Elainna Simpson

Cross-Cultural Psychology

Dr. Grinde

3/13/2020

Midterm Exam: Individual Portion

I.

Since humans are cognitive misers, we often like to think of things in a less complicated way

compared to a more complicated way. So we make decisions based on what we have right in front of us

rather than search for all of the details or point-of-views. Therefore, we live in a state of cognitive

equilibrium where our schemas match the world around us. Once we are exposed to something

inconsistent with our schema we fall into cognitive disequilibrium. Cognitive disequilibrium can be very

tiring for our brains since it is continually trying to understand differences, for this reason, we like to

return to cognitive equilibrium. To return to equilibrium two processes can occur: assimilation and

accommodation. Assimilation is to claim that the inconsistency with our schema is just an exception to

the rule and that we do not need to change our schemas to adapt to this occurrence. Accommodation is

when we have to change our schema because there are too many examples of inconsistencies.

One example of this is racial stereotypes. If someone is raised in a small, all-white town their

schema for anyone who is black may only be based on what they have seen in the media, creating

stereotypes. The media often reinforces stereotypes, such as all black people are aggressive, excel only

in sports, or live in a low-income area. But, once these people leave their small town to go to college

they may meet and get to know a highly educated, upper-middle-class black person and realize their

schema was wrong. After meeting this one person, they may take part in assimilation and decide that

this person may not fit their schema, but that doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t so they claim that

they are the exception. But as they stay at college, they meet more and more educated black people

that don’t fit their stereotype and after getting to know them they take part in accommodation where
they have to change their stereotype because it no longer fits. Since changing our schemas take a lot of

work, time, and experiences it’s often our stereotypes go unchanged.

When discussing cognitive equilibrium, we can also discuss worldviews. People have worldviews

that are based on values, beliefs, and emotions. Their own experiences and the way they interpret

them, are what causes how they see the world. Yet, this can cause us to be more hostile to other

worldviews that deviate from ours. One example is religion; we may believe something due to our

worldview that differs from what other people believe. Easily we can get caught up in the differences of

these worldviews without understanding others. When we meet people with a differing religion or

worldview, and talk to them and realize how much our religions, or worldviews, have in common we

begin to assimilate to not be in cognitive disequilibrium. After being invited to their worship, we can see

the similarities and meet similar people and we being to realize that our worldview was too broad and

we being to accommodate and change our worldview.

II.

Summary:

The Clash chapter on gender focuses on the differences between men and women and how

when these differences are minimized or complimented, society is better off. The authors highlight that

most gender differences are based on the fact that women are more interdependent and men are more

independent. Interdependency is when you are more reliant on the relationships around you and

therefore you are more likely to take that into account in your goals or opinions. Independency is when

you are self-reliant and others do not influence your goals or opinions. It is thought that due to men’s

independent skills they have become more dominant in the workforce and women are expected to stay

home and take care of the family and home. As women are becoming more of the workforce, teenage

girls are taught to strengthen their “girl skills” by “making people feel comfortable, figuring out what
they need, and giving it to them”, but also, are expected to do well in “boy skills”, such as, “excelling in

school, sports, and extracurricular activities so that they can get into good colleges and secure fulfilling

careers.” This then causes women to have to excel and beat the competition but also make sure that in

the process they aren’t hurting anyone’s feelings. The authors of the book suggest that if men and

women were to be accommodating to each other’s strengths and help each other, then both genders

can strive in both independence and interdependency. To demonstrate the researcher’s suggestion, the

authors present data from a research study done on gender integration in a male-dominated orchestra.

When the orchestra only added a few women into their ranks they saw that the performance and

attitudes of all the players had decreased. Yet, when the researchers hired enough women to account

for 40% of the orchestra, they saw an increase in the orchestra’s ability, happiness, and even how they

viewed their finances. This research indicates that many women are needed to break a stereotype and

that when more women are involved, often the result is enhanced from when they were not involved.

Another example of where we can find a middle ground is within education in STEM fields. Often these

fields are male-dominated, one reason for this is these subjects are heavily focused on independent

tasks, rather than relating to social connections that women strive in. For this reason, many women find

these fields of study unwelcoming and often tend to leave these majors despite their careers being quite

profitable and despite their interest in the subject matter. Yet, when researchers made changes to the

aspects that usually affect women’s willingness and ability to stay in STEM (making the computer labs

more welcoming or stating that women and men do just as well on the GRE), then women were just as

likely to stay and succeed in STEM-related fields of study.

Finally, with all this information about how gender is portrayed and stereotyped today, it is

important to understand how and why society has gotten to this point. The authors trace these gender

stereotypes to the creation of better farming tools than the hoe. When farms continued to use the old

technology of the hoe there were no gender differences because both males and females were able to
use it. When farming technology advanced and heavy plows that were often pulled by large animals

were used in farming, women were no longer able to have the strength to help in the fields causing

them to be sent to take care of the family and home rather than help in the fields. This change, the

authors suggest, is why gender differences in work occurred. So why now, that there is technology to

make farming easier or even jobs that do not require strength, are there still gender stereotypes?

Because they have been ingrained within our societies and our cultures and it takes a lot of effort to

eradicate these beliefs.

Critical Examination

This chapter very closely is associated with the in-class discussion about cognitive

disequilibrium. When you meet someone who doesn’t fit your stereotype you go into cognitive

disequilibrium and the only way to return to cognitive equilibrium is to either assimilate (claim that that

one person is the exception to your stereotype) or to accommodate (change our stereotype based on

this new information). For example, in the orchestra experiment when only a few women were added to

the ensemble, their talents may have been seen as the exception (assimilation) and no one in the

orchestra had changed their mind about the stereotypes they had for a woman’s ability to play an

instrument. Since the stereotypes were still there and people were experiencing cognitive

disequilibrium, perhaps, it caused the whole orchestra to not improve in both ability or happiness. Yet,

when 40% of the orchestra was comprised of women, those in the orchestra had to accommodate their

stereotypes to include that women did have the ability since there were too many women for it to just

be an exception. When this stereotype is changed and women were seen equally, there was an increase

in not only the performance of the orchestra but also happiness levels.

The book also discusses how these stereotypes that have led to a culture that reinforces them at

almost every level. Since people are so exposed to these stereotypes, they often believe them to be true
which can then lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. A self-fulfilling prophecy is when someone believes

something about a certain person (a woman), that those people (women) will believe it and it,

therefore, becomes true. We discussed self-fulfilling prophecies when we discussed race and SES, but it

also can apply to gender stereotypes. In Clash when discussing women going into STEM, there are many

examples of self-fulfilling prophecies or stereotype threat. One example, was the experiment where the

researchers added into the directions of the GRE that there were no observed gender-differences within

scores. By making this small change women actually outscored men. However, in the condition of the

experiment where the directions stated that the GRE was meant to determine why some people are

better than others at math, women scored worse than men. In the second condition, women fall victim

to this self-fulfilling prophecy because they have been taught the stereotype that women are bad at

math and when it's presented in front of them before the test, it is easy for them to believe it and score

badly as a result. Another reason STEM shows self-fulfilling prophecy is because many women who do

pursue careers within this field then often experience imposter syndrome, where you feel you do not

deserve where you are or that you are actually not as smart as those around you. This is the self-fulfilling

prophecy because these women have proved that they can strive in these fields, but due to gender

stereotypes they feel as though they are not worthy of their position and it must have been based on

chance rather than ability. The only way to correct these self-fulfilling prophecies is to showcase more

examples of women that are against common stereotypes until we can change societies’ stereotypes.

III.

The readings that challenged my thinking focused on the positives and negatives of

gentrification and the effects of the zip-code system. The article “How States and Cities Reinforce Racial

Segregation in America”, addressed segregation issues in Illinois and how it affects their cities,

education, commercial development, and more. I was aware that racial segregation still existed and was
tightly connected to SES, but I was unaware of its extent and the history behind it. The article discusses

how there is still racism in Illinois but it is more “covered up” than it is in the south. This segregation is

not only physical, but includes a huge disparity of resources which then only reinforces it. White-

dominated areas have more development, better infrastructure, and have more accommodating

government policy compared to black-dominated areas. One reason for this is how the government

dictates land use through zoning restrictions. These restrictions keep out rental housing, which is

predominately where blacks live. The zoning restrictions also make communities unaffordable, limited to

only single-family houses, and do not include housing projects, all of these making it impossible for low-

income, black families to stay in specific areas. This causes the areas where blacks live to struggle with

less tax money to improve the areas. The article demonstrates this by discussing segregation’s effect on

schools, which has seen an increase of blacks in urban areas and a decrease in tax base to where the

white communities affecting the tax money that schools receive. The white families are fleeing urban

areas to suburbs or old farmland. So when researchers analyze data and receive the result that

segregation is slightly better than in the 1980s, they are not analyzing the whole metropolitan area, but

instead just the city. Yet, the actual city has now become predominately black since most whites have

left, creating larger segregation. This segregation is due to redlining maps that were created in the New

Deal to create federally-backed mortgages which helped to make home loans more affordable to

middle-class families after the Great Depression. These maps outlined the “high-risk” areas in red, these

were primarily low-income and minority areas. This redlining allowed whites to buy houses and create a

wealth that they could pass down in their families, therefore ensuring their continued wealth and

superiority over blacks. Since blacks could not gain credit since they were unable to get home loans,

they had to rent meaning they were not building capital, we continue to see this trend as the article

states that 62% of blacks still rent today compared to only 27% of whites.
The other article, “This Is What Happens After a Neighborhood Gets Gentrified”, discusses the positives

and negatives of gentrification. Gentrification is when a low-income area (often also a minority area) is

revamped as wealthy residents begin to move into the area, which causes the residents who have lived

there a long time, unable to continue to due to high rental prices. The positives the article highlighted

are that gentrification causes the area to have a more diverse population, from race, income, and

education and it also leads to neighborhood improvements that may not have happened without

gentrification. Yet, there are a lot of negatives which include causing many of the original residents to

leave since they can’t afford it and often find it difficult to live anywhere nearby since that had once

been the low-income area. Also gentrification usually only benefits black families who are highly

educated but eradicates those who have less than a high school degree, and therefore most likely, a

lower SES. Also, only certain neighborhoods are gentrified, since the neighborhoods need to be “good

enough”, meaning not over 40% black. Although there are some positives to gentrification it is quite

clear that a lot of the negatives often lead to more segregation than ever.

These two articles along with our class discussion did change my thinking on segregation and

how it occurs. I knew that segregation was a large aspect of America, but believed that it had improved.

After reading these articles, I better understand how segregation continues to be a large part of the

state that I call home, Illinois. I was unaware of the history of redlining and how it has continually

divided race and economic status. Before this class, I had never heard of gentrification or how people

are pushing others out of their areas by raising the cost of living. I cannot imagine how these people feel

to know they cannot afford to live in their homes anymore or be forced to move far away because there

are no longer any low-income areas around them. Generally, these articles have taught me to question

what I do know and to do more research to make sure I know more about the situation than what I have

been told. These articles have caused me to think about how the way that you label something can be

completely different from the truth, for example how when just looking at the cities, segregation was
improving but when looking at the whole metropolitan area segregation is not close to improving. After

reading these articles, I am curious to learn more about segregation today and also how it could be

associated with mental health facilities or access to that treatment. Although, before I would have shied

away from research in this area due to its close ties to politics, I am interested to learn more about these

subjects and challenge myself to go out of my comfort zone to be better informed.