PSYCH253 Study Guide - Final Guide: Moral Disengagement, Psych, Heart Rate
2 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Psych review
Lecture topics covered on the Final
The following lectures will be covered on the Final:
1) Lecture 12 - Conformity
2) Lectures 13 & 14 - Attraction & close relationships
3) Lecture 15 - Gender
4) Lecture 16 - Stereotypes
5) Lecture 17 - Prejudice
6) Lecture 18 - Group processes
7) Lecture 19 - Ideology & sociopolitical conflict
8) Lecture 20 - Aggression, extremism, & conflict
9) Lecture 21 - Altruism, compassion, & well-being
Done
Aggression, Extremism and conflict
- Moral standards cause anticipatory self sanctioning when people contemplate
behaviour that is against their moral standards.
- Bandura’s model of disengagement
- Dehumanization – the person harming the target, so they still see themselves as a moral
person, reason with themselves to say that the usual moral restraints don’t apply to to
the target group e.g symbolic exclusion
o Australian undergraduates were asked to rate indigenous people and people
from modern societies on a number of traits (non uniquely human traits,
uniquely human traits and animal like qualities).
o Hypothesis – if the indigenous people have been dehumanized they would be
rated higher in non uniquely human traits and animal like traits.
o Hypothesis was proven correct
- Dehumanization of black Americans
o Researches accumulated 153 death penalty eligible cases and coded the races of
the defendants.
o Newspaper headlines of the cases were also accumulated and the amount of
words relating to apes were coded.
o Results the number of words relating to ape was always higher when the
defendant was executed, but it was much higher for the black whether executed
or life spared than the white people
- Another one
o Half of the participants were primed with either a picture of a big cat or an ape
o They then watched a 2 min video on police beating the suspect
o They then learned that the man was a loving husband and father but he had a
big criminal record and may have been high on pcp. He was caught by the police
after a lengthy pursuit.
o The participants that were primed with big cat tended to say that the beating
was justified if it was a white person
o The participants that were primed with an ape tended to say that the beatings
were justified if it was a black person.
- Objectifying women
o Participants’ Hostile Sexism was measured.
E.g Once a woman gets a man to commit to her, she usually tries to put
him on a tight leash
o Measured participants’ tendency to associate first person verbs (I use) vs. third
person verbs (she uses) with bikini-clad vs. fully clad women
o Compared reaction times of 1st person verbs with bikini-clad vs. fully clad women
and 3rd person verbs with bikini-clad vs. fully clad women
o Hypothesis: Hostile sexist males (but not females) will be faster to associate
images of sexualized female with 1st person verbs
o Hypothesis is proved right
- Another one
o Male participants’ brain activity (the medical prefrontal cortex or mPFC) was
measured using and fMRI while they responded to sexualized male and female
targets, and non-sexualized male and females
o Hostile Sexism was measured
o Hypothesis: participant high in HS, but not low, will show less activity in the
mPFC when viewing sexualised female targets than male sexualised male targets
or non-sexualised targets of either gender
- Other mechanisms for moral disengagement
o Protecting the innocent
o Religious duty
Ideology and sociopolitical conflict
- Social hierarchies
Document Summary
Moral standards cause anticipatory self sanctioning when people contemplate behaviour that is against their moral standards. Objectifying women: participants" hostile sexism was measured. Other mechanisms for moral disengagement: protecting the innocent, religious duty. Social hierarchies: conservatives tend to support policies that maintain social hierarchies while liberals tend to support policies that challenge social policies. Economic: conservatives oppose while liberals support wealth redistributive policies. Moral: conservative oppose while liberals support same sex marriages. Social change rights: conservatives tend to defend social traditions and status quo while liberals tend to support change especially those that expand social justice. Liberals tend advocate changing from current criminal justice to. In the neutral images the liberals were about the same while the conservatives were more negative. Another one: researchers measured participants" startle eye blink response to loud white noise that occur at seven unexpected times while staring at blank point on computer screen, conservatives blinked much more than than the liberals did.
