Psychology 220

TT1 Lecture Notes

<Social Psychology>
Social psychology- scientific study of the reciprocal influence
of the individual and his or her social environment.
o A foothold in abstract theory and concrete practice
Psychology outcome by chance or a real phenomenon
Beliefs, feelings attitudes and emotions affect behaviors which
reflects on other people. This all occurs in the head (BAEF)
Social psychology is not chemistry or physics, we traffic
probabilities, likelihood and correlations rather than
absolute laws.
Variability of human behavior is possible to extract some basic
patterns of the behavior.
Social psychology tests peoples intuition
Social psychology isnt hindsight biased
Intuitions must be tested against empirical data, because
sometimes two opposing clichs may seem equally intuitive
Case study
o Scenario: Rolling Cigars with 20 other people
o Objective: will individual rolling increase the cigar output or
group work
o Options: 1. More people, more competition therefore better
result 2. More people more anonymity, easier for the
person to perform worse
o Results: relied on social facilitation
<Social Facilitation>
Triplett- fishing reel experiment, who reels faster? Individual
effort or with others present triplett affect wasnt successful
Zajonc stated presence of others increases arousal- which
works by energizing a dominant response
Arousal energizes human and all other living organisms and
facilitates the dominant response. Arousal activates the thoughts
and motor responses that are the most practiced
Dominant response- the behavior that comes most quickly and
easily given a particular stimulus - +ve are for the better, -ve
for the worse the thought thats on the top of your head
On a well learned task, the dominant response is the correct
response
On a poorly learned task, the dominant response is likely to be
correct

According to Zajonc: an audience should improve your

performance on tasks that are easy for someone and hamper
your performance on tasks that are more difficult
When audience is blind folded, social facilitation exists, audience
reacts (evaluated), Cottrell: evaluation apprehension, this way
only works with a certain threat to the audience
Case Study (Barron- distraction conflict)
o Scenario: coach roaches in an easy and a hard maze
o Objective: to see if audience can hurt or not hurt the
behavior with the independent variables of: easy/hardpresence of other cockroaches which claims as an
evidence of social facilitation
o Result: with an easy maze, with audience, the cockroaches
performed better, but for the hard maze, with audience
they performed worse
Comparison of social facilitation theories
o Zajonc
Is it social? Yes
Is mere presence sufficient? Yes
o Cottrel
Is it social? Yes
Is mere presence sufficient? No
o Barron
Is it social? No
Is mere presence sufficient? Yes
Arousal is active aka this can be cooled
Larger the group, diminishing of the return
<Social Loafing>
The whole is less than the sum of the parts
Social loafing occurs initially with two possible explanations
o Groups less coordinated
o People try less hard in groups
Latane: screaming in a room experiment as a team/individual
o With one people, 82%
o 5 other, 74%
6 things that reduces social loafing are: identifiability,
importance of task, own efforts necessary for successful
outcome, threat of punishment for poor performance, small
group, group cohesiveness
Social compensation- collective effort model
o Big tradeoff: effort is fatiguing but success is desired.
People seek to optimize the ratio between their input and
the groups output
<Group Decision Making>

Group polarization effect- group discussion amplifies initial

group inclination, whether risky or conservative
3 things create group polarization
o Greater number of arguments in favor of one position
o Informational influence may solidify ideas that used to be
vague
o Social categorization: clear boundaries drawn between
Ingroup and Outgroup
Group polarization also appeared in laboratory situations: this is
done when the participants opinions are not told ingroup and
out group can cause this
Group think- an excessive tendency which is suboptimal to
seek agreement among group members
Group think likely when: similar backgrounds, isolated (influences
of media), strong leader, lacking systematic decision making
procedures, and high stress
Eight symptoms [pluralistic inheritance]: illusion of vulnerability,
collective efforts to rationalize, unquestioned belief in groups
inherent morality, stereotyped view of enemy leaders as weak or
stupid, direct pressure on dissenters to comply with the group,
self censorship of deviations from group consensus, shared
illusions of unanimity, emergence of self appointed mind guards
to screen the group from adverse information
<Group performance vs. Individual Performance>
Additive Task (Steiner): product is sum of all members
contributions
o Result: Groups>Individuals
Conjunctive Task: product is determined by individual with worst
performance
o Result: Groups <Individuals
Disjunctive Task: product is determined by individual with best
performace
o Result: Mixed
<Brainstorming>
Mullen et all stated brainstorming isnt a good idea and its
only as effective
o This was because due to
Production blocking (we are so preoccupied)
Free riding (social loafing)
Evaluation apprehension (controls model of social
affiliation)
Performance matching (group standards)
But brainstorming is enjoyable and is a morale booster, hence
our sense seem like its a fact

<Conformity>
Sherifs Basic Finding of Autokinetic effect: divergent but groups
eventually converged (power of the norm), wheter its settled,
people go with the group norm, group norm can be maintained
arbitrarily
Conformity can be explained in two different reasons:
o Informational
Useful consensus info
Taking norm as an input from ones consensus
o Normative
Conforming due to fear of rejection
Informational influence- the group adds additional information
beyond what is provided by your senses
Normative influence- fear of being ostracized by the group
Informational- tends to yield true (persuation) private
acceptance of majority view
Normative- tends to yield superficial, public acceptance of
majority view
o Driving force
Group size, awareness of norm (high possibility of pluralistic
ignorance), moderates the effect
Case Study (Princeton Drinking Study)
o Students thoughts on their alcohol range was significantly
lower compared to what they have told the others to be
o This showed that men were bigger conformist than women
when it comes to binge drinking
o The lesson: people want to conform to the norm, but
sometimes they mis identify the norm and engage in
misguided conformity
Misguided Conformity- nonexistent conformity
<Obedience to Authority>
Authority- the power to influence or control based on social
norms, traditions, values and rules that prescribe that one has
the right to such power
Refer back to the Milgram data
o No gender differences were present in this study, are we
closet nazzis?
o Refer to the graph from class
Legitimacy immediacy personal response
Refer back to milgram and the holocaust
<Altruism>
Is there such thing as true altruism?
o People help because: learning, arousal, norm

<By

Modeling and persuasion

Behaviorism- helping is the by-product of the individuals
conditioning history. altruism Vs. prosocial behavior
Arousal Model- arousal labeling that arousal with a particular
emotion the label thats generated is cued by situational
features
o Cialdini et al, found that people are less likely to help
someone if immediately before the opportunity to help
they receive praise or money or if people are led to believe
that helping does not improve mood- aka Cialdini didnt
believe in shit like altruism
Empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson)- negative state relief
does occur, but so can perspective taking, which leads to
empathic concern, there are individual differences: for a certain
subset of subjects receiving rewards before the helping
opportunity did not diminish their likelihood of helping
Batson believes in altruism upon arrival, PS told that
upcoming study involves peoples task performance under
unpleasant
Refer to the Batson Experiment Graph
o Perception that someone can lead to perspective taking
empathy reduces others OR can lead to not PT
personal Recue own
Extrinsic motivation isnt a good motivation
Stander Inactions>
5 steps- noticing, interpreting, diffusion of responsibility,
determining course of action, providing help
Smaller the group the higher chance it was for the bystander
effect to decrease aka people helped more
Social responsibility norm- people are supposed to help
others who are needy or dependent
Equity/reciprocity norm- people will help those who have
helped them
Most of the time the norm of reciprocity and the norm of
justice
Whom do we help?
o People who are attractive
o Likeability
o Simialrity
o Closeness

Lecture Notes

Stimulus Behavior
Social cognition: Stimulus Cognitive, affective, Behavior
Motivational mechanisms
Mind information processor how far can we push this
analogy?? What are the building blocks of social thought?
Social cognition (borrowing heavily from cognitive psychology)
has become the dominant paradigm in social psych in the past
20 years.
Concept: A unit of knowledge (usually about a category)
o One of the building blocks that has been isolated, its also
one way to extract meaning of our world this is also
considered as a schema
o These are not accurate example of this would be
stereotype
Concepts do
o Reduce the amount of processing we need to do
when there is too much information available.
o Add information when there is too little available.
o Guide attention, interpretation.
Human Beings are cognitive namer
Results of Bransford & Johnson (1973): when a concept is
given, it is easier to understand
o # Of ideas recalled when there are [Encoding vs.
Retrieval]
No instructions: 2.8
Washing clothes (before reading): 5.8 this also
boosted memory because it occurred while
encoding information
Washing clothes (after reading): 2.7
o Bottom line: Category guides your interpretation and aids
in comprehension.
Different concepts applied to the same stimulus input can lead to
dramatically different interpretations & behavior:
o E.g., features of a house from the perspective of
homebuyer vs. burglar.
o E.g., Man crying (did a loved one die or did he win the
lottery?
o Ambiguous behavior of African-American vs. Caucasian
person.
Duncan (1976):
o White subjects watched videotape of two men in a
discussion. The discussion gets heated. They begin
shouting. One man shoves the other.

o At this point, the tape is stopped, and subjects are asked to

characterize what just happened.
What subjects didnt know: There were two versions
of the tape: in one the shover was Black, in the
other, shover was White.
o Bottom line: Incoming information is assimilated into the
concept that is activated.
There are severe costs of using concepts and social categories
(stereotypes, lazy thinking).
There are also clear benefits: solidify/reify ambiguous information
& conserve cognitive resources.
Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen (1994).
o Procedures: Participants asked to read information about
several social targets presented on a computer screen
while at the same time listening to an audiotape playing
completely unrelated material. Either John then list of
traits (3 seconds each) or John-skinhead John-artist
John-doctor then traits. 10 traits presented five were
stereotype consistent (aggressive creative caring). 5
traits were neutral. In headphones, someone reading a
passage about the geography and economy of Indonesia
(something no one would have prior knowledge about).
o DVs: Cued recall task-each target name written on top of
paper and they were to recall and correctly attribute as
many traits as they could. Also: Given a written quiz about
Indonesia to test whether they were listening to the
passage.
o Results: Subjects for whom a stereotype was provided
recalled twice as many traits as those without:
Consistent: Sterotype present 4.42 & Stereotype
Absent 2.08
Neutral: Sterotype present 1.83 & Stereotype
Absent 1.33
If stereotypes represent a useful means for economizing
cognition, then those for whom a stereotype was activated
should have more resources available for the listening task. DV:
questions answered correctly:
o Present: 8.75 > Absent: 6.66
Concept is often a shortcut to an understanding Human mind is
limited
WHAT ARE THE PRINCIPLES OF CONCEPT ACTIVATION?
What variables make a concept more likely to be activated?
o Salience & accessibility
Sublimely primal disambiguates ambiguous statements

Temporary accessibility: some thing that can be primed

Chronic accessibility personality related
Temporary vs. chronic accessibility. In principle they work the
same Accessibility doesnt care where it comes from. -T.
Higgins
Stereotypes also influence how we understand different traits.
Stereotypes can influence how we understand other stereotypes.
E.g, Harvard-educated carpenter.
Bruner & Postman (1948)poor vs. rich children asked to
estimate (by drawing) the size of a quarter.
o Results: Poor kids drew much bigger circles (measured by
their diameters).
Is Colin Fenton famous?
o Jacoby et al. (1989):
Subjects merely pronounced list of 40 nonfamous
names. Either immediately afterwards or 24 hours
later, subjects asked to determine from a large list of
names (that included the previous, pronounced
words) who was famous and who was not.
o Results: More errors in the nonfamousfamous direction
for pronounced words.
Encoding is after the delay only
How incoming information is encoded: Hamilton, Katz & Leier
(1980).
o subjects read 30 behaviors describing a target person. Half
explicitly told to form an impression half told to
memorize the list of behaviors. After a delay, recall as
many behaviors as possible.
o WHICH GROUP DISPLAYED BETTER MEMORY FOR THE
BEHAVIORS?
o Counterintuitive results were shown because in the
impression set condition youre thinking about why
Related to chunking- when information has
structure it is easier to remember
Asch (1946): Are there lawful principles that govern the
formation of impressions about people?
o Aschs approach: Make models that are simpler, yet
reflective of messy real life. (e.g., trait list paradigm)
Elegant control and manipulation. From one study to the
next, he made minute changes in the paradigm and
eventually certain regularities or laws were uncovered.
o Aschs insight: In impression formation, the whole is
different from the sum of the parts.
Impressions are coherent. Impressions are concepts.

Evidence: The primacy effect.

Impressions, once formed, have a life of their own: People are
able to remember their impression of someone long after the
specific behaviors are long forgotten (Carlson, 1980).
Because impressions are somewhat independent of the actual
evidence, they are difficult to overturn.
Two ways of forming an impression: On-line (as its happening)
vs. memory-based.
o Hastie & Park (1986):
Randomly assigned subjects to either on-line or
memory-based conditions.
On-line subjects told to form their impression as
they went, updating as they go along. Memorybased only asked for their impression after reading
the sentences.
Ordered mattered for online participants
because you have to update huge primacy
effect
Found that subjects who had viewed the exact same
sentences reached very different judgments of the
target. For the mem-based subjects, judgment
correlated with recall, for online, judgment not
correlated with recall. Can you explain why? For
online, order mattered, for mem-based order didnt
matter. Can you explain why? Impressions are
hard to forget whereas behaviors are easy to
forge
How do people handle unexpected information about
someone?
o Logically, there are three possibilities:
More attention and scrutiny to unexpected info
Less attention and scrutiny to unexpected info
No more or less attention and scrutiny to unexpected
info
Hastie and Kumar (1979)
o Told participants that a certain person was intelligent.
o Then they presented participants with a list of behaviors
performed by the person, an equal amount of intelligent
behaviors (won a chess tournament), unintelligent
behaviors (made the same mistake three times) and
behaviors that had nothing to do with intelligence (took
the elevator to the third floor).
o After a long delay they asked participants to recall as many
behaviors as they could.

o Results: Irrelevant: 4.2 < Consistent 5.0 < Inconsistent

5.9
Why? Yet people clearly sometimes prefer consistent info, too
in accord with assimilation to a concept idea!
So when do people devote more cog resources to consistent and
when to inconsistent?
o Stangor & McMillan (1992): GOAL Accurate Impression
incongruency effect Good enough impression
congruency effect
WHY? Plaks et al. (2001): IMPLICIT THEORIES:
o ENTITY congruency effect
o INCREMENTAL incongruency effect
o Another variable that predicts congruency vs.
incongruency: familiarity
STANGOR & RUBLE (1989)
o Ps read behavioral descriptions of members of 2 college
fraternities, one frat mostly extraverted, one mostly
introverted. Beforehand, of Ps saw a presentation
containing 30 behaviors performed by one of the frats. All
Ps saw a presentation of 60 behaviors by both frats (30
each). Later memory recall task.
o Results: congruent information- we measure these beliefs
through questions
The Rationality Assumption:
o Are people truly rational actors?
o Human decision-making often deviates from what a
computer would do, but these deviations themselves
are typically not random, but instead are lawful.
o Pioneers of research of humans lawful no rationality:
o Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.
THE REPRESENTATIVE HEURISTIC: people judge accordingly to
probability
People often judge the likelihood of an event based on
prototypicality.
Tversky & Kahneman: People drastically under-use base rates in
their decision-making.
Example: Jack is a 45-year-old man. He is married and has 4
children. He is generally conservative, careful and ambitious.
He shows no interest in political and social issues and spends
most of his free time on his many hobbies which include home
carpentry, sailing and mathematical puzzles. Is Jack a lawyer or
an engineer?
Half of the subjects told that the sample consisted of 70 es and
30 ls, half told 30 esand 70 ls.

A related heuristic fallacy the conjunction fallacy.

o Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright.
She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply
concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice,
and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
Which of the following is more probable?:
(a) L is a bank teller (b) L is a bank teller and active
in the feminist movement.
o One reason why the RH is so pervasive is that people dont
understand the difference between big and small numbers.
Factors that can improve peoples probability judgments:
o Hi knowledge of the domain in question.
o More simply, clearly stated (Ginossar & Trope, 1987 turned
lawyer/engineer problem into a fun and engaging card
game and improved subjects performance.)
o When choices are more clearly distinguished (hospital
problem with 45 and 2 births per day rather than 45 and
15).
o Hi self-relevance
o Contextual cues increasing the salience of chance factors
THE AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC (should be called the accessibility
heuristic): Outcomes that more quickly and readily pop into
mind are thought to occur more frequently.
o For example: In the English language are there more
words that start with the letter R or have R as the third
letter?
Correct answer: Ease of retrieval is assumed to
reflect that actual state of affairs (I can think of Rstarting words more easily because there probably
are more R-starting words.). But in reality, the ease
of retrieval is often unrelated to whats actually out
there in the world.
One manifestation of AH: Egocentric biases.
o Example: Who does more housework? (Ross & Sicoly
found that husbands and wives estimates add up to
greater than 100%)
What variables contribute to AH? A key variable: salience.
Taylor & Fiske (1975), Arrangement of room: Subjects 1 and 2
only saw back of D1s head, but saw D2 in full view. Subjects 3
and 4 only saw back of D2s head but saw D1 in full view.
o All subjects asked: Who contributed more to the
discussion?
Results: D2 egocentric - more readily and easily available
ILLUSORY CORRELATION (Hamilton & Gifford, 1976)

o The results: Group A had a higher positive and negative

effect compared to group B- this has been replicated
hundreds of times- robust and repeatable
Why? Salience + AH:
o The Group B-Negative cell has the least amount of
behaviors, i.e., it is the most rare occurrence of the four
possibilities.
o Occurrences that are rare tend to leave a stronger
impression.
o Events that leave a stronger impression tend to be easier
to remember.
o Therefore: Because Group B-negative behaviors are
easier to remember, people mistake that ease of retrieval
for fact and rate Group B overall more negatively than
Group A
Salience accessibility easier to retrieve IC
Salience and AH occurrence that are rare its more salient more
clear on the positive
Schwartz et al
o Extroversion and introversion study
o Results: counteractive, people who came up with 3
reasons why theyre extraverted, they rated themselves
higher than the ones who had to come up with, 10 reasons
why they were extraverted
ANCHORING AND ADJUSTMENT HEURISTIC
o The heuristic: In the face of an uncertain estimation,
people will use any number provided, even if its arbitrary,
to calibrate their scale. In other words, when people
anchor on a certain figure, they fail to sufficiently adjust.
Their metric is off: calibrated to the number theyre given.
BELIEF PERSEVERENCE (Anderson, Lepper, & Ross, 1980):
once we decide to believe in something, we will tend to keep on
believing it
HYPOTHESIS TESTING: Humans as intuitive scientists. We
test our hypothesis against incoming data.
o Wason (1960): 3 7 D K- Every card that has a D on one
side has a 3 on the other side. Which two cards do you
have to turn over to verify the truth of this statement?
Answer: 7 and D
o People focus on hypothesis confirmation, at the
expense of hypothesis disconfirmation when both
are needed.
o What improves performance on the Wason Task?
Expertise.

Information-seeking bias: What kinds of questions do you

ask? Snyder & Swann (1978):
o Half of the subjects were told that their task was to
determine whether the person waiting in the other room
was an extravert, half told introvert.
o Were allowed to select which questions to pose toward the
other person from a pool of 26 questions: 11 extravert
questions (e.g., What would you do if you wanted to liven
things up at a party?), 11 introvert questions (e.g., What
factors make it hard for you to really open up to people?)
and 5 nondescript questions.
Snyder & Swann, Study 2:
o Had subjects actually pose the questions they selected to a
real person.
o Each interview was taped.
o Then separate sets of subjects (who were blind to the
hypotheses, of course) were asked to judge whether the
person being interviewed was an introvert or an extravert.
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY: when an originally false belief about
a person leads to that person acting in accord with that belief (so
that the belief no longer appears false).
AKA The Pygmalion Effect
o Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968):
R & J led teachers to believe that some students in
their classes were late bloomers i.e., destined to
show dramatic increases in IQ over the school year.
In fact, (and this is crucial!) these students had been
selected at random.
Three steps to the SFP: perceivers must develop erroneous
expectancy; perceivers expectancy must influence how they act
toward targets; target must react to the perceivers behavior in a
manner that confirms the original false expectancy.
How do teachers respond when they hold high vs. low
expectancy of target?
o Warmer emotional support; more time and attention;
provide more opportunities for target to perform and learn
difficult material; clearer and more constructive feedback.
What are some moderators (i.e., what makes the
effect more or less likely to happen)?
On the perceiver end
o (1) Perceivers goal: if goal is to form a
stable and predictable impression, more
likely- if goal is to form an accurate
impression, less likely;

o (2) Rigidity of perceivers belief: if highly

rigid, more likely- if less rigid, less likely.
On the target end
o (1) Unclear self-concept (need others to
tell me what. Im likeweve seen this
notion before in social comparison), more
likely- clear self-concept, less likely;
o (2) age (stronger among younger
children than older except: 7th grade
(also a time of trying to figure out who
you are, again).
On the situation end
o (1) new situations (another form of
unclarity)(helps explain the 7th grade
blip, a transition to the new situation of
junior high school).
Hindsight bias: I knew it would happen all along.
o Knowledge of how an event ultimately turned out
influences your memory for your thoughts on the event
before it happened. Is it really a bias in memory?
o (People may just say they knew it all alongwithout
actually believing they knew it all along. If they actually
believe they knew it all alongthats very interesting:
suggests that it is difficult to combat the hindsight bias.)
Attribution: Foundation for more complex human behavior
(altruism, aggression) we need steps!
Perception: objects or people
o Phenomenology: one-to-one correspondence between
what I see and what is out there
o The reality: Perception is not simple, involves many steps
and is often inaccurate (thought is generally lawful).
Unconscious Inferences:
o Unconscious inferences from built in assumptions fill in
the gaps
o Without such assumptions, we would have a difficult time
making sense of the world but they can sometimes lead
to mistakes, illusions
o Person perception is like object perception in some key
ways, different in others
Heider and the Logical Attribution Approach
o 1958- the inferential processes by which we understand
people based on their behavior/appearance are similar to
how we understand objects based on their motion/
appearance

They have basic principles of casual analysis

It describe what people should do if operating optimally
Accuracy is measured scientifically
Research focused on development of rules and how people
follow/ do not follow
Principles of Casual Inference
o Attribution is vital and pervasive
o Behaviors express stable dispositions
o Attribution extracts disposition from behavior
o Attributions can be performed consciously or unconsciously
Attribution = causal analysis
Behavior is the join product of temporary and enduring causes
Behavior requires that an actor can and tries to do it
Capacity = ability + environment (e.g., throwing a frisbee into
the wind)
Motivation = strategy + effort
o
o
o
o

Attribution = implicit algebra that describes how these four

factors combine to produce behavior. We solve for the
unknown. going beyond the identifying behavior to
understanding the meaning of the behavior
Subsequent Theorizing in the Logical/Attribution Tradition
Jones and Davis: people interested in isolating dispositional
properties that distinguish one person from another
Correspondent inference occurs when behavior is unsual
Harold Kelley
The nave scientist metaphor: ordinary people use the
same logical rules in their ordinary attributions that
scientists use in testing hypotheses
Kelleys covariation Model
Nave students: is the behavior distinctive, consistent and
is there consensus about the behavior
Real studnets: does X occur only in presence of Y and not
Z, Does X always occur in presence of Y, Do others
replicate your finding
The Discounting principle
When behavior covaries with more than one potential
cause observer has less confidence in either cause
The augmentation principle: when behavior covaries with a
situational factor that increases confidence in a particular
cause
BUT: although attribution theories describe the content of
thought, they say very little about process - Cognitive

revolution: interest in metnal processes like attention,

encoding, retrieval
Basic operating sequence:
Identification of behavior attribution of dispositions
integration into impression
Identification: behavior identified in terms of actors intentions
Actors intentions are often ambiguous, although they rarely
seem to be
We are quick to make trait attributions due to: person, situation,
anchoring and adjustment heuristic
Prior behavior (additive) and current situation affects attribution
Gilbert: we might make automatic trait attributions but we are
capable of undoing them and making situation corrections
We are prevented from making situational corrections by
cognitive busyness
FAE: the tendency to over estimate the role of dispositional
causes and underestimate the role of situational causes in
explaining an actors behavior
Actor Observer Effect- people more likely to attribute their own
bad behavior to situational causes and the bad behavior of
others to dispositional factors (usually a trait).
Reverse is true: people attribute their own good behavior
to dispositional factors and the good behavior of others to
situations
When observing someone else, actor is figure, situation is ground
People have more examples in memory
GILBERTS MODEL- controlled processing is required required
more resources
(Mis)attribution and Emotion
The prevalent intuition: Charging bear Fear
Schachter & Singer (1962) (had the nerve to argue- some of our
emotional resposnes are a result of a cognitive process): Step 1:
ambiguous physiological arousal (heart rate, perspiration,
stomach clenching, etc.) Step 2: attribution that explains the
source of the arousal
RESULTS:
Euphoric Confed- Drug Informed: No effects Drug
uninformed: EuphoricPlacebo: No effects
Anger Confed- Drug Informed: No effects Drug
uninformed: Angry Placebo: No Effects
Theres no ambiguity you need to be aroused in order
to feel
Aron & Dutton (1974): The suspension bridge over Capilano
River Canyon

Attractive female asking for help on a bridge vs safe stable

bridge ppl on the wobbly bridge called the female more
misattribution of arousal
CULTURE AND PERSON COGNITION
Overarching theme of cross-cultural research: FAE much
stronger in US (and Western Europe) than rest of world.
Miller (1984): US and Indian Hindu subjects asked to
explain numerous scenarios, e.g., A university
professor stole a students idea and presented it as
his own.
Results: Americans-dispositional answers
(self-absorbed)
Indians- She was his student. She would have
not had the power to publish it on her own.
(Thus the situation is what explained the
behavior to the Hindus.)
Morris & Peng (1994): Analyzed newspaper reports
of crimes in ordinary American newspapers and
American, Chinese-language newspapers for
dispositional vs. situational explanations for the
crime.
Choi & Nisbett (1998): Replicated Jones & Harris
(1967) paradigm with American vs. Korean subjects.
Results: Both Americans and Koreans
exhibited the typical lack of situational
discounting BUT:
In one additional condition of the study, situational
information was made extra salient (described in more
detail).
Results: Both Americans & Koreans now took
situational info into accountbut Ks did
significantly more.
(Important control condition: As & Ks did not differ
in their explanations for non-social events, e.g., a
billiard ball bouncing off of a pool table cushion.)
Knowles, Morris, Chiu, & Hong (1998): Replicated Gilbert,
Pelham & Krull (1988) paradigm with American and
Chinese subjects.
Results: Americans Low Cog Load: situational
correction High Cog Load: Little situation correct
Chinese- Low Cog Load: situational correction High
Cog Load: situation correct
Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet: Subjects: English-speaking Chinese
(in H.K. & California) i.e. all subjects were bicultural.

1. Subjects randomly assigned to be surreptitiously primed

either with US symbols (Mickey Mouse, Capitol Building) or
China symbols (Great Wall, a dragon).
2. All subjects asked to explain various scenarios (e.g., why
a child misbehaved in class).
Results: those subjects who were primed with American
symbols they explained the symbols towards the
disposition whereas when primed with Chinese symbol
they explained the symbol towards the situation
Subtle prime effects only work (work better) on bicultural
subjects than unicultural subjects
Activating a part of ones identity seems to activate a way of
thinking.
AUTOMATICITY (has to occur automatically)
Schneider & Shiffrin (1977): Automatic processes: occur
outside of awareness, occur without intention (or, given an
intention to begin, carry on without intention), are efficient
(in terms of cognitive resources)
Bargh (1990): Many activities start out controlled, but become
automatized with practice.
Implicit Association Test: Measures automatic associations,
dependent variable: reaction time- pair 4 categories up in two
different ways- you cant control this
Fazio et al.: Sequential priming
Prime (Black or White face)target word (positive or
negative)was the target word positive or negative?
Results:
Kawakami et al (2000): Just as practice causes stereotypes to
be learned, practice can cause them to be unlearned.
Used classical conditioning to unlearn stereotypic
associations.
1. Ps presented with photographs of Blacks and Whites
with stereotypic or nonstereotypic trait words presented
underneath. 2. For Black-stereotypic and Whitestereotypic combinations, Ps told to say NO! outloud. For
Black-counterstereotypic and White-counterstereotypic
combinations, told to say YES! outloud. (480 trials,
approx. 45 min.) 3. Control condition: opposite
instructions.
DV: Stereotype Stroop task. (rationale: If you are
processing stereotypic content very easily, it will be harder
for you to inhibit that and name the color of the ink.)
Results: It worked and effects lasted up to 24 hours.
(SECONDARY MEASURE OF IMPLICIT ATTITUDE)

BUT: Consider other, less intensive, less brute

force methods: e.g., Jigsaw classroom,
superordinate recategorization, cooperative
interdependence) ALSO: Incremental Theory (Levy,
Stroessner, & Dweck, 1998)
If stereotyping is automaticis it inevitable? Is
discrimination legally acceptable?
Devine (1989): Stereotyping has two components: Automatic
activation and Controlled application
Activation is largely automatic, application is largely controllable
Study 1: Earlier in semester, subjects filled out Modern Racism
Scale. In experimental session, subjects (white only) asked to
(anonymously and confidentially) write down all the components
of the stereotype of African-Americans they could think of.
Study 2: 1. Subjects stared at computer screen. Asked to report
when flash appeared in corner. For of subjects, the flash
actually a subliminal prime (80 ms) of words stereotypically
having to do with African-Americans (e.g., athletic, jazz,
Harlem). Important: none of the words had to do with
aggression. Subjects read passage about Donald (race
unspecificed). Donald engaged in a series of behaviors that prior
subjects rated as slightly hostile/aggressive (e.g., Donald
demanded his money back from a store clerk immediately after a
purchase.Rated Donald on several trait scales.
Results: Rated Don more aggressive
Stereotyping inevitableoutside of awareness?
Study 3: Asked subjects to write an essay simply describing their
honest thoughts about Af-Ams. Extensive measures taken to
ensure anonymity. Essays content-analyzed for stereotypic
content by blind coders.
Devine: Important distinctions between: knowledge vs. beliefautomatic vs. controlled
Lepore and Browns 1997 critique: Devine didnt just prime
the category label black. She also used negative aspects of the
stereotype such as poor and lazy as primes. So of course the
negative stereotype was accessed given that it was primed
directly. They repeated using Devine primes [e.g. Lazy] in one
condition and a more general category prime [Black] in a second
condition.
Type of Prime:
Results: General Category
Stereotypic traits
Hi prej more aggressive attribution
more aggressive attrib
Lo prej no signif. diff
more aggressive attrib

REMEMBER: Devines original primes lead to her results of no diff

betw high/low prej subjects.
PLANT & DEVINE (1998, 2001): Distinction between
internal and external motives to control prejudice and
stereotypes.
o Internal Motive Scale =IMS
o External Motive Scale=EMS
E.G. Items: I attempt to act nonprejudiced towards blacks
because it is personally important to me. [versusin order to
avoid disapproval from others.]
IMS and EMS are related to other prej scales and to measures of
self presentation.
Predictions: Those who are High IMS will try to control prej
regardless of scrutiny.
Those who are High EMS but Low IMS will only try to control prej
in public or under scrutiny. These folks will also be most resentful
and reactive regarding PC pressure to be nice.
Plant and Devine {1998} developed scale and test public private
predictions.
Wegner: Ironic rebound effect: The more we try to suppress a
thought, the more it plagues us.
o WHY? Accessibility and cognitive load
o Process model: Intentional (controlled) search for
distracters - Automatic search for examples of unwanted
target (metacognition)
o (BIG IRONY: In order to avoid something, you have to be
constantly vigilant for its presence!)
Early warning system thought that looks at our thought
(metacognition- early warning systems).
Low cognitive load: process #1 and process #2 work together
successfully.
High cognitive load: process #1 knocked out, but process #2
continues.
Result: hyperaccessibility of unwanted thought!
Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, & Jetten (1994):
o PART 1 - asked subjects to imagine and write an essay
about a typical day in the life of a skinhead. told avoid
using stereotypes in your essay.
o PART 2 asked subjects to write a second essay about
another skinhead. Freedom to write whatever they wanted
RESULTS: it can backfire when the guard is
down which increases the stereotype

Stereotype threat: When individuals fear being reduced

to the stereotypeleading to: anxiety, distraction, decline in
performance.
o The Empirical Evidence: Steele & Aronson (1995)
Black and White subjects at Stanford University
(highly selective) Took difficult standardized verbal
test. (All subjects expected to do poorly.) self
fulfilling prophecy
For some subjects: test introduced as a test
of underlying intelligence, intellectual ability.
For others: test introduced as a laboratory
problem-solving task unrelated to any realworld underlying ability.
DV: subjects score on test, statistically
controlling for SAT score (Results) Not
intelligence vs Intelligence
White
9.0
10.5
Subjects
Black
8.9
4.9
Subjects
Spencer and colleagues (1999): male and female good at math
and felt that math was important to their identities.
o Gave a very difficult standardized math test, one that led
all subjects to perform poorly.
o Before taking test, subjects given some background on the
test: some subjects told that the test generally showed no
gender differences (implying that the negative
stereotype of womens ability in math was not relevant to
this particular test). Others told that the study did
generally show gender differences.
o Results: Women performed worse than men only when
they believed that the test typically yielded gender
differences.
o Socialization effects this
Frederickson and colleagues: Male and females asked to evaluate
and sample various consumer products. Among the products
was an item of clothing that they were supposed to actually try
on. For some participants that item of clothing was a crewneck
sweater. For others: a bathing suit. As they were wearing that
item of clothing, brought to a second room to take a challenging
math test. In the room was a mirror. What results do you
predict?

Results:

Sweater

Bathing Suit

Men

4.9

5.5

Women

4.0

2.4

(Evidence of Steeles anxiety explanation: Women made to feel more

anxiety about body disrupted performance) body image anxiety is
more prominent in females than males
-White males can be made to experience stereotype threat. How?
How ST impairs performance:

Inzlicht, McKay, & Aronson (2005): 1. Black and White Ps either

had race made salient or not. 2. DV#1: normal Stroop colornaming task. DV#2: Squeezing a handgrip.
o Results: Only Black/race salient Ps (and not Blac/race not
salient Ps) showed poorer performance on both tasks.
o Interpretation: Being the target of stigma is mentally and
physically exhausting.
o One reason for hope: Incremental (vs. entity) theory of
human intelligence
Sailent vs non sailent
Currency of stereotypes