Prejudice
Steven911
chapter6Prejudice.docxPrejudice
Chapter 6
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Learning Objectives
By the end of the chapter you should be able to:
1. Differentiate prejudice, bias, stereotypes, and discrimination
1. Define stigma and stigma by association
1. Describe how and why categorization occurs
1. Define ingroup favoritism and the outgroup homogeneity effect
1. Describe how stereotypes and prejudice originate in social norms, conflict, and social inequalities
1. Describe how stereotype threat affects performance
1. Describe how interactions between people are affected by prejudice
1. Explain how prejudice can be reduced
Chapter Outline
6.1 Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination
6.2 Social/Cognitive Origins
1. Categorization
1. Ingroup Favoritism
1. Outgroup Homogeneity Effect
6.3 Societal Origins
1. Norms
1. Competition for Resources
1. Social Inequalities
6.4 Influences on Those Stereotyped
6.5 Reducing Prejudice
Chapter Summary
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Many social groups are the subject of stereotypes, as well as the prejudice and discrimination that often accompanies it. Foryears women have faced barriers in rising to leadership positions, and even today face a gap in pay of 23¢ on every dollarearned by a man (American Association of University Women, 2013; Wirth, 2001). In 2013, Jason Collins came out as the firstopenly gay NBA athlete. In his interview with Sports Illustrated, Collins describes his fear of being the target of prejudice anddiscrimination because of his sexual orientation (Collins & Lidz, 2013). Minority ethnic and racial groups face prejudice anddiscrimination as well. Just under half of the hate crimes committed in the United States are racially motivated (46.9%), with72% of those motivated by anti-Black prejudice (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013). Prejudice, stereotypes, anddiscrimination are predominant issues in our world today, affecting many lives in profound ways.
6.1 Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination
Most people know about and have experienced prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Social psychologists differentiate among theseterms by focusing on whether they involve feelings (affect), cognition, or behaviors. The judgments we make about others can result instereotypes. Stereotypes are beliefs about the characteristics of particular groups or members of those groups. For example, stereotypesabout people who are overweight are that they are lazy and unsuccessful, and that they are not as attractive or popular as people ofaverage weight (Cossrow, Jeffery, & McGuire, 2001; Greenleaf, Starks, Gomez, Chambliss, & Martin, 2004). Our tendency to form judgmentsabout people based on a characteristic such as skin color, sexual orientation, or personal characteristics is known as a bias. When peopleengage in weight bias, they make judgments about others based on their weight, not taking into account other characteristics of theperson.
Expand Your Knowledge: Weight Bias and Stigma
Excess weight affects more than one-third of the U.S.population, causing a number of health problems(Centers for Disease Control, 2012). Those who areoverweight (with a body mass index over 25 and under30) and obese (with a body mass index over 30) do notjust deal with weight issues; they are also targets ofprejudice and discrimination. Being overweight or obeseis a stigmatizing condition linked to ridicule and shame(Farrell, 2011). To read more about weight bias andstigma visit the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy &Obesity website. The site offers a variety of resources andreadings: http://www.yaleruddcenter.org.
While stereotypes refer to our cognitive processes, prejudice describesour emotional experience. Prejudice involves a negative attitude towardindividuals based on their membership in a particular group. Prejudicemay be aimed at those from different racial or ethnic groups, thosewith a particular sexual orientation, or individuals with mental orphysical challenges, and many more. For example, prejudice againstthose who are overweight involves feelings of dislike or disgust towarda person who is heavy. As with attitudes, prejudice can come in anexplicit form and as implicit prejudice. Explicit prejudice is prejudicethat is conscious and can be reported. Someone who engages in a hatecrime and states that he did so because he hates that group is engagingan action because of explicit prejudice. Implicit prejudice isunconscious and requires tests like the Implicit Associations Testdescribed in Chapter 4 to assess. Implicit prejudice tends to controlunconscious and nonverbal behavior, such as nonverbal expression ofdiscomfort in the presence of someone from another racial group.
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Prejudice and discrimination towards African Americans sparkedthe Civil Rights Movement.
Similarly, discrimination is negative behavior toward individuals orgroups based on beliefs and feelings about those groups. Job applicantswho are obese are less likely to be hired than those who are of normalweight, and once they are employed they are often given less desirableassignments, paid less, and disciplined more harshly (Fikkan & Rothblum,2005). Part of that discrimination may come from a stigma associatedwith membership in a particular group. A stigma is a sign of disgrace orshame that taints the entire person. Others might avoid or limit contactbecause of a stigma, or ridicule or denigrate the person carrying thestigma. People who are overweight report feeling that their weightstigmatizes them, with the worst experiences of stigmatization comingfrom family and friends (Puhl & Brownell, 2006; Puhl, Moss-Racusin,Schwartz, & Brownell, 2008). Stigmatization from friends and familymight come in the form of denigrating remarks or ridicule of eating,exercise, or dieting habits as well as other negative behaviors.
Expand Your Knowledge: Beyond Prejudice
The website Beyond Prejudice provides a great deal ofinteresting and accurate information on prejudice. Theauthor differentiates between automatic prejudice andunintentional prejudicial responses, and conscious andintentional prejudicial responses. Suggestions areprovided for reducing prejudice.
Stigmas do not just affect the stigmatized target. If you were associatedwith a person who has been stigmatized, that stigma is partiallytransferred to you. This phenomenon is called stigma by association.For example, in some cultures someone who is HIV-positive carries thestigma of AIDS, and the family of the person would be seen as taintedor is shameful by association (Pryor, Reeder, & Monroe, 2012).Generally, the closer the association (family versus friends versusacquaintance), the greater the stigma by association experienced.However, researchers found that simply sitting next to someone who isoverweight in a job interview leads to stigmatization of the jobapplicant of average weight (Hebl & Mannix, 2003).
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
1. How are stigma by association and stigma related?
6.2 Social/Cognitive Origins
A variety of factors are responsible for our prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination. One group of factors relates to how we cognitivelyprocess information. Overall, our processes lead to generalizations about other people—generalizations that do not take into account theuniqueness of the individual. In this section, we will examine the ways in which our processes lead to conscious or unconscious prejudiceand stereotypes.
Categorization
Labeling
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Labels can influence how people are perceived.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. How does labeling impact behavior?
1. How have you seen this demonstrated?
Sorting people into categories has long been related to stereotyping andprejudice (Allport, 1954). Categories are helpful because they allow us to dealwith large amounts of information in an efficient way. The cognitive energy-saving nature of categories was demonstrated in a study by Macrae, Milne, andBodenhausen (1994). In their work, they asked participants to remember a list ofcharacteristics of people that were flashed on a computer screen. Theparticipants were simultaneously asked to remember information on anunrelated topic from a recorded message. The researchers were attempting to taxthe participants' ability to process all the information they were seeing andhearing. The researchers wondered if having category labels would be helpful inhelping the participants' memory. To test this, half of the participants wereshown a category label that might help them remember some of thecharacteristics on the list of names they were supposed to remember. Forexample, "Julian" was labeled as an artist, and then characteristics like "creative,""temperamental," and "sensitive" were flashed on the screen, to go along withour general stereotype of artist. Participants also saw characteristics that werenot necessarily related to the category label, like cordial and generous. The otherhalf of the participants saw the same names and characteristics, but they werenot shown a category label such as "artist." When all the participants had seen allthe different names and characteristics, the researchers quizzed them on howmany of the characteristics they remembered for each name. They also quizzed the participants on how much they remembered aboutthe unrelated recorded message.
Did having a category label help participants remember more of the category-related words? Participants who saw a category labelremembered 4.42 category-consistent words, on average, while those who did not see the label remembered only 2.08. This shows thatthe label helped people remember things related to the label. In addition, the participants who saw a label also did better on the quizabout the unrelated message they heard. This suggests that being able to categorize freed up energy to listen to and process the unrelatedmessage. Categories help us by saving us cognitive energy and allowing us to process more information. Therefore, we use categoriesliberally. That might not be a problem if all we did was categorize people, but it turns out that along with quickly and easily developingcategories, we use them to make later decisions (Tajfel, 1970).
Test Yourself
Click on the question below to reveal the answer.
1. How are categories helpful to people?
Ingroup Favoritism
In 1970 Tajfel published some surprising research results. For his study, he brought boys age 14 and 15 into a psychological researchlaboratory. The boys were shown slides that had dots on them and were asked to estimate the number of dots. The boys were then toldthat they were either over estimators of dots or under estimators. In reality, the boys were assigned these two labels randomly. Later, theboys were asked to assign money to other participants, they assigned more money to those who shared their group membership. Thistendency to show preferential treatment toward members of one's own group is called ingroup favoritism. A group that you are a partof is called your ingroup. Ingroups might include gender, race, or city or state of residence, as well as groups you might intentionally join,like Kiwanis or a bowling league. A group that you do not identify with is called your outgroup.
In later work, Tajfel (Billig & Tajfel, 1973) found that even when participants were told that assignment to groups was random, theywould still show preferential treatment toward members of their own group. Ingroup favoritism appears to work even when the reasonfor group categorization is relatively arbitrary (being an over estimator or under estimator of dots) or simply random. Preference for aningroup is not found among all groups that are targets of prejudice and stereotyping. People who are overweight show similar negativeprejudice toward other overweight people as those who are not overweight (Crandall, 1994; Robin, Cash, Jacobi, & Bubb-Lewis, 1997).One reason for this might be that those who are overweight may be attempting to distance themselves from membership in an attempt toescape some of the stigma associated with their weight status (Puhl & Brownell, 2003).
We see evidence of prejudice and preference for relating to those who are similar to oneself in dating. For example, people are most likelyto form long-term commitments with those from a similar racial group (Blackwell & Lichter, 2004; Harris & Kalbfleisch, 2000). In the pastwe might have attributed this to lack of access to potential partners of other races because of geographic boundaries, but today theInternet allows people to meet individuals of diverse backgrounds. Even without the pressures of geography, people tend to prefer datingsomeone of their own race (Sweeney & Borden, 2009). Research suggests that even when we have equal access to individuals from otherracial groups, we tend to still be attracted to and form intimate relationships with those from our own group.
Outgroup Homogeneity Effect
Beyond viewing one's own group as more deserving than another group, individuals within a group tend to view their own group asmore varied than someone outside the group. Someone describing an outgroup will describe the members in that group as being morehomogeneous, or similar, than the members would describe themselves (Brauer, 2001; Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992). This effect is called the outgroup homogeneity effect. One explanation for this effect may be our tendency to describe an outgroup based on what we knowabout the primary characteristics of that group. However, when we are asked to describe our own groups, we access information aboutthe individual people within the group (Park & Rothbart, 1982). It is also possible that we simply know more people in our ingroup.Because we know more people as part of our membership with the group, we know more potentially different people; therefore, wejudge our ingroup as being more diverse than the outgroup (Linville, Fischer, & Salovey, 1989). This effect only happens for naturallyoccurring groups, not groups that are temporarily formed, like the groups supposedly formed because of dot estimation (Ostrom &Sedikides, 1992). Some circumstances can minimize the outgroup homogeneity effect. In one research study, White participants showedthe outgroup homogeneity effect for Black faces with neutral expressions. When the Black faces were shown with an angry expression,the participants were more accurate in differentiating between them (Ackerman et al., 2006). The outgroup homogeneity effect wasevidenced in neutral circumstances, but largely disappeared when the faces expressed an emotion that could signal danger to theindividual.
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Individuals tend to view outgroup members as being very similar to one another. Forexample, someone might describe all homeless people with words like "lazy" and "addicts."Members of the wealthy, upper class may be described with words like "greedy" and "self-serving."
Although categorization saves us cognitive energy there are dangers in these tendencies. Categorization denies the unique characteristicsof individuals. For example, Germans may typically value timeliness and be prompt, but Hans may defy the stereotype and arrive late. Ourjudgments about people may be skewed because of these tendencies. We may perceive and make judgments based on similarities that donot actually exist or place individuals in categories in which they do not actually fit (Dotsch, Wigboldus, & van Knippenberg, 2011; Kosic& Phalet, 2006). Although people might automatically categorize a 275-pound woman as overweight, lazy, unmotivated, and unathletic,when that woman is Sarah Robles nothing could be farther from the truth. Robles was a 2012 Olympic weightlifter who placed seventh inthe London Olympic games, overcoming a great deal of adversity to do so (Gregory, 2012).
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
1. For what type of groups do people show ingroup favoritism?
.3 Societal Origins
Our prejudice and stereotypes come not only from the way we take in and process information but also from the world around us.Societal origins of prejudice involve the norms in the world around us, the competition that exists between groups, and the socialinequalities that exist in the world. Because categorizing happens naturally and is a helpful tool in many ways, all human cultures arelikely to have stereotypes. Ingroup favoritism leads to unequal treatment of those we have been categorized as part of the outgroup, andoutgroup homogeneity bias blinds us to the uniqueness among individuals within the outgroup. Our beliefs about the characteristics ofthose outgroups are largely determined by the culture in which we reside.
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We pick up prejudice and stereotypes from thenorms in our social groups.
Norms
Prejudice and stereotypes have origins in the norms of our social groups. Norms areour beliefs about what a group is thinking or doing. People learn negative attitudestoward groups by learning the norms of their social context (Sherif, 1936). We learnfrom our peers which stereotypes are appropriate. When participants in one studywere led to believe that their stereotypes were different from their peers, thosestereotypes were changed to be more in line with peer stereotypes (Stangor, Sechrist,& Jost, 2001). For example, participants who learned that their peers had morepositive attitudes toward people who are obese, increased the positive stereotypesabout this group and decreased their negative stereotypes. Information about theattitudes of others is particularly powerful when it comes from people in the ingroup(Puhl, Schwartz, & Brownell, 2005). When making judgments about others we tend togo along with the judgments of those in our ingroup, without critically evaluating thecontent of those judgments (Binning & Sherman, 2011). Employees might pick up astereotype about the salespeople from their own department but would discount orcarefully evaluate that same information if it came from another department. Overall,we seem to believe as others do, particularly those we identify with; we change ourstereotypes and prejudice to fit with that shown or expressed by our friends.
Norms and Dating Violence
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Norms can lead to negative attitudes and behavior.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. How do norms influence violent behavior?
1. What are some of the norms that influence yourbehavior?
If social norms are accurateindicators of prejudice, thenthere should be a correlationbetween existing prejudices,and what social normswould dictate. Crandall,Eshleman, and O'Brien(2002) found an almost perfect correlation between the norms about groupsand people's ratings of prejudice toward those groups. Social norms dictate thatwe dislike child abusers, terrorists, and members of the Ku Klux Klan, so thesegroups are ones toward which people feel the strongest prejudices. On the otherhand, norms dictate that farmers, family men, and those with physicalchallenges are people toward whom one should not have negative prejudice;therefore, people report less negative prejudice toward these groups. The levelof expressed prejudice toward different racial groups in the United States hasbeen parallel to the perceived acceptability of prejudice over the years (Dowden& Robinson, 1993). As society views prejudice as less acceptable, individuals areless likely to express prejudice. For example, as society has become more openand accepting of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, individuals havebeen less likely to express prejudice.
Competition for Resources
When groups exist together in a society they may be at odds with one another in competition for resources, which can create prejudice(Butz & Yogeeswaran, 2011; Jackson, 1993; LeVine & Campbell, 1972; Sherif, 1966; Sherif & Sherif, 1953). Competition is at the heart of realistic group conflict theory. Realistic group conflict theory proposes that struggles between groups over scarce resources orconflicting objectives can create hostility and prejudice. Competition may center on economic interests, political or military advantage, oreven threats to the safety or status of the group. A strong factor in creating prejudice is anger. When in competition we may feel angrythat a rival group is taking away resources or prestige from our group. Individuals who feel angry are more likely to feel prejudice thanthose who feel sadness or more neutral emotions (Bodenhausen, Sheppard, & Kramer, 1994; DeSteno, Dasgupta, Bartlett, & Cajdric, 2004).For example, when people feel like their jobs may be threatened, they show more prejudice toward immigrants than if they feel no threat(Zárate, Garcia, Garza, & Hitlan, 2003). Competition can certainly enhance prejudice, but is not necessary for prejudice to occur. Peopletend to show the social cognitive factors for prejudice, such as ingroup favoritism and outgroup homogeneity effect, even whencompetition is not in play (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1991).
Expand Your Knowledge: United Nations Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice
To learn more about the international response toprejudice, read the United Nations Declaration on Raceand Racial Prejudice, approved in 1978.
The statement can be found here .
This competition between groups can lead to problems for groups likeimmigrants. When immigrants do well in their new country, theirsuccess may be seen as coming at the expense of those already in thecountry. This competition for resources, real or perceived, may createtension, prejudice, and hostility. For the immigrant, lack of successcould be just as problematic. An immigrant who requires socialservices or is not fully contributing to society may also be a target ofprejudice and hostility (Esses, Dovidio, Jackson, & Armstrong, 2001).Immigrants can also be scapegoats within a society. In European Unioncountries with struggling economies (low gross domestic product) anda high percentage of minorities, anti-immigrant sentiment is high(Quillian, 1995). When things are not going well, having a group that can be blamed for the problems may make people feel better aboutthemselves or their ingroup.
Social Inequalities
Social inequalities are maintained, to some extent, by legitimizing myths, beliefs, and attitudes that keep low-status groups in their place.Prejudice is created through a specific set of beliefs to support that prejudice. For example, the place of those of higher status mayemphasize some aspect of the lower-status group that, according to the stereotype, indicates a flaw or weakness. People might argue thatthe low socioeconomic status of a person from a particular racial group is the result of negative qualities found in that group (forexample, lack of intelligence or initiative). Such views justify stereotypes and prejudice (Fiske, 2001); individuals feel justified in theirprivileged position and the status quo in the social system is maintained (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). Individuals who have morenegative stereotypes tend to view social and economic status differences between people as more justified than those with fewer negativestereotypes (De Oliveira & Dambrun, 2007).
Social inequalities are supported by the beliefs of people but also by the way they use language. At times, people in groups with highersocial standing will tell jokes that support the negative views they have of those of lower social standing. These jokes allow the dominantgroup to maintain and legitimize their position of power while supposedly simply being humorous (Hodson, Rush, & MacInnis, 2010). Tostop such talk is difficult because of the guise of humor and can result in ostracism of the challenger. Guerin (2003) argues that changingthis type of language must come from within the ingroup by, for example, interrupting the speaker with a different joke or story that isnonprejudiced, is natural, and holds attention.
Individuals who prefer more hierarchical power structures, what researchers call social dominance orientation, also tend to haveprejudiced and racist views (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). Hierarchical power structures support differences betweenpeople, with those at the bottom having less power and prestige than those at the top. Such power structures provide a reason, orperhaps more accurately an excuse, for discrepancies in what society expects of people and the freedoms they are allowed. Socialdominance orientation is related to prejudice and racism across cultures (Pratto et al., 2000). For example, Serge Guimond and colleagues(2013) found that greater social dominance orientation in both Canada and Germany was related to greater prejudice toward those oflower social status. However, Canada's greater national commitment to multiculturalism decreased the overall endorsement of socialdominance orientation than in Germany. Social dominance orientation interacts with realistic group conflict theory; when an economicdownturn occurs, creating a threat and therefore more perceived conflicts between groups, those who are high in social dominanceorientation are less supportive of policies that would benefit an outgroup (King, Knight, & Hebl, 2010).
Social Psychology in Depth: Blue-Eyed and Brown-Eyed
How can a teacher teach about prejudice in a classroom with little diversity? Jane Elliott, a third-grade teacher in a smallIowa town in the late 1960s was faced with this predicament. Shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,Elliott decided to teach her students about the dangers of prejudice and discrimination by having them experience it. Elliotsaid
We've all been told those things. We know them, at least in the sense that we mouth them at appropriatetimes. Yet we continue to discriminate, or to tolerate it in others, or to do nothing to stop it. What I hadracked my brain to think of the night before was a way of letting my children find out for themselves,personally, deeply, what discrimination was really like, how it felt, what it could do to you. Now the time hadcome to try it. (Peters, 1987)
Elliot divided the class by the color of their eyes; blue-eyed versus brown-eyed students. On the first day the blue-eyedstudents were told they were smarter and better. Discriminatory policies were instituted for the brown-eyed children.Children with brown eyes got less recess time, were forbidden to use the drinking fountain, and could not play with theblue-eyed children. The next day roles were switched. The children quickly and easily joined in the game, and it swiftlybecame reality for them. A normally friendly, cooperative group of children were mean to one another and fought. Thelower-status children became sad, withdrawn, and angry. By the end of the second day the children had a taste of prejudiceand a sense of what discrimination feels like.
Since her lesson, Elliott has traveled around the world giving lectures and doing the same exercise with adults. The adults'reactions are similar to the children's reaction. Both the children in Elliott's class and the adults in her seminars reported aprofound long-term change in their understanding of prejudice and discrimination. Elliott received multiple awards for herwork and has been the subject of a number of documentaries.
Elliott's website contains additional information and materials: https://janeelliott.com/ .
Prejudice influences daily interactions between people. For example, research has shown that people desire less social contact withpeople who are overweight. Research participants have reported less of a desire to get to know or to become friends with, to work with,or do a favor for a person who is overweight (Brochu & Morrison, 2007). This effect varies depending on the type of prejudice. Explicitprejudice, such as reported prejudice toward those who are overweight, individuals from different racial groups, or toward those ofdifferent sexual orientations, tends to affect consciously controlled behavior, such as the words people say and the degree of comfortpeople report feeling in the interaction. Implicit prejudice, as would be measured through the Implicit Associations Test, is related tobehaviors that are less consciously controlled, such as nonverbal behavior. In one study, the explicit attitudes of White participantsindicated what they said and their self-reported friendliness toward an African American interaction partner. Implicit prejudice, however,was revealed by their nonverbal behavior, the ratings of observers, and the interaction partner (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002).Implicit prejudice seemed to be displayed in the nonverbal, less-consciously controlled behaviors, like how close people sat or thenaturalness of their movements and gestures. Because controlling our responses requires energy, interactions with a person from aminority group that is often the target of prejudice can leave a member of the majority group with lower self-regulatory capacity. Ifpeople are concerned about appearing prejudiced, they will use self-regulation and experience ego depletion, leaving fewer resources forsubsequent tasks (Richeson & Shelton, 2007).
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
1. What is social dominance orientation and how is it related to prejudice?
6.4 Influences on Those Stereotyped
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Stereotype threat suggests that the fear ofconfirming or flouting a given stereotype can causeperformance anxiety, like a student driver failing atest.
Do stereotypes influence our performance? Imagine you had to take a test to assessyour performance that, based on the stereotype about your group, suggests you maynot perform well. For example, there is a stereotype that women are not as good atmath as men. If you are a woman and were thinking about the stereotype while youtook a math test, would that affect your performance? Research suggests it would.
Expand Your Knowledge: Stereotype Threat
The website ReducingStereotypeThreat.org wasdeveloped by two social psychologists to describe andprovide resources on the topic of stereotype threat. Thesite provides a very good introduction to stereotypethreat and describes situations where stereotype threatoccurs, the individuals who are vulnerable, theconsequences of stereotype threat, and the mechanismscontributing to stereotype threat. Some suggestions forreducing stereotype threat and some unresolved issueson the topic of stereotype threat are also provided.
In a classic study bySteele and Aronson(1995), theresearchers variedhow muchparticipants werethinking about aracial stereotype.The researcherstold one group ofAfrican Americanand Whiteparticipants thatthe test they wouldtake would bediagnostic ofintellectual ability, tapping into the stereotype for African Americans that they are notas intelligent as those from other racial groups. For a second group of participants, theresearchers emphasized that this test was not diagnostic of ability. The researchersfound that African American participants in the first group did worse than their Whitecounterparts, but in the second group, African Americans and Whites did equally well(see Figure 6.1). Obviously, the African American participants were capable of doingjust as well on the test as the White participants, so why the difference? Steele and Aronson explain that the possibility that one is goingto be evaluated on an ability about which others show a stereotype creates anxiety. This anxiety distracts people from doing as well asthey might truly be capable of doing. The researchers named this phenomenon stereotype threat. Stereotype threat refers to the threatpeople feel when they think they may be at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about their group. The stereotype predicts poorperformance, so the person has to deal with the possibility of confirming that stereotype. Awareness that one is being evaluated based onmembership in a stereotyped group can, therefore, interfere with performance.
Figure 6.1: Effects of stereotypethreat
African Americans primed with the stereotype threat—that the test was a measure of intellectual ability—scored lower on the test than African Americans whowere not primed with the stereotype threat.
From Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectualtest performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 69, 797–811. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.797. Copyright ©1995by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.
Expand Your Knowledge: Test Yourself for Hidden Bias
The Southern Poverty Law Center provides a solidexplanation of prejudice, focusing most thoroughly onimplicit prejudice, or what they term hidden bias. One oftheir resources for professional development is an articlecalled "Test Yourself for Hidden Bias". This articledescribes the connection between hidden bias andbehavior, as well as how prejudice and stereotypes affectpeople. It also provides some suggestions of what one cando about hidden biases. Learn more at http://www.tolerance.org/.
Stereotype threat is not just present for African Americans onintelligence tests. Women college students perform worse on tests ofmathematics when in the presence of men (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2003).Huguet and Regner (2007) found similar results in sixth- and seventh-grade girls (girls 11 to 13 years old). Stereotype threat is also realizedin athletic performance (Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling, & Darley, 1999).When the stereotype was presented that White men do not have thesame athletic ability as African Americans, the White men did muchworse when they thought their natural athletic ability was being tested.Similarly, Latinos showed poorer intellectual performance undersituations of stereotype threat (Gonzales, Blanton, & Williams, 2002).Also, individuals who are overweight show a stress reaction whenasked to do something that is related to weight stigma (Major, Eliezer,& Rieck, 2012). For example, women who are overweight may avoidexercise because of stereotype threat (Seacat & Mickelson, 2009). Aspart of various social groups, we all have the potential for ourperformance to be disturbed by stereotype threat.
Stereotype threat seems particularly strong when people have a vested interested in the area being tested. For example, women whodescribe math as being important will feel more stereotype threat than women who report math is not important (Aronson et al., 1999;Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2003). Dealing with stereotype threat leaves people with less self-control, causing the effects of the stereotype to spillover into other aspects of life. Individuals who experience stereotype threat may engage in risky behaviors such as risky decision making,overeating or even aggression. Over the long term, these behaviors can be detrimental to physical and mental health (Inzlicht & Kang,2010; Inzlicht, Tullett, & Gutsell, 2012).
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
1. How does stereotype threat affect behavior?
1. How does the effect of explicit prejudice differ from the effect of implicit prejudice on behavior?
6.5 Reducing Prejudice
How do we reduce prejudice and discrimination? During the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, thefederal government instituted policies of desegregation in schools and in the military. One hope of such a policy was that putting peopleof different groups together would reduce prejudice, an idea called the contact hypothesis. While contact might increase prejudice insome situations (Allport, 1954), under certain conditions contact is more likely to reduce prejudice (Dixon, Durrheim, & Tredoux, 2005).Here are some of the conditions found by researchers to reduce prejudice:
1. People or groups are at equal status
1. Common goals
1. Intergroup cooperation
1. Support by the larger social context (e.g., authorities)
When these conditions are met, contact with different people is most effective in reducing prejudice. Yet even when the conditions are notmet, contact can still reduce prejudice (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). One of the big determining factors in the success of prejudice reductionis the level of anxiety individuals feel when interacting. When we feel anxious and uncertain about how we should act, it is difficult for aninteraction to go well (Brown & Hewstone, 2005; Stephan et al., 2002).
One interesting extension of the work on contact has been studying the effects of indirect intergroup contact. Even if people have no realcontact with people from another group, their own prejudice can be reduced if they have a friend who does have contact with peoplefrom that group (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997). It seems that even imagined contact is sufficient to reduce prejudice(Turner & Crisp, 2010). Research participants who were asked to imagine interacting with an older adult for two minutes showed lessprejudice toward older adults than those who did not imagine such an interaction. Although imagined interactions do not have as strongan impact on reducing prejudice, the effect was still a positive one for such a low investment.
Common goals have long been viewed as important for the reduction of prejudice and conflict between groups. In the 1950s, MuzaferSherif and his colleagues studied the effectiveness of shared goals—what he called superordinate goals—on the reduction of intergroupconflict (Sherif, 1958; Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, & Sherif, 1961). Superordinate goals are goals held by both groups in a conflict thattranscend the conflict, providing a common aim. Sherif's study brought two groups of boys to a summer camp setting. For a week eachgroup did not know the other group existed. As you might imagine from the previous discussions of categorization and ingroupfavoritism, each group of boys quickly and easily bonded as a group. When the groups discovered that another group was at the camp,conflict between the groups quickly escalated. The researchers then provided both groups of boys with problems they could solve only ifall of them worked together. In one such instance, researchers caused the camp's water supply to be cut off. The two groups of boys hadto work together to fix the problem and restore water to the camp. After several such events, conflict between the groups reducedsignificantly and the boys became friends without respect to the original grouping. The superordinate goals of solving problems helpedreduce the initial prejudice the boys felt toward one another.
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Jigsaw classrooms encourage children to collaborate in diversegroups and rely on each other to carry out a project, aiming toreduce prejudice.
Cooperative learning experiences in the classroom have also been shownto reduce prejudice. Learning can provide a superordinate goal that thegroup can only reach if it works together. One technique that incorporatescooperative learning is the jigsaw classroom. A jigsaw classroom is aclassroom in which different students have access to different pieces ofthe material to be learned. For example, if an elementary school classwere learning about cells, one group of students might learn about thenucleus, another about mitochondria, another about ribosomes, andanother about golgi body. Groups need to work together to gain expertisein each aspect of the material. The expert groups disperse and share theirexpertise with a new group, each student presenting his or her own areaof expertise (Aronson, Blaney, Stephan, Sikes, & Snapp, 1978). In a studyof Australian school children who used the jigsaw method while learningabout nutrition, researchers found that children in classrooms using thejigsaw method showed greater liking for their outgroup and lessstereotyped views of children from other ethnic groups (Walker &Crogan, 1998).
On the individual level, reducing prejudice is, in part, dependent on committing to thinking about and approaching the world in a waythat honors individuality and diversity. The more interaction we have with a variety of people, the better off we are likely to be. Peopleare motivated to learn about others when it is important to living successfully in the world (Fiske, 2004). Placing ourselves in situationswhere interactions with others are inevitable and necessary may help us to learn about those in our outgroup, and reduce the prejudiceswe might have about them. The more the norms of a social group also focus on inclusivity, the more individuals will do the same (Fiske,2004). It also helps to realize that all people are part of a variety of social groups. For example, someone might be a woman, a KoreanAmerican, an artist, and a runner. By thinking about this person not just based on gender, with the stereotypes and prejudice that maycome with that, but also her race, occupation, and hobby, one may be inclined to show less prejudice and be more tolerant (Brewer,2000).
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
1. What are the factors of contact that need to be present for the contact to reduce prejudice?
1. What is a superordinate goal?
Conclusion
We all live with prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination every day. Although we naturally form the categories that lead us to formstereotypes; show discriminatory behavior toward those outside of our groups; and are part of societies that, intentionally or not, supportprejudice and discrimination, we can still work hard to reduce prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination through our interactions withothers.
Chapter Summary
Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination
Prejudice includes the attitudes we have about individuals of a particular group based on their group membership. Bias leads us to formjudgments about people based on their membership in a group. Stereotypes are the beliefs we hold about individuals based on theirgroup membership. Discrimination involves actions toward individuals or groups based on group membership.
Social/Cognitive Origins
Our cognitive systems naturally categorize others. This categorization saves us cognitive energy. When we categorize others as membersof our ingroup, we show ingroup favoritism. We see members of the outgroup as all similar, while we acknowledge that members of ouringroup are quite different from one another.
Societal Origins
Societies support stereotypes and prejudice, and therefore discrimination, through norms. All members of a group generally learn thosenorms. Groups develop negative views of one another when they are in conflict over resources. Groups in power maintain the socialinequalities through legitimizing beliefs that justify their superior position.
Influences on Those Stereotyped
Stereotypes can interfere with performance. When people perform a behavior knowing their group is stereotypically not very good at thatbehavior, their performance may be less than their best. This phenomenon is called stereotype threat. Stereotypes and prejudice alsointerfere with positive interactions between people.
Reducing Prejudice
The contact hypothesis proposes that contact between members of groups that hold prejudice against one another may reduce prejudice.Contact can reduce prejudice when a number of conditions are satisfied. Common goals, called superordinate goals, are particularlyhelpful in bringing groups in conflict together.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Humans naturally categorize; it is good for memory and saves cognitive energy. But categorization also leads to stereotyping. If wecould somehow reverse our tendency to categorize, should we? What are the tradeoffs?
1. Have you seen ingroup favoritism or the outgroup homogeneity effect in your own experiences?
1. What effect would changing societal norms have on stereotypes and prejudice?
1. In your environment, in what ways do you see a justification of a social system to maintain status for the privileged and keep thosewith lower status in their place?
1. Everyone is part of a social group that has certain stereotypes that go along with it. What stereotypes exist for your social groups?How might that affect your performance?
Key Terms
Click on each key term to reveal the definition.
Chapter 5
Making Judgments
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Learning Objectives
By the end of the chapter you should be able to:
1. Contrast conscious and automatic processes
1. Define schemas and scripts and discuss their importance
1. Describe the value of heuristics
1. Identify and explain the availability heuristic, representativeness heuristic, and affect heuristic
1. Describe how the conjunction fallacy and the base rate fallacy contribute to errors in judgment
1. Define belief perseverance, confirmation bias, and illusion of control
1. Describe how the self-fulfilling prophecy can affect behavior
Chapter Outline
5.1 Conscious and Automatic Processes
5.2 Schemas and Scripts
1. Schemas
1. Scripts
5.3 Heuristics
1. Availability Heuristic
1. Representativeness Heuristic
1. Affect Heuristic
5.4 Errors in Judgment
1. Belief Perseverance
1. Confirmation Bias
1. Illusion of Control
5.5 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Chapter Summary
5.1 Conscious and Automatic Processes
When you make a decision do you weigh your options, carefully sorting out pros from cons? Have you ever made a decision because youhad a gut feeling? Psychologists believe that our cognitive processes operate at two levels: the conscious and the automatic. The thoughtprocesses we are aware of and tend to direct are on the conscious level. We might involve conscious thought when we make a decision bycarefully weighing our options. Processes that are done without our intention or awareness, such as when we make a decision based onour gut feeling, occur on the automatic level. Researchers have called these principles a variety of names, but they all focus on some kindof rational, conscious process and another more emotional or experientially-based unconscious process (Epstein, 1994; Kahneman, 2003;Peters, Hess, Vastfjall, & Auman, 2007; Reyna, 2004).
Table 5.1 summarizes the basic differences between these systems. As you can see from the table, the processing of the automaticsystem is something that we are generally not aware of. It processes or interprets stimuli that come from our environment, and when ithas completed processing or gets stuck, something researchers call disfluency, it alerts the conscious system (Alter, Oppenheimer, Epley, &Eyre, 2007). The capacity of the conscious system is much smaller than that of the automatic system but it is a system we can direct.The unconscious system may be processing something you are not interested in working on; it is only the conscious system that allowsyou to deliberately focus on a particular idea, situation, or problem.
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Table 5.1: Characteristics of the automatic and conscious systems |
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Automatic System |
Conscious System |
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Fast |
Slow |
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Outside of conscious awareness |
Within conscious awareness |
|
Effortless |
Effortful |
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Large capacity |
Limited capacity |
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May do many tasks at once |
Limited to very few tasks at once |
|
Imprecise, general responses |
Nuanced responses |
Sometimes these systems conflict with one another. An example of the conscious and the unconscious system working against oneanother can be seen in the Stroop Color–Word Task (Stroop, 1935). In this task, people are asked to identify the color in which letters orwords are printed. When the letters are meaningless, such as the lines of Xs in Column 1 of Table 5.2, the task is easy and people gothrough the list quickly. However, when the letters spell a color that is not the same as the color of the ink, people tend to stumble. Thetime it takes someone to go through the second list is much longer than the time it takes to go through the first list. The reason for this isthe fact that reading color words is a well-practiced skill for most adults; most of us read the word whether we want to or not. When thetwo do not match, there is a fight between the automatic system, which says "Green! The word is green!" and the conscious system, whichfocuses on the color of the blue ink (although, not everyone agrees with this interpretation; see Besner, Stolz, & Boutilier, 1997). Thisslower response when dealing with two conflicting stimuli is called the Stroop effect. The Stroop effect was named after J. R. Stroop whodeveloped the task in the 1930s and wrote about the phenomenon. Since then, a variety of other tasks have been developed that havesimilar findings (MacLeod, 1991).
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Table 5.2: The Stroop color–word task |
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For each column identify the color of the ink in which the letters are written. For example, in the firstcolumn the first set of letters is red. |
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Column 1 |
Column 2 |
|
XXXX |
Green |
|
XXXX |
Blue |
|
XXXX |
Red |
|
XXXX |
Blue |
|
XXXX |
Brown |
|
XXXX |
Red |
|
XXXX |
Green |
Expand Your Knowledge: Stroop Effect
To try out the Stroop effect for yourself by clicking here.The program will time you as you identify the ink colorin two different tasks. You can compare those times tosee if naming an ink color in a contrasting color wordslows you down.
The conscious and automatic systems do work together at times.Imagine you are at a busy and boisterous bar and are talking with asmall group of people. Suddenly, in the next group over you hear yourname being spoken. You were not actively listening for your name andwere engrossed in your conversation, yet, you somehow heard it. Thisoften occurs when we recognize our own name or other self-relevantinformation amidst other distracting stimuli without consciouslylistening for it (Moray, 1959; Wood & Cowan, 1995). In this scenario,our conscious system is oblivious to what those in the other group aretalking about, but your automatic system is monitoring what is goingon around you. When your name is spoken, your unconscious systemalerts the conscious system to pay attention and suddenly you are straining to hear what is being said about you (Alexopoulos, Muller,Ric, & Marendaz, 2012; MacLeod, 1998). Similarly, our own faces jump out at us from a sea of others faces; you may have noticed thisphenomenon if you have ever looked at a group picture and quickly noticed your own face (Tacikowski & Nowicka, 2010).
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
1. What are some characteristics of the conscious system?
1. What are some characteristics of the unconscious system?
5.2 Schemas and Scripts
Our automatic system allows us to make shortcuts and come to conclusions without taxing the conscious system (Shah & Oppenheimer,2008). In fact, when our resources are depleted we are more likely to use the shortcuts offered by the automatic system (Masicampo &Baumeister, 2008). The automatic system has two ways of doing this; one focuses on things like objects or people, while the other focuseson events, what they include, and how they are sequenced.
Schemas
Figure 5.1: Schemas
Your schema for a baseball game may include a baseballdiamond, a salute to the American flag, and peanuts.
Dorling Kindersley RF/Thinkstock, iStockphoto/Thinkstock,iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Chapter 2 introduced the idea of schemas as knowledge structures that organizewhat we know and that can affect how we process information. Self-schemas areknowledge structures about the self, but we can have schemas about many otherthings in our world, such as animals, objects, places, and concepts (see Figure 5.1).When we are making judgments, schemas may affect those judgments. Forexample, a boss might have a schema about an employee as a good, reliableworker. If that employee is late one day, the boss makes a different judgment aboutthat employee than she would if the boss had a schema about that employee aslazy and irresponsible. Because of the positive schema about her employee, theboss might also quickly remember the employee's contributions to past projects,eventually concluding that the employee had a good reason to be late. Whileschemas can help us remember things by organizing them into preconceivedstructures, they may also create false memories for us (Lampinen, Copeland, &Neuschatz, 2001). If you were to sit in a professor's office for several minutes andthen, outside of the office hours later were asked what you saw in that office, yourschema could help you answer. You expect to see bookshelves with books, a desk, acomputer, a stapler, and some pens in a professor's office. As you remember what was in the office, your existing schema might help youremember that you saw a bookshelf. But the schema may lead you to remember something that was not there. If you expected to see astapler, you might report that a stapler was there, even if it was not.
Schemas
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How schemas influence behavior.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Why are schemas considered a fundamental partof social psychology?
1. How does a victim's schema put people at a higherrisk of being victimized?
Schemas can also help us remember items because they violate a schema. If youwere to see a stuffed teddy bear in a professor's office, you might rememberand recall it because it was outside of your typical professor's-office schema.This type of effect may have serious consequences when we examine the role ofschemas in eyewitness testimony in court. Researchers have found that schemasfor crimes can influence the details people remember about crimes they witness(Tuckey & Brewer, 2003). For example, you would expect a bank robbery toinclude a thief with a bag; a bag is a schema-consistent element. You would notexpect the thief to wear bright clothing; bright clothing is a schema-inconsistentelement. People tend to be accurate about schema-relevant and schema-inconsistent information. Information that is irrelevant to the schema is mostlikely to be forgotten.
Schemas can be fairly broad, applicable in a wide variety of situations or with awide variety of objects or people, or relatively narrow, being very specific to oneor two objects, people, or situations. Broader schemas take us longer to learn, aswe encounter different ways to think about and view a particular entity orproblem. But these broader schemas may allow us to be more flexible (Chen &Mo, 2004). For example, as a child you might have learned the concept ofsharing toys and applied it when playing at home with friends. But, if you wereprovided with examples of a variety of ways to share over the course of yourlife, including sharing resources and time with others, you may be more able torecognize when someone needed your help and know how to provide it.
Scripts
How do you know what to do when you go into a restaurant? How do you know what is expected on a first date? In our lives it is helpfulto know how to act and respond in social situations. Psychologists call expected series of events scripts, like the scripts in a movie orplay that tell the actors what is going to occur next. Scripts can be very helpful to us. When a restaurant follows a script, both the serverand the diner know what to do and what is expected of them without having to discuss the process. If you have ever lived or traveled in adifferent country, or if you are part of a distinctive subculture in your own country, you know that others do things differently. Forexample, in Chinese culture when someone shows admiration for something done well, the appropriate response in the Chinese socialscript is to respond with modesty. According to the script, the admirer's next response should show even greater admiration for theaccomplishment (Han, 2011). If you are new to a culture or situation, you may find yourself confused and unsure. In those kinds ofsituations you may feel like everyone knows what is going on but you—you do not know the script.
©Getty Images/Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Thinkstock
Adhering to your script of grocery shopping, what might occur next in thesequence of events? What next event would violate your script for groceryshopping?
In a dating scenario between a heterosexual couple, it is likely the man will pick the woman up at her home for the first date, they will goto a restaurant, talk about their lives, hope to impress one another, and perhaps then attend a movie. The man will likely offer to pay forboth the dinner and the movie. Not all first dates follow this pattern, but many do (Eaton & Rose, 2012; Laner & Ventrone, 2000). Likeschemas, we use scripts to make sense of and organize our experience. Schemas involve our expectations for things or concepts, whilescripts involve our expectations for events or sequences of events.
Dating scripts can be quite detailed and can include behaviors that are different for men and women. In a 1989 study, undergraduatestudents listed 19 different actions that women would engage in and 27 different actions for men. Most of these students agreed on whatbelonged in the script, indicating that scripts are shared within a culture (Rose & Frieze, 1989). Students noted that certain foods weredate foods and others were not; foods that could be eaten neatly, foods that were not too smelly, and foods that were not likely to causebad breath were suggested date foods (Amiraian & Sobal, 2009). Dating scripts go beyond the first date, implicating how a relationshipshould develop over time. When partners share a script for how the relationship should develop, they show greater relationshipsatisfaction (Holmberg & MacKenzie, 2002). For example, if both partners expect to call one another daily and go out on a date everyFriday night, each will be more satisfied than if one is expecting only a couple phone calls a week and a date every other Saturday night.
The effects of scripts on our lives are not always benign or helpful. A script that supports risky sexual behavior, such as not using acondom, may lead to high-risk behavior and, therefore, increased rates of infection with sexually transmitted diseases (Bowleg, Lucas, &Tschann, 2004; Hussen, Bowleg, Sangaramoorthy, & Malebranche, 2012). Sexual scripts come from parents, peers, school, television andthe movies, as well as pornography (Hussen, et al., 2012). Sexual scripts might also be learned from romance novels. Such novelsgenerally have very similar sexual scripts and these scripts have changed little over the last 20 years (Menard & Cabrera, 2011). A sexualscript includes when and where a couple has sex. For example, some might expect sex after a few dates while others may need to knowtheir partner for months or be engaged or married before engaging in sexual intercourse. Partners might expect to have sex in a bed inone of their bedrooms or in some other location in their living space, their car, or in a hotel. The script will also include elements of theencounter itself such as who initiates sex, length of foreplay, type of activities expected in foreplay, and the use of condoms or otherbarriers that reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy.
The ability to describe a script or put events in a script in the correct order seems to lie in the frontal lobe of the brain, directly behindthe forehead. People with brain damage to this part of the brain sometimes show difficulties with scripts (Grafman, 1989). Our ability towork with scripts can also be influenced by age. Older adults had more difficulty correctly ordering extensive scripts than younger adults(Allain et al., 2007). For example, an older adult may have more difficulty accurately describing the sequence of events needed to changea flat tire.
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
1. How are schemas and scripts similar?
1. How might schemas lead to false or mistaken memories?
5.3 Heuristics
Quick processing is a theme of our cognitive systems. As discussed, schemas help us keep information organized and can help in memory,and scripts help us know what to do without expending a lot of energy trying to figure out what is appropriate in a given situation. Whenmaking judgments we also attempt to get quick answers. The shortcuts we use in making judgments are heuristics. If you were havingtrouble answering an abstract problem, you might try to think about it concretely, or draw a picture in an attempt to answer the questionquickly, without further taxing your cognitive system. Just as schemas and scripts can be helpful to us, heuristics can also be helpful—weare likely to quickly come up with a pretty good answer. But just as schemas can cause us to remember something was there when it wasnot, heuristics can lead to incorrect judgments. Researchers who evaluate heuristics most often focus on what happens when heuristicsfail us and we make incorrect judgments. Despite the problems they sometimes create, heuristics quickly provide us with a good-enoughanswer most of the time.
Heuristics
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Heuristics and their impact on our lives.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. How do heuristics function in daily life?
1. How are heuristics studied in social psychology?
Availability Heuristic
Are there more words in the English language that begin with the letter "R," orthat have the letter "R" as the third letter of the word? Tversky and Kahneman(1973) asked participants in their study to respond to this question. Most peopleresponded that there are more words with "R" as the first letter, estimating thatthere are about twice as many with "R" as the first letter than with "R" as thethird letter. How do people make this judgment? If you solved this like mostpeople do, you thought briefly about how many words you knew that had "R" asthe first letter (relatives, rainbow, rich, run). Then you thought about how manywords you knew that had "R" as the third letter (park, more, marshmallow). Asyou made those calculations, you realized that you were able to come up withmany more words with "R" as the first letter than "R" as the third letter. Wordsstarting with "R" were more available to you in your memory.
Making a judgment this way, you and the research participants were using theavailability heuristic. The availability heuristic involves the tendency to makejudgments about the frequency of something or the likelihood of an eventoccurring by considering how available it was in memory. Instances that comemore easily to mind, and thus are more available, are judged to be more likely. Asnoted earlier, these strategies often get us the right answer, but in the case of theposition of the "R" our judgment is wrong. There are actually more words in the English language with "R" as the third letter than "R" asthe first letter. Often this type of judgment will provide you with the right answer, but, as in this instance, there is room for error.
We can apply this to other realms and other experiences. How successful is online dating? Many people will tell you about a cousin orcoworker who met and is happily married to someone found on an online dating site. You may have such a story yourself. But how oftendo you hear the stories about unsuccessful searchers who gave up on online dating in frustration? Occasionally, perhaps, but because wehear more of the happily-ever-after stories and fewer stories of frustration, many of us assume online dating is successful for the majorityof those who engage in it.
Test Yourself
Click on the question below to reveal the answer.
1. Why does the availability heuristic have the word availability in its name?
Representativeness Heuristic
"Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issuesof discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations" (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983, p. 297). Which ofthe following is more likely?
1. Linda is a bank teller.
1. Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement.
If you are like most people you chose answer b. Why? Most people say they chose b because Linda sounds to them like someone whowould be active in the feminist movement who happens to be a bank teller rather than just a stereotypical bank teller. If you answeredthis way, for this reason, you were using something called the representativeness heuristic. The representativeness heuristic involvesmaking decisions based on how similar someone or something is to the typical, or representative, person or situation. Because Lindaseems like your typical vision of someone in the feminist movement, you choose b.
Expand Your Knowledge: Heuristic Simulation
Want to think more about the representativeness andavailability heuristics? You can participate in simulationsof heuristics at http://cat.xula.edu/thinker/decisions/heuristics/ . Otherheuristics are described as well. After making your ownjudgments, you can read about usual answers andexplanations for these answers.
The representativeness heuristic will often get you to the right answerwhen you are making quick decisions. But in the above example, Lindais more likely to be just a bank teller than to be both a bank teller andactive in the feminist movement. There are more bank tellers thanthere are bank tellers who are active in the feminist movement. Whenwe rate two things occurring together as more likely than one of thosethings occurring alone, we engage in the conjunction fallacy. Theconjunction fallacy is the error of believing that two events occurringtogether are more likely than either of those events occurring bythemselves. It is a fallacy because logic dictates a single event is morelikely than that same event happening with another event.
Another piece of faulty reasoning that may be behind these heuristicsis the base rate fallacy (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). Consider the following: Walter is a 47-year-old man who reads poetry, watchesPBS, and plays golf in his spare time. Which is more likely: that Walter is an Ivy League professor or that Walter is a truck driver? Formost of us, Walter sounds like an Ivy League professor. Using the representativeness heuristic, we solve this problem by thinking aboutwhether Walter is more like a typical Ivy League professor than a typical truck driver. But Walter is more likely to be a truck driver. Why?According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012) 1.6 million heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers are employed in the United States, tosay nothing of elsewhere in the world. Consider how many Ivy League professors there are. With only eight Ivy League schools, withbetween a little under 1,000 faculty (Dartmouth and Brown) to just over 4,000 (Pennsylvania and Columbia) per school, there are about19,500 Ivy League professors. Given the very large number of truck drivers and relatively small number of Ivy League professors, it ismuch more likely that Walter is among the large group than the small group. When we make a decision about the likelihood of somethingand ignore the number of instances of that in the population (of people, actions, diagnoses, etc.) we are victims of the base rate fallacy.
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
1. Why is the conjunction fallacy called a fallacy?
Affect Heuristic
Expand Your Knowledge: Affect Heuristic
Research on how people understand numbers shows thatwhile frequencies and percentages are easily understood,absolute frequencies are given greater weight. Absolutefrequencies are perceived to be larger than equivalentfrequencies or percentages. Although there may be otherthings going on, the text explains this as at least partlydue to the affect heuristic. We connect emotionally toabsolute frequencies (30 people with cancer) in a way wedo not with percentages (30% of the group has cancer).Click here for an article explaining the research"Numerical Information Can Be Persuasive or InformativeDepending on How it's Presented."
Source: Science Daily/University of Toronto.
Imagine you are on a parole board deciding whether to parole aninmate. You are told that 20 in every 100 people released under similarcircumstances as this inmate go on to commit a violent crime. Wouldyou parole the person or deny parole? What if you were told that 20%of people released who are like this inmate go on to commit a violentcrime? Research participants have been asked similar questions. Thosegiven information using relative frequency, the first form of question,believed there was greater danger than those with information instatistical form (Slovic, Monahan, & MacGregor, 2000). Rationally, weknow that 20 out of every 100 people is equivalent to 20%, but weprocess these bits of information differently. When this information ispresented in relative frequency form, in this case the number ofinstances out of 100, people imagine 20 perpetrators of violent crimes—a disturbing image. These images lead to a gut-level negativeemotional reaction. The statistical form, a percentage in this case,seems to separate us from that image, and therefore reduces thenegative affect (emotional reaction). We use our gut-level reactions tohelp us make decisions (Slovic, Peters, Finucane, & MacGregor, 2005).This tendency to use affective reactions (gut-level emotional reactions) as information to make judgments is called the affect heuristic.Someone looking for a home might use the affect heuristic. Although price, square footage, school district, and neighborhood may all bepart of the judgment, if the affect heuristic is in play homebuyers might report that the home they chose just felt right.
These heuristics are not just a novelty of research studies. They can affect our lives. In a study of women who were being tested forgenetic vulnerability for breast and ovarian cancer, researchers found extensive use of the availability heuristic and the representativenessheuristic (Kenen, Ardern-Jones & Eeles, 2003). The women described vivid stories of others they knew who had been treated for or diedof cancer, which affected how vulnerable these women felt in terms of their cancer risk. The representativeness heuristic caused thewomen to judge their own cancer risk by how similar they felt they were to others who had died of cancer.
Test Yourself
Click on the question below to reveal the answer.
Social Psychology in Depth: Heuristics and Politics
When you vote, do you spend all the time and energy required to consider all the issues for all the candidates? If not, youare not alone. Voters often use heuristics to make judgments about political candidates. The time required to find, sortthrough, and evaluate information on all the candidates is more than many people can afford. How, then, does that affect thedecisions themselves?
R. R. Lau and D. P. Redlawsk (2001) note that voters often use party affiliation or candidate ideology to make quickdecisions in voting. Most of the time such decision-making strategies get the voters what they want, but there are timeswhen party affiliation or ideology can lead a voter astray. A candidate might be categorized incorrectly. For example, themedia may say that a candidate for governor is a conservative when she is actually more of a moderate in her policies.Candidates may also differ from the party line. A voter may assume that because the candidate is Republican she is pro-life,but she may actually be pro-choice.
Beyond party affiliation and ideology, a voter might also use endorsements to make decisions. If a favorite celebrity showssupport for a particular candidate, that voter might choose to vote for that candidate. Endorsements may come fromindividuals one trusts, like a close friend or a celebrity, or from organizations one believes in, like the National RifleAssociation or the National Organization for Women.
Polling data also provides a simple cue to a voter. When a particular candidate is ahead in the polls, voters might vote forthat candidate because that candidate is popular or because they perceive that candidate will win. Candidate appearancecan also influence voters.
The researchers found that less sophisticated voters made poorer decisions when they relied on these heuristics. Thesevoters would have been better served if they had examined the issues the candidates stood for and made a logical, rationalchoice rather than relying on heuristics. Using a shortcut was detrimental to decision making. More sophisticated voters,those with greater interest and knowledge of the political system, made good decisions while using heuristics. This findingis somewhat ironic given that sophisticated voters are least likely to need heuristics, but they were the ones whosedecisions making did not suffer from using them.
5.4 Errors in Judgment
Heuristics often get us the correct answer and do so quickly. At times, however, our cognitive systems use shortcuts that make it moredifficult for us to find the right answer. These ways of thinking create and perpetuate errors by leading us to keep believing in somethingeven after our reasons for believing have been disconfirmed. The cognitive shortcuts might also cause us to ignore or discountinformation that goes against our beliefs. When we believe we have more control than we actually do, we are making an error in ourjudgment.
Belief Perseverance
Imagine you were presented with evidence that firefighters who are risk takers are better firefighters. These firefighters are willing to dorisky things like climb up tall ladders and run into burning buildings. Their risk-taking tendencies also help them to find new andinventive ways to fight fires. After you have seen this evidence you are then told it is completely false. There is no relationship betterfirefighters' ability to fight fires and their risk-taking tendencies. Would you continue to believe what you were told? Researchers foundthat research participants presented with evidence did continue to believe, even after the researchers told them they had falsified thedata. They continued to believe it when the researchers checked with them one week later (Anderson, 1983). Maybe because the ideathat risk taking is needed in firefighting is so self-evident, it is the logical thing to believe, even when the story is debunked. The problemwith this conclusion is that the researchers only told half of the participants that good firefighters are risk takers. The other half weretold that risk aversion was a good quality in firefighters. Firefighters need to carefully analyze situations and only go into a burningbuilding when they know the risks, so they can get themselves and others out safely. The participants told about the positive effects ofrisk avoidance continued to believe the story they had been told even after they found out it was fabricated.
The tendency to believe something even after the initial reasons for that belief are discredited is called belief perseverance. Beliefperseverance can be problematic in many situations. For example, if your romantic interest becomes secretive, you might suspect him orher of cheating on you. Even when you find out the secretiveness was part of planning a romantic surprise for you, your suspicion mightremain. Students who come to believe they lack a certain ability may persevere with that belief despite evidence that their poorperformance is a result of poor instruction, rather than inability (Lepper, Ross, & Lau, 1986).
One way to counteract belief perseverance is to come up with explanations that are opposite of that belief. When research participantshad to explain why risk-averse firefighters might be good firefighters, the opposite of their initial belief, they showed less beliefperseverance (Anderson, 1982). However, if people try to come up with an alternative for their initial belief and find it difficult to do so,they come to hold their initial belief more strongly. When using the availability heuristic, people assume that an explanation that isdifficult to think of is an unlikely explanation. Another, counterintuitive way to fight against belief perseverance is to ask people to comeup with a large number of explanations for the initial belief (Nestler, 2010). If it is difficult to develop 10 reasons why risk-takingfirefighters might be better firefighters, then people come to believe that conclusion less.
Confirmation Bias
Once a belief is established, people tend to search for information that will confirm that belief, a phenomenon called the confirmationbias. This is not something people do consciously or deliberately (Gibson, Sanbonmatsu, & Posavac, 1997). Nonetheless, wheninformation is presented, the material that supports a preexisting belief is seen as convincing while material that refutes a belief isexamined closely and criticized (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). For example, a professor might evaluate a student paper whose argument isin line with his beliefs on economic policy very favorably. However, he might attack the logic or arguments of a paper that goes againsthis position on economic policy, even if it is as well-written as the other paper.
©Bettman/Corbis/AP Images
A person's pre-existing belief might be confirmed by reading anewspaper that supports his or her opinions.
This tendency might be particularly dangerous in criminal cases. Whensomeone commits a crime, police and lawyers need to find the personresponsible and make a case against that person. If the police andprosecutors believe a particular person is guilty they are likely to searchfor information that confirms that belief and may discount or ignoreinformation that goes against their belief. If they are correct in the guiltof the person, belief perseverance is not too problematic. It is when aninnocent person is accused that belief perseverance is most dangerous.For example, early identification of a particular suspect colors perceptionsof later evidence, even when that identification was made with littleconfidence in its accuracy (O'Brien, 2009). Police officers might pushharder in interrogation for someone they believe to be guilty thansomeone they are less sure of and see evidence of someone's innocenceas less reliable (Ask, Rebelius, & Granhag, 2008; Kassin, Goldstein, &Savitsky, 2003; Kerstholt, & Eikelboom, 2007). Also, when a potentiallyguilty suspect has been identified, fewer alternative avenues may bepursued (O'Brien, 2009; Rassin, Eerland, & Kuijpers, 2010).
Keep in mind that this is an unconscious process. Serious, well-meaning, and ethical police and lawyers may fall victim to this generalhuman tendency. Individuals in other professions are just as likely to experience belief perseverance. Psychiatrists, for example, may seekinformation to confirm a certain diagnosis they believe to be true (Mendel, et al., 2011). One technique that can be helpful to fight againstthe confirmation bias is to deliberately discuss evidence both for the belief and against it (O'Brien, 2009). Arguing against a belief canhelp make people aware of other possibilities and explanations.
Illusion of Control
Our cognitive shortcuts do not only allow us to maintain and persevere in our beliefs—even when reasons behind our beliefs are nolonger valid, they also cause us to make errors in our judgments about the control we have in situations that involve chance. Despiteknowledge to the contrary, we treat many chance situations as circumstances in which our choice, skill, or hard work will make adifference—a phenomenon shown in Ellen Langer's studies of illusion of control. In the 1970s, Ellen Langer did a series of studiesinvestigating the amount of control people believe they have in situations involving chance. In one of these studies, Langer asked people ifthey would like to buy a $1 card to participate in a $50 lottery. Half of the participants were allowed to choose the card from a deck ofcards, the other half were handed a card from that same deck. When Langer came back later to ask if they would be willing to sell thecard they owned, those who had chosen their card wanted an average of $8.67 for the card. Those who were handed a card said theywould sell for $1.96. Why the difference? Langer proposed that choice gave people a sense that they had some control over the outcomeof the lottery, even though all cards were equally likely to win.
When people participate in a game of chance and believe that their actions somehow influence the outcome, they have an illusion ofcontrol. An illusion of control occurs any time we approach a situation believing and acting as though we have more control that weactually have. This is true when we have no control and act as though we have some control, or when we have some control and act asthough we have more control than we do (Presson & Benassi, 1996). The illusion is greater when people are more involved in the taskand when the task or aspects of it are more familiar (Langer, 1975; Thompson, 1999; Wohl & Enzle, 2002). A state lottery that allows youto choose your own numbers is using both of these to increase your sense of control. By choosing your own numbers you are moreinvolved. Many people who play the lottery play with familiar, sometimes much loved, numbers such as birth dates or weddinganniversaries. Success at a task also increases illusion of control. When people get the outcome they desire, particularly at the beginningof a string of outcomes, their illusion of control is greater (Langer & Roth, 1975; Thompson, 1999). For example, if someone was playing aslot machine and had a string of wins early on, that person would have a stronger illusion of control and may, with that illusion, be morelikely to continue to play.
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
5.5 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
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Self-fulfilling prophecy is even prevalent in ancientmythology. Oedipus, a Greek king, was told that hewould one day kill his biological father and marryhis biological mother. This dated painting depictsOedipus killing his father.
Can our judgments about another person affect that person's behavior? In otherwords, can one person's expectations affect how another person acts? This was aquestion investigated by Robert Rosenthal in a study involving teachers and students(Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1966). After giving students what appeared to be a test ofintelligence, Rosenthal told teachers that certain students were predicted to "bloom"over the school year; that is, these students were expected to make great intellectualgains. In reality these students' names were randomly chosen from each classroom.The students were not told anything about the tests or what their teachers expectedof them. When the researchers returned at the end of the school year, they found thatthese randomly chosen students did indeed make gains. The researchers concludedthat because the students were no different from their classmates at the beginning ofthe study, it must have been the teachers' expectations that affected the students'performance.
This tendency for our expectations to affect the behaviors of others is called the self-fulfilling prophecy. We "prophesy" someone else's behavior, that is, we believesomething will happen, and through our actions resulting from that belief, we make itcome true (see Figure 5.2). The behaviors we engage in to make these propheciescome true is behavioral confirmation. Left alone, the prophesied behavior wouldlikely not have happened; these students would not have made the gains they did.Because of the prophecy and the teacher's subsequent behavior, the teacher managedto create a situation where the prophecy would come true. The teachers called on thestudents they expected to make gains more often, gave them more feedback, andcreated a generally more welcoming learning environment. Researchers themselvescan fall victim to the self-fulfilling prophecy. When doing an experiment a researcherhas expectations for how the study will turn out, stated in the hypothesis for the study. If controls are not put in place, the researchermight act in a way that leads the participants to behave in a way that fulfills the experimenter's expectations.
Figure 5.2: The self-fulfilling prophecy
The self-fulfilling prophecy demonstrates that our beliefs about others and subsequent actions toward themcan influence the beliefs and actions of others.
One theory that helps explain how individuals come to behave in ways others expect them to is self-verification theory. According toself-verification theory people want to confirm or verify what they believe to be true about themselves (Swann, 1987). Even when ourbeliefs about ourselves are negative we desire to confirm those beliefs because it allows for a stable self-concept and a predictable socialworld (North & Swann, 2009). For example, if you believed you were awkward in social situations, you would want others toacknowledge that because then you would not have to change your self-concept and others would not expect you to be suave and self-confident in social situations. Self-verification interacts with self-fulfilling prophecy when the behaviors of the person making theprophecy lead the person to internalize those beliefs and then work to fulfill that sense of self. For example, in a longitudinal study ofteens and their mothers, Madon et al. (2008) found that a mother's beliefs about her child's future drinking behavior influenced thechild's belief about his or her future drinking behavior. The child's belief lead to self-verification behaviors and, therefore, the fulfillmentof the mother's drinking prophecies.
Self-fulfilling prophecies have multifarious effects. As noted, parent's beliefs about their child's underage drinking can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to greater or lesser drinking later on depending on the prophecy (Madon, Guyll, Spoth, Cross, & Hilbert, 2003;Madon, Willard, Guyll, Trudeau, & Spoth, 2006). Within relationships, researchers found that women with high rejection sensitivity—inother words, those who expect that the other person will reject them—act in ways that lead to rejecting responses. These womenprophesied rejection and, by their actions, created rejection in their romantic partners (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998). Self-fulfilling prophecy has even been proposed as partially responsible for the extreme violence found in the Pelican Bay State Prison, asuper-maximum security prison for extremely violent and dangerous prisoners (King, Steiner, & Breach, 2008). Researchers argue that theexpectation of prisoners to be very violent in the prison environment creates behavior that leads to a fulfillment of that prophecy.
The self-fulfilling prophecy may influence our experiences of pain or illness. Teens who believed they would have more pain after surgeryended up feeling more pain and using more pain medication than those who believed their pain would be minimal (Logan & Rose, 2005).It may be that the teens who were expecting pain were more anxious and paid more attention to every twinge of discomfort, leading to amore severe experience of pain. In a similar way, naval cadets who believed they would experience less sea sickness and any sea sicknessthey experienced would be unlikely to affect their work did better when at sea (Eden & Zuk, 1995). In neither of these situations did theprophecy eliminate the pain or sickness, but it did make it better for both.
Test Yourself
Click on the question below to reveal the answer.
1. How is it that self-fulfilling prophecies come true?
Conclusion
Our cognitive systems are designed to work as efficiently as possible, with the automatic system taking over as much as it can, while theconscious system deals with the nuanced and difficult problems that the automatic system cannot handle. The use of schemas andheuristics helps make this possible. These mental shortcuts can be helpful to us, but, at times, do lead to errors.
Chapter Summary
Conscious and Automatic Processes
The human cognitive system operates on two levels, a conscious level and an automatic level. The conscious system is directed by theindividual and works slowly and deliberately on problems to provide nuanced answers. The automatic system works outside of consciousawareness and without intention. The automatic system works quickly, is largely effortless, and provides general answers.
Schemas and Scripts
Schemas are knowledge structures that allow for organization of information. Schemas can be helpful in memory but can also providemisleading cues when something we expect because of our schema is not present. Scripts are knowledge structures about events. Scriptscan be helpful by allowing individuals to predict what will happen and to, therefore, engage in expected behavior.
Heuristics
The automatic system allows us to make quick judgments through the use of mental shortcuts called heuristics. When we use theavailability heuristic, we judge the likelihood of an event based on how available that event is in memory. The representativenessheuristic involves judging the likelihood of an event based on how closely it resembles the typical case. When we make errors injudgments using these heuristics it may be due, in part, to the conjunction fallacy or the base rate fallacy. With the conjunction fallacy, wejudge the likelihood of two things occurring together as more likely than one of those occurring alone. When we ignore the rate of eventsand make judgments that suggest the unlikely event is more likely, we have engaged in the base rate fallacy. The affect heuristic occurswhen we make judgments based on gut-level emotional reactions to events.
Errors in Judgment
Particular ways of thinking can contribute to errors in judgment. When we engage in belief perseverance we continue to believe insomething even after our reasons for believing have been disconfirmed. Confirmation bias occurs when we ignore or discount informationthat goes against our beliefs and search for and pay attention to information that fits with our beliefs. When we believe we have morecontrol in a situation we have an illusion of control.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Others' expectations of us can influence our behavior. Researchers have found that prophecies for behavior—in other words, what peoplethink others will do—can become self-fulfilling when individuals act in ways that elicit that behavior from the other.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. How might schemas be helpful and harmful in one's life?
1. What might your life be like if there were no scripts?
1. Consider a time when you might have used the availability, representativeness, or affect heuristic in making a judgment. How did thataffect the accuracy of your judgment?
1. Although the examples in the chapter concern times when heuristics lead us to incorrect answers, why are heuristics helpful andused regularly by us?
1. What might you do to recognize and fight against belief perseverance and confirmation bias?
1. Have self-fulfilling prophecies ever affected your life?
Chapter 10
Aggression
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Learning Objectives
By the end of the chapter you should be able to:
· Define aggression and differentiate instrumental aggression, hostile aggression, and violence
· Describe the possible origins of aggression
· Explain whether men or women are more aggressive, what age group shows the most aggression, and howage and gender interact with types of aggression, including relational aggression
· Explain catharsis and whether it works to reduce aggression
· Describe displaced aggression and triggered displaced aggression
· Explain the factors that influence our aggression: frustration, media, weapons, alcohol, and environmentalfactors
· Describe the risk factors and consequences for antisocial behavior
Chapter Outline
10.1 Aggression
· Origins of Aggression
· Gender and Age Differences in Aggression
10.2 Aggression Cues
· Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
· Media
· Weapons
· Alcohol
· Environmental Factors
10.3 Catharsis and Aggression
10.4 Other Antisocial Behavior
Chapter Summary
* * *
The video and computer game industry is large, with 67% of households in the United States having at least one member whoplays, and a total 24.75 billion dollars in yearly revenue (Entertainment Software Association, 2012). Though the amount ofidentified violence varies depending on who is doing the rating, many video games contain violent content (Carnagey, Anderson,& Bushman, 2007; Thompson, & Haninger, 2001; Walsh & Gentile, 2001). Both children and adults play such games, with half ofgame players between the ages of 18 and 49 (Online Education, 2013). The vast majority of adolescents, 97%, report that theyplay video games (Lenhart et al., 2008). Action and strategy genres are most popular, and more than half of games sold receivea rating of "Everyone" or "Everyone +10," meaning the game content in generally suitable for ages 10 and up (EntertainmentSoftware Association, 2012). Does the playing of such games allow for the release of aggressive feelings? Or does playing videogames with violent content teach violence? The debate concerning the effect of violent media is ongoing, with the video gameindustry, parents, children, gamers, and scientists all providing input (Ferguson, 2013; Entertainment Software Association,2012). In this chapter, we will discuss where aggression might originate as well as cues that contribute to our aggressivefeelings and behavior. Beyond the topic of aggression, the source and consequences of general antisocial behavior will bediscussed.
10.1 Aggression
While sitting in a public place like a park, you are likely to observe a variety of behaviors in the people around you. Two children by thesandbox are wrestling with one another. The man and woman are yelling at one another and the woman begins to cry. Are thesebehaviors aggression? Aggression is intentionally harming someone who is motivated to avoid that harm (Baron & Richardson, 1994;Berkowitz, 1993). In order to be labeled as aggression the behavior needs to be intentional. The result does not matter as much as theintent. If you were swinging your arm around with no intention of hitting someone and accidentally did, your behavior may be carelessbut it is not aggressive. Both the children and the couple at the park appear to satisfy this requirement: their actions have intention. Tobe labeled as aggression, the behavior must have the intent of harm, and the harm may be relational, such as an insult, or physical, suchas a punch. Harm can also differ in whether it is direct, like an insult or a punch, or covert, like gossip or adding poison to someone'sdrink. Also, the person toward whom the behavior is aimed must be motivated to avoid the harm. A visit to the oral surgeon, for example,may result in pain; however, the oral surgeon was not acting aggressively when she took out your wisdom teeth because you willinglysubmitted to the surgery.
At times we engage in an aggressive act that is a means to an end, not an end in itself. A bomber pilot who drops a bomb on a terroristtraining camp intends to harm individuals there, but the pilot's final goal is to stop terrorist attacks, not cause harm to those particularindividuals. Boxers throw punches to win a boxing match, not because of a desire to cause lasting harm to their opponents. A gamershoots a villain to gain points or get to the next level in the game. When aggression is a means to an end, we call it instrumentalaggression (Baron & Richardson, 1994; Feshbach, 1964). If one member of the couple in the park was saying hurtful things to bringabout a breakup, that would be instrumental aggression. In contrast, there are times when the goal of the aggressive behavior is to causeharm. A fifth grader who spreads a rumor about an enemy may have hurting that enemy as an ultimate goal. This type of aggression iscalled hostile aggression (Baron & Richardson, 1994). Physical aggression that has the potential of severely harming someone is violence (Felson, 2002; Krug, Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi, & Lozano, 2002). A gunshot to the chest is violence, while a slap on the cheek isbetter described as aggressive behavior.
Test Yourself
Which of the following qualify as aggression, according to the psychological definition of aggression? Why? Click on eachstatement below to reveal the answer.
· Hoping to dislodge a bit of food caught in her friend's throat, Lindsey hits her hard on the back.
Origins of Aggression
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Evidence of aggression has been found in early human graves.
Where does aggression originate? Aggressive behavior is manifested in avariety of human cultures, and archaeologists and anthropologists havefound evidence of aggression in the discovery of weapons in humanburials and in marks on bones caused by aggressive behavior (Buss &Shackelford, 1997). Aggression is something that is innate to our person.Sigmund Freud, for example, believed that all people were endowed withaggressive energy, called Thanatos; and he argued that cultures wereneeded to control this aggressive drive. Today, evolutionary psychologistssuggest that humans developed a tendency toward aggression becauseaggression provides an evolutionary benefit; inflicting harm on a rival isone way of gaining territory or mates, thus making it advantageous to usesome degree of aggression in human relationships (Buss & Shackelford,1997).
Although most cultures exhibit some degree of aggression, widevariations between cultures suggest that aggression is, to some extent,influenced by the social environment (Bond, 2004; Munroe, Hulefeld,Rodgers, Tomeo, & Yamazaki, 2000). For example, rates of aggressionagainst partners tend to differ depending on the level of gender equalityand individualism in a culture. In cultures with greater gender equalityand more individualism, violence toward women is lower, althoughvictimization of men tends to be higher in these cultures (Archer, 2006).Greater aggression is often found in countries with fewer resources,unequal income distribution, and nondemocratic governing systems, aswell as those countries that have recently been at war (Bond, 2004). Theform aggression takes and the effects it has can also differ depending onculture. In Japan, for example, relational aggression by peers is particularly damaging to children, not surprising given the interdependentculture focus on relationships (Kawabata, Crick, & Hamaguchi, 2010). Overall, aggression is an inborn tendency that appears in mostcultures and is either increased or decreased by the norms of that culture.
Just as aggression rates among cultures vary, so do rates among individuals. Differences in rates of aggression between individuals aredue to a combination of inborn or innate qualities (nature), and the environment (nurture). Some degree of this variation in rates ofaggression between people can be traced to genetic differences. For example, the greater the genetic similarity between individuals in afamily, the more they resemble one another in domestic violence (also known as intimate partner violence). Identical twins, who sharethe same genes, are more similar to one another in rates of aggression than fraternal twins, who share only half of their genes (Hines &Saudino, 2009). But differences between twins with the same genes still exist, suggesting that, in the end, it is neither just genes nor justthe environment that influence aggression. Individuals whose genes predispose them toward aggression may become more aggressive inan environment that encourages aggression or not show this predisposition in an environment that does not encourage aggression. Forexample, in one study of adoptees, only 10.5% of the adoptees whose biological and adoptive fathers did not commit a crime, committeda crime. These individuals had neither the genetic predisposition toward crime nor the environment to support criminal actions. Thosewhose environment but not biology included criminality—those whose adoptive father but not biological father committed a crime—didnot show much more criminal behavior than the previous group; only 11.5% committed a crime. When the biological father, but not theadoptive father, committed a crime, 22% of the adoptees committed a crime themselves. Finally, of those individuals whose biologicalfather and adoptive father committed a crime, 36.2% committed a crime (Hutchings & Mednick, 1977). Studies like this one determinethat biology is an important factor in aggression. Individuals with inborn tendencies toward aggression are likely to be more aggressivethan those who do not have such inborn tendencies. But the environment also contributes to expression of aggression, building on thosegenetic predispositions.
Research Challenges
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The difficulty of social psychology research.
Critical Thinking Questions
· What are some of the challenges in determiningthe causes of aggression?
· What balance is hard to achieve when conductingresearch?
While humans are influenced by their genes, aggression is also a learnedbehavior. One of the earliest studies on the modeling of aggression involvedchildren who were 3 to 5 years old. The children were divided into a number ofgroups and each group observed different things. Some children watched as anadult across the room beat up a 5-foot-tall inflatable doll with a weight in thebottom, called a Bobo doll. Other children watched as the same adult did thesame actions on film. In one other condition, the children saw a cartoon catdoing the same actions the adult did. After frustrating the children by notallowing them to play with attractive toys, the researchers put the children in aroom with a variety toys, including a 3-foot-tall Bobo doll. No matter how thechildren saw the aggression toward the Bobo doll—real life, film, or cartoon—they showed more aggressive behavior toward the doll and more totalaggression than children who did not see any aggressive behavior (Bandura,Ross, & Ross, 1963). Bandura proposed that people learn how to behave byobserving others, a theory called social learning theory (Bandura, 1977).
Social learning theory helps us understand how experience with aggression inthe home might influence aggression in other places. Children who come fromhomes where there is more aggression tend to show more aggression outside ofthe home (Garcia, Restubog, & Denson, 2010). Although findings are mixed,generally, young adults who observe their same sex parent perpetrate domesticviolence are more likely to be aggressive toward their own partners as well asaggressive toward friends (Jankowski, Leitenberg, Henning, & Coffey, 1999;Moretti, Obsuth, Odgers, & Reebye, 2006). Employees who observe others acting aggressively in the workplace and are targets ofaggression are more likely to behave aggressively (Glomb & Liao, 2003; Mitchell & Ambrose, 2012). This modeling is stronger for physicalaggression than for verbal aggression (Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt, & Kenny, 2003).
Gender and Age Differences in Aggression
As you sit in a park, you hear a fight happening behind you. When you turn around, who do you think would be most likely to be theperpetrator? A man or woman? A boy or girl? How old would you expect that person to be? When we look into differences in aggression,we find that across cultures, men and boys show more physical aggression than women and girls (Lansford et al., 2012). This does notmean that women are never physically aggressive; they simply show less of this type of aggression than men. Some studies show thatwomen are more relationally aggressive than men, though many studies show no difference (Bettencourt & Miller, 1996; Card, Stucky,Sawalani, & Little, 2008; Eagly & Steffen, 1986; Landsford et al., 2012; Ostrov, 2006; Scheithauer, Haag, Mahlke, & Ittel, 2008). Some of thegender differences in aggression may come from gender roles. Women are expected to be less physically aggressive than men, so theymay show less physical aggression in order to be in line with the expectations for their gender. Such an idea is supported by the findingthat when individuals are angered or aggression is instigated, essentially no differences in aggression are found between men and women(Bettencourt & Kernahan, 1997). Given the right situation, women can be as aggressive as men.
The most physically aggressive age group is, surprisingly, toddlers. Children begin to use physical aggression in their second year, and thisaggression decreases as they learn that hitting, kicking, and biting are not socially acceptable behaviors. Because the hit of a 2-year-old isgenerally not going to do much damage, we usually do not think about the frequency of physically aggressive behaviors in this age group(Tremblay, 2000). Overall, physical aggression tends to decrease through adolescence, though there is a great deal of variability amongstindividuals (Underwood, Beron, & Rosen, 2009). For at least a subset of individuals, aggression increases in adolescence and youngadulthood (Loeber & Farrington, 1998; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1998). For some teens it may be the onset of puberty, with itsaccompanying physical and hormonal changes, that triggers aggression (Najman et al., 2009). Some individuals that become physicallyaggressive in adolescence or adulthood showed other types of antisocial behavior in childhood or an unstable personality and it was onlyin adolescence or adulthood that the behaviors became aggressive (Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1998; Pulkkinen, Lyyra, Kokko, 2009).
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Toddlers are the most physically aggressive group.
Relational aggression shows a different developmental trajectory. Relational aggression is aggression focused on the destruction ofrelationships or social status through direct actions, reputation attacks, orexclusion (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). When a person spreads a rumordesigned to damage someone's reputation, excludes someone from asocial group, threatens to end a relationship, or tells others they cannotjoin one's group unless they do a favor for a group member, thatindividual is engaging in relational aggression. Original research on theconcept included direct, rather than covert, acts, but much of thesubsequent researchers have focused primarily on the nondirect types ofaggression, such as spreading rumors or exclusion (Crick & Grotpeter,1995; Geiger, Zimmer-Gembeck, & Crick, 2004; Tomada & Schneider,1997). Relational aggression largely begins in the preschool years, andrises through childhood. Children learn how to use techniques likeostracism and gossip to harm others and get what they want. Relationalaggression is common across cultures (Lansford et al., 2012; Tomada & Schneider, 1997).
High aggression in childhood and adolescence can have negative long-term effects, including increased risk of alcohol and drug abuse,divorce, unemployment, and mental illness (Farrington, 1991; Loeber, Farrington, Stouthamer-Loeber, Moffitt, & Caspi, 1998; McCord,1983; McCord & McCord, 1960; West & Farrington, 1977). Onset of aggression in childhood that continues through adolescence is themost damaging to a successful transition to adulthood, although increased aggression beginning in adolescence is also problematic (Xie,Drabick, & Chen, 2011). The negative long-term effects of aggression are not limited to physical aggression. Both physical aggression andrelational aggression have negative effects on children's adjustment (Crick, 1996)
Social Psychology in Depth: Mean Girls
The 2004 film Mean Girls follows one teenage girl as she is plunged into an American high school and mentored intomeanness by a group of girls called the plastics (Michaels, Shimkin, & Waters, 2004). When conflict erupts because of aromantic entanglement, the girls engage in a variety of activities to discredit and harm one another. Do high school girls usethe tactics shown in this movie to make friends or manipulate situations?
Research on aggression focused for a long time on the types of physical aggression that leave physical traces. Relationalaggression, aggression that is focused on the destruction of relationships or social status, has become a more importanttopic in the last couple of decades (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). When gender gaps in relational aggression are found, they areoften largest in high school and are not seen in some populations (Crick & Werner, 1998; Kistner et al., 2010; Lansford etal., 2012; Smith, Rose, & Schwartz-Mette, 2010; Spieker et al., 2012). Researchers find that girls report being both victimsand perpetrators of relational aggression at least once within a year (Reynolds & Repetti, 2010). Nearly 20% of girls aredescribed as aggressive, although all girls, not just this 20%, may use relational aggression at some point (Crick & Grotpeter,1995).
The most commonly used and experienced types of relational aggression are gossip and intentionally ignoring someone,known as giving them the "silent treatment." The silent treatment is most often motivated by revenge. Spreading rumorsabout or excluding someone may also be used as a tactic for revenge, although these tactics are also described as ways tobecome closer to one's friends or to have some fun (Reynolds & Repetti, 2010).
Victims and aggressors report feeling sad, confused, and hurt at the time of the aggression. Aggressors also feel guilty, whilevictims feel angry and betrayed. Guilt is felt by victims when they perceive the aggression as revenge, and victims feelguiltier when they are receiving the silent treatment than when they are the victim of rumors or exclusion (Reynolds &Repetti, 2010). Those most hurt by the aggression are most likely to cope by becoming passive and using avoidantstrategies (Remillard & Lamb, 2005). Over the long term, relational aggression can lead to peer rejection and mental healthproblems (Crick, 1996; Tomada & Schneider, 1997; Werner & Crick, 1999). Relational aggression has been identified as afactor leading to depression, borderline personality disorder, and bulimia (Ellis, Crooks, & Wolfe, 2009; Spieker et al., 2012;Werner & Crick, 1999).
Relational aggression is often used as a weapon, with the most common reason for engaging in relational aggression beingrevenge. A perpetrator might use relational aggression as revenge for some behavior the perpetrator did not like. The nextmost common reason for relational aggression is to get closer to one's friends by aggressing against someone whom thosefriends do not like. Victims correctly perceive these reasons and believe they are being punished for something they did tothe perpetrator (Reynolds & Repetti, 2010). Fictional though Mean Girls may be, research shows that the tactics used in themovie are not at all fiction.
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
· Does aggression differ from culture to culture?
· Do men and women ever show the same rates of physical aggression?
10.2 Aggression Cues
A variety of factors may lead to aggression or make aggression in a particular circumstance more likely. People or circumstances thatfrustrate us can make us feel more aggressive. Media can teach us aggression. Weapons may provide cues for responding to a situationwith aggression. Alcohol and uncomfortable environments, along with a triggering event, may lead us to respond with aggression.
Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
If you have been delayed in a bus station or an airport, you know what frustration feels like. Early on in the study of aggression, a linkwas made between frustration and aggression. Originally, aggression researchers made the statement that "the occurrence of aggressionalways presupposes the existence of frustration and, contrariwise, that the existence of frustration always leads to some form ofaggression" (Dollard, Miller, Doob, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939, p. 1). Frustration, in this context, refers to the blocking of behavior that wouldhave moved the person toward a particular goal. For example, if you want to get to Atlanta but the plane is having mechanical problems,you are blocked from your goal. The authors quickly realized that the use of terms like always would get them into trouble (Miller, Sears,Mowrer, Doob, & Dollard, 1941). While some people might respond to frustration with aggressive behavior, a frustrated person does notalways do so. That person might respond with a variety of other behaviors. A frustrated 3-year-old might hit his mother in response tohis frustration, but could also cry, go into another room, or start to whine.
Frustration with another person is more likely to lead to aggression than frustration from an outside cause. Feelings of being attacked,rather than frustration, are more likely to lead to aggression (Tedeschi & Felson, 1994). If the bus you were waiting for passed you by,you would be frustrated. If this seemed a deliberate attack from a bus driver that did not like you, you might respond with aggression. If,however, the bus had a sign on it that said it was headed to the garage for a repair you would be less likely to respond with aggression(Pastore, 1952).
Media
Another possible source of aggression is the media. Children's television programs often contain displays of violence. On average, thereare 14 acts of violence per hour in children's programming (Wilson et al., 2002). Does this affect the amount of aggression childrenengage in? Bandura's study, as discussed earlier, showed that children copy what others do. As shown in this study, it does not matter ifthe model is seen on film or in real life, the children copied the adult's actions. Since Bandura's time a large number of studies haveshown that watching violence on television is related to greater physical aggression (Comstock, 2004). Longitudinal studies have shownthat effects of watching violent television content are not just immediate, but long term as well (Krahe, Busching, & Moller, 2012; Ostrov,Gentile, & Crick, 2006) Relational aggression can also be learned through television. Children who watched more television depictions ofrelational aggression were more likely to show relational aggression toward their peers (Martins & Wilson, 2012). Through social learningtelevision viewing can increase both physical aggression and relational aggression (Ostrov, Gentile, & Crick, 2006).
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Violent video games increase aggressive behavior, aggressivethoughts, and aggressive feelings in both the short and long term.
Another potential source of aggressive models is video games. Studiesshow that aggressive behavior, thoughts, and feelings are increased overthe short term and long term through the playing of violent video games(Anderson et al., 2008; Williams, 2009). Meta-analyses show thatexposure to violent video games increases aggressive behavior, aggressivethoughts, and aggressive feelings (Anderson et al., 2010). This effect wasshown in longitudinal studies as well as correlational studies, providingevidence that exposure to violence at an earlier time will result in moreviolence at a later time (Anderson et al, 2010; Moller & Krahe, 2009;Willoughby, Adachi, & Good, 2012). Violent video games, therefore, have apotential long-term impact on aggression.
Video game play leaves players with less empathy for others and higherdesensitization to violence and other disturbing materials, though thiseffect may be different for individuals who play often versus those whodo not (Glock & Kneer, 2009; Staude-Muller, Bliesener, & Luthman, 2008).For example, participants who played a first-person shooter game with alot of violence showed desensitization to unpleasant cues; in this study,these cues were pictures of seriously injured people or threateningsituations. Participants were also more reactive to aggressive cues,showing more aggression when later exposed to such cues (Staude-Mulleret al., 2008). The findings of this study suggest that violent video gameswill make future aggression more likely and reduce a person's emotionalreaction to the negative results of that aggression. The connection between violence in video games and aggressive behavior, thoughts,and feelings has been seen in Western cultures, like the United States, and in Eastern cultures, like Japan or China (Anderson et al., 2008;Anderson et al., 2010).
Weapons
The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution safeguards the right of U.S. citizens to keep and bear arms. Depending on which surveyyou consult, between 34% and 43% of Americans take advantage of their second amendment right by owning a gun (Jones, 2013;Tavernise & Gebeloff, 2013). While about 43% of Americans are satisfied with the gun laws as they currently stand nearly the samepercentage (38%) are dissatisfied and want more restrictive gun laws (Saad, 2013). Debates on gun control laws often arise followingcrimes involving firearms, such as the Sandy Hook school shooting of 2012. Firearms were a factor in 68% of the homicides in the UnitedStates in 2010 (Centers for Disease Control, 2010).
Although people might use firearms to harm others, do the weapons themselves have any impact on how people behave? When researchparticipants were in the presence of a revolver rather than a badminton racket, they acted more aggressively toward another (fictitious)participant, giving more electrical shocks to the other participant (Berkowitz & LePage, 1967; Frodi, 1975). Weapons seem to cueindividuals toward more aggressive responses or escalation of conflicts (Phillips & Maume, 2007). Increase in aggression in the presenceof weapons is called the weapons priming effect, or the "weapons effect." Familiarity with weapons can affect how this manifests.Individuals with prior experience with guns, such as hunters, do not show an increase in aggressive thoughts when shown pictures ofhunting guns, although those without prior experience with guns, nonhunters, do show an increase. This effect of familiarity is quitespecific. When hunters are shown assault rifles, they do show an increase in aggressive thoughts (Bartholow, Anderson, Carnagey, &Benjamin, 2005). Overall it seems that when a weapon is present, people are primed to think aggressively and act more aggressivelytoward others.
Alcohol
Alcohol and aggression have also been linked. When people are intoxicated they may find themselves less able to think about long-termconsequences and less able to curb impulses. In the face of provocation, this can lead to greater aggression (Giancola, 2000; Parrott,Gallagher, & Zeichner, 2012). An insult that might have been ignored when someone was sober may result in a swinging fist when theinsulted person has had a few drinks (Denson et al., 2008). This is supported by research that shows those who generally have lowerexecutive functioning, which includes self-control and monitoring of one's behavior, are the most likely to aggress when intoxicated(Giancola, Godlaski, & Roth, 2012). These individuals are not very good at controlling their actions when sober, so a lowering ofinhibitions with alcohol leads to more aggression when provoked.
Alcohol may also affect aggression simply because it is expected to affect aggression. When research participants were given a substancethat tasted and looked like alcohol but did not have any intoxicating qualities, they showed just as much aggression as when they weregiven actual alcohol (Rohsenow & Bachorowski, 1984). Recent research has suggested that one does not even need to consume thealcohol to show increased aggression. As with the presence of weapons, simply being in the presence of alcohol or alcohol-related images(alcohol advertisements) is associated with increased aggression (Bartholow & Heinz, 2006; Subra, Muller, Begue, Bushman, & Delmas,2010), supporting the notion that alcohol-related images may trigger automatic associations with aggression. The tendency to expectalcohol to make one more aggressive is stronger in those who are dispositionally aggressive and drink heavily (Barnwell, Borders, &Earleywine, 2006; McMurran, 2009).
Environmental Factors
Generally, there are certain environmental factors that make people uncomfortable or stressed and are associated with aggression. If thewaiting area at the train station were crowded, do you think you would feel more aggression? Research suggests that you would. In astudy of nightclubs, researchers reported more acts of aggression when nightclubs were more crowded than when they were lesscrowded, or in locations where they were more crowded, like dance floors (Graham, Bernards, Osgood, & Wells, 2012; Macintyre &Homel, 1997). Although part of the reason for increased aggression may be frustration in not being able to get where one wants to go ornot being able to interact effectively, factors like feeling crowded, uncomfortable, and stressed in such an environment could increasefeelings of aggression. Bars that were unpleasant in other ways, such as smoky and unclean, also elicited more aggressive behavior intheir patrons (Graham, Bernards, Osgood, & Wells, 2006). Noise, particularly noise one cannot control, is connected to higher aggressionas well (Donnerstein & Wilson, 1976).
Figure 10.1: Anderson's study of temperature and aggression
Anderson (1989) found that aggressive behavior increases in hotter months of the year.
From Anderson, C. A. (1989). Temperature and aggression: Ubiquitous effects of heat on occurrence of human violence. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 74–96. doi: 10.1027/0033-29010.106.1.74. Copyright ©1989 by the American Psychological Association.
Discomfort in the form of heat is also related to aggression. Generally, greater heat is related to more aggression (Baron & Lawton, 1972).Uprisings, as well as assaults, murders, and rapes, are more likely in hot summer months than in cooler times of the year (Anderson,1989; see Figure 10.1). One surprising finding about this connection involves baseball. Researchers counted the number of batters hit bya pitch per game for three years of major league baseball games as well as how hot it was while those games were being played. Thenumber of batters hit when the temperature was 79°F or below was quite low. When the temperature was 80°–89° the number of battershit rose some, with a dramatic rise in hits with temperatures 90° and higher (Reifman, Larrick, & Fein, 1991). The researchers controlledfor confounding variables and other errors did not increase with the temperature, just the aggressive behavior of hitting a batter.
Test Yourself
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· Does frustration always cause aggression?
10.3 Catharsis and Aggression
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A person might displace aggression on inanimate objects whenaggression toward the actual source of anger is unacceptable.
Have you ever been told to vent your anger? Do you believe thatexpressing aggression toward the object of your aggression or some otherobject will reduce your aggressive urge? If so, you believe in catharsis. Catharsis refers to the idea that we can purge our emotions through aform of release. In the context of aggression, catharsis would involveengaging in aggressive actions to reduce aggressive feelings. SigmundFreud believed that verbally venting one's aggressive urges would reduceaggression. He proposed that without the release of emotions, the energyfor these emotions would build up inside and cause physical orpsychological problems (Breuer & Freud, 1893–1895/1955). Peopleengage in cathartic activities because they believe such activities willimprove their mood or reduce the likelihood that they will expressaggression in the future (Bushman, Baumeister, & Phillips, 2001).
The problem with catharsis when it comes to aggression is that it doesnot work. In study after study, researchers found that engaging inaggression did not reduce feelings of aggression, or likelihood of actingaggressively in the future (Berkowitz, 1964; Bushman, 2002; Geen &Quanty, 1977; Mallick & McCandless, 1966). In some cases, acting out increased aggression rather than decreasing aggression. Believingcatharsis works to subdue anger or aggression does not make it more successful. Research participants who read a message convincingthem that catharsis was helpful in reducing aggression were not less aggressive after punching a punching bag; in fact, they showed moreaggression (Bushman, Baumeister, & Stack, 1999). Acting out, particularly if you are ruminating on the object of that aggression while youare acting out, seems to serve as practice for more aggression.
Expand Your Knowledge: PsychologicalResearchers on Catharsis
Psychologists who research anger and aggression oftencome up against the cultural belief in catharsis for thataggression. For several short blog posts featuringpsychologists on the topic of catharsis and aggression,click here .
In acting out aggression, people may direct anger to a punching bag,some other inanimate object, or a person other than the real target.This targeting of aggression toward some other person or entity is displaced aggression (Marcus-Newhall, Pedersen, Carlson, & Miller,2000). If you threw a pencil at the wall rather than hitting your bosswhen the boss made you angry, you would be displacing youraggression. We displace aggression for a variety of reasons. We mightdisplace aggression if the object of our anger is unavailable. When thebus drives away without you, the garbage can is the only thing left foryou to yell at and kick. Other times, we displace aggression because itwould not be acceptable or advantageous to act aggressively towardthe true focus. If your boss made you angry, you may not express it toward your boss for fear of losing your job (Mitchell & Ambrose,2012).
If you have ever been unreasonably aggressive toward a person who did something minor to annoy you, you may have experienced a typeof displaced aggression called triggered displaced aggression (Pedersen, Gonzales, & Miller, 2000). With triggered displaced aggression,the person you are upset with has done something to bother you but your reaction to this minor event is really due to a larger event thathappened earlier. Here, your aggression is triggered by some minor incident and displaced upon the cause of that minor event. In linewith research on catharsis theory, when we ruminate on the cause of our aggression we tend to show more displaced aggression whenwe are triggered (Bushman, Bonacci, Pedersen, Vasquez, & Miller, 2005). For example, if your boss made you angry earlier in the day andyou thought about it all day, and then your friend was a few minutes late when you met for drinks later in the day, you might blow up atyour friend. Brooding over your boss' behavior meant you engaged in a great deal of aggression, which your friend triggered by hislateness. Individuals who engage in triggered displaced aggression are primed to interpret provocations, even mild ones, in an aggressiveway, particularly if the triggers are part of the outgroup and are dissimilar or disliked by the person (Pedersen, 2006; Pedersen, Bushman,Vasquez, & Miller, 2008; Pedersen et al., 2000).
What should you do if you are feeling aggressive? If you want to lower your aggression, doing nothing is a better idea than venting youranger. Doing something opposite of your aggressive urges may be even more helpful. Send someone a text expressing your appreciation for him or her, pet the cat, or look at a picture of your family (presuming that it's not your family you're mad at). Playing prosocial videogames will also reduce aggressive thinking and feelings (Greitemeyer, Agthe, Turner & Gschwendtner, 2012).
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
· Does catharsis work to reduce aggression?
· How is triggered displaced aggression different from displaced aggression?
10.4 Other Antisocial Behavior
Aggression is one type of antisocial behavior. Antisocial behavior also includes behavior that goes against injunctive norms, deviantbehavior like stealing, using illegal drugs, and vandalism. Although aggression does fit within the realm of antisocial behavior, it tends todevelop at a different pace than the rule-breaking type of antisocial behavior, such as stealing. As noted, aggression tends to peak in earlychildhood, while rule-breaking types of antisocial behavior tend to increase until adolescence (Moffitt, 1993; Stanger, Achenbach, &Verhulst, 1997). A decrease in the rule-breaking type of antisocial behavior occurs in young adulthood, although, some still engage in suchbehavior and the effects of antisocial behavior earlier in life remain.
Expand Your Knowledge: Youth ViolencePrevention
The U.S. Department of Justice provides a number ofresources to encourage the prevention of youth violence.If you are interested in youth violence or are planning tobe involved in youth work, click here.
A variety of life circumstances increase the likelihood of antisocialbehavior. The environment in which children are raised can have atremendous influence on the manifestation of antisocial behavior. Forexample, children whose childhood is marked with maltreatment orharsh or inconsistent discipline are also at greater risk for laterengagement in antisocial behavior (Gershoff, 2002; Jaffee, Strait, &Odgers, 2012). Some of the connection between harsh discipline andantisocial behavior can be explained by parents who respond in aparticularly harsh way to children whose behavior is difficult to dealwith. However, such discipline seems to have an effect on antisocialbehavior above and beyond any influence of a child's temperament (Jaffee et al., 2004). A breakup of the family is also related to higherlevels of antisocial behavior at that time and later in life (Christoffersen, Francis, & Soothill, 2003; Peris & Emery, 2004). Individualswhose parents experience mental illness, particularly depression, anxiety disorders, or alcohol addiction are also more prone to antisocialbehavior (Herwig, Wirtz, & Bengel, 2004). These difficult early experiences may prevent children from learning positive copingmechanisms, and may provide them with aggressive models for dealing with circumstances they encounter.
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Antisocial behaviors include stealing, drug use, and vandalism.
Children and adolescents who fall in with the wrong crowd are at greaterrisk for deviant behavior. Yet this works both ways; youth who areengaging in more antisocial behavior tend to make friends with otheryouth who are also engaging in such behavior (Elliot & Menard, 1996;Kendler, Jacobson, Myers, & Eaves, 2008). A teenager who occasionallyshoplifts may become friends with another teen who does the same thing.Together they may talk about stealing and encourage one another to stealmore often and more expensive items from stores (Patterson, Dishion, &Yoerger, 2000). Often times, deviant teens are drawn to other deviantteens, leading to even greater antisocial behavior in all involved.
Intelligence and personality also contribute to antisocial behavior. Teenswith lower IQ test scores are more likely to commit criminal acts thanthose with higher IQ test scores (Möttus, Guljajev, Allik, Laidra, &Pullmann, 2012). Boys who are low in the personality characteristics ofagreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability were also morelikely to engage in deviant behavior (Möttus et al., 2012). A study of twinsin Sweden showed that a great deal of the variance between people inantisocial behavior can be explained by genetic influences (Tuvblad, Narusyte, Grann, Sarnecki, & Lichtenstein, 2011). In this study, theidentical twins were more similar in their aggressive antisocial behavior than the fraternal twins. Given the large contribution of genes onintelligence and personality, much of this genetic influence may be coming through intelligence and personality factors.
Antisocial behavior in adolescence has consequences later in life and may be a risk factor for antisocial behavior in adulthood (Bor,McGee, Hayatbakhsh, Dean, & Najman, 2010; Brook, Zhang, & Brook, 2011). Those who engage in antisocial behavior as adolescents are athigher risk for depression and show more symptoms of anxiety (Bor et al., 2010; Reef, Diamantopoulou, van Meurs, Verhulst, & van derEnde, 2009). Aggression also increases substance abuse risk. Those who were aggressive early in life show greater use of cannabis andalcohol (Bergman & Andershed, 2009; Bor et al., 2010). Antisocial behavior early in life also relates to more health problems later in life(Bor et al., 2010). Overall, antisocial behavior has negative effects, both in the present and later in life.
Test Yourself
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· What factors are related to greater antisocial behavior?
Conclusion
Aggression is a behavior with a variety of causes. Aggression comes from within the person and is affected by external forces. A singlefactor may not determine whether someone is aggressive, but several factors together may lead to harm. Antisocial behavior, whichincludes aggression as well as other deviant behavior, also has a variety of causes.
