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MODULE SUMMARY
HELPING OTHERS
Why Do People Help?
Define altruism.
Altruism is unselfish behavior that has no identifiable self-serving cause.
Social norms
Define the norm of reciprocity.
The norm of reciprocity dictates that we help those who have helped us.
Define the norm of social responsibility.
The norm of social responsibility obligates us to help those whom we believe are genuinely needy or dependent on us.
Empathy
Describe the empathy hypothesis.
The empathy hypothesis proposes that people are more likely to help those in need if they can imagine themselves in a similar situation.
Instinct
Define kin selection and be prepared to explain how kin selection might influence helping.
Kin selection refers to a tendency to behave altruistically toward our kin, or those who are related to us and who share at least some of our genes. The advantage of kin selection is the perpetuation of at least some of our genetic traits.
Social learning
Describe the effects that social models have on helping behavior.
When people witness others engaging in helping behavior, it prompts them to help in similar situations.
Why Do People Often Fail To Help?
Define the bystander effect.
The bystander effect refers to decreased tendency for people to help a person in distress when other bystanders are present.
Be able to describe Latane and Darley's (1970) seizure study.
In Latane and Darley's seizure study, participants were told they were partaking in a group discussion on problems of college life with other students. The researchers had one student, who was actually a research confederate, feign a medical emergency to assess helping behavior in the presence of bystanders. The researchers found that when the participants thought they alone were aware of the emergency, 85% left the room to provide help. However, when two or five other bystanders were present, research participants left the room to help the "victim" 62% and 31% of the time, respectively.
Define diffusion of responsibility.
Diffusion of responsibility refers to a reduced feeling of personal responsibility when other potential helpers are present.
When Do People Help?
Explain what it means to say that helping is a decision process.
Latane and Darley proposed a decision model of helping, hypothesizing that helping behavior is the result of a series of decisions. According to Latane and Darley, before an individual helps, he or she must notice the situation in question, decide it is an emergency, assume responsibility, know how to help, and commit to action, taking into account all potential costs (e.g., bodily harm).
DECISION MODEL OF HELPING
Be familiar with each of the steps in the decision model of helping and be prepared to give examples of factors that influence each step of the model.
The first step, noticing an emergency is influenced by factors like being in a hurry, such as when seminary students failed to help a "victim" when they were rushing across campus to make a presentation. The second step, interpreting the situation correctly, is influenced by the ambiguity of the situation, such as when it was unclear to research participants whether a woman was really in danger after she identified the man who was attacking her as her husband. The third step, assuming responsibility, is influenced by the presence of bystanders. For instance, it appears that people decided not to help Kitty Genovese because they assumed others would call the police. The fourth factor, deciding how to help, is influenced by confidence in one's ability to help. For instance, bystanders trained in CPR are more likely to help heart attack victims than bystanders untrained in CPR. The last step, committing to help, is influenced by the potential costs of helping, such as a decision not to stop an assault by deadly weapon for fear of being killed.
PREJUDICE AND CONFLICT
Stereotypes And Prejudice
Define stereotype.
Stereotypes are simplified beliefs about characteristics, attributes, and/or behaviors of members of certain groups. They are generally negative and have little or no connection to actual behavior of individual members of the groups being stereotyped.
Define prejudice.
Prejudice is feelings about people, positive or negative, based solely on their group membership.
Define discrimination.
Discrimination is the behavioral component of stereotypes (e.g., not hiring someone for race, gender, or sexual orientation reasons).
Personality models
Know the factors that personality models focus upon to explain prejudice and discrimination.
Proponents of personality models focus on personality characteristics of people who engage in prejudicial and discriminatory behaviors.
Define ethnocentrism.
Ethnocentrism refers to belief in the superiority of one's own group.
Define authoritarianism.
Authoritarianism is a personality characteristic evidenced by a belief that authorities should be obeyed, rules should be clear, weakness is not tolerable, and wrongs should be punished.
Describe the relationship between ethnocentrism and authoritarianism.
People high in ethnocentrism also tend to score high on measures of authoritarianism.
Describe modern racism.
Modern racism is characterized by beliefs that: (1)discrimination no longer exists, (2) Blacks are pushing too hard into places where they are not wanted, (3) the tactics and demands of Blacks are unfair, and (4) recent gains by Blacks are undeserved.
Define symbolic racism.
Symbolic racism is racism cloaked in language of traditional values and status quo. For example, symbolic racists endorse the notion that Black culture violates the traditional values of individualism and self-reliance.
Motivational models
Know the factors that motivational models focus upon to explain prejudice and discrimination.
Motivational models focus on why people stereotype and discriminate against others.
Scapegoating
Define scapegoating.
The term scapegoating originates with the ancient Hebrew tradition of placing the community's sins on the head of a goat and releasing it into the desert, thereby absolving the community of its sins. Today, scapegoating refers to blaming others when one is frustrated in some way.
Explain how displaced aggression can lead to discrimination and be able to give an example.
When people are angry, it is not always easy to take out aggression on the source of frustration. In such cases, people are likely to displace aggression onto a less-powerful substitute. For example, when a computer crashes before a worker has saved his document, he might shift his frustration or aggression to a subordinate (perhaps minority) coworker.
Belief in a just world
Define the just world hypothesis.
The just world hypothesis refers to the belief that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.
Explain how the just world hypothesis can lead to victim blame.
Believing that bad things happen to bad people can result in blaming victims for disease, rape, abuse, and other tragedies. For instance, throughout the 1980s and much of the 1990s, AIDS was seen as a disease of promiscuity or drug addiction. Victims were more likely to be blamed than to receive sympathy.
Self-esteem maintenance
Define downward social comparison.
Downward social comparison refers to comparing oneself to those less fortunate in order to elevate self-esteem.
Explain how downward social comparison can lead to stereotyping.
Because downward social comparison results from a need to improve self-esteem, it results in the degradation of others who are powerless. When the practice persists, it is easy for negative comparisons to become stereotypes about the target group.
Realistic group conflict
Describe the realistic group conflict approach to racism.
According to the realistic group conflict approach to racism, racism results from competition between races for scarce resources.
Define ingroup bias.
Ingroup bias refers to belief in the superiority of one's own group, and prejudice toward and discrimination against non-group members.
Cognitive models
Know the factors that cognitive models focus upon to explain prejudice and discrimination.
Cognitive models focus on cognitive schemas, or how stereotyping occurs.
Stereotypes and perceptions
Describe the Darley and Gross "Hannah" study and its significance for understanding the ways stereotypes shape our perceptions.
In Darley and Gross's "Hannah" study, participants were told fourth grader Hannah was the child of either a poor or a wealthy family. After watching a video of Hannah's performance on a test, participants in the "wealthy family" group rated Hannah's performance above fourth grade, whereas the "poor family" group rated her performance below fourth grade, in spite of watching the same ambiguous video. These findings demonstrate that stereotypes about socioeconomic status affect perceptions of intelligence.
Stereotypes and self-fulfilling prophecies
Define self-fulfilling prophecy and give examples.
Self-fulfilling prophecy refers to the effect stereotypes have on behavior, such that expectations that accompany stereotypes, through a chain of events, almost inevitably lead to confirmation of the stereotypes. For example, a coach who believes one athlete is more talented than the other athletes invests more time in that individual, improving the favored athlete's performance, consequently confirming his belief.
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY MOVIE
Social identity theory
IMPRESSION AND EXPRESSION
Describe the effects that categorizing people as members of an ingroup or outgroup have on our feelings toward them.
Merely categorizing people as ingroup and outgroup, even when categorization is random, has the negative effect of causing ingroup members to stereotype and discriminate against outgroup members.
Describe ingroup favoritism.
Ingroup favoritism refers to behavior that discriminates against outgroup members, while favoring ingroup members.
Reducing prejudice
At a broad level, personality, motivational, and cognitive approaches to prejudice identify different routes to reducing prejudice. Be prepared to discuss them.
Proponents of personality approaches would focus on reducing prejudice via early childhood education through modeling tolerance of differences. On the other hand, proponents of motivational approaches would focus on convincing people that competition for scarce resources is not necessary, either by equalizing availability to resources or by providing superordinate goals, where possible. Finally, the proponents of cognitive approaches have a more difficult road to travel, as they emphasize the role stereotypes play in simplifying information. Teaching deeper processing of information is a likely solution supported by proponents of cognitive approaches.
Be prepared to discuss the effects that cooperation, contact, critical thinking, and empathy have on prejudice.
Cooperation can reduce prejudice by providing competitors with superordinate goals that engage them in common pursuits. Contact can reduce prejudice when individuals share similar status and common goals. Critical thinking can reduce prejudice when knowledge of faulty reasoning, faulty logic, and overgeneralization brings awareness of the negative impact of bias and stereotypes. Finally, empathy may help reduce prejudice by having people "walk in the shoes" of others, metaphorically speaking, who are different in some way.
Comparing the approaches
Conflict
Define conflict.
Conflict refers to a dynamic in which the goals, needs, or plans of one person compete with the goals, needs, or plans of another person.
Define pure competition and give an example.
Pure competition is zero-sum competition; one competitor's gains are equal to the other's loss. An example is the game of tug-of-war.
Define non-zero-sum competition and give an example.
Non-zero-sum competition refers to competition with no clear winners or losers; both parties gain and lose something. For instance, success for a vendor selling decorative merchandise at a flea market is likely to increase sales for other vendors selling decorative items by increasing customer awareness. Therefore, both vendors win. Both vendors also lose, as each vendor's gross sales decrease gross sales for other vendors selling similar products.
Explain how social traps work and give an example.
The term social traps refers to situations in which the pursuit of short-term individual gains leads to collective failure. For instance, insurance fraud causes insurance rates to increase for all drivers.
PRISONER'S DILEMMA
Describe how prisoner's dilemma works.
The prisoner's dilemma demonstrates the effect of social traps. As individuals attempt to maximize personal gains, their choices lead to collective failure. Therefore, focusing on individual aims leads to collective failure, whereas focusing on collective aims leads to de-individuation in favor of group strength.
Competition and social perception
Be prepared to discuss how social perceptual biases can fuel competition and conflict. Give examples.
Social perceptual biases fuel competition and conflict, such as when individuals make fundamental attribution errors when conflict occurs over scarce resources (e.g., time). For instance, when traffic crawls toward an exit, people cutting in line to get to work on time are labeled by patient drivers as possessing a number of negative personality characteristics, whereas the drivers cutting in line will see themselves as taking advantage of the situation (e.g., a gap in the queue) instead of waiting in line forever and getting to work late. Social identity pressures can increase stereotyping and favoritism, particularly when the stakes are high, such as when two rival ethnic groups are vying for sacred territory. Finally, self-fulfilling prophecy can also escalate tension. For instance, sometimes nations go to war because one nation's citizens stereotype citizens of a rival nation as bellicose by nature, and, fearing attack, shore up their defenses. Such actions may be seen as provocations and lead to war, confirming initial stereotypes.
FACES OF THE ENEMY
Conflict reduction
Describe the roles that perception and communication play in conflict reduction.
Communication allows parties the opportunity to discuss intentions and perceptions and provides an opportunity to correct misperceptions.
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