KHA112 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Postscripts, Ultimate Attribution Error, Contact Hypothesis
30 Jun 2018
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Department
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Psychology B week 10: Social Identity
Behaviouralism: mechanistic explanation of behaviour that does not require the
existence of self
- is there such thing as a self
- Rewarded behaviour will increase in frequency
- Skinners box
- Limitations:
oLewin, Dembo, Festinger, Sears 1994
10 practice trials of tossing rings
after their trailas, behaviourists would predict they would score
the same amount as in first ten trials
but instead they guessed higher and challenged themselves
osuggests the existence of a motivationsl system that relies on prupose,
foresight and will of a SELF
Thinking about oneself and others:
- Reflected Appraisal: Mead
- all our self knowledge is based on what is reflected in other peoples behaviour
othe looking glass self
ohow others see us defines how we define ourselves
- Self perception theory: Ben
oWe do not know enough about ourselves
oWe have to construct our idea of who we are regarding what
behaviours we are doing
oWe know our attitudes through observing our actions
- Self-discrepancy theory: self Schemata (Higgins,
oDifferent aspects of ourselves that are inter-related
oActual self: how I currently am
oIdeal self: how I would like to be, the possible self if we follow
through with all our ambitions
oOught self: how I think I should be
oDiscrepancy causes:
Ideally: changing and adapting our actual self into either ideal
or ought
When this is not the case leads to:
(When discrepancy of ideal and actual) Detection:
disappointment and dissatisfaction
(When discrepancy is between ought and actual)
Agitation: anxiety, threat and fear
can draw who we want to be from different asepcts of ourselves
ideal and ought are future orientated, many differences can
occur
discrepancies between actual and future, causes negative effect
which individuals strive to reduce symptoms of
- Self categorization theory
oThe groups that we are affiliated with define us
oGroup evaluation = evaluation of self
oIf the group has high status, you feel good: we internalize evaluations
oJoin groups for self esteem
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Parts of the groups that we freely associate with are choices we
make in order to imorve esteem
Cialdini et all: intelligence test
Some told performed above average
Others told performed poorly
Left in waiting room with papers and readings, someone
comes in and asks about the soccer results
People who had received negative evaluation, chose to
say they were supporters of winner on the weekend
Basking in reflected glory
- Social cognitions:
oThe social world is complicated and dynamic
oWe have limited attentional capacities
oWe need to react quickly
oWe use strategies to simplify our understanding of the world
Categorization
Store information about prototypes
Applies information that is stored in existing prototype
Powerful strategy and tool
oMany factors to take into account other than words, lots of information
to take in, which changes all the time according to the social world
Brings us to limits of what we can process cognitively
Limited capacities of attention
Even when we can attend, we are not that quick at processing
the information
By the time we have processed information it is too late
- Categorization: short cuts involves
oIn-groups and out groups
A way of categorizing people and so simplifying our
understanding of the world
Who I identify with, closely related to a group I affiliate with
=US
I don’t belong to or identify with them = them
This has profound impacts
Stereotypes and discrimination
Based on this, can explain and understand a lot of the
behaviour groups engage in when they oppose each
other
Base that on the sort of group that is currently important to us
Depends on what you are thinking about at the moment
oMinimal group paradigm: Tajfel, Billing, Bundy, Flament (1971)
Clearing a group of meaning and just operating of the pure
concept of the group
Had to come up with a paradigm that allowed them to come up
with a group
Most wouldn’t know who was in the group with them,
wouldn’t see them again
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Will these non-groups show same patterns as those groups who
have meaning? Show discrimination against other groups
Method:
Randomly assigned, knew what group they were in but
not who else in groups
Given a paper and pencil task: virtual money distributed
to different groups
Results:
Payments were set up so that a subject could be
oFair to both groups
oGive maximum reward to in group but nearly
same amount given to other group
oMaximize difference between groups
People tried to maximize difference most often
Robust findings, no: gender, age, education, cultural
differences in results
Summary:
Participants are identified as individuals or categorized
as group members for random reasons/trival reasons
Replicated in completely abstract groups
When they are categorized, people tend to
oBe more discriminatory
oShow behaviours and attitudes typical of groups
and group norms
oBad: behaviour that is typical of norms is
discrimination, try to increase the esteem we
have for own group by devaluing the other team
When this is done, stat viewing other
members in other groups as members of
another group, not individuals
Effects of group membership:
Favorable evaluating of in group
Rate more social and physically desirable
More pro-social within the same group
More cooperative
Overestimate similarities within group as well as
differences between groups
Agreement within in group overestimated on
dimensions irrelevant to group membership
Better recall to group membership
Generalise to whole group
- Stereotypes:
oWidely held belief that people have certain characteristics because of
their membership in a particular group
oOnly considered a stereotype if the belief/characteristic is widely
shared
oReading a description of a person, you can predict other attributes
Some things not consistent with stereotypes
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