Concepts, Stereotypes, and the Totalitarian Ego

1. Concepts, Stereotypes, and the Totalitarian Ego The Hot-Dog Vendors: Darrell Worthy Tyler Davis Anushka Pai Cindy Stappenbeck

2. Concepts: The building blocks of cognition • A concept is: • A mental representation of a category. Things that belong together. • Concepts can be about objects, people, or behavior • Can be accurate or inaccurate. They aren’t necessarily what the world is like, they’re what we think its like. • Other than concepts about people, can you think of some concepts that you have, or individuals in American culture hold that are inaccurate?

3. What concepts do: • Help us make sense of the world • Facilitate communication • Classification • Inference • Guide attention • Promote reasoning • Have you ever been in a situation where you were conceptless, as in Kunda’s example of being baffled by another cultures’ practices?

4. How you activate a concept • Activation depends on stimulus properties, the context, and the observer • Stimulus features. • Salience- what stands out • What goals you have • What has been primed. • Priming- a general term for activating a concept used to explain how a concept is activated. Comes in several varieties.

5. More about priming • If a concept is primed, it is likely that it will be used to interpret subsequent events. • Example- Hearing a talk on a certain phenomenon and then seeing nothing but that phenomenon in your own research. Do you have any of your own? • Priming can be subliminal • Attitudes and feelings can be primed • Chronic accessibility (always primed) • Character traits. Example- Chronic paranoia that leads to classifying strangers’ behavior as suspicious. • Chronic way of classifying others. Example- Psychiatrists who see ADHD everywhere they turn.

6. Basic level categories • Natural level to talk about objects • Highest level that someone can create an image of the category as a whole • Can be different depending on: • Expertise • Goals • Not as clear in social psychology • Very flexible • Context dependant • Impossible to create hierarchies • More like a tangled web

7. Models of representation • Social psychologists are not as interested in mapping the architecture as describing its implications • Associative network Models • Made up of links and nodes • Activation spreads to nodes via links • Activation gradually decays in activated nodes • Activation can only spread so far. It either just peters out or runs into some sort of barrier • Our interpretation of events is determined which nodes have been activated. • Explains priming phenomena

8. Parallel constraint satisfaction models • Connectionist models • Involve excitatory and inhibitory links. A node can be activated as well as deactivated. • Constrains spreading activation • Higher-level concepts are spread out • In addition to the phenomena that associative networks can explain, parallel constraint satisfaction models can explain higher level reasoning within the same models as mental representation. • Can you think of any phenomena where architecture might be important for social psychologists to think about?

9. Stereotypes

10. Stereotypes • Definition • “cognitive structures that contain our knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about a social group” • These stereotypes guide our expectations about group members and can color our interpretations of their behavior and traits.

11. Stereotype Activation • We may activate a group’s stereotype automatically, with little awareness and intention. • Study by Patricia Devine (1989) • Do White Americans activate the stereotype “aggressive” for African Americans automatically? • White participants exposed subliminally to words related to African American stereotype, but that weren’t directly associated with “aggressive”

12. Stereotype Activation • Either presented with 80% or 20% of stereotype words out of 100 • Then asked to form an impression of a person who performed a series of ambiguously hostile behaviors (ethnicity not specified) • Those who received 80% of primed words rated Donald as more hostile than those with 20% of primed words.

13. Stereotype Activation • Devine’s finding is disturbing because if we are unaware of these associations, we have no control over them • How might this influence our behavior towards different groups of people? • Is there a way we can use this information to promote positive associations?

14. Fulfilling a Stereotype • As we behave in keeping with a stereotype, we may cause the stereotyped individual to respond in kind, thereby fulfilling the stereotype Stereotype Behavior Of Our Behavior Stereotyped Person

15. Fulfilling a Stereotype • White participants exposed subliminally to photos of either African American or white men. • Paired with partner to play a word-guessing game • Individuals shown African American photos were more aggressive. • Partners (not primed with photos) were also more aggressive • The behavior of one individual influences the behavior of another.

16. Inhibiting Stereotypes • When we want to, we can inhibit a stereotype that would otherwise be activated. • An African American man praised white participant’s abilities • These participants suppressed negative stereotypes to maintain credibility. • The opposite also true (negative feedback led to stereotype activation) • Do you think we can only inhibit stereotypes when it’s for personal gain?

17. Stereotypes on the Rebound • Suppressing a thought may make us especially likely to entertain that thought • White bear phenomenon • A series of studies in Britain focused on stereotypes of skinheads • Participants shown photo of skinhead and asked to write a brief description of his typical day • Half told to suppress stereotypical assumptions

18. Stereotypes on the Rebound • Subsequent tasks revealed that initial suppression of stereotype led to increase in activation and use later on. • Word recognition tasks • Behavioral tasks • Is this really suppression of a stereotype (could it be activation)? • Given this finding, should people try to suppress stereotypes?

19. Differing Interpretations • The same ambiguous behavior will be interpreted differently for differently stereotyped groups. • Does this necessarily reflect prejudice? • How might this lead to racial profiling? • Is racial profiling useful?

20. Individuating Information • People can base their impressions on individuating information when it is there, and ignore stereotypes. • John the construction worker vs. John the accountant • Who is more aggressive? • Stereotypes may influence predictions about a person’s trait-related behavior even when individuating information impacts the trait. • Who is more likely to engage in working-class aggressive behavior in the future?

21. Ambiguity vs. Unambiguity • Stereotypes can determine the meaning we attach to the individuating information. • A construction worker or a housewife hits someone who annoys him or her. • A construction worker or a housewife • decked a neighbor • spanked his/her son • Most social behavior is ambiguous, how much can individuating information influence impressions?

22. Stereotype Application • When our cognitive resources are strained, our impressions of individuals may be especially likely to be colored by our stereotypes. • Why do we become more likely to apply our stereotypes to stereotyped individuals when our cognitive capacity is taxed? • Should we have people judge crimes without knowledge of race or gender?

23. Motivated Application and Inhibition • We may also be more likely to use negative stereotypes if we are motivated to disparage the individual. • However, we will only do so if we feel we have a good justification for this. • Can we make strides to avoid this when people are in positions of power?

24. The Target’s Perspective • Attributional Ambiguity- After receiving positive or negative feedback, stigmatized individuals may remain uncertain about their abilities and how they are perceived. • So, what clues will people use to regulate behavior? • Is it better for the indiv. to remain in this uncertainty or to assume that negative feedback is always because of a negative stereotype?

25. Stereotype Threat • Stereotype threat- the fear that one will be reduced to the negative stereotypes of one’s group can influence performance. • Remedial vs. Honorific Programs • Do you think that stereotype threat has an influence in social behaviors? Friendships? Dating?

26. Stereotype Change • The Contact Hypothesis • Subtyping counterstereotypic individuals • Extreme vs. moderate deviations • Stereotypes can evolve over time. • Is there a way to prevent certain stereotype formations in the first place? • Can we change a stereotype we don’t want to have?

27. Discussion Questions • If you were in a negatively stereotyped group, would there be something you could do in your behavior to decrease the likelihood of being stereotyped? • Is it better to socialize with/work with people of your own stereotyped group? • Do we stereotype within our groups?

28. The Totalitarian Ego How your ego uses biases in a selfish and manipulative manner

29. Organization of Knowledge • Self – defined by beliefs, goals, values etc. • Desire for unity, consistency, continuity • Resist major attitude changes • Self uses biases to preserve self-concept

30. Three cognitive biases • Egocentricity – self as the focus of knowledge • Beneffectance – responsible for good, but not bad outcomes • Cognitive conservatism – resistance to cognitive change

31. Egocentricity • Past is remembered from our perspective, necessary for autobiographical memories • Rogers et al. – information is well remembered if considered in relation to ourselves • Brenner – memory decline for persons preceding or following us • Better memory for things related to one’s self of social group

32. Beneffectance • Take credit for success, deny blame for failure • Judging one’s contributions to the group • Johnson (1967) – subjects took credit for good scores, but blamed partner for bad scores • Vicarious beneffectance – fair weather sports fans

33. Cognitive Conservatism • Tendency to preserve existing knowledge structures (including stereotypes) • Confirmation bias – promotes information that confirms current judgments • Snyder & Swann – selected questions that were biased toward confirming hypothesis • Scientists biased to confirm existing theory • Memory search better for info consistent with current belief

34. More Cognitive Conservatism • Knew-it-all-along effect • Fischhoff – subjects first informed of the correct answer claimed to have known it all along • Rewrite memories without registering the occurrence of change

35. Fear of change • Orwell – “to change one’s mind, or even one’s policy, is a confession of weakness.” • Why are we afraid to admit that our opinions have changed? • Should it be considered ‘weak’ to change one’s mind? • Do people differ in cognitive conservatism like they do in political conservatism?

36. Scientific Paradigm • Does the stability of a scientific paradigm reflect the stability of the ego? • Do we shift paradigms with the same reluctance that we change attitudes and let go of stereotypes? • Does a stereotypical belief mirror a null hypothesis that requires significant evidence to be rejected?

37. Is it advantageous? • Do people gain by possessing these biases? • Are people who don’t employ biases at a disadvantage? • Prolongs the life of an incorrect theory • Bandura – inflated efficacy expectations may lead to better performance