Social Psychology

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Social Psychology Dr. Will Reader w.reader_at_shu.ac.
uk
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Overview

• Theory of mind
• Attitudes
• Making attributions
• Cognitive dissonance
• Aggression
• Affiliations
• Power, obedience and conformity
• Stereotypes, stigma and scapegoating
• Group conflict and influence

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Theory of Mind
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Theory of mind

• Underpins most social behaviour
• The ability to understand other peoples
• Thoughts
• Emotional states
• Perceptual states (see, hear etc.)
• And the understanding that these can be different
  from your own (and that your own can change)
• That beliefs can be false

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Unexpected Transfer (Maxi) Task
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Unexpected Transfer (Maxi) Task
Test Where will Maxi look for his chocolate?
Memory Where did Maxi put his
chocolate? Reality Where did Mum put his
chocolate?
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Autism Spectrum Disorder
Triad of Impairment (Wing Gould, 1979)
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Autism Spectrum Disorder
Socialisation - indifference to other people,
difficulty making friends - difficult to
understand other people's thoughts and emotions
- seem to be 'in a world of their
own Communication - don't develop the usual
verbal or non-verbal (eg pointing) skills of
other children the same age (protodeclarative and
protoimperative pointing) - unable to understand
jokes or sarcasm - difficulty to read body
language and facial expressions (Temple
Grandin) Interest - inability to play
imaginatively with objects or toys (pretend play)
or others - may be overly interested in
repetitive activities, resistance to novel topics
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Sally-Anne problem
Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith (1985) Social and
emotional problems secondary to cognitive problem
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Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste Plumb
(2001)
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Attitudes
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What is an Attitude?

• Attitude is defined as tendencies to evaluate an
  entity attitude object into some degree of
  favour or disfavour, ordinarily expressed in
  cognitive, affective and behavioural responses
  (Eagly Chaiken, 1993)
• Different from beliefs which are things held to
  be true and often do not have an evaluative side

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Attitude Definitions

• Attitudes involve associations between attitude
  objects and evaluations of these objects (Fazio,
  1989)
• Attitudes are evaluations of various objects that
  are stored in memory (Judd et al., 1991)
• Attitude is a psychological tendency that is
  expressed by evaluation of a particular entity
  with some degree of favour or disfavour (Eagly
  Chaiken,1993).

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Component Theories of Attitude

• Unitary model. Attitudes are a single positive or
  negative evaluation of an attitude object
• Dual model. A mental state of readiness and
  therefore guides some evaluation or response
  towards and object
• Tripartite model. Include feeling (affective),
  action (behavioural), and thought (cognitive)
  components ABC

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Tripartite Model?
Attitude object Beer
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What are Attitudes Used for?

• Attitudes serve as conscious and unconscious
  motives and have four functions (Katz, 1960)
• They assist in helping us make sense of our
  world and to organize the information we
  encounter (c.f. cognitive economy) (KNOWLEDGE
  FUNCTION)
• They help us make behave in socially acceptable
  ways to gain positive and avoid negative outcomes
  (UTILITARIAN/ADJUSTIVE FUNCTION)
• They act as a guide to behaviour in social
  situations and help us in self- and social-
  categorization (SOCIAL IDENTITY/VALUE-EXPRESSIVE
  FUNCTION)
• They allow use to preserve a positive sense of
  self (EGO-DEFENSIVE FUNCTION)

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Attitude-Behaviour Relationship

• Of principle concern - if attitudes dont guide
  behaviour then their efficacy and utility as a
  construct is greatly reduced
• Classic study LaPiere (1934) restaurateur's
  attitudes towards Asians in 1930s USA-
  questioned validity of the attitude-behaviour
  link
• Wicker (1969) attitudes were very weakly
  correlated with behaviour across 45 studies
  (average r .15)
• Gregson and Stacey (1981) only a small positive
  correlation between attitudes and alcohol
  consumption
• Stimulated study into the personality,
  contextual, temporal and methodological
  influences on the attitude-behaviour relationship

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Attitude-behaviour relationship

• Reasons for lack of a relationship
• Unreliability and low validity of attitude and/or
  behavioural measures
• People sometimes don't care about their attitudes
• Often it is difficult to put attitudes into
  practice (perceived behavioural control or
  self-efficacy)
• Recent research includes the latter two (e.g.
  Armitage and Conner, 2001) stronger
  attitude-behaviour relationships Theory of
  Planned Behaviour (TPB)

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Measuring Attitudes

• Thurstone (1928) check all items that apply (can
  be weighted)
• Likert (1932) scale n (usually 5)- point scales
• Semantic differential scale (Osgood et al., 1957)
  uses word pairs
• All above can be used to derive numerical values
  relating to attitudes

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Thurstone scale
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A 7-Point Likert-Type Self-Rating Scale
Are you favour of having nuclear power plants in
Britain?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
STRONGLY APPROVE
STRONGLY DISAPPROVE
NEUTRAL
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Rating The Concept of Nuclear Power on a
7-Point Semantic Differential Scale
SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL SCALE Nuclear power
GOOD BAD STRONG WEAK FAST
SLOW
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Issues with scales

• Scales must be reliable all items must measure
  the same thing (e.g. depression) in order for
  them to be added up
• This can be computed statistically
• Scales must be valid they must measure what they
  are supposed to measure
• E.g. by comparing scale results with objective
  measures (e.g. of depression)

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Measuring Implicit Attitudes

• Attitudes may be explicit (conscious awareness),
  or implicit (unconscious/automatic)
• Implicit attitudes may exert effects on behaviour
  outside of conscious awareness
• May show unbiased attitudes (may not)
• Measured with Implicit Association Test
  (Greenwald, McGhee, Schwartz, 1998)

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Attribution
Attribution is the process of assigning causes
for our own behaviour to that of others Hogg
Vaughan (2005)
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Heiders Naïve Scientist

• Suggests that people create theories of other
  people based on observation of behaviour
• Inferring unobservable causes from observable
  behaviour or other perceived information

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Everyone is a naïve scientist

• Internal (dispositional) attributions
• personality characteristics
• beliefs
• External (situational) attributions
• situational pressure/influence
• Example Student turns in papers late
• Internal lazy, partying all the time
• External family problems, working,
  boy/girlfriend problems

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Self-serving bias
Take credit for success (attribute
internally) But not for failure (attribute
externally) Maintains control and
consistence E.g. student will take credit for
doing well in an exam Student will blame test
difficulty or lecturers tough marking policy for
failure
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Self serving bias

• Harré, Brandt Houkamau (2004)
• The attributions of young drivers for their own
  and their friends' risky driving
• Dispositional attributions e.g., "Showing off,
  acting cool" used more for friends than self
• Situational attributions e.g., "In a hurry, late"
  used more for self than friends
• Participants also rated their friends as taking
  more risks than themselves

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The myth of pure evil

• Tendency to interpret wrong-doers as depraved
  psychopaths Baumeister (1997)
• E.g. demonising leaders of 'rogue' states
• (part of fundamental attribution error see later)

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Baumeister's narratives

• People asked to describe a situation in which
  they were the angered someone and which they were
  angered
• Found two distinct types of narrative that of
  the perpetrator and that of the victim

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Perpetrator's narrative

• The story begins with the harmful act. At the
  time I had good reasons for doing it. Perhaps I
  had been responding to extreme provocation. Or I
  was just reacting to the situation in a way that
  any reasonable person would. I had a perfect
  right to do what I did, and it's unfair to blame
  me for it. The harm was minor, and easily
  repaired, and I apologised. It's time to get over
  it, put it all behind us, let bygones be bygones

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Victim's narrative

• The story begins long before the harmful act,
  which was just the latest incident in a long
  history of mistreatment. The perpetrators
  actions were incoherent, senseless,
  incomprehensible. Either that or he was an
  abnormal sadist, motivated only by a desire to
  see me suffer, though I was completely innocent.
  The harm he did is grievous and irreparable, with
  effects that will last forever. None of us should
  forget it.

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The moralisation gap

• (Part of the self-serving bias)
• We see ourselves as more moral than others and
  our reasons more justified and coherent
• 'Why everyone (else) is a hypocrite' (Kurzban,
  2011)

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The Fundamental Attribution Error

• Ross (1977) when observing behaviour people tend
  to
• Overestimate the significance of DISPOSITIONAL
  factors
• Underestimate the significance of SITUATIONAL
  factors
• Jones and Harris (1967) classic experiment
  illustrated this bias
• Participant's had to rate people pro-Castro
  biases based on some writing they did

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Jones and Harris (1967) Study Design
IV2 Writers Position
Pro-Castro Anti-Castro
Chosen Choice, Pro-Castro Choice, Anti-Castro
Not Chosen No Choice, Pro-Castro No Choice, Anti-Castro
IV1 Writers Ability to Choose position
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Hypothesised Summary of Results
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Summary of Results
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Reasons for these attributions

• Self serving bias
• We wish to appear competent to other people (to
  influence them, gain their trust, gain their
  cooperation, etc)
• Generally believing we are can encourage them to
  believe this
• Fundamental attribution error
• Focus on individuals other influence is just
  'background'
• Less prominent in collectivist culture (Miller,
  1984)

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Self-deception

• We sometimes believe our own lies
• Participants asked to plan a study in which half
  of them have a pleasant and half an unpleasant
  task
• Ran in pairs participants asked to decide who
  did which task
• Could choose themselves OR use a number generator
• Most chose the easy task and said that this was
  fair
• HOWEVER if they were asked while doing a memory
  span test they judged themselves harshly
• Valdesolo DeSteno (2008)

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• Cognitive dissonance

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Cognitive dissonance
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When prophecy fails (Festinger, Riecken,
Schachter, 1956)
Studied an American cult called 'the
seekers' Believed that the world would end on
December 21st 1954 They would be rescued by a
flying saucer just before They had given up their
jobs, money, possessions and families The flying
saucer never came The world didn't end What
happened to their beliefs?
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When prophecy fails
Festinger noted that rather than giving up their
beliefs the seekers redoubled their efforts to
recruit new followers They concluded that their
piety had been recognised and their actions had
saved humanity ! Why?
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Cognitive dissonance

• When there is conflict between a belief or
  attitude and an event or behaviour this produces
  dissonance
• This is uncomfortable so to maintain consistency
  people are motivated to alter one of the elements
• They can
• Change their attitudes
• Change their behaviour
• Cognitively reappraise the situation

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Examples of Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Attitudes Dissonant Element Source of Dissonance Strategy
Seekers believe that the world is going to end The world does not end Conflict between what was thought to happen and what happened Behavioural Fake the end of the world Attitudinal recognise that they were wrong Add consonant elements the world didn't end because of our efforts
A student believes hes intelligent and that intelligent people perform well at school He gets bad grades all the time Discrepancy between belief in intelligence and performance Behavioural Tries harder to get good grades Attitudinal Believes hes not that intelligent Add consonant elements I dont have time to study My teacher is rubbish and unfair Grades arent a good indicator of intelligence, anyway
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Induced dissonance
Festinger Carlsmith (1954) participants had to
perform a dull task (turning pegs for an
hour) They paid either 1 or 20 for this They
were then asked to tell a potential participant
(stooge) that it was interesting They then rated
the interestingness of the task Who found the
task more interesting?
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Induced Compliance
Rating of liking for the task
Payment
Source Festinger, L. Carlsmith, J.M. (1959).
Cognitive consequences of forced compliance.
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58,
203-210.
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Explaining this

• Belief 'This is a dull task'
• Behaviour 'This is an interesting task'
• Therefore DISSONANCE
• 20 group had a motivation for lying, 1 had none
  so had to internalise the attitude
• ALSO if it is dull, why did I do it? Payment of
  20 give justification, 1 did not
• Unpaid dull jobs seem less boring than paid ones

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Aggression
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What is Aggression?

• Definitions have some commonality Intent to
  harm (Carlson et al., 1989)
• Means used in previous research to measure
  aggression
• Punching a inflatable plastic doll (Bandura et
  al., 1963)
• Pushing a button to ostensibly deliver an
  electric shock (Buss, 1961)
• Pencil-and-paper ratings by teachers and
  classmates of a childs aggressiveness (Eron,
  1982)
• Self-report of prior aggressive behaviour (Leyens
  et al., 1975)
• Verbal expression of willingness to use violence
  (Geen, 1978)
• Ethical considerations in level of aggressive
  acts people can be induced to do in experiments
• The above measures are an analogue for measuring
  real aggression

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Evolutionary/ethological theories

• Aggression is natural and sensible (Lorenz, 1966
  Ardrey, 1966 Morris, 1967)
• Innate aggression triggered by situation
  (releasers)
• Individual protects itself and its offspring from
  harm
• Competition for resources (including mates)
• In many mammalian species male-male aggression
  greater than other forms

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Evolutionary/ethological theories of aggression

• Aggression often doesn't lead to violence
• Aggression 'displays' in animals and humans
• Hope one animal backs down without risking costly
  fights (but this is principally intrasexual
  aggression)
• When personal risk is lower, violence is more
  common across the animal kingdom (e.g. chimps,
  Goodall see later)

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Theories of Aggression

• Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis (Dollard et
  al., 1939)
• Aggression the product of an anger response to
  the frustration of goals and desires
• Aggression directed to perceived source of
  frustration
• e.g. terrorism might be spawned by chronic and
  acute frustration over the ineffectiveness of
  other means (e.g., negotiation) to achieve
  socio-economic goals
• However, limited because frustrating events
  (e.g., job loss, refereeing decisions, traffic
  jams) lead to lots of frustration but seldom
  aggression (Berkowitz, 1993)

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Theories of Aggression

• Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977, 1997)
• Observational learning (imitation and vicarious
  experience) during childhood may contribute to
  violent actions

• Bobo doll experiments
• Bandura et al. (1961) 4 year olds watched an
  adult playing with Bobo doll (5-foot inflated
  plastic doll)
• Children exposed to the violent model displayed
  significantly more aggression toward the doll

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Theories of Aggression
Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977, 1997)
Source Bandura Walter (1963)
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Factors Influencing Aggression

• Sex, Evolution and Socialisation
• Men are more likely to engage in aggressive
  behaviour (Wrangham Peterson, 1996)
• Men are also more likely to display aggressive
  attitudes and beliefs (Eagly Chaiken, 1993)
• This may be due to
• Elevated levels of androgens (e.g., testosterone)
• Evolutionary benefit to aggression in terms of
  status and dominance
• Socialisation of aggressive tendencies during
  development

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Affiliation
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Human relationships

• Fiske (1991) four basic types of human
  relationship
• Communal sharing
• Share with no counting of cost (friendships,
  families)
• Authority ranking
• Dominance and hierarchies
• Equality matching
• Reciprocation, payment 'in kind'
• Market pricing
• As above but a 'token' economy (money)

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Affiliation

• Affiliation The urge to form connections and
  make contact with other people
• The need to affiliate is powerful and pervasive
  across people and determine the formation of
  important interpersonal relationships (Baumeister
  Leary, 1995)
• Affiliative behaviour Acts that indicate that a
  person (or organism) chooses to engage in social
  relationships with others
• Governed by rules of Communal Sharing (Fiske,
  1991)

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With whom do we affiliate?

• Generally people that are similar to us
• Homophily (McPherson, Smith-Lovin Cook, 2001)
• Also exists for social media where physical
  proximity isn't a requirement (Murthy, 2012)
• Similarity reduces conflicts of interest and
  increases shared interest (important in
  cooperation, Tooby Cosmides, 1996)

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Power, dominance, obedience and conformity

• To what extent are we 'wired' for dominance (c.f.
  Fiske's authority ranking)?
• Obedience and authority
• Conformity to group norms

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Dominance

• Most non-human primate societies organised into
  dominance hierarchies (male and female)
• Brain regions associated with dominance
  (periacquaductal gray, hypothalamus, amygdala)
• All contain testosterone receptors (Panksepp,
  2010)
• Anterior preoptic hypothalamus twice as large in
  men as women

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Testosterone and male dominance

• Testosterone associated with violence (Dabs
  Dabs, 2000)
• Principle focus is on male dominance violence not
  violence per se
• Higher in high status men, both a cause and an
  effect of status (Dabs Dabs, 2000)
• Increases following a win in sport, decreases
  following a loss (Johnson et al, 2006)
• Similar results for women but less pronounced

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Social influence
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Being influenced

• Obedience explicitly complying with
  instructions usually from an authority figure
• Conformity implicit compliance, usually to
  group norms or high-status people
• Compliance can describe both of the above

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Social influence processes
Obedience

• Milgram (1963) Classic but controversial study
  of compliance under duress from an expert
  experimenter
• In Milgrams study, participants were asked to
  deliver different voltages (0-450 volts) as a
  punishment

• to the learner in a mock learning experiment
• Milgrams question was at what point would
  subjects refuse to deliver shock to another
  person?

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Social influence processes
Obedience

• Results Near lethal electric shocks applied to
  stooge connected to apparatus in the mock
  learning trial (65 administered the full 450v)
• Milgram (1974) explained that subjects felt under
  pressure but did not believe that the
  experimenter would allow harm to come to
  stooge.
• Nothing is bleaker than the sight of a person
  striving yet not fully able to control his own
  behaviour in a situation of consequence to him
  (Milgram, 1974, pp. xiii) .

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Milgrams studies

• Sample to participants at 45 Volts
• 75V Ugh!
• 150V Get me out of here! My hearts starting to
  bother me! I refuse to go on! Let me out!
• 180V I cant stand the pain!
• 220V Let me out! Let me out!
• 270V Agonised screams
• 300V Refuse to answer and agonised screams
• 315V Intensely agonised screams
• 345V on Silence
• Throughout if the participant was hesitating,
  the experimenter told him/her to go on.

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Social influence processes
Obedience

• Milgrams study replicated in both male and
  female groups
• Replicated in many countries
• Spain and Holland 90 compliance rate (Meeus
  Raaijmakers, 1986)
• Italy, Germany, Austria 80 (Mantell, 1971)
• Australian men 40, Australian women 16
  (Kilham Mann, 1974)

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Social influence processes
Obedience Explanations

• One explanation is that people have committed
  themselves to an action that was difficult to
  overturn
• Immediacy is an influential factor how close a
  person is to the learner
• Unseen and unheard 100 compliance
• Pounding on the wall 62.5
• Visible during experiment 40
• Holding hand to electrode 30 (!)

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Obedience 40 years on

• Burger (2008) replicated (as much as he could)
  the Milgram study
• 70 still went up to 150 Volts
• But twice as many (30) disobeyed the
  experimenter
• Things are changing but not as much as we might
  like

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Remember

• All of these people were inexperienced in torture
  !, well educated, and clinically normal
• Psychopathy, sadists and torturers tend to
  habituate to their particular role (Baumeister,
  1997)
• They can come to enjoy it following repeated
  exposure

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Conforming to the group

• Stanford prison experiment (Haney, Banks,
  Zimbardo, 1973)
• UG students volunteered to participate in the
  study 2-week study
• Randomly assigned to roles of prisoners and
  guards
• Guards given power over prisoners control of
  resources, mete out rewards and punishment

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Power and Influence

• Entire basement of Stanford University Psychology
  Department used to set up a mock prison
• Prisoners were arrested at their residences,
  made to wear prison issue uniforms (dresses),
  placed in cells, limited freedom to exercise,
  interact
• Guards observed to resort to tyranny
• and anti-social behaviours to keep
• prisoners in line

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Power and Influence

• Brutality of the guards and suffering of the
  prisoners resulted in the experiment being
  abandoned after only 6 days
• Suggestion that guards were depersonalised in the
  group and their role losing their individuality
• Therefore tyranny was embedded in the
  psychology of powerful groups group of people
  in social roles create group norms and comply
  with them
• Group norms acceptable beliefs and behaviours
  in a group

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Social influence processes
Conformity Asch (1952) Classic experiment
examining normative influence effects.
Estimation of line lengths by individual in group
comprised of experimenters confederates
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Social influence processes

• Conformity
• Results 37 gave erroneous errors compared to
  0.7 in control group. Powerful effects of
  conformity but dependent upon a number of
  factors
• The ambiguity of the task
• The group structure (one or more deviants)
• Individual differences
• Cultural expectations of conformity
• Bond and Smiths (1996) meta-analysis of 133
  studies using Aschs paradigm found that
  conformity was significantly higher in
  collectivist cultures.

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Pro and anti-social behaviour

• The bystander effect
• The case(?) of Kitty Genovaise murdered following
  a 30 minute attack
• No one helped, no one called the police
• Lataney Darley (1979) 80 failed to respond
  when stooge also failed, when alone only 30
  failed to respond

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Research on Prosocial and Altruistic Behaviour

• Research into prosocial behaviour and altruism
  was stimulated by the Kitty Genovese murder
• Despite a horrific attack lasting 30 minutes not
  one of her neighbours assisted or called the
  police
• The story became the journalistic sensation of
  the decade. Apathy, cried the newspapers.
  Indifference, said columnist and commentators.
  Moral callousness, dehumanisation, loss of
  concern for our fellow man added preachers,
  professors and sermonisers. Movies, television
  specials, plays and books explored this incident
  and many like it. Americans became concerned with
  their lack of concern (Latané Darley, 1976, p.
  309)

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Bystander effect

• Diffusion of responsibility
• People use others as a source of information (if
  they don't respond, maybe everything is OK)
• Often fear of putting oneself in danger (why
  should I be the first to stand up to the
  attacker?)
• People (usually) more likely to help when alone

84
Pluralistic ignorance

• An explanation for why people engage in some
  anti-social behaviour
• Everyone does something because they assume
  everyone expects them to (and often incorrectly)
• Similar to Asch's conformity studies
• A few true believers can cause an idea to spread
  among non-adherents (Centola, Willer Macy, 2005)

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PI and the false consensusWiller, Kuwabara
Macy (2005)

• Participants sampled wine (one spiked with
  vinegar)
• An 'expert' pronounced the spiked wine the best
• Everyone agreed except a stooge who pronounced it
  awful
• Everyone rated everyone else in public or private
• Those rating in public derogated the stooge's
  taste
• Those rating in private praised his honesty

86
Increasing pro-social behaviour

• Reduce anonymity
• People are concerned about their reputation
• Permit punishment
• Sounds odd but if there is a comeback people are
  nicer (Fehr Gachter, 1999)
• Education about the lives and feelings of others
• Need to see the consequences of action (Pinker,
  2011)

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• Stereotypes

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Stereotypes and stigma

• Greek stereos solid, typos impression
• A cognitive shortcut enabling us to think about
  categories of individuals without the (important)
  clutter of individual variation
• Think of a bird
• How big is it?
• What does it eat?
• How does it get about?

89
Stereotypes and stigma

• Generalisations are (usually) OK with birds, but
  with people they can cause problems
• Each individual inherits stereotypical group
  properties
• Sometimes based on ignorance
• Often have negative connotations (c.f. Out-group
  bias)

90
Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination

• Sex stereotyping social stereotypes of women as
  nice and incompetent and men as competent but
  not so nice prevail across cultures and in both
  genders! (Fiske, 1998)
• But research suggests that people do not actually
  describe themselves in terms of this sex
  stereotype (Martin, 1987) (e.g., women and
  sex-discrimination)
• People actually represent the sexes as
  subtypes
• Housewife Businessman
• Sexy woman Macho man
• Career woman
• Feminist/athlete/lesbian
• Men and women generally see women as more
  homogenous than men (Lorenzi-Cioldi et al., 1995)

91
Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination

• Why are there these differential stereotypes
  which prevail across genders?
• Sex roles Behaviour viewed as sex-stereotypically
  appropriate
• Socialisation into sex roles so do sex
  stereotypes reflect actual differences in
  psychological factors or role assignment?
• Very few differences on psychological dimensions,
  but large differences in terms of perceptions of
  sex roles
• Therefore certain roles are sex typed (Eagly
  Steffen, 1984)
• E.g. role assignment in jobs

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Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination
Women Men
Restaurant servers Lawyers
Telephone operators Dentists
Secretaries Lorry drivers
Nurses Accountants
Babysitters Business executives
Dental hygienists Engineers
Librarian
Nursery school teachers
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Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination

• Glass-ceiling effect Stereotypes prevent
  promotion due to competence perceptions e.g.
  female in upper management, males in flight
  attendants
• Maintaining sex stereotypes Media largely
  responsible unsubtle vs. subtle
• Face-ism Media depiction gives greater
  prominence to the head and less prominence to the
  body for men, but vice-versa for women (Archer et
  al., 1983)

94
Sex Stereotypes and Attributions
By a MAN attributed to ability or high level of
effort
Performance viewed as more deserving of reward or
recognition
Successful task performance
By a WOMAN attributed to luck or an easy task
Performance viewed as less deserving of reward or
recognition
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Sex Stereotypes and Attribution
More to luck
Female actor
Ratings of Target
More to ability
Male task
Female task
Source Deaux and Emswiller (1974)
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Racism

• Racism Prejudice and discrimination against
  people based on ethnicity or race
• Much research focused on anti-black attitudes
  among whites in the United States
• Dramatic reduction in unfavourable attitudes
  since 1930s
• Similar reduction toward ethnic minorities in
  Britain and Western Europe

97
Racism
Percentage of white respondents selecting trait
Superstitious
Lazy
Ignorant
1933
1953
1967
1987
1993
Source Dovidio et al. (1996)
98
New Racism

• Racial stereotypes have not gone away but changed
• Theories of new racism suggest that people
  experience conflict between prejudiced attitudes
  and modern egalitarian values
• Although explicit attitudes might appear
  egalitarian, implicit 'attitudes' suggest that
  'racism' might still be at play

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Theories of prejudice

• Loads of these (see textbook) but important
  factors are
• Official sanction
• E.g. racial segregation in US South Africa
  women not being given the vote, anti-homosexual
  proclamations in religious texts inclusion on
  DSM II, etc, etc

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Group behaviour
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Groups

• People affiliate with groups
• Mostly these are enduring and rooted in history
• Sometimes transitory and ephemeral
• Group are one way we achieve more than as
  individuals
• But they can be dysfunctional

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Group Polarisation

• Polarisation refers to the enhancement of the
  dominant group perception or opinion after
  discussion/negotiation (Moscovici Zavalloni,
  1969)
• People become more polarised from initial
  starting position e.g. Myers and Bishop (1970)
  prejudice levels after a group discussion

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Group Polarisation

• Three Theoretical Explanations
• Normative influence People maintain their
  beliefs in the socially desirable direction so as
  not to stand out
• Informational influence (Isenberg, 1986) New
  information is made available and the shift is a
  function of the proportion of arguments in favour
  of one side, their clarity and novelty.
• Social Identity (Turner et al., 1989) People
  construct a group norm and then conform to that
  norm, results in a polarised in-group norm.
  Processes of self-categorisation and
  deindividuation occur.

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Minority vs. Majority

• Minority Influence
• Moscovici (1969) demonstrated that a minority can
  influence the majority perceptions if the
  minority were consistent and perceived as viable
  (couldnt be explained away in terms of dogma,
  eccentric, weird)
• Mugny Papastamou (1980) found that minority
  groups can be influential if their message is
  consistent yet flexible and open to reach
  compromises c.f. Film about jurors 12 Angry Men

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Minority vs. Majority

• Majority Influence
• Groupthink Psychological drive for consensus at
  any cost suppressing dissents and alternatives in
  cohesive decision making (Janis, 1972). Five
  requirements
• A cohesive group
• High stakes
• Insulated from external information
• No searches for alternatives
• Time pressure an urgency to decide
• Directive leader

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Minority vs. Majority

• Majority Influence
• Groupthink Symptoms
• Illusion of moral high ground
• Dissent from leader discouraged group norm
• No consideration of strengths weaknesses
• Not willing to listen to other opinions
• Mindguards discourage dissent
• Can lead to flawed decision making

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Minority vs. Majority

• Majority Influence
• Groupthink Techniques to avoid
• Criticism should be encouraged
• Input for external non-group members
• Sub-groups formed and feed-in to main group
• Group leader should not be invulnerable

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Groups and group conflict

• The history of humanity is a history of
  inter-group conflict between
• Countries
• 20th Conflicts in Europe (inc. two world wars)
• Religions
• Northern Ireland protestants vs catholics
• Ethnicities
• Hutus versus Tutsis in Rwanda

109
Groups

• In addition to personal affiliations and personal
  identities people also have a group or social
  identity
• (or more correctly they can have many)

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Social Identity Theory

• Self-concept is linked with the social groups
  that we identify with
• Tajfel (1979) proposed Social Identity Theory to
  explain how group concerns can become personal
  concerns and vice-versa
• Aims to explain inter-group processes as well as
  how peoples cognitions are affected by group
  membership
• People undergo an identification process that
  leads them to group affiliation

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Social Identity Theory

• Affiliation to groups is determined by 2
  processes
• Social categorisation
• Process in which people categorise social stimuli
  to reduce cognitive load
• Social comparison
• Tendency to make comparisons between groups and
  positively evaluate in-group members
• Social Identity Theory has much to offer in
  explaining choices of group membership but also
  inter-group and intra-group behaviour (as we
  shall see later)

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Self-Categorisation Theory

• People in groups tend to categorise themselves as
  group members
• Tend to internalise the attributes that are
  common to group members and make self-evaluations
• E.g. Lawyers will assume the characteristics of
  other lawyers e.g. using legal-speak, wearing a
  suit in court, charging high fees etc.

Personal Identity
Social Identity
Group I.D. self- descriptions made in terms of
membership of social categories e.g. race, sex,
nationality, profession, religion, sports team,
hobbies etc.
Personal I.D. self- descriptions - denote
specific aspects of the individual
Turner (1982) These represent different levels
of SELF-CATEGORISATION
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What is Intergroup Behaviour?

• Intergroup behaviour is any perception,
  cognition, or behaviour that is influenced by
  peoples recognition that they and others are
  members of distinct social groups (Hogg
  Vaughan, 2005, p. 392)
• Examples of intergroup behaviour
• International and intra-national conflicts
• Political confrontations
• Interethnic relations
• Negotiations between unions and management
• Competitive team sports

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Collective Violence

• Race riots in Watts suburb of Los Angeles in 1965
  occurred after the perceived injustice of the
  arrest of 3 black family members
• Tensions boiled over and riots broke out
• 35m property was damaged, 34 people were killed,
  and the military had to be called in to restore
  order
• High level of unemployment, deprivation, and
  highly secularised (99 of the population were
  African-American)

115
Collective Violence

• Race riots in South Central Los Angeles in 1992
  were seen as a direct response to the jury
  acquittal of 4 white policemen for the beating on
  Rodney King
• Set against a background of rising unemployment
  and deep disadvantage in black communities
• 50 dead and 2300 injured
• Attacks symbolised by beating of white truck
  driver Reginald Denny

116
Intergroup conflict in non-humans

• Ants, bees and other social insects will often
  experience intergroup rivalry
• Chimpanzees have conflict over resources (Wilson
  Wrangham, 2003)
• Especially (but not exclusively) when resources
  are scarce

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Realistic Conflict

• Competition between groups over scarce resources
  results in conflict and ethnocentrism
• E.g., Sherifs (1966) summer camp experiments
• Example of realistic intergroup hostility and
  intergroup-co-operation
• Four phases
• Spontaneous friendship formation
• Ingroup formation
• Intergroup competition
• Intergroup cooperation (superordinate goals)

118
Realistic Conflict

• Notable points from Sherifs (1966) summer camp
  experiments
• Latent enthnocentrism existed in absence of
  competition
• Ingroups formed despite the fact that friends
  were actually outgroup members
• Prejudice, discrimination, and ethnocentrism
  arose as a consequence of real intergroup
  conflict
• Boys in summer camp did not have authoritarian or
  dogmatic personalities
• Simple contact between members of opposing groups
  did not improve intergroup relations

119
Realistic Conflict Theory

• Sherif (1966) proposed realistic conflict theory
• Individuals who share common goals that require
  interdependence will tend to cooperate and form a
  group
• Individuals who have mutually exclusive goals
  (e.g., scarce resources) will be involved in
  inter-individual competition which prevents group
  formation and contributes to the collapse of an
  existing group
• At the intergroup level, mutually exclusive goals
  between groups results in realistic intergroup
  conflict and ethnocentrism while shared
  (superordinate) goals results in cooperation

120
Social Identity Minimal Groups

• Formation of groups spontaneously creates
  intergroup conflict and ethnocentric attitudes
  very quickly even without realistic conflict
• Spontaneous emergent of conflict studied by
  Tajfel et al. (1971) using the minimal group
  paradigm
• Minimal group paradigm Experimental methodology
  to investigate the effect of social
  categorisation alone on group behaviour
• Truly a minimal group effect
• Groups formed on a flimsy criterion
• No past history or possible future
• Members had no knowledge of other members
• No self-interest in the money allocation task

121
Social Identity Minimal Groups

• Allocation of points in grid game to ingroup and
  outgroup in minimal group paradigm
• Four possible strategies
• Fairness
• Maximum joint profit
• Maximum ingroup profit
• Maximum difference

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Social Identity Minimal Groups

• Therefore
• Mere awareness of being in a group can influence
  individuals perceptions of other group members
• Individuals become depersonalised group
  attributes rather than personal become salient
  in group situations
• The group does not have to be well defined
• Strong effect in hundreds of minimal group
  experiments which
• Allocated people to groups completely randomly
• Removed the money-points

124
Prejudice

• Prejudice involves a negative attitude toward
  specific people based on their membership in an
  identified group
• Three components of prejudice
• Stereotypes are thoughts and beliefs about people
  based on their group membership
• Strong emotional feelings about the object of
  prejudice
• Predispositions to act in certain negative ways
  toward the group (discrimination)
• Eliminating prejudice may require
• Cognitive retraining
• Increased group contact

125
Sources of Prejudice

• Learning Prejudice is acquired through
  classical and operant conditioning and through
  modeling
• Cognitive processes People use mental shortcuts
  to categorise others
• Ingroup versus outgroup categorisation
• Economic/Political competition Prejudice arises
  when financial resources are limited
• Displaced aggression Persons may displace their
  frustration onto non-threatening groups, a
  practice known as scapegoating
• Black-sheep effect When an ingroup member
  holding attitudes dissonant to other group
  members is derogated (scapegoating)

126
Reducing group conflict

• Realistic conflict theory (Sherif, 1966) suggests
  that the existence of superordinate goals and
  cooperation reduces intergroup hostility, also
  avoidance of mutually exclusive goals
• Social identity theory (Tajfel Turner, 1979)
  suggests that hostility will be reduced if
  intergroup stereotypes become less derogatory and
  polarised and legitimised non-violent forms of
  intergroup competition exist
• Jaw jaw rather than war war, sanctions etc.
• Education?

127
Promoting inter-group co-operation

• Solutions sought to break down out-group
  prejudice are...
• (1) Promoting interpersonal contact to break-down
  attitudes derived from social comparison
• (2) Creating super-ordinate goals to promote
  intergroup cooperation on a task with mutual
  benefit
• . Minimising importance of group boundaries and
  perceptions of group differences

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The process of civilisation

• No one would deny prejudice and conflict are
  still with us
• But things may be getting better
• Although humans still have a dark side education
  and the rule of law means that it may be less
  prominent (see Pinker, 2011)

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Summary

• It is in our genes to be social
• But we are not a superorganism
• Humans are conditional cooperators
• We are wired to influence other and to form
  affiliations
• We affiliate with groups
• Which can lead to conflict