Chapter 13

Aggression 4/22/2014 8:08:00 AM

Chapter 11

Three general perspectives for prejudice
Economic perspective
o Identifies roots of much intergroup hostility in the competing
interests that set many groups apart from one another
Motivational perspective
o Emphasizes the psychological needs and wishes that lead to
intergroup conflict
Cognitive perspective
o Traces the origin of stereotyping to the same cognitive
processes that allow people to categorize, say, items of
furniture into distinct classes of chairs, couches, and tables
o Takes into account the frequent conflict between peoples
consciously held beliefs and values and their quick, reflexive
reactions to members of specific racial, ethnic, occupational,
or other demographic groups
These are just perspectives, not sharply defined categories
Not competing accounts but complementary elements of a more
complete analysis
Categorizing intergroup bias
Stereotypes
o Belifs that certain attributes are characteristic of members of
particular groups
o Can be positive or negative
o True or false
o They are a way of categorizing people
o Involves thinking about a person not as an individual, but as
a member of a group, ad projecting what you think you know
about the group onto your expectations about the individual
Prejudice
o A negative attitude or affective response toward a certain
group and its individual members
o Negative atitudes have received the most attention, but there
can be positive prejudice
o Prejudging others because they belong to a specific category
Discrimination
o Negative or harmful behavior directed toward members of
particular groups
o Unfair treatment of others-based on their memberships in a
group
Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination refer to the belief,
attitudinal, and behavioral components, respectively, of negative
intergroup relations
o They all usually go together
o Ingroup favoritism can arise in the absence of outgroup
enmity
I have nothing against them, but
Not wanting your kids to marry out of your ethnicity bc
you dont want to lose your culture
Its possible to be prejudice but not discriminate, especially if a
culture frowns on discrimination.
Modern racism
Prejudice directed at other racial groups that exists alongside
rejection of explicitly racist beliefs (e.g. that there are genetic
differences between racial groups in intelligence) while maintaining
an enduring suspicion of, discomfort with, or animosity toward
African-Americans
Some of our reactions to other groups are unconscious and
automatic, and these responses may differ from our more
thoughtful beliefs and attitudes
Experiment
o They come to the aid of the black person when they were the
only ones that could help but when they thought that other
people were present, they didnt come to the aid of the black
person as often
o
Benevolent Racism and Sexism
Some of my best friends are
Im not sexist; I love women!
ambivalent- positive and negative parts
Benevolent sexism
o A chivalrous idealogy that offers protection and affection to
women who embrace conventional roles
o Coexists with hostile sexism (dislike of women who are
viewed as usurping mens power)
o Even the partly positive stereotypes arent necessarily benign
Ambivalent sexist or racist attitudes may be particularly resistant to
change
Favorable features allows stereotype holder to deny any prejudice
Be rewarding women and minorities for conforming to the status
quo, benevolent sexism and racism inhibit progress toward equality
o Those who hold ambivalent attitudes tend to act positively
toward members of out-groups only if they fulfill their
idealized image of what such people should be like
Happy housewife, playboy centerfold
Measuring attitudes about groups
Most straightforward way: ask them
People are unwilling or unable to express their convictions
accurately
o Many forms of prejudice are ambivalent, uncertain or hidden-
even from the self- they are not likely to be revealed through
self-report
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
o Technique for revealing nonconscious prejudice toward
particular groups
o Technique for revealing subtle, nonconscious prejudices, even
among those who advocate universal equality and high regard
for all groups
Priming and implicit prejudice
o Priming
Procedure used to increase the accessibility of a concept
or schema (e.g. a stereotype)
Mental activation
If I show you the word butter than ask you tell me, as
quickly as you can, whether a subsequent string of
letters is a word, youll recognize that bread is a word
more quickly than youll recognize that car is a word bc
of your preexisting association between bread and
butter
The economic perspective
Groups develop prejudices about one another and discriminate
against one another when they compete for material resources
Religious groups, racial groups, and cultural groups all stand ready
to protect and promote their own interests by lashing out at those
they perceive to be threatening by them
Realistic group conflict theory
o A theory that group conflict, prejudice, and discrimination are
likely to arise over competition between groups for limited
resources
o Theory predicts correctly that prejudice and discrimination
should increase under conditions of economic difficulty
o Predicts that prejudice and discrimination should be strongest
among groups that stand to lose the most from another
groupss economic advance
o Specifies some of the ways that conflict between groups is
likely to play out
Ethnocentrism
Glorifying ones own group while vilifying other
groups
An opponent whose antics seem intolerable
instantly seems more likable once that person
becomes a teammate
People in the outgroup are often thought of in a
stereotyped ways and are treated in a manner
normally forbidden by ones moral cod
The Robbers Cave Experiment
o 22 fifth grade boys were taken to robbers cave state park for
summer camp
o divided into groups of 11 and taken to separate areas of the
park and neither group even knew of the others existence-
initially
o first phase
two groups independently engaged in activities
designed to foster group unity
each chose to give itself a name- Eagles and Rattlers
o second phase
Eagles and Rattlers were brought together for a
tournament
o Third phase
Making them come together through superordinate
goals
Superordinate goals
Goals that transcend the interests of any
one group and that can be achieved more
readily by two or more groups working
together
o Several lessons
Neither differences in background nor differences in
appearance nor prior histories of conflict are necessary
for intergroup hostility to develop
Competition against outsiders often increases group
cohesion
To reduce hostility that exists between certain groups,
policy makers should think of ways to get them to work
together to fulfill common goals
The motivational perspective
Develops in the absence of competition
The existence of group boundaries among any collection of
individuals can be sufficient to initiate group discrimination
The minimal group paradigm
o An experimental paradigm in which researchers create groups
based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria and
then examine how the members of these minimal groups are
inclined to behave toward one another
Social identity theory
o A theory that a persons self-concept and self-esteem derive
not only from personal identity and accomplishments but also
from the status and accomplishments of the various groups to
which the person belongs
o Boosting the status of the ingroup
Feeling better about the group leads us to feel better
about ourselves
o Basked in reflected glory
The tendency for people to take pride in the
accomplishments of those with whom they are in some
way associated, as when fans identify with a winning
team
were number 1
the inclusive we was used significantly more often after
a win, and the more restrictive they was used more
often after a loss
o degrading outgroups to bolster self-esteem
stereotyping and derogating members of outgroups
appear to bolster self-esteem
o Frustration-Aggression Theory
Theory that elaborates the idea that frustration leads to
aggression
If the source of frustration is the very group to which
prejudice and discrimination are directed- that is, if
outgroup members are perceived as getting in the way
of the individuals goals- frustration-aggression is both
an economic and a motivational account
From generalized to targeted aggression
By itself, the link between frustration and
aggression cannot explain the origins of
prejudice and discrimination because
frustration leads to generalized aggression
Frustration leads to aggression that tends to
be displaced toward relatively powerless
groups
o Evaluating the motivational perspective
Strength of the motivational perspective is that it builds
on two undeniably important elements of the human
condition
Draws the us/them distinction and the various
groups to which an individual belongs are
intimately connected to the motive to enhance
self-esteem
People tend to react to frustration with aggression
and often direct their aggression at the safest and
least powerful targets in a given society
The cognitive perspective
Stereotyping is inevitable- stems from ubiquity and necessity of
categorization
People categorize everything
o Purpose: simplifies the task of taking in and processing large
amounts of stimuli
Stereotypes and the conservation of mental reserves
o People are most likely to fall back on mindless stereotypes
when they lack mental energy
Construal processes and biased assessments
o Stereotypes conserve cognitive resources
o What is gained in efficiency is paid for by occasional
inaccuracy and error
o Invoking the stereotype may save time and effort, but it can
lead to mistaken impressions and unfair judgments about
individuals
Accentuation of ingroup similarity and outgroup difference
o Dividing a continuous distribution into two groups leads
people to see less variability within each group and more
variability between the two
o Participants consistently assume that their beliefs are more
similar to those of another ingroup member than to those of
an outgroup member- even when group membership is
arbitrary
o People make such assumptions even when the groups are
formed arbitrarily or when they are formed on the basis of a
dimension (e.g. skin color) that may have no bearing on the
particular attitude or behavior under consideration
The pure act of categorization distorts our judgments
The outgroup homogeneity effect
o The tendency for people to assume that within-group
similarity is much stronger for outgroups than for ingroups
o They all think, act, and look alike. We dont.
o We have more contact with fellow members of na ingroup
than with members of an outgroup, so we have greater
opportunity to encounter evidence of divergent opinions and
habits among ingroup members
o Sometimes all we know about outgroups members is what
their stereotypical characteristics are reputed to be.
o Because we belong to an ingroup membership, we do not
treat an ingroup member as a representative of a group
Distinctiveness and illusory correlations
o People sometimes see correlations between events,
characteristics, or categories that are not actually related
(illusory correlation)
o By definition, minority groups are distinctive to most
members of the majority, so minority group members stand
out
o Negative behaviors are also less common than positive
behaviors
o Negative behavior on the part of members of minority groups
is therefore doubly distinctive and doubly memorable, and
because negative behavior by the majority or positive
behavior by the minority is not nearly as memorable,
negative actions by the minority are likely to seem more
common than they really are
Minority groups are therefore often thought to be
responsible for more problematic behavior than they
actually engage in
o Paired distinctiveness
Pairing of two distinctive events that stand out even
more because they co-occur
Expectations and biased information processing
o Because of the outgroup homogeneity effect, people are more
likely to assume that an individual action is typical of a group
if the group is not their own
Explaining away exceptions
o Subtyping
Explaining away exceptions to a given stereotype by
creating a subcategory of the stereotyped group that
can be expected to differ from the group as awhole
o Concrete vs. abstract construal
The more concrete the description, the less it says
about the individual involved
If peoples evaluations are guided by their preexisting
stereotypes, we might expect them to describe actions
that are consistent with a stereotype in abstract terms
(Thus reinforcing the stereotype), but to describe
actions that are inconsistent with it in concrete terms
(thus avoiding the potential challenge to the
stereotype)
Automatic and controlled processing
o Subtyping is conscious
o Our reaction to different groups of people are to a surprising
degree guided by quick and automatic mental processes that
we can override but not eliminate
o What separates prejudiced and nonprejudiced people is not
their knowledge of derogatory stereotypes, but whether they
resist the stereotypes
o Automatic negative stereotypes associated with members of
various stigmatized groups appear to be more easily activated
among prejudiced individuals than among nonprejudiced
individuals
o Participants were faster to identify a weapon as a weapon
when it was preceded by an African-American face and faster
to identify a hand tool as a hand tool when it was preceded by
a white face.
Evaluating the Cognitive Perspective
o Seeing someone who belongs to a particular ethnic group
may automatically activate our stereotypical associations to
that group, but the activation is typically brief
o We all tend to stereotype and that we all have the capacity to
harbor troubling prejudices- prejudices we are often unaware
we have
Becoming a member of a stigmatized group
Two burdens that come with knowning that others may be
prejudiced against ones group
o Attributional ambiguity
Members of stigmatized groups cant tell whether many
of their experiences have the same causes as those of
everyone else or whether they are the result of
prejudice
When someone has to wonder whther an
accomplishment is the product of an affirmative action
policy, it can be difficult to completely own it and reap
the full measure of pride it would ordinarily afford
Members of stigmatized groups live in a less certain
world, not knowing wheteher to attribute positive
feedback to their own skill or to others condescension
and not knowing whether to attribute negative feedback
to their own error or to others prejudice
o Stereotype threat
Peoples fear of confirming the stereotypes that others
have regarding a group of which they are a member
Appears to undermine performance in a number of
ways
Leads to increased arousal, which can directly
interfere with performance on complex tasks and
serve as a source of distraction that interferes
with concentration on the task at hand
Knowing that ones group is suspect in the eyes of
others tend to elicit negative thinking, which can
both directly undermined performance and lead
individuals to play It safe by being obsessed
with avoiding failure than reaching for success
The vulnerability of African Americans has
particular potential for damage
Can result in poorer overall academic
performance, which undermines confidence,
rendering the individual still more
susceptible to stereotype threat
Vicious cycle can result in disidentification
from academic pursuits, as students who
feel the threat more acutely opt out of
academics altogether and identify other
areas in which to invest their talent and
energy and from which to derive their self-
esteem
Self-fulfilling prophecies
o People act towards members of certain groups in ways that
encourage the very behavior they expect
Reducing stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination
When people interact frequently, it becomes easier to see one
another more as individuals and less as representatives of
particular groups
Contact between different groups is likely to be more positive and
more productive if certain conditions are met
o The different groups need to have equal status
If one group feels superior and the other resentful, then
harmonious, productive interactions are unlikely to be
the norm
o Productive intergroup interactions are facilitated if the
different groups have a shared goal that requires their
cooperative interaction- and thus promotes a common
ingroup identity
o A communitys broader social norms need to support
intergroup contact
o The contact should encourage one-on-one interactions
between members of different groups





Chapter 12
Chapter 12

Two camps
Individualistic approach
Collectivist/groups approach
Limitations of cooleys model
Good start, but prolly too simplistic
Two newer and more nuanced approaches
o Theories of entitativity
Can be thought of as an index of groupiness
Groups can var along a continuum in terms of whether
a mere collection of individual are psychologically
connected or not
High entitativity -> very connected: members feel as
though they belong to a meaningful group
Low entitativity -> not connected: members do not feel
as though they belong to a meaningful group -> not a
very groupy group
What factors make a group high vs. low in entitativity?
Similarity
Common fate (goals)
Proximity
Resistance to intrusion (permeability) ->
the us supreme court is relatively resistance
to intrusion -> its not that permeable
royalty is not that permeable either
one limitation of entitativity approach
doesnt address the manner in which the groups
are formed per se
arrows model is more explicit on this point
o Arrows et al model of planned vs. emergent groups
Planned
Core feature: dediberately formed by the
members themselves, or by an outside entitity.
Planned groups can be broken down into two
types:
Concocted
o Planned by individuals outside of the
group (e.g. production lines, task
forces, crews, professional sports
teams)
Founded
o Planned by individuals who remain
within the group (e.g. study groups,
small businesses, clubs, associations)
Emergent
Core feature: groups that form spontaneously
(more or less) as a function of common goals
Can be broken down into further subsets
Circumstantial
o Emergent, unplanned groups arising
when external situational forces set
the stage to join together, often only
temporarily, in a unified group (e.g.
waiting lines, crowds, mobs,
audiences, bystanders)
Self-organizing
o Emerge when interacting individuals
gradually align their activities in a
cooperative system of
interdependence (e.g. occupy wall
street)
The darker side of groups: Mobs, Gangs, Riots
The older theoretical perspective
Phenomenal experience in a group per se -> anti-social behavior
Newer view
the critical issue- the most direct predictor of anti-social behavior is
deindividuation followed by decreased self-regulation
such decrease can be driven by lots of things- including, but not
limited to, being in a group
large groups, nightfall, ability to disguise face, other factors
promoting anonymity -> deindividuation -> decreased self-
regulation; lessened concern with how others evaluate the self
(stimulus overload and increase physiological arousal can also
result in decreased self-regulation)
Implications, tests and extensions of the deinidivduation model
o According to this new view, it should be easier for people to
let go of the usual prohibitions against barbarity when they
feel anonymous and unaccountable for their actions
Also supporting this mode; reports of what people would do if they
were indivisible
o Dodd had participants tell researchers what they would do If
they were invisible for a day
o In his original study, Todd had 2 groups do this task: college
students and convicted felons
And they found no difference between the two!
Reversing deindividuation effects
o If deinvididuation leads to anti-social behavior, then how does
the opposite experience- feeling individuated make people
act?
o This question is relevant to the self awareness paradigm
o Main finding: self-standards effect
Tendency of people to act In a more consistent manner
thats consistent with their underlying self-standards
More on self-awareness and self-consciousness
o As we have noted, there are situational differences in self
awareness and there are important individual differences too
o By and large, though, and in normal situations (i.e. not in
riots; not drunk, etc), people generally maintain fairly high
levels of self awareness/consciousness
o In fact, there is evidence suggesting that people that people
that people somewhat overdo their experience of self
awareness/consciousness, at least in terms of overestimating
the extent to which people are paying attention to the self
o
Barry Manilow t-shirt study
o Participants that wore the shirt thought a lot of people were
looking at the t-shirt (50% of participants thought this)
o 80% of other participants didnt notice the t-shirt
Do people perform tasks better alone, or in groups?
People perform tasks faster in group than alone

Stage 1: participants pronounce words between 1 and 16 times
Creates dominant response
o Words pronounced most frequently= dominant
Stage 2: words flashed very quickly: 1/100 second
Participants must guess word
Did task alone or while being watched
Main finding: participants guesses were more likely to contain the dominant
words if they were being watched than if they were not

Stereotypes as dominant (well learned) responses
Recall that lambert found greater evidence of stereotyping when
particiapnts performed the task in public, compared to private
Note that this represents a kind of social facilitation effect
o Stereotypes: well-learned association between a category and
a particular set of traits/affective reaction
o The social facilitation would predict greater evidence of
stereotyping in public, which Is what we generally found

Research and theory on group decision making
Are groups less risky in their decision making?
On an intuitive level, youd think that groups would take fewer
chances (be less risky) than individuals
o This is ,one would think that
Groups balance idiosyncratic viewpoints out
o Especially given that most groups have decision making rules
that tend to discourage one dominant point of view
Groups make more risky decisions -> research by stoner
o His viewpoint is a little premature
Group polarization
Theoretical explanation for the group polarization effect
Persuasive argument hypothesis
Social comparison hypothesis
A caution about group polarization effects (GPES)
Just because groups are getting more polarized doesnt mean that
theyre making good or bad decision -> they can be good or bad
Theory and research on groupthink
Produces worse decisions
Groupthink defined
o The mode of thinking that persons engage in when
concurrence seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-
group that it tends to over-ride realistic appraisals of
alternative courses of action.
Historical examples
o Bay of Pigs incident (1961)
US encouraged group of Cuban expats to overthrow
Fidel & we were supposed to lend them air support but
then we didnt and they got caught
Antecedents (elements that tend to breed groupthink)
o Group is already cohesive
o Isolated
o Directive leader
o Stress
o Poor decision-making rules
Symptoms of groupthink
o Illusion of invulnerability
o Collective rationalization
o Belief in inherent morality
o Stereotyped views of out-groups
o Self-censorship
o Direct pressure on dissenters
o Illusion of unanimity
Specific outcomes (consequences) of groupthink
o Incomplete survey of alternatives
o Failure to examine risks of preferred choices
Hindsight bas
Once we know the outcome (e.g. the challenger blew up!) are we
just spinning events to fit the theory?
Is the idea of a wise crowd inherently contradictory?

Could it be that crowds are, in fact, wise?
Class example from sir francis galton: the guess the weight of the
ox event
o Collective guess was almost right on target
The wisdom of crowds
Four key conditions that characterize wise crowds
o Diversity of opinion
Each person should have some private information,
even if its just an eccentric interpretation of the known
facts
o Independence
Peoples opinions are not determined by the opinions of
those around them
o Decentralization
People are able to specialize and draw on local
knowledge
o Aggregation
Some mechanism, like wall street or a casino, exists for
turning private judgments into collective decision
Connection to Nate Silvers Big Data perspective


Book Notes

The Nature and purpose of group living
A group has been described as a collection of individuals who have
relations to one another that make them interdependent to some
significant degree
Social facilitation
Initial research
o Children turned fishing reel faster in presence of other
children
o Social facilitation
Initially a term for enhanced performance in the
presence of others; now a broader term for the effect-
positive or negative- of the presence of others on
performance
Zajoncs theory
o The presence of others tends to facilitate performance on
simple or well-learned tasks, but it hinders performance on
difficult or novel tasks
o 3 components
the mere presence of others makes a person more
aroused
arousal tends to make a person more rigid, in the sense
that the person becomes even more inclined to do what
he or she is already inclined to do
arousal makes a person more likely to make a
dominant response
in an individuals hierarchy of responses,
the response he or she is most likely to
make
third component links the increase in dominant
response tendencies to the facilitation of simple tasks
and the inhibition of complex tasks
for easy or well-learned tasks, the dominant
response- your reflexive response- is likely to be
the correct response
so, the presence of others, by facilitating your
dominant response, facilitates the correct
response & improves performance
for difficult or novel tasks, the dominnt response
is unlikely to be the correct response
Mere presence or evaluation apprehension
o Evaluated apprehension
Peoples concern about how they might appear in the
eyes of others- that is, about being evaluated
o It is the concern about others as a source of evaluation, not
their mere presence, that is responsible for social facilitation
o Distraction-conflict theory
A theory based on the idea that being aware of another
persons presence creates a conflict between attending
to that person and attending to the task at hand, and
that this attentional conflict is arousing and produces
social facilitation effects
o Social loafing
Tendency to exert less effort when working on a group
task in which individual contributions cannot be
monitored
Group decision making
Groupthink
o A kind of faulty thinking by highly cohesive groups in which
the critical scrutiny that should be devoted to the issues at
hand is subverted by social pressures to reach consensus
o Symptoms and sources of groupthink
Strong directive leaders who make their preferences
known sometimes intimidate even the most
accomplished group members and stifle vigorous
discussion
Issue that must be decided is so stressful that groups
seek the reassurance and comfort of premature or
illusory consensus
both strong leaders and drive to find consensus breed
self-censorship
the tendency to withhold information or opinions
in group discussions
o preventing groupthink
more vigorous discussion is likely to take place if the
leader refrains from making his or her opinions or
preferences known at the beginning
making sure the group is not cut off from outside input
designate one person to play devils advocate- to be
given every incentive to name any and all weakness in
the groups proposed plan of action
o groupthink in other cultures
the drive toward harmony is greater in east Asian
cultures such as japan than in the US
groupthink can be so great in those places that
even at scientific meetings there is rarely true
debate or any other exchange that might appear
confrontational or cause anyone to lose face
in japan, they find out what each member think before
the general meeting so that in the meeting, everyone is
in consensus
group decisions: risky or conservative?
o Risky shift
The tendency for groups to make riskier decisions than
individuals would
Group polarization
o Tendency for group decisions to be more extreme than those
made by individuals. Whatever way the individuals are
leaning, group discussion tends to make them lean further in
that direction
Group decision has the effect of making people more
inclined to go in the direction they are already
predisposed to go
o Two causes work in concert to produce group polarization
Persuasiveness of the information brought up during
group discussion
You tend to have more arguments to whichever
side youre predisposed to- risky vs safe
The group discussion tends to expose the average
person to even more arguments in favor of he
position that the average person was already
inclined to take
Peoples tendency to try to claim the right position in
the distribution of opinions within the group
Humans have tendency to compare ourselves with
everyone else
People tend to think that they are farther out on
the correct side of the opinion distribution on
most issue
o Valuing risk
People must typically value risk over caution
A risky shift after group discussion should occur more
often among U.S. participants than among participants
in other cultures that do not value risk as highly
Polarization in modern life
o When homogeneous groups come together, their discussions
are likely to lead to even stronger attitudes than the ones the
group members came in with
Leadership and power
Social hierarchies are a natural part of group life, as are leaders and
people who are led
Groups evolve into hierarchies because having leaders heps solve
some of the difficulties inherent in group living
Who becomes a leader?
o Expertise and skill relevant to the goals of the group
o Individuals who have the social skills to build strong,
cooperative relations among group members also increase
their chances of rising to positions of leadership
o An individual who can provide rewards to the group is more
likely to rise to positions of leadership
o Individuals who selflessly share resources with others are
actually more likely to rank highly in social hierarchies
What is power?
o Power is the ability to control our own outcomes and those of
others; the freedom to act
Related, but not synonymous with three other kinds of
social rank
Status
The outcome of an evaluation of attributes
that produces differences in respect and
prominence, which in part determines an
individuals power within a group
It is possible to have power but not status
(corrupt politician)
And it is possible to have status without
relative power (religious leader in a slow-
moving line at the department of motor
vehicles)
Authority
Power that derives from institutionalized
roles or arrangements
Power can exist w/o formal roles (within
informal social groups)
Dominance
Behavior enacted with the goal of acquiring
or demonstrating power
Power can be attained w/o any attempt to
establish dominance
How does power influence behavior?
o Approach/inhibition theory
Theory that maintains that high-power individuals are
inclined to go after their goals and make quick
judgments whereas low-power individuals are more
likely to constrain their behavior and attend to others
carefully
Yields two hypothesis
First concerns the influence of power on how
people perceive others
High-power individuals are predicted to be a
little less systematic and careful in how they
judge other people
High-power individuals are more likely to
thoughtlessly stereotype others, rather than
carefully attending to individuating
information
Experiment with drawing the E: individuals
feeling a surge of power were much less
likely to spontaneously draw the E in a way
that took the other persons perspective-
power reduces the ability to empathize
Power should make people behave in disinhibited
(less constrained) and at times more
inappropriate ways
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac
low-power individuals tend to inhibit themselves
in a variety of ways
individuals with little power often constrict
their posture and dampen their expressive
behavior
they tend to refrain from speaking up:
inhibit their speech and clam up and
withdraw during group interactions
elevated power is associated with increased antisocial
behavior
high-power individuals are more likely to violate
politeness-related communication norms- they
are more likely to interrupt, speak out of turn,
and act rudely at work
high-power individuals are more likely to tease in
a hostile fashion
o power seems to encourage individuals to express their
underlying inclinations, both good and bad
if the person inclined toward malevolent or competitive
behavior, power will increase the likelihood of such
behavior.
If the person is more ethical and concerned about the
public good, power will amplify the expression of those
tendencies
o Power corrupts the corruptible
Deinviduation and the psychology of mobs
Deindividuation and the group mind
o Emergent properties of groups
Behaviors that emerge only when people are in groups
o Individuation
The reduced sense of individual identity accompanied
by diminished self-regulation that comes over people
when they are in a large group
A model of deindividuation
o A deindividuated person is less aware of the self, more
focused on others and the immediate environment, and hence
more responsive to behavior cues- for good or for bad
o People are more likely to engage in a host of impulsive
behaviors because there is more of a push to do so, and
because the constraints that usually pull them back from
such actions are weakened
Suicide baiting
o Suicide baiting was more than twice as likely when the crowd
size exceeded 300
o More than four times as likely if the episode took place after 6
p.m.
o As people feel more anonymous, either by being lost in a
large crowd or under the cloak of darkness, they are more
inclined to taunt and egg on a potential suicide
The conduct of war
o Among cultures whose warriors changed their appearance
before battle, 80% were deemed particularly aggressive
o When warriors are disguised in battle, they fight more
ferociously
Self-awareness and ndivudation
o Individuation
An enhanced sense of individual identity produced by
focusing attention on the self, which generally leads
people to act carefully and deliberately and in
accordance with their sense of propriety and values
o Self-awareness theory
A theory that maintains that when people focus their
attention inward on themselves, they become
concerned with self-evaluation and how their current
behavior conforms to their internal standards and
values
o Anything that focuses attention on the self, such as being in
front of a camera, seeing ourselves in a mirror, or wearing a
name tag may lead to individuation and make us particularly
inclined to act carefully and in accordance with our sense of
propriety



Chapter 13

Are human beings more aggressive than other species?
No
Hostile Aggression
Any act of aggression whose primary motive is to inflict pain
Instrumental aggression
Any violence or aggression is being observable toward a larger goal
American football, rugby, etc
The distinction can blur in some cases
In hockey, they let them fight until they get to the ice
Antecedents (predictors) of aggression
Heat
o The hotter it is, the more violent/aggressive people are
Gender
o Men are more aggressive
Frustration
Alcohol
o Does it indirectly
o Alcohol is a disinhibitor
Mere exposure to violent stimuli
Media effect
o will playing violent video games make you more aggressive or
violent?
A note on the survival value of aggression
In social psychological research- with humans- we are generally interested in
(relatively) more subtle cues that may lead people to aggressions

Mere exposure effect
Overview of the berkowitz and page paradigm (modified milgram
paradigm)
o Real subject (who is designated to be the teacher) is given
initial demonstration by experimenter of shocking apparatus
One initial demo shock (not angered)
Seven initial demo shocks (angered)
o High vs. low anger towards experimenter
Control
You and button youre hitting and thats it
Associated weapons
Unassociated weapons
Does catharsis work?
Original Freudian perspective
o Participation in violent sports should lower your aggression
level
What the data generally say
o Three different types of studies
Participation in violent sports
Observing sports
Direct aggression toward original source
o Participation in violent sports make people MORE aggressive
o So Freud was incorrectagain
So: Venting is NOT A reliable way to reduce anger
Well what does work?
o Sounds corny, but its true: count to 10
o Explaining/communicating emotion to other person, not
venting
o Self awareness
o Diffusion of anger through apology
A preliminary remarks about media effects and violence
Does playing violent video games make people more violent?
o A lot of teen boys play violent video games dont turn out to
be mass murderers
Representative experimental study by Anderson and bushman
Stage I: Participants randomly assigned to play violent video game
vs. golf simulation video
Stage 2: (ostensibly unrelated) competition with opponent in
laboratory, with option to punish him/her on each trial
Dependent variable: duration and intensity of white noise bursts
Everyone acted in a more aggressive way
Correlational approaches
Examined correlation between amount of time playing violent video
games (outside of a laboratory) and aggressive delinquent
behavior (e.g. vandalism)
R= 0.46
In such experimental designs, researchers often find additive effects of
three variables
In other words, three variables contribute to aggression, working
on top of one another
o Gender (males typically more aggressive than females)
o Pre-existing trait aggression (people who score high are more
aggressive than those who score low)
o Media exposure (aggression higher when exposed to violent
content)
Rape and pornographic media
Alternative perspectives on the antecedents of aggression
The possible role of social rejection
Basic idea:
o Rejection-> threat-> psychological pain-> self-protective
motive -> aggression
Frustration-aggression hypothesis
Original version of theory
o Frustration-> aggression
Levels of aggression related to:
o How desirable the goal was
o How much the goal has been thwarted
o Past history of having the goal thwarted
o How close the person was to achieving the goal
A threshold model of aggression
Not a formal theory, just a way of understanding how things can
lead to behavior
The aggression tank
o The more its filled, the more likely you are to act in an
aggressive manner
o Gender
If youre male, your aggression tank is higher
o Personality
o Recent experience with violent video games
o Adding to the tank of aggressiveness could make it more
likely that you reach a critical threshold of aggression needed
to elicit a particular aggressive act (e.g. yelling at the clerk in
a store)
In theory, at least, any given person has his or her own
thresholds for certain aggressive acts
o But these thresholds are likely to be very different for
different people
warning!
o This is NOT a formal model of aggression; this vastly
oversimplifies many things
o Rather, this is merely to highlight a number of general ideas:
build up effects
thresholds for action
individual differences
within-culture differences: the culture of honor
the culture of honor
o a culture that is defined by strong concerns about ones own
and others REPUTATIONS, leading to sensitivity to slights
and insults and greater willingness to use violence to avenge
perceived wrongs or insults
o The Duel
Although duels are no longer common (at least as they
once existed) the culture of honor can be seen in other
aspects of our society (past & present)
Overall, there is one segment of our society, in which,
historically, one can see lingering evidence of the
culture of honor: the south (and southwest).
o Blumenthal et al.
To what extent does a man have the right to
Kill another man in self efense
Nonsouth-> 57%
South -> 70%
Kill another person oto defend his family
Nonsouth-. 67%
South -> 80%
Kill a person to defend his house
Nonsouth-> 18%
South -> 60%
Extensions of the culture of honor construct
o sins of the father scenarios
jealousy
male sexual jealousy
o almost half of the 1156 women murdered in NYC between
1990-1994 were killed by husbands or boyfriends
o male sexual jealousy appears to be key factor in spouse
abuse
Daly & Wilson (1988) argued that males will use
violence and threats as strategies to limit their partners
autonomy and so decrease the chance of infidelity.
o Spousal homicide is common, especially for women who
Have left their partners
Have threatened to do so
Have been suspected of planning or actually committing
adultery
Sexual jealousy- an evolutionary explanation of the differences
beween male and female
o Sex differences in jealousy
Threats to ancestral man
Cuckoldry
The possibility that you (the man) are
unwittingly investing parental effort in
offspring that are not your own
Uncertainty in paternity
Extending scare resources on another mans
offspring
Threats to ancestral woman
Lost of resources because of cheating mate
Loss of emotional involvement
o Scenario
What would upset or distress you more
Discovering that your partner is forming a deep
emotional attachment an confiding and sharing
confidences with another person
Or
Discovering your partner is having mind blowing
sex with another person
Forced choice method
70% of women indicate emotional infidelity to be more
disturbing
40-60% of men report sexual infidelity would be worse





Book notes

Hostile aggression
Behavior motivated by feelings of anger and hostility and whose
primary aim is to harm another, either physically or psychologically
Genocide in Rwanda
Instrumental aggression
Behavior that is intended to harm another in the service of motives
than pure hostility
People harm others to gain status, attract attention, acquire wealth,
advance political and idealogical causes
Many acts of aggression involve a mix of hostile and instrumental motives
Situational determinants of aggression
Certain circumstances and situations release peoples aggressive
tendencies
Factors that give rise to violence
Heat
o Anger literally raises the temperature of the body because of
increases in blood pressure and the distribution of blood to
certain parts of the body, such as the hands
o As the temperature of the earth rises, people might expect to
see increases in violence throughout the world
o Misattribution perspective
People are aroused by the heat, but they are largely
unaware that it is the source of their arousal
They blame the person, not realizing its the heat
o Another possibility: heat triggers not just undifferentiated
arousal, but specific feelings of anger in particular
Media violence
o Exposure to media violence increases aggressive behavior
o Copycat violence
Imitation of specific violent acts depicted in the media
o People tend to be more aggressive after seeing films in which
they identify with the perpetrator of the violent act
o People are also more likely to be aggressive after watching
violent films that portray justified violence- that is violence
perpetrated against bad people
o When participants are led to direct their attention away from
the aggressive content of the violent film they are less likely
to be aggressive
Violent video games
o Increases aggressive behavior
o Reduces prosocial behavior, such as helping or altruism
o Increases aggressive thoughts
o Increases aggressive emotions
o Increases blood pressure and heart rate, physiological
responses associated with fighting and fleeing
Social rejection and aggression
Hearing someone gossip about us, seeing an acquaintances
sneer or a contemptuous eye roll acquired the power to
trigger this threat defense system and its associated feelings
and tendencies, including the tendency to act aggressively
o Chronic social rejection sets in motion a set of feelings that
can lead to extreme aggression
o Social rejection stimulates feelings of pain
o Social rejection increases likelihood of aggression
o People who report a chronic sense of rejection are more likely
to act aggressively in their romantic relationships, even
resorting or physical abuse
Income inequality

Construal processes and aggression

The frustration-aggression hypothesis
Frustration
o The internal state that accompanies the thwarting of an
attempt to achieve some goal
Individuals act aggressively when they feel thwarted in their
attempt to reach that goal
Aggression increases in direct proportion to
o The amount of satisfaction the person anticipates receiving
from meeting the goal (before it is blocked)
o How completely the person is prevented from achieving the
goal
o How frequently the person is blocked from achieving the goal
o How close the individual believes he or she is to achieving the
goal
Target who was second in line and was cut by confederate was
much more aggressive in response to the confederate who cut in
line than the person who was 12
th
in line
Critiques
o 1
st
criticism has called into question the hypothesis that all
aggressive behaviors follow from frustration, or the perceived
thwarting of goal-directed activity
o 2
nd
critique is that frustration does not necessarily lead to
aggression -> frustration can lead to other responses,
depending on how the individual construes the source of
frustration
learned helplessness
passive and depressed responses that individuals
show when their goals are blocked and they feel
that they have no control over their outcomes
A neo-associationistic account of aggression
Its not just having our goals blocked that leads to aggression; it is
how we interpret the events that seem to have prevented us from
reaching those goals
Acts that we construe as intentionally harmful are more likely to
make us aggressive than equally harmful acts that we construe as
accidental
Aversive event (pain, heat, goals blocked) -> anger (perceived
injustice, thoughts of attack, elevated arousal) -> aggression
(attacking physically, harming someone emotionally)
Weapons and violence
Guns serve as powerful cues that prime anger-related construals
In experiment, participants who were primed to violent
thinking/were shocked more in turn shocked the experimenter more
Culture and aggression

Culture of honor
A culture that is defined by its members strong concerns about
their own and others reputations, leading to sensitivity to slights
and insults and a willingness to use violence to avenge any
perceived wrong or insult
Prevalent in the U.S. South
Cohen and Nisbett found that some southern employers actually
expressed a good deal of warmth toward a potential job applicant
who confessed to having been convicted of manslaughter after
defending his honor
Members of cultures of honor were frequently herding cultures in
the past
Rape-prone cultures
They used rape as
o An act of war against enemy women
o A rituall act- as part of a wedding ceremony or of an
adolescent males rite of passage to adulthood
o A threat against women so that they will remain subservient
to men
Rape-prone cultures were more likely to have high levels of
violence, a history of frequent warfare, and an emphasis on
machismo and male toughness
Rape is more prevalent in cultures whose women have lower status
Evolution and aggression

Violence in stepfamilies
Inclusive fitness
o The evolutionary tendency to look out for ourselves, our
offspring, and our close relatives together with their offspring,
so that our genes will survive and be passed on in future
generations
Relations between stepparents and stepchildren tend to be more
distant and conflict laden, and less committed and satisfying than
relations between parents and their genetic offspring
Gender and aggression
Women see to exceed men in relational aggression
o They gossip, form alliances, and exclude others
o Hurtful emotionally
Men have greater levels of physical aggression
Men are 20 times as likely to kill other men as women are to kil
other women

Conflict and peacemaking

Misperception
Dehumanization
o The tendency to attribute nonhuman characteristics to groups
other than ones own- for example, by referring to them as
rats, dogs, pigs, or vermin
They tend to think of their own group as moral and good, and the
other side as immoral and evil
This is bad, because it
o Justifies aggression
o Leads opponents to overlook areas of agreement with each
other
Reactive devaluation
o The tendency to attach less value to an offer in a negotiation
once the opposing group makes it
Simplistic reasoning and rhetoric
The complexity of a position in a conflict is defined by two qualities
o The level of differentiation, or the number of principles and
arguments in the position
o The level of integration or connections drawn between the
different principles and arguments
o Simplistic reasoning can lead to simplistic rhetoric which can
contribute to escalating conflicts on the international stage
Communication and reconciliation
Simply allowing adversaries to communicate reduces levels of
competition and aggression and increases the chances of finding
satisfying resolutions to many kinds of conflict
Moving toward a less violent world
We are enjoying one of the least aggressive, most cooperative
periods in human history
One explanation for our broad cultural shifts in violence and the
more humane treatment of our foes
o The world has become substantially more interconnected: our
interests are more intertwined with those of people from
other communities, states and nations
o This expanding interdependence has given rise to greater
cooperation among nations, states, and communities
Cooperation has short-circuited more aggressive tendencies and
given rise to greater prosocial behavior.
Altruism and Cooperation 4/22/2014 8:08:00 AM
Chapter 14

Class notes

Altruism
Commonly defined as selfless concern for the welfare of others
Models of altruism
Social rewards motive
o Being altruistic helping others can often yield extrinsic
rewards for the self
Personal distress model
o We may help others to alleviate our own distress
Emphatic concern motive
o The more pure form of altruism
Is there a genetic basis for seemingly pure levels of altruism? (altruistic
behavior that puts the self at grave harm with no apparent personal benefit)
How can evolutionary theory explain such actions?
How can evolutionary theory explain any action that seemingly
reflects selfless
The Selfish Gene View
According to Richard Dawkins, apparent acts of self-sacrifice can be
seen as ultimately selfish from the standpoint of your genes
S ,this puts the apparently self-sacrificing behavior of the father
in a new light!
o So by sacrificing his own life to save the life of his son, one
could argue that this act is selfish from the standpoint of
ones own genes
o In other words, the father is, in a sense, attempting to
preserve the life of his own genetic codes, which are sternly
shared with his son
o It is the fathers genes that are programmed t survive, not
the fathers individual body per se
o This gene-centered view is sometimes referred to as the kin
selection perspective
Caveat (1)
o No one is suggesting that altruism is completely under control
of genetics. Social learning/norms play an important role too
Caveat (2)
o Its not simply a matter of predicting self sacrifice whenever
you share a great deal of genetic overlap with someone
o Most theorists would agree that the programming of our
genes is contextualized within the overall goal for replication
which we accomplish (in our lumbering-robot sort of way)
through various behaviors such as sex and child rearing, etc
Situational determinants of altruism: the legacy of the kitty Genovese case
The bystander intervention effect
o Involves at least 3 distinct components
Attention
People may not notice the emergency
Construal
People may not necessarily interpret it as an
emergency, as such
Diffusion of responsibility
Even if people notice, and do construe it as an
emergency, they may infer that someone else has
already done something
o Five crucial stages to L&D model
Notice the event?
Does the person notice that something unusual is
taking place?
The good Samaritan study
Interpret the event as an emergency?
Pluralistic ignorance
Special case of conformity (informational)
The smoke-filled room study
Assume responsibility?
Diffusion of responsibility
The seizure study
Know the appropriate form of assistance?
Implement decision to act?
All 5 stages need to be met or else no assistance is
rendered?

Situational determinants of altruism: urban vs rural settings
People are friendlier and more likely to help in rural settings
Why are people more likely to help in rural areas?
o Socialization hypothesis
o Urban overload hypothesis
Population density matters
On the role of gender
Women are more likely to receive help from others
o Especially if shes attractive and dressed in more feminine
ways
o People may assume women may need more help than men
o Male helpers may be more willing to help an attractive woman
bc offering help may be a way to get romantically involved
with her
Inclusive fitness and kin selection, redux
Kin selection, selfish gene evolutionary approach -> all the same
o Food selection is more common amongst close relatives
o Political alliances between kin are more stable than those
formed between distantly related or unrelated individuals
o The passing on of wealth to lineal descendants (excluding
spouses) is far more common than giving to less closely
related or unrelated individuals
o Close relatives are preferentially sought out in times of need
and such help is likely to be reciprocal
o Relatives typically receive more expensive presents
o How much pain will you suffer for your kin?
o Facial similarity and trust
o Human adoption


Book notes

Altruism
Unselfish behavior that benefits others without regard to
consequences for the self
When do we act altruistically, and when dont we?

Emphatic concern: a case of pure altruism
First selfish motive: social rewards motive
o Benefits like praise, positive attention, tangible rewards,
honors, and gratitude that may be gained from helping others
Second selfish motive: personal distress
o A motive for helping those in distress that may arise from a
need to reduce our own distress
Emphatic concern
o Identifying with another person-feeling and understanding
what that person is experiencing- accompanied by the
intention to help the person in need
Empathy vs. personal distress
Empathic concern and volunteerism
o Feelings of empathic concern and sympathy increase the
likelihood that people will act altruistically, helping those who
suffer
o Volunteerism
Nonmonetary assistance an individual regularly provides
to another person or group with no expectation of
compensation

Situational determinants of Altruism
The later you are, the less likely you are to help
Bystander intervention
o Giving assistance to someone in need on the part of those
who have witnessed an emergency. Bystander intervention is
generally reduced as the number of observers increases,
because each person feels that someone else will probably
Diffusion of responsibility
o A reduction of the sense of urgency to help someone involved
in an emergency or dangerous situation under the assumption
that others who are also observing the situation will help
Presence of friends increase altruistic action
People are most likely to help when the harm to the victim is clear
and the need is unambiguous
The greater the costs associated with helping, the less likely people
are to act altruistically
Women tend to receive more help than men
o more attractive women and women dressed in conventionally
feminine attire tend to receive more help from passersby
people are more likely to help similar others , including those from
their own racial or ethnic group
construal processes and altruism
helping in ambiguous situations
o when youre not sure whether the situation is dangerous or
not, you tend to ignore it
o pluralistic ignorance occurs when people are uncertain about
what is happening and assume that nothing is wrong bc no
one else is responding or appears concerned
combating pluralistic ignorance
o bystanders are less likely to fall prey to pluralistic ignorance
when they can clearly see one anothers initial expressions of
concern
o how to get help
make your need clear : Ive twisted my ankle and I
cant walk, I need help
select a specific person: you there, can you help me?
doing so you prevent people from concluding there is no
real emergency (thereby eliminating the effect of
pluralistic ignorance), and you prevent them from
thinking that someone else will help (thereby
overcoming diffusion of responsibility)
culture and atruism
altruism in urban and rural settings
o people in rural areas report higher levels of empathic concern
social class and altruism
o individuals who have less give more, at least in terms of the
proportion of their income that they give away to charity
religion, ethics, and altruism
o emphasis on fairness and cooperation and equality, seen In
both religious traditions and secular treatments of ethics, can
do a great deal to elicit prosocial behavior
evolution and altruism
Kin selection
o The tendency for natural selection to favor behaviors that
increase the chances of survival of genetic relatives
o You help your kin
Reciprocity
o Reciprocal altruism
The tendency to help others with the expectation that
they are likely to help us in return at some future time
Reduces the likelihood of dangerous conflict, helps
overcome problems arising from scarce resources, ad
offers a basis for individuals to form alliances and
constrain more dominant individual
Cooperation
Prisoners dilemma game
o Cooperate vs deflect
Situational determinants of cooperation
o The cooperative or competitive outcomes in your relationships
may, without your knowledge, depend as much or more on
your behavior as on the behavior of the people you deal with.
o Competitive people crate more competitive interactions and
thus come to construe their counterparts as also being
competitive
Reputation
The beliefs, evaluations, and impressions people hold
about an individual within a social network
Construal processes and cooperation
o Exposure to the hostile words affected the participants
actions
o Competitive and aggressive images may foster a more
competitive society
Culture and cooperation
o Interdependence increases peoples cooperation and
generosity
Evolution and cooperation: tit for tat
o Tit for tat strategy
A strategy in which the individuals first move is
cooperative and thererafter the individual mimics the
other persons behavior, whether cooperative or
competitive
Five factors make it especially compelling
Its cooperative
Encourages mutually supportive action
toward a shared goal
It is not envious
It is not exploitable
It is not blindly prosocial. If you defect on
the tit-for-tat, it will defect on you
It forgives
Willing to cooperate at the first cooperative
action of its partner, even after long runs of
defection & competition
Easy to read
It should not take long for others to know
that the tit-for-tat strategy is being played