Transcript Psy 202 – Lecture 14 (11/15/05)

Have you ever…
- accepted a free sample and then bought something you
really didn’t need?
- done something silly or dangerous with a group of
friends that you would never have done while alone?
- seen a stranded motorist while driving down a busy
highway and not stopped to help?
- made negative remarks about members of another group
after a member of that group got a job, a spot on a
sports team, or a scholarship you wanted?
Social Psychology:
How do other people* and social situations*
affect individual behavior*, attitudes,
perceptions and motives?
* Ordinary people
* Social variables
* Everyday behavior
Power of situation
- but social situations sometimes “blend”
into background.
Birds of feather flock together
- Similarity
- in trivial stuff (same b-day)
- In more important stuff (political view)
Birds of feather flock together
OR
Opposites attract?
Usually similarity wins, although in some traits
(dominance), complementary would make us happier
Categorization: How similar to me is she?
- ‘Us’ vs. ‘them’
Categorization:
ingroup: group which we identify with
outgroup: group with which we do not identify
minimal groups: meaningless groups formed
by grouping strangers on the basis of trivial
criteria (paintings)
Results:
– I like ‘us’ better,
– I share more of my money
1) We like members of our in-group better and are nicer
to them than members of out-groups.
sororities - not so highly respected groups especially
likely to put down out-group members.
2) out-group homogeneity: perception that members of
out-group are all alike-- more similar to each other
than they really are, and more similar to each other
than members of the in-group are to each other.
Also, more likely to recall distinguishing information
about members of our in-group
stereotype: generalization about a group
of people
- Frenchmen are good lovers
- Chinese are good at math
Stereotype threat - concern among
members of a negatively stereotyped
group about confirming a negative
stereotype.
contact hypothesis: prejudice will be
reduced if different groups have a
chance to interact with each other.
conditions under which contact works:
- equal status (white supervisor, black worker)
- personal interactions (not just TV)
- cooperative activities
- social norms in favor of reducing prejudice