PSY100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Shooting Of Amadou Diallo, Implicit-Association Test, Confirmation Bias
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Topic 7 - Stereotype, heuristics, motivation, emotion
Perceptions, Prejudice, and Police
● Memory & perception are very similar processes, involving us constructing a
representation of reality, and forming the raw material we draw upon for all our
thinking processes.
● This is a key theme throughout psychology, and has innumerable implications for
psychology, and for important societal issues, like prejudice and discrimination.
Stereotype
● Cognitive schema: an organized system of ‘knowledge’ that guides information
processing. (a top down process)
○ e.g. knowledge, own personal experience
○ organized system of knowledge in on your mind when activated -- guide the
information processing
○ schema activation --when biased, you're more likely to notice info that's
consistent with the bias. and more likely to ignore information that is not
consistent or disconfirm your belief
● Fundamentally no different from any concept (i.e., an abstraction, comprised of
interconnected beliefs, that organizes our perceptions and guides cognitive, affective
& behavioural processes)
○ the concept represents an abstraction, which biases the individuals
○ e.g. paradigm, world view
■ e.g. when presented with disconfirming evidence, people tend to be
more skeptical or just simply ignore it
○ e.g., Julie Andrews…….your best friend……restaurant…….Professor
■ a social script
● e,g. Professor
○ what kinds of things (association) are on people’s mind?
■ academic, classroom, intellectual, tests, boring, monotone, critical,
textbooks, ivory tower
How do stereotypes affect perceptions?
● why are stereotypes on your mind in the first place?
○ measurable?
■ implicit measure (implicit association test)
■ stereotype-consistent vs. inconsistent
■ also fade quickly - if the person is thought as an individual rather than
a part of the social group?
■ emotional factors
● Stereotypes colour the meaning of behaviour.
○ bias the interpretation
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● E.g. Duncan, 1978 – students watched an ambiguously hostile interaction between a
White and Black student; one student shoves the other
○ WHITE ‘shover’ -- shove was less serious, more playful
○ BLACK ‘shover’ -- shove was more aggressive and hostile
different interpretation!
● Stereotypes help us “fill in the blanks;”
○ e.g., the fight on the subway b/w B&W men
○ e.g. Payne, 2001: Would having “Black” vs. “White” on one’s mind change
how one made snap judgements about whether an object is a GUN or a
TOOL?
■ Subjects are shown Black or White faces, then an object, and have to
decide
○ Conclusion
■ If “BLACK” is on people’s minds, they will be:
■ Faster to see a gun as a gun
■ Slower to see a tool as a tool (not a gun)
■ More likely to see a tool as a gun
○ Mistakes: more likely to make a mistake when you're identifying tools.
Would stereotypes lead us to shoot someone?
● Josh Correll: inspired by Amadou Diallo story
● flash pictures of white and black mane, holding fund or other objects (e.g. cell phone,
wallet)
● Observation:
○ faster to make a shoot decision when it's a black man holding a gun and
slower to make the “don't shoot” decision when it's a black man not holding a
gun
○ Error: when armed, black man were shot more often
● people are more likely to make mistake when stereotype are on their minds
● are these effects being driven by the racist in the sample of subject?
● would these effects be stronger for highly prejudiced people compared to people with
strong egalitarian values?
○ non-prejudiced vs. prejudiced
■ driven by prejudice people (dominates the effect )
■ cross the border effect (nor driven by the prejudiced people )
○ observation: not driven by prejudiced people
○ cannot infer that the officers are prejudiced
■ suggests that all of us with levels of association in our mind affect how
we are biased even if we don't endorse it
■ we are programed by the way we communicate with each other
● Can people overcome their bias and stereotype-drive perceptions and behaviour?
○ change the unconscious system into a different one and linking the first one to
the second one?
■ takes effort
■ thinking explicitly in a non-biased direction
■ build an alternative way of thinking
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● Kari Kawakami - procedural re-learning
○ practice with counter-stereotypic decisions
Here’s what we know...
● Stereotypes can come to mind automatically, or when you’re motivated (e.g., to
disparage the person)...
● When thinking at the group level, individual features, worth, etc. matter less. “They”
are all the same.
○ shift the level of abstraction from an individual level to a group
○ less individual variability. not taken into consideration as much
● Once stereotypes are activated, it’s easier to see a world consistent with your
stereotype.
○ confirming- better memorization and fit into the knowledge system
○ disconfirming- fade away
● And you engage self-fulfilling prophecies.
○ schemas structure our reality
● Thus, they tend to perpetuate themselves.
○ they seem right
More ways of our brains deceive us:
● top-down processes - efficiency and accuracy
● Heuristics: cognitive shortcuts (reasoning rules of thumb)
○ people often don't reason very carefully and often do reason really loosely.
○ Assumption they made
○ there are some common reasoning heuristics that we employ much of the
time, leading to less than ideal decision in many circumstances
● e.g. experiments: waiting in line
○ control: small proportion will say yes - low agreement
○ say that you're in a rush
○ can I butt in the line because i have to make some copies?
■ Yes! ??
■ we are lazy and we don't want to think if we don't need to. People lose
interest when the person says “because”. just assume they have a
reason
○ if you're motivated, you're engaged in thinking, but if not, autopilot takes over
e.g. Who is this:
● let me describe someone I know, He’s short, slim and likes to read poetry
● A truck driver or professor in a prestigious university?
● representative heuristics: ignore base rates. making decisions on the content wto
which information seems similar to a category you have in mind
○ e.g. doctors often infinite base rate of illness when making diagnoses -- follow
the symptoms!
■ if a symptom is similar to common and rare disease. the doctor would
normally follow the common disease.
○ e.g. investors often ignore the base rate of business failure in a sector when
making investment decisions
○ e.g. would you bring a person in for interview or self diagnosis?
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Document Summary
Memory & perception are very similar processes, involving us constructing a representation of reality, and forming the raw material we draw upon for all our thinking processes. This is a key theme throughout psychology, and has innumerable implications for psychology, and for important societal issues, like prejudice and discrimination. Cognitive schema: an organized system of knowledge" that guides information processing. (a top down process) Organized system of knowledge in on your mind when activated -- guide the information processing. Schema activation --when biased, you"re more likely to notice info that"s consistent with the bias. and more likely to ignore information that is not consistent or disconfirm your belief. Fundamentally no different from any concept (i. e. , an abstraction, comprised of interconnected beliefs, that organizes our perceptions and guides cognitive, affective. & behavioural processes) the concept represents an abstraction, which biases the individuals. E. g. when presented with disconfirming evidence, people tend to be more skeptical or just simply ignore it.
