourself o Want to relieve victim’s distress, regardless of how it will affect you – unselfish motive. More likely to help if you feel empathy o VS. Personal Distress – will help only if situation is hard to escape. Empathetic Concern VS. Personal Distress: 1. Observe Emergency 2. Is empathy elicited? If: o “Yes” – Help o “No” 3. Is it easy to escape? If o “Yes” – Don’t help o ‘No” – Help. Who do we help? Your “Circles of Moral Concern”? Inner Circle of Moral Concern: these entities deserve the highest level of moral concern and standing. You have a moral obligation to ensure their welfare and feel a sense of personal responsibility for their treatment. Outer Circle of Moral Concern: these entities deserve moderate moral concern and standing. You are concern about their moral treatment; however, you sense of obligation and personal responsibility is greatly reduced. Fringes of Moral Concern: these entities deserve minimal moral concern and standing, but you are not morally obligated or personally responsible for their moral treatment. Outside the Moral Boundary: these entities deserve no moral concern and standing. Feeling concern or personal responsibility for their moral treatment is extreme nonsensical. If people include so many people to the inner people it gives them responsibility and since they have limited time, it could backfire in people in our inner circle. Ex a parent spent all the time volunteering and neglecting the children. We’re more likely to help people that are similar to us. Similarity: Evolutionary Explanations: (is an automatic processing) Kin Selection: pass on your personal genes, most likely to help blood ties. Reciprocity: need to be supportive of your other members for group to survive. o Help people who help you, build relationships (create an obligation) o Might help first (investment for future) o Norm to help vulnerable people (societal expectation) Social Identity Explanations: Being a member of a group is an important source of self-esteem. Actively try to boost status and protect your ingroup. Similarity: Soccer Fans - Ingroup vs Outgroup Chart. Moral Exclusion Outgroup tends to fall in fringe or outside our circle of moral concern. If outgroup are hurt or suffering or need help, people feel lees necessity to act (help just if there is no other way) o People might rationalize § I have other responsibilities § Someone else should be helping! o People might downplay the problem § At least its not as bad as… o People might dehumanize them. Effect of Moral Exclusion: Dehumanization Often related to stigma. When we dehumanize people, we view them as: 1. Less intelligent 2. Having less self-control 3. Having less ability to feel full range of human emotions and relationships. Outcomes: 1) Regions of the brain associated with “disgust” turn on and regions associated with “empathy” turn off. 2) Blame whole group for the actions of a few. 3) More willing to treat in “inhumane” ways (take away their rights, tret them in ways we don’t want our friends and family) ⁃ What about animals? We care more about cute animals o Big eyes, soft facial features trigger parental caring. (mostly mammals) o Recycle more to help cute animals o Donate more to save endangered cute vs ugly animals. Cute: in Psychology it refers to similarities to children or infants. We need to help vulnerable people and things, that nonvulnerable ones. How do people expand their circle of Moral Concern? If we want people to connect with crisis that are unconnected to them, is easier to make them empathize when there’s an history. The “Identifiable Victim” Effect: (ex Syrian refugees) o Easier to feel empathy for individual than large numbers. o Seems you can have more meaningful impact. Find a Common Identity: (ex soccer fans - moms)  o Address problems that might no be directly linked to moms, but bring them in to address the cause, helps a group that otherwise they might not feel super connected to. How far can you (or should you) go? (expanding the moral circle) What we love, what we hate, what we eat! (book) 10/09 Prosocial Behavior & Helping 2 Video: - What is the 1st woman thinking? She’s seeing the smoke, and she instantaneously see interoperate it as an emergency, so she hurries to leave, and possibility go tell someone. - What is the 2nd woman thinking? The 2nd woman takes a lot of time deciding if she should act, she was looking for others to see their reaction and she was confused, confuse about herself, but she also was like waiting for others to notice it as well. In clear emergencies situation people will do, but when it’s an ambiguous situation people will slowly consider the scenario. Confederates: actors working with the researchers. The graphs shows a type pf social influence, when we’re alone we’re more willing to take action but when we’re with other people we’re more likely to see what they’re doing. The Bystander Effect: The presence of many bystanders actually reduces likelihood of taking action & helping When by ourselves o We trust our instants that there is a problem o We know we are the only ones who can help (+ responsibility) When with other o Some conformity and lack of personal responsibility The Story of Kitty Genovese: Murdered on a public street (1964) o Attack lasted more than 30 minutes § The attacker left, then returned to scene to continue attack. o Witnessed by more than 35 people (according to NYT) from upstairs windows overlooking the street. o No one helped § Cold- hearted people city people, just don’t care about other? (fundamental attribution error) § What else might be going on? (situational) Steps leading to intervention: Darley & Batson (1973) Step 1: Notice the problem o Less likely in large crowd, or when in a rush - Theological seminary students in a hurry (study) Half of the students attended one lecture about jobs lectures and the other half got a lecture about the good Samaritan. And they walk by someone who needs help, people how prepared the good Samaritan lecture, and they weren’t in a hurry they were more likely to help. The study shows that is important to have people in the right frame of mind to actually help or even notice the problem. Step 2: Decide whether help is needed (see people around to see if there’s an emergency or no) o Pluralistic ignorance: the tendency to think that everyone else is interpreting a situation in a certain way, when in fact they are not. When everyone one is in this ambiguous situation, we look toothers to decide. O everyone is believe that as no one is acting then isn’t a problem  § Seems like no one else is worried, so I must be wrong? § Others are using same reasoning § Also called “audience inhibition” – type of conformity. Examples: - 59% of people in Idaho are concern about climate change, and they belive that only 35% is concern. Based on the politician rhetoric they think that only Democrats are concerns about climate change. - When the professor is giving a lecture and ask if someone have questions and almost no one says anything, but if they are in the office hours, one - one, students are more likely to ask. Step 3: Decide whether to take responsibility (one we decide it’s an emergency, then we need to decide if we’re the ones to do something) o Diffusion of responsibility: the more bystanders, the less responsible you feel to help § What are other scenarios where people might feel less responsible or slack off when in a large group? Step 4: Step in and help OR walk away (if the answer is yes in all previous steps we’ll intervene if no we won’t. Conformity goes both ways, so if someone do something, more people will rush to help. How to overcome the Bystander Effect? 1) Prevent pluralistic ignorance o Define the situation as an emergency – “I need help. It’s an emergency!” o Ask – “Are you okay – do you need help?” 2) Prevent diffusion of responsibility o Pick out a particular person: “You need to help me” o Assign tasks – “Can you call an ambulance?” 3) Conformity works both ways o Once 1 person stops to help, likely others will too! Bystander interventions: - Teach strategies (video) - Practice what you are most comfortable doing - Goal is to change social norms – what is acceptable behavior. Kitty Genovese Revised: Bystanders not as bad as it seems o 3 am, dark alley, cold so few windows open. o Not visible once in the doorway of building. o No 911, and hard to get through on police phone lines  § Police had been called to that area for a bar-fight earlier. o May not have known it was an ongoing emergency o May have thought others, with more info, would take responsibility. o More like a modern warning of what NOT to do. 10/16 Social Influence: More focus how other people directly influence attitude & believes. Different areas: persuasion, etc. Falls under social influence since I’m trying to influence you. Three Different Areas: 1) Conformity: change of behavior or belief in the direction of group norms, as a result of real or imagined pressure. A change in something, change in direction of a group norm. A conflict between our preferences and a group (friends, etc.) Ex: I want to see a specific movie while the group wants to see something else, in average people will go along with the group. Is a dilemma, do I want what I want to or should I follow the group? A result of real or imagined pressure (ex: your friend insisting you to go see the Saw Movie) 2) Compliance: behavior that occurs as a result of a direct request. 3) Obedience: behavior that occurs as a result of a direct order. Sometimes people don’t make a request, sometimes they give an order, even if in a nice way. Time in?: when we obey orders when it goes against our conscience. Conformity can result from: Informational social influence: o Other people can be a source of info about reality. We trust their viewpoint. - Sherif (1935) and the autokinetic effect: shared belief between people of what is morally correct. If we’re in a dark room and there’s a pin pong light, we’ll see as it’s moving (optical illusion) because isn’t anchor in an actual fact people judgments vary. Even though people is experiencing the same, they have a different anchor of the subjective reality. o Individual judgments are quite varied.  o When judgements are given in a group context they converge over time (development of a group norm) We kind of agree as a group how the world is, the light moved 5 inches. We use people as references until that we came to the same conclusion, we came to the resolution about the world. Later in the experiment, when they were asked again, they still followed the group norm, they internalized it. o When individuals make judgments later (by themselves), they still use the group norm. Social norms shape our behavior. o As members of the group are replaced, the norm still persists. Even when the new members have a different opinion, eventually they will follow the group norm as well. The generation who created the norm isn’t around anymore, the new generation still follow the norm they created. Is something ambiguous, so we follow what other people see, the objective facts. Normative social influence: o The desire to be liked or accepted by a group. Isn’t about information is a way to do what they’re doing to be part of the group, accepted, not an outsider. Conformity is harder to come by. - Asch (1951) and unambiguous judgements He calls people and shows draw lines, say which comparison line was the same than the standard line. From the participants, only 1 is an actual participant, the other 4 are working for the researcher, Asch. o About 1/3 conformed to erroneous group judgements at least once. The participants explained that they reconsidered their judgement and let themselves follow the group since they expected the other members of the group to have a better judgement. People also went along to avoid being the only one in disagreement, is better be part of the group. These pressures of use other people as source of reality and be along & go along. The imagined pressure as well, when I feel that if I don’t go along, it will be awkward, odd, etc., unpleasant. How do groups respond to someone who doesn’t conform (a deviant)? Schachter (1951) He created small discussion groups, mostly social topics and gives them a case study to which they need to evaluate what is the best we can do to make the person in the case study agree. The norm would be gives a helpful hand or to send him to jail. One of the members that isn’t really a student propose 3 rules, he’ll always takes the same position than you and moves towards the most extreme position of one member (slither, mole, deviant) The communication to the deviant, if hold the position, will decrease, or be ignored. o First try to get him/her to conform. o If successful, accept him/her. o If unsuccessful, reject him/her. Why do groups exert pressure on deviants? They find it unusual. 1- Deviants hinder achievement of group goals. If you disagree, you’re standing on the way of their purpose that is ex expend a good time as a group on the movies, etc. 2- Deviants threaten group cohesiveness. This sense of group or community. 3- Deviants threaten group’s definition of social reality. As they don’t see the world as the rest of people it’s consider scary. Obedience: behavior as a direct result of an order Is an ordinary farm of our daily life, is a structure that makes society work o Everyday obedience: obedience that we took daily, we might not be thinking that it isn’t obedience itself. o Destructive obedience: people being ordered to do something that violate their principles, ethical standards, values, etc. that they wouldn’t do if was their own choice. Emerged in the aftermath of WWII, it was easier to assume that all the Nazis were psychopaths, however the people that in fact carried the orders were ordinary people just doing their job, can be nice people doing awful things. How can people that seems normal do terrible things? Stanley Milgram’s research (1963, 1974) In the experiment people expressed openly their discomfort to keep going with the experiment, however many of them kept doing their role as “teacher” as they were told to. This exemplifies the fact that people feel lees guilt when they feel that their behavior can be justified by an authority figure. Also, some of them felt trapped in the experiment when in fact they weren’t, and many times were easily convinced by the experimenter. Even when was possible that the other participant (student) has lost consciousness because of the shots participants keep doing their role. They justified this by seeing that they didn’t like the experiment but that they were forced to keep going. Also was show that while more contact with the victim, more humanization, resulted in subject refused to continue. Groups performance and acceptance is close related to obedience. When it’s an order people can commit malevolent acts without actually feeling responsible for it. Experiments at the time had a border ethical requirement, was expected to the scientist to take care of people, lately the ethical issues were looked more closely. When responsibility is lifted from us, we’re able to perform a diversity of behaviors, including negative ones. The majority of participants in Milgram’s studies obey order and give the highest level of shock. It helped stablish higher ethical standers, but also about obedience. Why are people willing to what they believe is harmful? Strange participants? Were they psychopaths, was something of the place? Cross-cultural studies: they did the study in a different place with no relation to the previous one (New Heaven). Was also done in different countries and cultures. Showed that community didn’t matter. Result varied but showed similar levels of obedience, around 60% adults did.  Individual differences: was investigated personality characteristics but research showed that it didn’t showed relation Showed that gender, education, military service, isn’t related to people willing to obey. Military service can influence, but just a little bit, not really. General Human Aggressiveness? Freud says that people have this aggression, which may need satisfied, for example watch football seeing people run to each other. Could the experiment be seen as permission to be aggressive? They told the participant that chose to shock or not the participant, and the amount of shots will be decided by the teacher as well. It’s giving permission to human aggressiveness, mostly of people did shock the other participant with the less aggressive shots. Obedience is strongly determined by situational factors. ⁃ The explanation for obedience lies in our relationship with to the person in roles of authority. In Milgram experiment isn’t about the individual, it’s about the roles of authority, we respond to the role. ⁃ Our response is not to the person but to his/her place in social system. The key psychological element: o The agentic state: when we go to a place to participate in an experiment, our perception of ourselves changes for everyday perception when we behave certain way because we want to, to an agentic state, where someone tells us what to do. Perceiving ourselves as an agent for carrying out another’s wishes, rather than as an autonomous individuals. Consequences of entering the agentic state: 1. Loss of feeling of personal responsibility for one’s actions (less sense of responsibility). When told that they weren’t responsible, people were able to move along and keep going with the experiment. Studies show that when we rice an arm by ourselves it’s register by the area of the brain related to actions, while when someone told us to do it, another are of the brain response.  2. “Tuning” to the authority. We have different cues, that when we enter the agentic state we tune to the authority, responding to cues and info coming from the authority instead of the internal ones. If we’re told to deliver a package for 20 bucks, we’re more likely to pay close attention to the instructions. 3. Self-image is defined in relation to the authority (the “good soldier”, the “good citizen”) What means to be a good participant, do a good job. We think about what authority is going to think of us. Antecedent conditions (what leads us to enter an agentic state?) o Background characteristics. History of rewards and punishments for obedience and disobedience (Behavioral Perspective in Psychology) § Family socialization: mom and dad give orders and obedience, or disobedience is rewarded or punished. First encounter with obedience. § Institutional authority systems give the knowledge that authority doesn’t belong just to mom and dad, but also to different people with different roles: teachers, coaches, principals, bosses, etc. The teacher who orders us has a boss, and her boss has a boss, so we get to understand that authority isn’t about individuals or personality, but roles. o Immediate situation § Perception of legitimate authority: Say a teacher they can’t tell us what to do because they aren’t our teacher. Also, when people look like someone who has authority, for example the police uniform, so we know there’s and officer so better listen to it. A study about the legitimacy of a uniform to convey authority in Chicago. Students were giving simple orders to people in the streets, half of them were using normal clothes and another were using a generic uniform, people responded more to the order of the students with uniform (75%) § Entry into authority system: authority doesn’t just need to look legitimate; we also need to perceive ourselves as part of the system who they order. If after school we’re at McDonalds having this silly game and one of the teachers come by and toll us to stop, students can agree that teachers’ authority stops at school. Sometimes clear, sometimes debatable. § Ideology that justifies obedience: perception of the legal system, the system where we’re in, gives cops the authority to tell us what to do and we feel that we should do it. In the 1960s, around the time when the Milgram experiment was realized, people have this believes about science, so they saw Scientifics as someone to respond to. BUT people in Milgram’s experiment research were not robots: they experienced strain. Binding factors (what keeps us in the agentic state?) What stops us from leave? What makes it hard to do? o Sequential unfolding of the situation: it starts with people complaining about the pain, an “augh”, and it escalated to the yelling, or more dramatic as “my heart is bothering me” The cognitive dissonance, that people might think that if they have come so far, why to stop know? It being a little bit more each time makes it harder to stop. o Situational obligations (saving face, keeping one’s word): I said I’ll do it so I should do it, or at least continue a little further. “The experiment require you continue’ o Relative salience of authority and “victim” In the first version the teacher will just interact with the student through the lights, in the 2nd situation they would be able to hear it, and in the 3rd version the student would be in the same room. ◦ The more distant the authority, the less the obedience (harder to follow) ◦ The more distant the victim, the more the obedience (better to obedience – follow orders) To “end” the war, US detonated the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how distant were the victims? Distant enough to people follow the orders. Germans who carried the murderers of the Jewish, many of them were good people, with families, they weren’t just a group of psychopaths. The propaganda at the time, however, made their work easy by dehumanizing the Jewish. More than psychical distance, psychological distance as well. Ex:  - In Milgram, teachers were told, the shocks could have been painful but not dangerous (psychological distance) In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, orders came from far away but were follow. Authority doesn’t need to be physically close, but psychotically it was close. How do people resolve the strain? How they feel better about their conscience? Teachers were the ones suffering the distress so, how we make people feel better? Avoidance and/or denial: Avoidance: by the moment the learner said, “let me out of here”, there’s this cue, that the teacher avoids by turning to the experimenter who told him to continue. People focus on get through the day, do their job. If you focus, you avoid all the other cues. Denial: “I couldn’t believe that they would harm you here in Yale University”, “I don’t believe that my neighbors are being take to concentrations camps” They do the teacher feel good, feel better, but it does to the victim no good. Deceptions: thinks people try to do to look like they’re obeying, while they try to minimize it. Look like they’re doing the shock when in fact they were trying to do it halfway or faster. For the teacher, they want to look good in the experimenters’ eyes, do what was told, but they don’t want to hurt the learner…too much. The problem isn’t the authority system, is the system. Dissent: they protest but they don’t really do something. They said “You should go check on him(learner)” while there was nothing stopping them from going themselves. They feel better because they “tried” to stop it. Disobedience: in this particular context mean that the whole system, the experiment, shouldn’t continue. How may we reduce the likelihood of destructive obedience? Since society requires obedience, how we get rid of the destructive one?  Making personal responsibility salient: people have to take responsibly for their actions, individual judgment, even if they are following orders. Is too easy to not take responsibility. In Milgram people didn’t want to take responsibly, but they’re the ones doing the shocks, so they are responsible for their own behavior. The need in the military is to people to do what they’re told. Providing positive models of disobedience: we need disobedience in term of standards as moral, values, etc. For example, if media make see disobedience as a valuable thing, then we’ll feel more positive about it. Proving knowledge of dynamics of obedience: We have a set of students that know about Milgram, and other set that don’t. Then they are put in a situation similar to Milgram, the ones who knew are more likely to put their critical thinking above the orders. When the ones who learned about Milgram, were in a experiment very similar they won’t do it, but if they didn’t see the similarity they might be able to do it. Making the questioning of authority a socially legitimate and desirable action: is reasonable to question it when authority is order us to do something that doesn’t align with our values. Ask about it, look for justification. Milgram still being debated, since is an important topic (responsibility). When we receive an order, our brain takes it as that it’s not our responsibility. What are the limits of responsibility? If someone was actually being shocked, who would be hold responsible for, teacher or experimenter? We can always do otherwise, even if it compromises our well-being, we have the choice and the consequences as well. Ethics: Because of ethics, Milgram study can’t be replicated. The risk with the experiment is that you might find something about yourself that you don’t want to know, so is not the job of the experimenter to give you info about yourself that you didn’t ask for. So it should have been included. Exam 2: Persuasion & Social Influence 11/4. Unit: Stereotypes, Prejudice & Discrimination – Chapter 6 Prejudice: Represent the intellectual issue of how people come along to prejudice. One of the areas related to the practical goal (prejudice is a bd thing, world would be better without it) Lot of different ways to define it. Definition: A widely-shared attitude towards a specific social group (racial, sexual, ethics, religious, occupational) that leads us to evaluate individuals solely on the basics of their membership in that group. Attitude: a behavior related to a belief, feeling or thought about something (usually object or social groups). So, we look at attitude to predict behavior. Some attitudes are widely shared (American attitudes about other counties, the Constitution, etc.), while others not that much. With groups, they usually have shared attitudes. For example, we like people named Fred, but there’s no organizations or groups organized around Fred’s and their well-being. Attitude is about a meaningful category in groups (race, sex, ethics, religious, occupation) Individuals that we see as part of this groups. Holding attitudes bring us to judge people based in that characteristic alone (women are all kind and compassionate) This might be true, but still prejudice, pre-judgement of the person without actually knows. Applying the group characteristics to the individual. Positive vs. Negative Prejudice A positive prejudice has to do with the attitude: For example, I like kpop, so I assume that people that like it too are good people, so I keep them around. The worse is that somebody might be treated better than what they actually don’t deserve. Everyone should be judge as an individual and not as a group. Negative Prejudice: kpopers are something negative, I don’t want to have them around me, I want them as far as possible, they are delusional and intense. The worse is that people are judge for negative characteristics associated with the group without them having tat characteristics themselves. People die and suffer from it. Components of Prejudice: o Affective: “affect” emotions, affection the evaluation of the group, how we feel about them, we hate them, we love them. This can be related to past personal experiences with members of group but also to something that we learned about the word (for example a movie shows that kpopers are no good) Negative feeling about a group. o Cognitive (stereotypes): beliefs about the object, person, group, and prejudice comes when we apply it to the individual. Prejudice is the application of the stereotypes, can be accurate, but still being prejudice. o Behavioral (discrimination): behavior base in groups memberships alone, I have in certain way because people group membership. Behaving different in individuals based on this. Telling the differences between things. For example: We see an add about a new company coming to add “Fred bank”, suppliers needed, $50 buck for 15 min of work. So, people come to the place about the work, the female applicant is discriminated while the male one is accepted. Gender based works, female can’t be a sperm donor, it’s still being discrimination. So, this can make sense (women can’t be sperm donors) but it can be something that people just believe (men are better in sales that women) Even though can be seen reasonable, it can take us to court (discrimination) :) What makes a social group a minority? Prejudice is hold by the majority against the minority (white Americans against black Americans, religious vs non-religious) It seems that there are groups that while big, were a minority. For example: Black South Africans were the majority, while they were treated and restricted as if they were a small group. In the U.S women are the majority, while their status, opportunities and legal rights were treated as a minority. 2 things make a group a minority: Exclusion from power: being excluded by political power, law, etc. A minority controlling the destiny of the majority. Women’s fate as group was compromised by the minority, making them a minority. Social status imposed by others. Prejudice and discrimination: only of historic interest? Survey data: taking the “snapshot” of America, collecting date related to attitudes about ethnic and racial groups. Anonymous. There has been a progressive decrease in survey data related to discrimination and prejudice. In the 1990s people had no problem doing surveys and agreeing with kind of stereotypes statements (a good thing – is different now) Is real change or is about what have become socially correct? Because of the Civil Rights Movement isn’t acceptable anymore. This is a different thing that real change. o Genuine Change vs Norms of Expression. § Rogers & Prentice-Dunn (1981) – regressive racism. When we’re children or young we learn from this prejudice and discrimination (from parents, family, TV) and then this attitudes changes over time. However, what happens to this first learned attitudes? They still there, but they’re kind of sleeping. In the right circumstances, these older attitudes can come to surface, surprising even the person itself. In the 1980s prejudice and discrimination is no longer acceptable, so we have a region that used to be deeply racism where there’s a thing anymore, so in University’s campus, if students are survey mostly of, they would see that campus is more liberal, less racist etc. But they’re people that grow up in a deep racist community. What could bring this early learn behavior to surface? Emotions as anger. So, they recruited white students to do bio feedback (tell them when their hearts when up or down), so they will get electroshocks to increase the heart rate. Is up to the participant the level of shocks and the persons doing the shocks one is white and the other white. So, in some situations there will be an insult and a more neutral comment. However, these students did a survey talking about equality in campus, etc. this impacted the level of shock they choose. When people didn’t insult the shocks, levels were the same, but those how had been insulted everyone got more shocks, but the black one got a little more than the white one. When things are calm everything is fine, then can people be angry, they let these learned prejudices comes to the surface. Which one is the real attitude? According to Rogers & Prentice-Dunn both are correct attitudes, both genuine. If attitude is going to change, if prejudice is going to be reduces, it will take a long period of time. These people need to be calm about the prejudice, not transmit so much of prejudice to their children, and the children of their children must do the same, and so on. A slow process. Behavioral data: numbers of researchers suggest that more than racism disappeared or is reduces, it changed to be expressed in a different form. o Interviewing (Word et al, 1974) A student will be interviewing another person, as a training. One person has a chair and goes to the room with the interviewee, sometimes the people doing the interview is black or white. So people being interview will be ask to move the chair to where they feel more comfortable. They measured how much space distance they leave between themselves and the other, people leave a slightly great distance towards the black guy than the white one. College students chose a comfortable distance greater towards the black person, which represent a cognitive and psychological distance towards that social group (unconscious matter) o Job Seeking (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004) They were some kind of low-level pre-requisite job (High School Diploma, some college, etc.). So, they send resumes to this adds, resumes that were almost identical, the biggest difference was the person’s name, a name that would stereotypical assembles an African American name (they looked in the communities for the most common names and use them), the African American name was Jamal Washington. In the resumes, the white sounding names, got more further into the system, being more likely to be accepted, they got a response that they received the resume, while the black ones didn’t get response at all. o Pedestrian Crossings (Goddard et al., 2015) Doing in a city in the Pacific Northwest. If a pedestrian is on the crosswalk car must stop. So, the experiment had 2 persons, a white and a black one. They didn’t stop in the crosswalk, but they will do this non-verbal behavior that they wanted to cross the street. So, researchers will measure the time that took to someone to stop. For the black person, it was almost the doble, if the white guy could goa t the 3rd card, the black white will do it on the 6th. Time is stolen because group membership alone, if a white guy takes 2 hours to go around the city, a black guy it would take 2:30 hours. o Airbnb (Edelman et al., 2017) Specific policies of this area to not discriminate. Researchers will send request, they had 2 similar profiles, one is black, and the other is white. White faces have more possibilities to got what they’re looking for than the black faces. The Airbnb owners have preferences for white people, saying that in the same time frame they didn’t have the location available. Prejudice and discrimination haven’t disappeared, is just more underground. Origins, maintenances, and dynamics of prejudice: Multiple approaches. What causes prejudice? What keeps it being a thing? How it works (psychological dynamics, etc.) As there are not answer tot these questions, we need multiple perspectives. Social aspect - Prejudice is like a cold virus (covid), is transmitted from person to person? Emotional Aspect – What emotional aspect cause people to have it? Cognitive Aspect – How people think about these? Social Aspects of Prejudice (social environment): I. Intergroup conflict approach (Sherif): argues that prejudice might arise out of conflict between groups over or for a desirable but usually limited resources. Arise as a kind of share attitude (us vs them) that develops these feelings about others. Related to resources (housing, education, money, etc.) things that people wish. We can’t this for us, they want it for them, and there’s not enough to share. Different groups came at different times. The first wave came from Ireland, so there’s us (Americans) vs them (Irish). Groups doesn’t see the other as individual, they see them as group. So Irish are looking for jobs, a place where to live, school for their kids, so is the same for the Americans. It doesn’t come long for Americans to develop stereotypes about Irish, they’re always drunk, men are good to lift weights, etc. So, the behavioral result is, people won’t rent to Irish, factories won’t want they to even apply for the job. Beliefs – then behavior. A newspaper used a scientific approach to limit the number of Irish immigrants. They argued that based in Darwin’s theory people descent from apes, but some races are close to the apes than others, being the Irish one of them. Then with the arrival of the Italians, new stereotypes raised related to them, and so on. § Robbers Cave Study. Sherif runs a summer camp for pre-teen boys. Is a real summer camps but is also uses it as a laboratory to explore matters related to social psychology. There’s the central area of activities with a lot of trees and vegetation, so people couldn’t really see what’s going on the other parts. Kids arrived in different days and were 2 groups. First, they didn’t know that they were another group in there. The first days they do activities to create that sense of us, of group, and started giving themselves names (the Raphels and the Eagles) the sense of community. Once they have a group identity, then the schedule is shift, making the groups meet each other’s. So, it’s weird but it wasn’t a big deal, so they started to make friends, etc. Group membership by itself no stereotypes, conflict does. So, Sherif created a conflict, creating competitions being the Raphels vs the Eagles, and the winners will het prices (desirables resources). After a few days we stay to see the development of prejudice and stereotypes. Open Questions: might or might not be answered by the theory - Why does prejudice persist after the conflict ceases? After the years, the celebration of the Irish holiday San Patrick is about getting drunk, so the stereotype that Irish are drunks, persisted, even if isn’t seen as negative as before. - What accounts for the unequal distribution of prejudice within groups? People might take it more strongly, while others might have the prejudice as well but don’t embrace it. People looking for jobs and people that own the companies, people looking for jobs are more likely to take the Irish also looking for jobs negatively, whole owners really don’t care. - What accounts for prejudice between non-competing groups? Not all groups compete yet prejudice arises (African Americans – Americans). Stereotapes between White Europeans in Africa during slavery times didn’t was about competition. II. Societal Function of prejudice is difficult to eliminate, so there must be a function of value to society. Justification of power and status equalities: there are groups more powerful than others, and groups on top want to stay there, so they need to keep people down through diverse methods (guns, chains, etc.) to keep that power. The viewpoint is that if they can convince slaves and women about their place in the word, the power is secure, and they don’t need guns anymore, because they have a belief. III. Institutional Practices The way institutions in society perpetuate or create prejudice. Institutions that we all are part of. How we do our work, how business is done? How media operate? They keep prejudice going. Hiring practice: do an application, send a resumé and they have a criterion from where they decide if we’re going to be interviewed or not. These criteria have ways to put people in disadvant