1.

HISTORICAL BASIS
Social psychology= scientific study of how people think, influence, and relate to others
It is specialized in 4 main areas:
- Social thinking social beliefs, judgments, behaviors…
- Social influence persuasion, obedience…
- Social relationships aggression, helping, attraction…
- Groups and identities small group processes, categorization, prejudice, conflict…

ORIGINS:
The first theories were created in the 18 th century, but the first experiments started in 1898
Hume, Smith, Kant, Comte, Wundt… were the first ones to give a contribution to social psychology

First movements (they were mainly European movements):

- Gestalt Psychology it focused on how people perceive the world around us
 it underlines the fact that, in order to understand the human existence, we need to
consider it as a whole. We can’t study the single parts

- Folk Psychology created by Wundt, the father of psychology

 it claims that people that are part of the same group tend to think in the same way
 mental products created by a community are inexplicable. We can’t interpret them just
by studying an individual

- Positivism led by Comte

 social phenomena can be studied with the same methods used by natural sciences
 true knowledge can only be achieved through empirical investigation

First social psychology experiment:

Normal Triplett tried to prove the existence of Social Facilitation, which
means that people in social gatherings perform better than when they are alone

- Behaviorism with Watson and Skinner

 human beings can be studied through the connection between the stimulus and the
response. We don’t have to study what’s in between

- North America psychology W. James is considered to be the father

 he talked about the idea “Social self”, which is about how people consider
someone as part of their social self
 they believed that we can study the society by study the individuals an they
act in social situations

- Cognitivism with Neisser

 it focused on the mind and the cognitive processes
 it is part of social psychology because its studies allow us to understand how people
behave in their everyday life, not in a laboratory
 they aimed to an ecological study, in the mean that they wanted to study people in their
everyday life, and not in a laboratory THIS LED TO A CRISES
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, social psychology went through a crisis
Two main criticisms:
1. Social psychology was too much based on artificial experiments led in laboratories and not on natural
observation conducted in the natural environment
2. Excessive emphasis on individuals as single beings, without considering the context around them ù

New movements that raised:

 New European social psychology
- it has the goal of to put back the “social” side of humans into social psychology
- Social phenomena started to be seen through 4 levels of explanation (by Doise,1976)

Intra-personal it describes the inner processes which influence the interactions

Inter-personal it describes the relationship processes with others and the social positions
we occupy (even if we don’t choose it)
Intra-group/positional it describes what happens within a group
Inter-group/Ideological it describes what happens between wider social entities (ex. different
cultures)

- Tajfel and Moscovici were the main pioneers of this movements

Tajfel he created the Social identity theory: every human’s identity and behavior is influenced by the
social groups to which one belongs

Moscovici he created the Social representation theory: there are social ways to see the world around
us (ex. old people are seen as wise)

 Critical Social Psychology

- it recognizes the fact that people are influenced by the historical, social and political conditions of
the context in which people live in
- it aims to social change and reforms

Social psychologists’ values influence their work they influence the research topics
 psychological concepts contain values
 subjective aspects of science
 their values are the object of social psychology analysis

Social psychologists have a scientific approach they recognize their values

 they make their values explicit
 they use systematic observation, empirical data and
experimentation to check their idea
 2. RESEARCH METHODS
Social psychology is a scientific discipline it uses theories, research and methods which are reliable
and falsifiable

There can be Hindsight bias= tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to
have previewed the results
 ex. proverbs they are always true afterward. We use them after
something happens (ex. red horses are always crazy. We say
it after noticing that our red horse is crazy. Not before)

2 main approaches to research

- Quantitative it studies the relationship between variables, which are expressed
numerically and can be measured
 it makes predictions about outcomes
 it aims to establish general laws and principle inductive method Positivistic approach
 in a controlled laboratory setting

- Qualitative it interprets qualitative data. There is not measurement

 usually, it can’t make predictions and previous hypothesis
 aims to provide a precise understanding of phenomena, without creating
theories exploratory nature Constructivist approach
 in a natural setting participant observation, interviews…

A new method has arisen, called “Mixed Method Research” integration of the quantitative and
qualitative approach

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
- It studies the relationship between psychological variables = self-esteem, anxiety…
- the connection between variables is expressed numerically, for example through correlation

Ex. Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale it’s a questionnaire with 10 questions that measure self-esteem

- Main stages 1. Research question

 2. Theory= set of interrelated assumptions and propositions used to define and explain
certain phenomena is
 3. Hypothesis= testable prediction
 4. Method= precise research procedure 2 main approaches: - Correlational research
- Experimental research

Correlational research
- it studies the occurring relationships between variables Positive correlation: x increases and y does too
 Negative correlation: x increases and y decreases
- uses surveys and questionnaires
- no manipulation of the variables
- Considerations nature of the sample: the sample must be representative of the general category
 order of questions
 response options
 wording of questions
 validity and reliability of measures and tools that we use
When two variables are correlated, they are Associated. This, tho, doesn’t mean that changing one variable
causes the change of the other variable
Correlation = Association
Correlation = Causation

Experimental research
- it aims to study the cause-effect relationship between variables
- there is the manipulation of one or more factors, while controlling others
- every experimental research has 2 ingredients: - Random assignment the 2 variables must be equal
- Control the variables are manipulated

- 2 Variables: - Independent variable it’s the variable that is controlled by the researcher
- Dependent variable its’ the variable which is dependent on the manipulation of the
independent variable, and therefore, the ones which shows the effect
of the manipulation

- they use Experiments

 Quasi-experiments Natural experiments: the researchers doesn’t directly manipulate
the independent variable (for ethical reasons)*
 Field experiments: the researcher controls the independent variable, but
there is not a random assignment and no full control
of the variables

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
- research questions are shaped in order to allow a free exploration of the issue
- it is supported by Constructivism it studies socially constructed accounts
- there are different approaches

*RESEARCH’S ETHICS
Experiments that broke the rules of ethics
Zimbardo’s experiment:
He set up an experiment in which he randomly assigned people to 2 different groups: Prisoners or Guards.
He had to stop the experiment because prisoners almost committed a suicide

Milgram’s experiment:
He made an experiment on some people and made them believe that they were receiving an electric shock
 3. THE SELF
Thanks to the crisis created by the new aims introduced by cognitivism, the self was introduced to social
psychology

THE SENSE OF SELF:

- it develops in children within 2 years of life before that, children believe that the reflection
of themselves in the mirror is another person

- there are some characteristics which are culturally specific

- Universal characteristics uniqueness= our sense of self is located only in one body)
 continuity= our sense of self remains the same
 distinction between “I” (subject of thinking) and “Me” (object of thinking)

I think of something I think about me

Social psychology wants to find the connection between the Self and the social world
The social world makes us more aware of ourselves
Proofs:
- Spotlight effect= belief to have a spotlight on ourselves/ to be observed by everyone all the time
 our self-awareness is influenced by the surroundings
 Ex. If my hair is dirty, I think everyone will see it
- Illusion of transparency= belief that everyone knows our emotions and thoughts
 our self-concern affects our social behavior

SELF-CONCEPT = a person’s answer to the question “Who am I?”

- it is organized in Self-schemas = beliefs about our self, that organize and guide the processing
of self-relevant info (ex. I’m quiet)
 they are used to evaluate ourselves and others too

- it guides our Memory in 2 ways  better elaboration of memories

 better organization of memories

Self-reference effect= tendency to process and remember better the info related to ourselves
Ex. we remember better those birthdays closer to ours
we remember the password because it’s related to something close to us

- it influences the Possible self = images of what we dream of becoming in the future

Self-Discrepancy theory: - there are 3 self domains Actual Self= what I am

 Ideal Self= what I wanna be self-guide (they
 Ought Self= what I think I should be influence us)

- there are 2 standpoints that influence us your own

 a significant other
By combining the self domains with standpoints, we can crate 6 basic types of self-state representations

Own Actual self, Other Actual self, Own Ideal Self, Other Ideal self, Own ought self and Other ought self

These 6 different selves can have some discrepancies and they influence our self esteem
Our behaviors are aimed to reduce the discrepancies between these selves

Discrepancies: - Self-concept VS Own Ought self we feel Guilt

- Self-concept VS Other Ought self we feel Shame
- Self-concept VS Own Ideal self we feel Disappointment
- Self-concept VS Other ideal self we feel a Lack of Pride

- Our self-concept is influenced by Roles: they are determined by the society
 Social identity
 Comparison with others
 Successes and failures
 Others’ judgments
 Surrounding culture: there are individualistic or collectivistic cultures

Cultures can be: - Individualistic the individual is more important than the group
 people are raised with an independent view of self
- Collectivist the group is more important than the group
 people are raised with an interdependent view of self
SELF-KNOWLEDGE
Our Self-Knowledge is complex Johari Window stated that there are aspects of ourselves that
we actually don’t know

He identified 4 different selves: - Open self I know it and others do too

- Hidden self I know it, but others don’t
- Blind self I don’t know it, but others do
- Unknown self I don’t know it and others don’t either

Sometimes we make mistakes in predicting or explaining our behaviors and feelings

This is why we need a science of behavior, so that we don’t misinterpret our behaviors

Our self-knowledge influences our Self-Esteem = a person’s self-evaluation or self-worth

- it infuse our behaviors

- we usually have a high motivation to maintain our self esteem
- the dark side of self-esteem is Narcissism = uncontrolled self-love
- there are 2 types of Self-esteem Secure self-esteem= confidence that leads to less judgments
toward others
 Fragile self-esteem= confidence that leads to more judgments
toward others

SELF CONTROL = how much we feel we have control over things

It is determined by Self-efficacy= one’s sense of competence and ability to handle different situations
 Locus of control= one’s belief about who is responsible for what happens

It can be: - Internal people believe they have control of things

- External people believe that there are forces they don’t have control over

Learned helplessness= resignation learned when one perceives no over repeated bad events

It raises because when we are exposed to a problem we try to fix it and take control over the situation.
After we fail, we understand that we can’t change the situation, and this develops learned helplessness

Self-control can influence our health and happiness proofs: prisons, residential care, homeless shelters…

Having too much freedom can have some down sides it leads to less satisfaction and more depression
SELF-SERVING BIAS = the tendency to perceive oneself favorably
Ex. “Even tho 50% of marriages fail, I know mine won’t”

Types of self-serving bias:

- Attributing successes to personal and internal forces and failures to external forces
- Comparing ourselves favorably to others Ex. I’m better than others
- Unrealistic optimism Ex. 50% of marriages fail, but mine won’t not based on proofs
- False consensus and uniqueness ex. believing that everyone thinks like us (consensus)
 ex. believing that our positive traits are unique (uniqueness)

Benefits by using self-serving bias, we protect our self-esteem

Risks demotivation to improve and use of excuses for the failures

IMPRESSION MENAGEMENT
Through it, we are able to act in a way to make ourselves favorable to others
STRATEGIES:
- False modesty= acting like we are full of confidence
 it can elicit reassurance and reduces performance pressure

- Self-handicapping = protecting one’s self-image through Sabotaging Behaviors that create an excuse for
later failure (Ex. I suck at math and I know I will get a bad grade. So I tell everyone
that I’m gonna study only the night before, so that I can say that
the reason why I got a bad grade is because I didn’t study enough)

- Self-presentation = the act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable
impression the impression can be on others but also on ourselves
 Strategies: - Ingratiation elicit of affection by conforming to other’s opinions
- Intimidation elicit fear in others, without creating negative outcomes
- Self-promotion elicit of respect by highlighting the prior successes
- Exemplification elicit of guilt in others by creating the impression
of moral superiority
- Supplication elicit of nurturance through requests of help

- Self-monitoring= adjusting one’s performance to create the desired impression

 High self-monitor: the person is adequate for the situation, is able to read other’s
behavior and has good acting abilities
 Low self-monitor: the person is always himself, can’t read other’s behaviors and
doesn’t have good acting skills
 4. SOCIAL BELIEFS AND JUDGEMENTS
The social influence can influence a lot of parts of our life: perception, judgments, explanation

PERCEPTION OF THE WOLRD:

Effects of the social world of perception:
- Priming= activating particular associations in the memory
 It is helpful to understand an entire conversation without understanding all the words
 Ex. if I’m at a baseball game and I’m talking about the bat of a player, people understand
that the “bat” I’m talking about is the object and not the animal

- Categorical thinking= attribution of a person to a specific status

 it can lead to discriminations of stereotypes
 It is helpful to protect ourselves from dangers
Ex. if we need to withdraw money and we don’t know where to
find a machine, we don’t ask to homeless people

- Perception & Interpretation of events Ex. both pro-Israeli students and pro-Arab students watched the
same video about the Beirut Massacre. They had two different
points of views about the media bias presented in the video
 Ex. Kuleshov’s effect

the same pic of a man was presented to several people. To some, it was said that the
man was a Gestapo leader. To other, it was said that he was a grandfather. Then,
they all were asked about his facial expressions. The first ones said that he was cruel.
The other ones said that he was kind

- Belief perseverance= persistence of one’s initial conceptions, as when the basis for one’s belief is
discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives
 this is why we believe in fake news (they have plausible explanations)
 ex. researchers gave a false info to people and told them that it was true. Then
they asked them the reasons why it was true. Later, they told people that the
info was actually false, but they noticed that they still believed that the info was
true. This happens because they still believed in the explanation

- Constructive memory it influences our perception of the world

- Misinformation effect= incorporating misinformation into one’s memory of the event, after witnessing
an event and receiving misleading info about it
 it’s part of the reconstructive memory

We can reconstruct the memory of our past behavior and attitudes

This reconstruction is influenced by our present behavior and by the social world

Ex. If I invested a lot of time in something, I perceive a big change compared to when I started.
Moreover, others expect us to have improved a lot and so we tell them that we actually have
JUDGMENTS ON THE WOLRD:
When we judge the world, we can use Intuitive judgments

- previous knowledge allows us to make an intuition about what is going to happen

- intuition is possible because thinking works mostly through automatic processing
(implicit) and only a small part is controlled by controlled processing (explicit)

automatic processing/Intuition works thanks to Social Schemas Self/person/role/event schemas…

Ex. When I walk into a class, I don’t ask where to sit, because I created a role schema

Judgments are determined by the process of Social encoding (= storing social info in our memory), which is
influenced by the social context encoding characteristics of others allow me to make judgments

The characteristics of a person can be central or less relevant. The importance of them to us influences our
judgments toward the person

Despite the automatic thinking, we might make mistakes for several reasons:
- Overconfidence= tendency to be more confident than correct and to overestimate the accuracy
of one’s belief we tend to use confirmation bias in order to prove our belief

- Confirmation bias= tendency to look for those information that are coherent with our ideas and not
for those that contradict them

we make dominant those traits that are coherent to the image that we have of the person
Ex. If I know that a person is kind, but today she is aggressive, I consider the
aggressiveness to be a less dominant trait and the kindness to be dominant

- Illusory thinking= tendency to look for an order all the time

 Illusory Correlation= perception of a correlation between events, even if it
doesn’t exist, or vice versa (it exists and we can’t perceive it)
 Illusion of control= perception to have control over uncontrollable events
(ex. gambling)

- Use of Heuristics= thinking short cuts/ strategies that enable quick judgments
 Representative heuristics= tendency to presume that something or someone belongs
to a particular group, if it resembles a typical member
 Availability heuristics= cognitive rules that judges the likelihood of things in terms of
their availability in memory. We tend to consider something as
common when it is easily available in our memory

- we get influenced by emotions and moods

EXPLANATION OF THE WOLRD
The social world influences our attribution of the causes of an event

Sometimes, there can be some Misattributions they can cause interpersonal conflicts

Attribution Theories they explain how people attribute causes to the effects and how they explain
other’s behaviors by attributing it internal dispositions and external situations

Heider theory of naïve psychology

Jones and Davis theory of correspondent inference
Kelley covariation model
Weiner attribution model

KELLY’S COVARIATION MODEL:

An effect is attributed to a cause that is present when the effect is present, and that is absent when the
effect is absent too

WEINER’S ATTRIVUTION MODEL:

It examinates the consequences of making certain attributions in circumstances of success or failures
There are 3 categories that influence an attribution:
1. Locus internal VS external
2. Stability Stable VS Unstable
3. Controllability Controllable VS Uncontrollable

Attributing external, stable, and uncontrollable causes to a failure leads to Learned helplessness

Fundamental Attribution Error= tendency of the observers to underestimate situational/external

influences and overestimate dispositional/internal influences upon
other’s behaviors.

Experiment: people had to write a speech about Fidel Castro, which was either supporting or attacking
him. People listening attributed the speech to the speechwriter, even if it was the coach
who assigned them the position and the speech didn’t represent their real opinion

Factors that influence the fundamental attribution error:

- the need for predictability if we know the actor’s perspective, we are able to predict their action
- actor-observer difference the observer is focused on the actor. The actor is focused on the situation
- self-knowledge the actor has more knowledge about himself. Observers don’t know him
- self-awareness people make attributions based on their own self awareness
In some cases, the Fundamental Attribution theory doesn’t work
- Self-serving bias when we have a success, we tend to take credit for it, while when we have a failure,
we then to blame external causes. It happens with our close friends too
- Cultural differences Individualistic cultures: people tend to take credit for the successes
 Collectivistic cultures: people tend to give credit to external causes for successes

Gilbert proposed a 3 stage Model of Attribution that is able to correct the Fundamental Attribution Model

Attribution are made of 3 steps 1. Observation of the behavior

 2. Dispositional attribution is made effortlessly and automatically
 3. Situational correction we correct the attribution
 it is made through effortful control

Social representations and social beliefs are able to influence our social attributions
Ex. the countryside was considered to be healthier than the city. Therefore, in cities, illnesses were
associated to the environment, whereas in the countryside, illnesses were associated to internal causes

Intergroup attributions= attribution of causes to entire groups

 Ingroup attributions= attributions to our own group
 Outgroup attributions= attributions to another group

In ingroup attributions, we attribute positive behaviors to internal/ dispositional causes, and

negative behaviors to external/ situational causes
In outgroup attributions, we attribute positive behaviors to situational causes, and negative
behaviors to dispositional causes

EXPECTATIONS:
Sell fulfilling prophecy= event in which people’s expectations lead to the occurrence of the
expected behavior of outcome

Rosenthal effect/ Pygmalion effect  if a teacher expects something from the students, the children’s
performance improves because they want to satisfy the expectation
of their teacher

Example: if a teacher as a positive attitude toward a student, the student will believe that the teacher likes
her and, in order not to disappoint the expectations of the teacher, she will start behaving well
 5. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS
Attitude= favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone
Attitudes can be positive, neutral, or negative

ABC Model attitudes are made of 3 components: - A affect (feelings)

- B behavior
- C cognition (thoughts)
 the components change based on the subject that we evaluate
Ex. when I see a puppy, I have different feelings, behaviors, and thoughts than when I see an old dog

Social psychologist tried to analyze and measure the components of the ABC model
How they analyzed them: - Affect through the use of self-report and physiological response
- Behavior through the use of self-report and observation
- Cognition through the use of self-report and questionnaire on beliefs

Critiques toward the ABC model:

1. Stability the ABC model assumes that attitudes are the same across time and space
 some people believe that attitudes are constructed in the moment and are connected
to a specific context
2. Relation to behavior the ABC model assumes that attitudes are directly linked to a behavior
 LaPiere demonstrated that attitudes are not always connected to a behavior

Experiment: In the ’30, American people were against Chinese immigrants. He went to some hotels
where the owners accepted to host a Chinese couple and asked them if they would be
willing to host Chinese people. Most of them said no. This experiment showed that,
despite the behavior of acceptance, they had an attitude of refusal

FORMATION OF ATTITUDES
Three approaches on how attitudes are formed:
- Behaviorism Classical conditioning: we assume an attitude based on past experiences
 Instrumental Learning: after a previous experience, we assume an attitude based on
the reward/punishment that we know we will receive
(Ex. If I know that my mom will give me a treat if I’m kind, I’ll
be kind again so that I’ll get another treat)

- Social Learning theory Modeling (Bandura): we assume an attitude by observing others

 Social comparison: we compare our behavior with others
 Self-perception: we look at our behavior and understand what our attitude
should be

- Cognitive theories Balance theory: we assume attitudes because we try to avoid contradicting attitudes
and evaluations of others (ex. people that smoke say that it doesn’t
hurt them, because it would be contradicting to their behavior)

Theory of cognitive dissonance people tend to keep consistent their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors
FUNCTION OF ATTITUDES
Attitudes are useful for several things
Main functions: - Knowledge Function they provide a sense of structure and order, helping us to
explain and understand the world
- Instrumental Function they allow to maximize our chances of receiving rewards and
minimizing the likelihood of negative outcomes or punishments
- Ego Defensive Function they protect us from threats to our sense of self by protein
insecurities about our self onto others
- Value-Expressive Function they allow us to express and reinforce our sense of self, by
displaying those values that are important to us

MEASURING ATTITUDES
Attitudes vary over time and also with the change of the context
Psychologist have developed different strategies to measure attitudes

Main strategies:
- Likert Scale it rates a series of statements by using five rate categories
 ex. “strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree”

- Osgood’s Semantic Differential scale it rates people’s feeling over particular objects or topics
 they use opposite adjectives (responsible VS irresponsible)

- Social Distance Scale it measure social and physical distance among different groups, in order to study
the attitudes toward social groups
 it uses observation

- Implicit Association Tests it measure attitudes that we implicitly/unconsciously have, based on

automatic associations between concepts/objects.
 the stronger is the reaction of the association, the stronger is the attitude
 ex. if we have to associate “Woman” and “Man” with “Career” or “Family”,
we tend to associate Woman with Family and Man with Career)

Issues of attitude scales:

- They tend to restrict people’s responses to a narrow range of options. Sometimes, people adopt
acquiescence bias, which means that they vote “yes” just because it’ faster
- People might answer based on the social desirability
- People are often unaware of their attitudes

RELATION ATITTUDES-BEHAVIOR
Attitudes are often able to predict the behaviors
This is possible when: - external influences are minimal ex. nobody is observing
- attitudes are specific to the behavior ex. if I hate sparkling beverages, it is
predictable that I won’t drink coke
- attitudes are strong there is a high self-aware
 ex. if a person is vegetarian, I can predict that they
won’t eat meat
Theories on how attitudes influence the behavior:
Fishbein & Ajzen created the Theory of Planned-behavior (TPB)

- behaviors are planned based on the behavioral intentions ex. I’m gonna start working out
- Intentions are determined by: 1. Attitude  ex. I like fitness
2. Subjective norms ex. everyone goes jogging
3. Perceived control it was added later on
 ex. I could easily do it
- Recent extension of the TPB behaviors can be spontaneous
 we don’t always have clear intentions
 we don’t always get influenced by others

There are new Dual-process models that unified analytic and heuristic processes

- behavior is influenced by: - Reasoned path (= intention) like the TBP theorized
- Social reaction path heuristics

- Prototype willingness model behavior is influenced by:

- Intensions determined by attitude, subjective norms
and perceived control
- Behavioral willingness influenced by the prototype

 Ex. drinking alcohol is determined by my own intentions, but also

by what prototype I have about people who drink (if I see
them as cool or lame)

RELATION BEHAVIOR-ATTITUDES
Sometimes, the behavior can influence the attitude

- Role-player Role= set of norms that define the social position and the expected behavior of a person
 Behaviors attached to roles become gradually natural they start influencing the attitude

- Evil and moral acts evil acts may result from gradually escalating commitments (the moral sensitivity
reduces, people find reasons to support those acts…)
- When saying becomes believing people tend to adjust their message to their listeners
 people start believing in their own altered message

Higgins’ experiment: students read a personality description of someone and then they summarized it
for someone else, who was believed either to like or to dislike that person. When
the recipient liked the person, students tended to write a more positive message.
Having said positive things, they also started liking the person more themselves.
After a period of time, students who wrote positive things resulted to remember
the description more positive than it was. This showed that people tend to adjust
their messages to their listeners, and to believe the altered message.

Theories on how behavior affects the attitudes:

 SELF-PRESENTATION THEORY:
- Self Presentation= presentation of ourselves and expression of attitudes that make us appear consistent
- People don’t want to look inconsistent we want our actions to match our attitudes

In order to look consistent, we may adopt certain attitudes that are not actually part of us

Ex. If I smoke, I can’t say that smoking is dangerous for the heath, therefore I adopt say that smoking is cool

 SELF-JUSTIFICATION THEORY/THEORY OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE:

- Our attitudes change because we are motivated to get rid of the unpleasant arousal, which arises when
there is a cognitive dissonance = discrepancy between the behavior and the attitude
ex. I like animals, but I eat meat

- Through self-justification, we try to change our attitude in order to reduce the dissonance
Strategies: - Rationalization ex. “everyone does it, so it’s ok”
- Denial ex. “I don’t wanna think about it”
- Minimization  ex. “animals are not as important as humans, so I can eat them”

Ex. If I smoke, I justify my behavior by saying that I waited all day long/by saying that it is not as
dangerous as people say

- attitudes can’t change we just make an Attitude Adjustment VS Self-perception theory

- Insufficient justification When the external justification/ the reward is insufficient, we reduce the
dissonance by justifying our behavior and actually believing in it

Experiment: people had to participate in a boring experiment and then they had to tell the following
participants that the experiment was actually fun. Some people were paid $20, and therefore,
they had a valid justification to tell people that the experiment was fun. Some people, tho,
were paid only $1. Since the reward was insufficient to justify the experiment, they started
believing that the experiment was fun for real

Ex. I work a lot but I get paid too little. I try to justify this dissonance by saying that I actually love my job
Practical implications of Cognitive Dissonance:
- Education & authoritarian leadership big rewards and punishments don’t contribute to internalized
behaviors
- Dissonance after decisions after we take a decision, we try to reduce the dissonance by upgrading the
chosen alternative and downgrading the unchosen option
- Group identity & Dissonance when a group adopts behaviors an attitudes that differ from one’s
personality, the person may psychologically distance from the components
of the group, or he might try to change the norms of the group

 SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY: from Bem

- when our attitudes are weak or ambiguous, we make a self-observation, in which we observe the
behaviors from the outside
- self-observation is possible when nobody is forcing us to do anything

- Over-justification effect an excessive reward for doing something may lead to attribute the behavior
to the reward, and not to the attitude
 Ex. If I tutor a girl and get paid, I justify the fact that I tutor her with the
money that I get. I don’t work because I actually like it

- attitudes can change, but only when there is no dissonance we make an Attitude Formation

Ex. If I start smoking because everyone does it, and then I keep smoking, I start thinking that I actually like it

CRITIQUES:
- attitudes are considered as cognitive entities criticists believe that they involve more component and
they are influenced by the context
- attitudes predict the behavior criticists believe that attitudes are behavior
- Attitudes can be measures quantitively criticists believe that ratings are too influenced by the context
-Attitudes are formed toward pre-defined in the environment criticists believe that when we have an
attitude, there is a rhetorical construction
 6. PERSUASION
It is extremely connected to social influence
Persuasion started with Aristotle and his rhetoric he “manipulated” the thoughts of the audience

Persuasion= process by which a message induces changes in beliefs, attitudes and behaviors

It requires time there must be someone persuasion targets the beliefs and attitudes
who tries to persuade and it eventually changes our behavior
and also a target

Propaganda= negative persuasion

Education= positive persuasion

Persuasion happens every day of our life when we try to convince someone to do something, we
are persuading him

Persuasion is useful for us because we are always surrounded by stimuli, and persuasion allows us to focus
only on the most important one

Two approaches on persuasion:

- Experimental social psychology it’s a quantitative approach
 they studied what factors make persuasion more likely
 the characteristics of the persuader and of the target influence
persuasion
- Discursive social psychology it’s a qualitative approach
 they focus on language and the messages of persuasion

Persuasion is influenced by the social context, and it varies across time and space and also from individuals
to individuals/ groups to groups

What works in some cases might not work in other cases

Hovland identified some key steps of the persuasion process not anymore used

1. The target must pay attention to the message

2. The target must understand the message
3. The target must believe the message
4. The target must remember the message
5. The target must behave according to the message
6. The target is persuaded
Petty and Cacioppo created an Elaboration-Likelihood model (ELM) which identifies 2 routes of persuasion

- Central route persuasion takes place when the targets can fully understand the content of the
message and they find it interesting, and, therefore, they are persuaded by it
- Peripheral route persuasion takes place when the targets don’t pay attention to the content of the
message, but they are influenced by the Incidental cues (ex. speaker’s attractiveness)
 the persuader uses heuristics in order to catch the attention of the target
 ex. the commercial that said “Giulia” at the beginning to catch the attention

Chaiken proposed the Heuristic-systematic model which identifies two routes very similar to the ones of
the Elaboration-likelihood model

- Systematic route it’s like the central route

- Heuristics route it’s like the peripheral route

The central route is more likely create attitudes and behavioral changes that remain consistent over time
The peripheral route is more likely to create changes that are just superficial and temporary

Some critiques to these Dual process models of elaboration (ELM and heuristic-systematic model) state
that in real word, messages contain a large variety of cues and we can’t determine what catches the
attention of the target and what really persuades him.
Usually, both routes are activated at the same time they can be integrated into a unimodal of persuasion

Elements of persuasion:
- The communicator
- The message
- Channel of communication (= how the message is communicated)
- The audience

THE COMMUNICATOR
What influences the capacity of persuasion:
- Credibility  we tend to be persuaded more by those who we consider as experts and trustworthy
 Dilemma of stake and interest: people having a personal interest in persuading are not
considered to be trustworthy and credible
 What influences credibility:
- Category entitlements = being a member of a certain category is enough to be considered
an expert about a certain topic (ex. doctors)
- Category bound activities = the categories to which people belong to influence their
behaviors (ex. doctors are known as beings serious)

- Attractivenesswe tend to pay more attention to attractive people

- Similarity we tend to pay more attention to those who are very similar to us
Clerk compared the capacity of persuasion of non-expert sources and of expert sources.
He noticed is that expert sources elicit are more able to persuade, because we believe that the information
provided is more accurate.

Some other researchers studied how counter attitudinal messages (= messages to which we disagree with)
of non-experts have different capacity of persuasion of those of experts.
They noticed that experts are more able to persuade even with counter attitudinal messages, because they
provide strong arguments, and we struggle to prove them wrong

THE MESSAGE
- it can evoke an Emotional Appeal (peripheral route) or a Reason Appeal (central route)

When we try to scare people When we try to convince people

by evoking an emotion through reasoning

- the more the audience is educated, the more it responds to the reason Appeal
- the emotional appeal works differently based on what emotion it aims to create
- the Emotional Appeal must find a balance between not scary and too scary. They must be Scary enough
in order to have an influence on people’s behavior

Research demonstrated that the “Scare tactics” have very little affect in affecting behavior
Reasons: - if you scare people too much, they are led to helplessness
- people adopt optimistic bias, believing that the consequences are too big and
they will not affect to them

- when a person witnesses an inner discrepancy, this creates a discomfort, and the person is more likely
to be persuaded
- Social Judgmental theory messages can have: - Latitude of acceptance
- Latitude of non-commitment
- Latitude of rejection
 messages are able to persuade us only when they have a latitude
of acceptance or a latitude or non-commitment

- Eliot believed that the capacity of a message to persuade is based on the credibility of the message and
on how discrepant it is from a person’s opinion

CHENNEL OF COMMUNICATION
- the contact with people allows a message to be more persuasive
- advertisements don’t have great capacity of persuasion they started using social media in order to find
a two-ways conversation and interaction

- the more the media engages people, the more persuasive it is through live, videotapes, written…
- the difficulty of the message interacts with the medium when the message is difficult, it is more
persuasive if it’s written down

- Two-step flow of communication the process by which media influence often occurs through opinion
leaders/ influencers who influence others
THE AUDIENCE
The persuasiveness of the messages on people depends on the personality and traits of the audience
Most influential traits:
 Self-esteem people which moderate/normal self-esteem are more likely to be persuaded

 Age Generational explanation: old generation have stronger values, therefore they don’t get
persuaded easily
 Life cycle explanation: as people grow old, they consolidate their opinion and ideas, therefore
they don’t get persuaded easily

 Need of cognition = the individual motivation to think and analyze a message

 it is used for cognitive-saving
 those with a low need of cognition are easier to be persuaded through the
peripheral route

Stimulating thinking makes strong messages more persuasive and weak messages less persuasive
Strategies to stimulate thinking:
- Rhetorical questions = questions to which we don’t aspect an answer because it is obvious
 when we ask these kinda questions, people start thinking
- Presenting multiple speakers they present the same argument with different perspective
- Making people feeling responsible for the message
- Repeating the message 1. Say the message 2. Say it again 3. Explain what you said
- Getting people’s undistracted attention

CULTS AND SECTS

Sect= group that splits off from a major religion
Cult= group of people typically characterized by: - distinctive rituals related to the devotion for a God
- isolation from the surrounding “evil” culture
- charismatic leader

They use a lot of behavioral rituals the more is the commitment of the person, the more the person is
part of it

They have manipulative techniques in order to enforce people into the cult
Main techniques:
- Foot-in-the-door phenomenon they get people to agree to a small request. This increases the changes
that they will later comply with a larger request
- Foot-in-the-face technique they present a more demanding request at first. This increases the
possibility that they will comply to a less-demanding request later
- Social implosion individuals get isolated from their family, which is replaced by the components of
the cult
 by isolating people, they are more likely to be persuaded, because they only listen to a
side of the story all the time, and they don’t have any counter argument

Usually, weaker people and those undergoing a personal crises are the targeted ones
STRATEGIES TO RESIST TO PERSUASION:
- Strengthening personal commitment prior personal commitment and public commitment to a position
reduces the changes to be persuaded
- Strengthening confidence the more confidence we have in what we believe, the less likely we are to be
persuaded and to change attitude
- Challenging beliefs and developing counter arguments

7. ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY

Close relationships are important for several reasons
We have a strong Need to belong = motivation to bond with others in relationship that provide ongoing,
positive interactions

Need to belong is a fundamental motivation in life, for different reasons:

- For our ancestors, creating relationships was an adaptive way to enable group survival
- For children and caregivers, social attachments make life more pleasant and they enhance survival
- Feeling part of a group makes us stronger, safer, and more relaxed
- Satisfying relationship are important goals in people’s life
- Isolation of loss of our social bonds lead to pain and negative outcomes

Factors that lead to friendship and attraction:

 Proximity both geographical distance (=how far we are from a person) and functional distance (=how
often we talk to a person) influence the friendships we make
 why proximity feeds liking: - availability chances for interaction and anticipation of
interaction influence friendships
- mere-exposure effect= tendency to like more those stimuli
that we are familiar with

 Physical attractiveness studies showed that men are more likely than women to give importance
to physical attractiveness when making friends
 Matching phenomenon= tendency to choose partners who are a good match
in attractiveness and other traits
 Physical-attractiveness Stereotype= presumption that physical attractive
people also possess other socially
desirable traits
 Standards of beauty and attractiveness change among cultures
Nelson: For cultures with scare resources, plumpness is considered attractive
For cultures with many resources, slimness is considered attractive
 Similarity similar attitudes are likely to lead to for the formation of friendships and relationships
 friends and partners that are similar tend to become even more similar over time, after
spending time together
 similarity can influence physical attractiveness
 perceive similarity is more important than actual similarity
 we always look for similarity, but, often, people are complementary

In couples, partners usually realize that they are not as similar as they thought they were.
There is usually complementarity, even if they didn’t seek for it

 Reciprocity we tend to like those who like us

 Reasons: - Need to belong
- Reciprocity principle we like those who like us because humans have a
tendency to give something back when it’s received

 Sensitivity to criticism we tend to like those who criticize us rather than those who praise us
 Reasons: - we tend to give more importance to criticism than to praise
- we tend to over-estimate the critics and under-estimate the praises
- Lost gain hypothesis: after being criticized , we appreciate the
compliments more

 Evaluating conditioning the creation of friendships and relationships also depend on the context and
on the situation in which two people meet
 when e are in a good mood or pleasant situation, we are more likely to like
the person we are talking with

WHAT IS LOVE?
Stenberg created a Triangular theory of love

- he created a triangular composed by 3 component that make up love Intimacy

 Passion
 Commitment
- Consummate Love= love in which intimacy, passion and commitment are in balance rare
- The assembling of these components can be different, and it can form different kinds of love:

Only Intimacy= liking

Intimacy + Commitment= Compassionate love
Only Commitment= Empty love
Passion + Commitment= Fatuous love
Only passion= Infatuation
Intimacy + passion= Romantic love
Other theories about love:
Passionate Love= form of love in which there is an intense affect between the partners. The partners
are absorbed to each other

Compassionate love= affectionate relationship in which the partners are devoted to the other’s happiness

What enables close relationships:

- Commitment = intention to maintain a strong relationship
 Investment model: there are 3 factors that determine the level of commitment
- Satisfaction level
- Quality of alternatives
- Investment size Intrinsic: symbols & passions
 Extrinsic: material objects
 Interdependence theory: theory tend to maximize the rewards and minimize the costs
of relationships

- Attachment attachments in the childhood influence the relationships in adult age

 Hazan: early attachments experiences help to form the basis of Internal Working Model
(= feeling to be worthy of love)
 Bartholomew & Horowitz created a model which distinguishes 4 different attachments
styles, based on the Image of the Self and on the Image of others

- Secure attachment positive image of others and of positive image of the self
- Pre-occupied attachment positive image of others but negative image of the self
- Dismissing attachment negative image of others but positive image of the self
- Fearful attachment negative image of the other and negative image of the self

- Equity = condition in which the outcomes people receive from a relationship are proportional to what
they contribute to it
 we also tend to act to achieve an equity
 Communal relationships= relationships based on long-term equity
 we don’t expect the other person to give us something back
immediately, but we expect them to do it sometime in the future
 Exchange relationships= relationships based on short-term equity
 we expect the other person to give us something back
Ex. to pay the taxi driver at the end of the ride

- Self-disclosure = process of revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others

 women are more willing to disclose their fears and weaknesses to men
 Social Penetration theory: closeness between people develops as a result of a
gradual self-disclosure
 Disclosure Reciprocity= tendency for one person’s elf-disclosure to match that of a
conversational partner
Resbuit there are 4 ways that people can use to cope with relationships problems

- Constructive-Passive Loyalty: they wait for improvement

- Constructive-Active Voice: they try to improve
- Deconstructive-Passive Neglect: they ignore the partner
- Deconstructive-Active Exit: they end the relationship

Healthy relationships are not those without conflicts, but they are those in which differences are accepted
and in which there is a balance between positive and negative sides

Gottman Happy relationships are those in which positive interactions outnumber Negative
Interactions, with 5:1 ratio

Among all the theories, what is lacking is a broader and comprehensive theory, which provides guiding
principles that could be used to read and accompany relationships in the real-world

8. SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION AND SOCIAL IDENTITY

The social environment is too complex for us we use social categorization to avoid being overwhelmed
Social Categorization= partitioning of the social world into categories

Social categorization is a cognitive activity and also an activity to give sense to the world
The categories that we select are those relevant to us in a specific moment social categories are fluid
and malleable

Categories have a Hierarchy they are organized based on their degree of inclusiveness

Social categorization is not innate, but it appears very early in our life
2yo children: we can categorize people based on their gender
3yo children: they can categorize people based on their culture
Later in our life we start being able to categorize people based on their values

Ways of attributing a category to a person:

- Comparison we compare a person to the prototype or exemplar of the category
 Prototype= social category member (not real-world member) who is believed to possess
the typical features of the social category
 Exemplar= a “real world” social category member who is believed to exemplify the social
category
- Accentuation Effect = tendency to exaggerate similarities within categories and differences between
different categories
 this effect usually takes place when a person could be assigned to two different
Categories at the same time. We tend to exaggerate his characteristics regarding
only one category, so that he fits more to one category
 it is influenced by the context
 it is at the basis of Outgroup homogeneity = tendency to perceive the members
of an outgroup as more similar to
one another, compared to our group
this generates a lot of stereotypes

- Selection of social categories we tend to choose the categories that best fit in the situation
 our preconception, expectations, desires, and motivations influence
what we think is the “best fit”

We can also categorize ourselves and create Self-categories

- They have more similar cognitive aspects compared to other social categories
- we tend to exaggerate similarities between members of self-categories
- they can generate self-stereotypes

Ways to which social categories become Self-categories:

1. Through the context in which we were born ex. I’m Christian because I was born in a Christian family
2. Through a choice ex. I can choose to change religion from Christian to Jewish

Personal identity= part of our self-categorization that drives from our unique and peculiar characteristics

Social identity= part of our self-categorization that derives from our membership to our social groups,
together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership

Social categorization = Social Identity  we identity with a social group it if there is an emotional
attachment to it
sometimes, we are part of a group, but we don’t identify ourselves with it
ex. transgender people might be women, but they might identify themselves as men

Social identity influences:

- Conformity some people conform their ideas to the group’s idea, in order to be accepted, whereas
other people tend to conform to the minorities within their group

- Leadership leaders are evaluated based on their social group

 Hopkins & Richer: leaders are entrepreneurs of social identity

- Leaders are expected to be exemplars of their social group

- The more the leader is a prototypical a leader, the more power he has on ingroup members
- Respect appreciations are more relevant when they come from a group we identify with
 we don’t care about an appreciation if it comes from a group that we don’t care about, or
if we consider the group not to be well-qualified
 sometimes, we might feel uncomfortable and reject appreciations if they come from groups
that we don’t want to belong to we may feel like it’s more an insult rather than a compliment

- Help we tend to give more help to the ingroup members

 Reasons: - we feel more empathy for ingroup members, because we can understand them
more accurately (ex. facial expressions)
 helping outgroup members can straighten our personal identity we may show the outgroup
members that we are not enemies

Sometimes, social identity can be threatened withing a social group. This happens because ingroup
members are not always the same and they may be in contrast with each other

Members can be: - Core members they are the prototypical members
- Peripheral members they have characteristics which differ from the prototypical ones.
These differences might threat the prototypes of the group
 they are considered to be Deviants

Strategies that core members used to deal with deviants:

- Black Sheep effect we tend to dislike ingroup deviants more than outgroup members
 this happens because ingroup members are expected to conform to the group
norms, and the fact that they break the norms is seen as threatening. This effect is
used to defend the group from these deviants

- Acceptance of deviance if the deviation is seen as a good thing for the group
 the Cultural background influences the degree to which deviants are accepted

- Individualistic cultures deviants are accepted because they are considered as independent
- Collectivistic cultures deviants are not accepted because they are a threat for the group

Strategies that deviants use to adapt to the group:

- Respect of the standards In order to enhance their position in the group, deviants often start
respecting the norms and standards more than the other ingroup members
 This happens in 3 main occasions: - Description of themselves
- Judging ingroup members
- Judging outgroup members

When the strategies used by core members and peripheral members are not enough to maintain a balance
in the group, it could be that the group splits up

Schism= partition of a social group into separate fractions and the ultimate separation
of at least one part from the group
Motives that lead to social identification:
- Self-esteem motive being part of a group enhances Personal self-esteem (=positive regard of ourselves)
and Collective self-esteem (=positive regard of our group)
- Distinctiveness motive humans have a need of self-definition and distinctiveness from others
 this also happens for groups, which need a sign of distinctiveness
 this is why groups use an Identity Marker (ex. flag)
- Motive of belong we have a need to belong to a group
- Motive to achieve Symbolic immortality being part of a group allows us to be remembered
- Motive for uncertain reduction social identity reduces uncertainty, because the groups we belong to
describe who we are and define how we should behave

Social identity also affects Heath:

- Symptom perception ex. soldiers tolerate pain more than other people
- Health behavior ex. smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer
- Positive physiological processes people with high social identity tend to be less stressed, because they
feel more supported by their own group  less stress= less health problems

Social categorization is not innate, but it appears very early in our life
2yo children: we can categorize people based on their gender
3yo children: they can categorize people based on their culture
Later in our life we start being able to categorize people based on their values
 9. CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE
Conformity= change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure

Compliance = conformity which involves publicly acting in accordance with an implied or explicit request
 we don’t really believe what we say/do
 after a while, it can lead to acceptance
Acceptance = conformity which involves both acting and believing in accordance with social pressure
 we really believe in something
Obedience = conformity in which acting is a result of an explicit command
 it’s an explicit social influence
 commands usually come from people in upper social statuses

NORM FORMATION:
- Sherif’s studies on norm formation
 he wanted to study how social norms are created
 He used the Autokinetic effect = phenomenon of visual perception, in which a small point of light in
a dark space seems to be moving
 Participants were placed in a dark room and were asked how much the point of light moved
 Day 1: Individual experiment; Day 2-4: Group experiment
 Result when people were asked to give an individual evaluation, the estimates of the appearance
of movement were very different from one another.
When people were placed in a group, they naturally reached a common estimate, because
they formed a Group Norm

 People were asked to come back after a year and do again the experiment, individually. Sherif noticed
that the Group Norm was still there
 Real life situations yawning is contagious; suicidal news lead to an increase in suicides…

CONFORMITY:
- Asch’s experiment on conformity
 People were exposed to a Visual Perception Test they had to indicate which one of the 3 lines is
equal in length to the standard line
 A participant took the experiment among some actors, who had to give the wrong answer
 Result at first, the participant gave the right answer, whereas the actors all gave the same wrong one
When they took the same experiment again, the actors gave again the wrong answer, and the
real participant conformed to their response, and he also gave the wrong answer

 Influences Group Size: the bigger is the group which believes the opposite as you, the bigger
is the chance that you will conform to them
 Unanimity: the presence of another person who has your same belief reduces the
change of conformity
 Social identity: - Cohesion people are more likely to conform to their ingroup members
- Self-categorization theory the stronger the relationship with the group
is, the more a person will conform to it
 Status: we tend to conform to high-status people
 People’s response: when people have to answer in front of other people, they tend to
conform to the other people’s answer
 No prior comment: making a public commitment makes people less likely to back down
The Social Impact Theory kinda reformulated all the previous theories:

- Lathané developed a mathematical theory of social influence

- the amount of influence that an individual experiences is a result of the combination of:
 strength of the sources of the influence (S)
 immediacy of the proximity (I)
 number of sources of influence (N)
- Formula: Influence= f (SIN)
- The strength of the sources depends on status and power
 relationship with the group

OBEDIENCE:
- Milgram’s experiment on obedience
 Conducted in Yale
 He wondered if a person could lead others to perform an evil act
 Set up: 1. Teacher he had to teach a List of word pairs
2. Learner he was an actor and he had to remember the entire list of word pairs
3. Experimenter he convinced the teacher that, at every mistake that the learner made,
the teacher had to give an electric shock to the learner, which was of
increasing intensity, until a lethal electric shock
 The teacher was the actual experimental subject Milgram wanted to see if they were willing to
continue the experiment, even if they believed that
they could kill the learners with the electric shock
 Result 65% of the experimental subjects (=teachers) decided to continue the experiment, with the
risk of giving a lethal electric shock to the learner (even if it was not true)

 Before conducting the experiment, Milgram described the experiment to some psychiatrists, college
students and middle-class adults

- Most of them believed that the teachers were not going to continue with the experiment till the end
- They said that, if they were the teachers, they would never continue till the end

 Interpretation normal people can be cruel when they are put in some specific conditions
 Conditions that influenced obedience:
- The victim’s emotional distance if the experimental subject is far from the victim, he is more likely
to obey to the commands
 since the learners were far from the teachers, the teachers were
more likely to obey to the commands
- The authority’s closeness and legitimacy if the authority is well-known and respected, the
experimental subject is more likely to obey
 since Milgram was present in the room and he was
considered an important psychologist, the teachers were
more likely to obey to his commands
- Whether or not the authority was part of a respected institution if the experiment is conducted in a
famous institution, the subject
is more likely to obey
 the research was conducted at
Yale, which is an important college
- Presence of a disobedient fellow participant if there is another person that doesn’t obey, the
experimental subject is more likely to disobey
 in this case, there were no other subjects

 After the experiment, Milgram conducted post-experimental interviews= he explained what the
experiment was about
and explained the results
 The participants said that Yale’s reputation didn’t have an influence on what they did

 Milgram conducted the experiment in another institution the obedience rate was lower (48%)

Key aspects:
- External influences and pressure attitudes fail to determine the behavior when external influences
and social pressures overcome the inner convictions and beliefs
- Blame the victim effect once people start to act against victims, they also start hating them
 this is a case in which behaviors lead to an attitude
- Step-by-step entrapment a slow gradual increase of the charge doesn’t make people realize when
they should stop
- Fundamental attribution error when we see a person acting aggressively, due to certain
circumstances, or even if the behavior they have is typical of
everyone, we still tend to judge these people as aggressive

Reicher talked about the Banality of the Evil = he demonstrated that even ordinary people can
perform cruel actions
Process that lead people to being evil:
1. Creation of a cohesive group, to which people identify with
2. Exclusion they place targets outside the ingroup Infrahumanization=
3. Threat the outgroup is described as a danger for the ingroup human essence reserved to the
4. Virtue the ingroup is represented as the good group ingroup, and denied to the outgroup
5. Celebration inhumanity is used as a defense of virtue
 Ethics of Milgram’s experiment
His study wouldn’t be approved nowadays
Milgram defended his experiments stating that:
- he taught a lesson
- most of the participants said thy were glad to have participated
- after a year, psychiatric visited 40 of those who participated, and none of them had a consequence
- he believes that students that get a lower grade than they expected have more consequences on their
self-esteem, compared to the subjects who participated in this experiment

Reasons for conformity:

o Normative Influence = conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfill other’s expectations, often
to gain acceptance
o Informational influence = conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided
by other people we trust what other people say or do
o Culture Asch’s experiment was conducted in different countries, and they had different results
 collectivistic counties tend to be more influenced by other’s influence, compared to
the individualistic countries
o Personality it influences the behavior when the social influence is very low
 when the social influence is strong, the individuals’ behaviors differs. This indicates a
different personality

Conformity doesn’t depend on the gender, and neither on the time and space

In 2009, Burger conducted Milgram’s same experiment he didn’t notice any change in the results
Blass performed a meta-analysis on the results of studies conducted up to 2000

He found that, across time and space, there is a 61%-66% percentage of people obeying to orders

ANTICONFORMITY:
Reasons for why people don’t conform:
- Reactance = motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom
 it arises when someone threatens our freedom
- Asserting uniqueness = tendency to feel better to see ourselves as moderately unique
 there must be not too difference, but not too similarity either
 10. SMALL GROUP PROCESSES
Group= two or more people that interact and influence one another and perceive one another as “us”

Turner he belies that group members don’t necessarily need to interact in order to be considered a
group. They just need to perceive themselves as part of a group
 ex. Juventus’ supporters don’t interact with each other, but they consider themselves as a group

STRUCTURE OF GROUPS:
- Group cohesiveness = a sense of teams and spirit
 the more cohesive a group is, the more likely it is to survive
 there must be an attraction between members. Not just liking

- Formal and implicit norms = beliefs about the way the world is, that regulate the members’ behavior
 Formal norms= written norms
 Implicit norms= not explicit norms they are assumed
 ex. expected behavior at school

- Formal and informal roles they are based on abilities and qualities, and on their relationship with other
members of the group
 they offer a sense of identity and also guide of what behavior is expected
 people may have different roles within the same group they may cause
 conflicts among ingroup members
 some people might lose their identity in order to confirm to a role

- Statuses they vary across roles

 they have consequences on how people identify and behave in relation to a group
 Fisher: low-status employees in a workplace displayed least cohesion to the group and
had low identification with the group. High-status employees are the opposite
 Leader= individual with the highest status e most influence on other members

Two processes that create collective influence:

 Social Facilitation
- the presence of other passive people around us (= who are not competing/rewarding/punishing us) can
influence our behavior
- Norman Triplet’s experiment he set up an experiment in which people were asked to wrap us a string in
a fishing wheel. He noticed that people wrapped it up faster when there
were people looking at them
 Social facilitation= tendency to perform simple tasks better when others
are present
- Original definition Social facilitation= strengthening of dominant responses in the presence of others

- some studied prove that the presence of other people might worsen the performanceex. driving test
- Zajonc he talked about the Effect of Social Arousal = the arousal from other’s presence strengthens
dominant responses
 arousal tends to facilitate easy behaviors and worsen difficult ones
- Michaels he observed some pool players in a university. He noticed that, in the presence of other
people good players did better than usual, whereas bad players did even worse than usual.
Reasons for why we are influenced by others:
- Evaluation apprehension = concern for how others are evaluating us
 Worringham set up an experiment in which he placed a women sitting on a
bench. He noticed that, when the women was looking at people jogging, they
ran slower. When she was not looking at them, they ran faster

- Mere presence = the presence of others influences the performance, even if there is no
competition among the people present
 open-space workplaces influences one’s performance
 ex. people feel more energized when they run with a friend and there isn’t any
kind of competition
 Absent friends’ phenomenon: mere presence also works when people are not
physically present
Ex. the fact that people can see what I post on
social media, influences what I post

 Social loafing
- in group situations, people put less effort in a task, because it’s hard to determine who is putting enough
effort and who is not ex. when pulling a rope with other people, we put less effort because
nobody knows that we are the ones not putting enough effort
- it’s the opposite of Social facilitation
- Rope-pulling apparatus Blindfolded participants were assigned the first position in the apparatus and
they were told to pull as hard as they could.
 results showed that they pulled 18% harder when they knew they were pulling
alone, than when they believed other people were pulling behind them

- it increases when the group sizes increases/ the individual effort decreases when the group size increases
- people in collectivistic cultures tend to exhibit less social loafing
- it is less likely to occur when the task is challenging or when the other members involved are friends

- A strategy to reduce it is to make individual performance identifiable, for example, by filming them

studies show that assembly workers produce 16% more product when their individual output is identified

Examples of collective influence:

 Social Polarization
= effect in which the group tends to strengthen the members’ pre-existing tendencies
- Risky shift phenomenon = form of social polarization, in which, when homogenous group discusses a
topic, the opinion of the group members merges into a more extreme one
- it is age-related teenagers tend to make risker decisions
- it is not universal Abrams: when drinking together, people control each other
- This is why people in groups are more dangerous than single individuals (their violent tendencies are
strengthened)

- Moscovici he believed that social polarization is a tendency to strengthen an idea or opinion that
was already shared by all the group members
 he conducted an experiment in which he observed a group of French students discussing
about American Presidents and French President. He noticed that this discussion enhanced
their opinion about the different presidents
Factors that influence groupthink:
- Informational influence group discussion elicits a confrontation of ideas. The dominant idea gets
discussed more than the minority one
 active participation in a discussion produces a higher influence

- Normative influence people have a desire to be accepted in a group

 we express stronger opinions when we know that other people share our view.
We do this in order to be liked by others
 Theory of social comparison: when in a group, people tend to compare their
ideas with other’s ideas
 Pluralistic ignorance= false impression of hat most other people are thinking and
how they are responding
 it can take place in a discussion

Miller and McFarland demonstrated this effect of pluralistic ignorance. They read an incomprehensible
article. Then, they asked the group members if they understood it. Everyone fell into the pluralistic
ignorance, believing that they were the only ones that didn’t understand it, but nobody said anything,
until a person stood up saying that the article was meaningless. At that point, everyone agreed with him

- Group identity a group constitutes our social identity and our opinions
 ingroups converge together in opinions that differ from outgroup’s opinions

 Groupthink
= mode of thinking that people engage in, in which a group takes a decision in order to suppress dissent, in
the interest of the group harmony
- it takes place when people need to take important decisions
- it can lead to very bad decisions ex. when the US attacked Cub in order to overthrow Fidel Castro

Janis identifies some conditions that lead to group polarization:

- Social conditions = conditions that lead to a group to a decision making based on the conservation
of the harmony
 they are: - group cohesiveness
- isolation of the group from other viewpoints
- lack of methodological procedures
- directive leader who signals what decisions he prefers
- the group is facing a stressful situation

- Symptoms of groupthink = signs that groupthink is taking place in a group

 3 groups: - Overestimation of the power illusion of invulnerability
 unquestioned belief in morality
- Closed minded rationalization of decisions
 stereotyped view of opponents
- Uniformity conformity pressure= opponents are eliminated
 self-censorship= no one wanna go against the group
 illusion of unanimity= perception that everyone agrees
 mind guards= members that protect the group from
opponents
- Symbols of defective decision making = signs that a group is taking the wrong decision
 they are: - incomplete evaluation of alternatives
- incomplete evaluation of objectives
- failure to examine risks
- selective bias
- poor information
- failure to work out an alternative plan

Strategies to avoid groupthink: - be impartial

- encourage critical evaluation
- occasionally subdivide the group and then reunite it
- welcome critiques
- call a “second-chance”

Critiques toward Groupthink Directive leadership is associated with poorer decisions, because minorities
feel too weak or insecure to speak up
 Groups prefer to support over instead of doubting decisions
 When people want to be accepted to a group, they may suppress
disagreeable thoughts
 Including people who think differently from you can make you feel
uncomfortable. Tho, groups that accept opponent opinions are those who
produce greater ideas
 In discussion, information that is shared by group members tends to
dominate and be more influential than unshared information

This means that sometimes, useless and wrong information that are shared are more
influential than those that are correct but not shared. This doesn’t benefit the group member

How to make a group work Leadership: the leader accepts other possible solutions
 Group norms: information from the outside is valued
 Openness to critiques
 Large groups are especially inefficient

 Minority influence
- Moscovici developed a Theory of Social Influence

- Factors that make a minority influential Consistency: the presence of a consistent minority
produces ambivalence among the majority, and,
therefore, it is likely to have influence
 Self-confidence: consistency creates self-confidence. A high
self-confidence raises doubts among the
majority group
 Defection from majority: if a minority consistently raises
doubts, majority members become
freer to express their own thoughts,
and may switch to the minority position
- minority influence includes Leadership = process by which certain group members motivate, guide,
and lead the group

Different approaches:
- Trait approach to leadership it believes that leads have specific physical characteristics
 this approach doesn’t have empirical evidence

- Contingency approach to leadership by Fieldler

 There are 2 kinds of leaders:
- Task leadership= form of leadership focused on goals and
organizing work
- Social leadership= leadership focused on building teamwork and
being supportive
 this approach, tho, is quite simplistic

- Transformational leadership approach the best leaders are those who have specific traits but also the
capacity to motivate others to identify with a group’s goal

11. AGGRESSION
= physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm

Despite this social psychologists’ definition, there can be different definitions, because there are a lot of
different kinds of aggressive acts some acts are more direct than others

Theories of aggression:
- Aggression as a biological phenomenon
 Theories on human instincts  aggression is caused by human instincts, that enable us to protect
ourselves from danger
 Theories on genetic influence some genes make us more likely to be aggressive
 Theories on aggression neural influence Reactive aggression= aggression response to being provokes
 Instrumental aggression= a behavior which requires
aggression in order to obtain a
desired reward
 Theories on biochemical influence ex. alcohol, hormones…make us more likely to perform
aggressive behaviors
 Testosterone is more connected to aggressive behaviors
 Susceptibility hypothesis: when features of someone’s
environment makes him more susceptible to particular
behaviors (ex. drinking). Therefore, if a person is more a
aggressive, he is more likely to drink. In this case, aggression is
the cause, not the effect

Critiques: - we don’t know if they are causes or effect

- they don’t explain the variations in time and space
- Aggression as a response to frustration
 Classic Frustration- aggression theory frustration is the cause of anger
 Frustration= blocking of goal-directed behavior
 tho, frustration doesn’t always elicit aggression
 aggressive behaviors can be directed to ourselves too
 sometimes, there can be a Displacement (= we act
aggressively to people that were not the cause of our anger)

Reasons for displacement: - we fear the reaction of the other person (ex. my boss would fire me)
- social norms don’t accept an aggressive behavior

 Frustration-aggression theory revised Berkowitz changed the classic theory, introducing 3 aspects
 Aggression needs: - Unjustified frustration
- Anger
- Aggressive cues (= a specific social situation)
 Theories on Relative deprivation= the perception that I’m worse than the others to which I
compared myself to can create aggression

- Aggression as learned social behavior

 Social learning theory we learn social behavior by observing and imitating others, and then by
(Bandura) self-regulating our own behavior accordingly
 the emotional arousal is the result of an aversive experience, which
motivates aggression. Tho, whether aggression actually occurs depends on
the consequences that people expect, in terms of rewards and punishments

if a person experiences something that makes him angry, and he knows he

will be punished if he acts aggressively, he will probably not do it

 In everyday life, we are exposed to 3 models:

- family: kids in problematic families are more aggressive
- culture: some cultures justify aggression in order to preserve an order
- mass media

 He conducted an experiment divided in 2 steps:

1. Modeling he divided a class of kids in 3 groups. The first group watched some adults acting
aggressively toward a bobo doll. The second group watched adults active non
aggressively toward the dolls. The third group wasn’t exposed to any model at all
 Results showed that the first group, that saw some adults acting aggressively, also
started behaving more aggressively towards the dolls and they also used the same
words that they heard from the adults
2. Conditioning he then conducted again the experiment, by using reinforcements. He noticed that
kids who were given a reward after an aggressive behavior became ever more
aggressive, compared to those who received a punishment
Circumstances that influence aggression:
- Aversive experiences = experiences that make us unhappy and angry
 ex. pain, heat, attacks…
 Reciprocity principle: responses to a positive action should be positive.
Response to a negative action should be negative

- Aggression cues in the environment if, in the environment, there are items that represent aggression,
we are more likely to act aggressively
 ex. having a gun make you more aggressive

- Arousal any kind of arousal (even sexual arousal) can lead to aggression
 an aversive situation can trigger hostile cognitions, hostile feelings, and arousal. These
reactions make us more likely to perceive harmful intent and to react aggressively

- Video games the graphic in video games in very realistic

 they involve people more than tv, because people have to act
 the game rewards the player
 experiments demonstrated that video games increase arousal, aggressive thinking, feelings
and behaviors and they decrease the prosocial behavior

- Television pornography and sexual violence in movies reinforce the Rape myth

= idea that women being forced to have sex

 parents don’t have control on what kids watch
 children are more attracted to movies which are suggested to only adult
 Reasons why it influences behavior: - arousal it leads to physiological responses
- disinhibition characters seem not to feel pain
- imitation

 Opponent idea: Catharsis hypothesis tv helps to process some repressed emotions,

which helps to avoid acting aggressively

 Some experiments demonstrated that there is a correlation between people exposed to

violence, and an increase of aggression these experiments demonstrate that the
catharsis hypotheses isn’t true

 its effect on thinking: - Desensitization the more people watch violent people, the less
arousal they perceive
- Social scripts people start thinking that violence doesn’t hurt so much
- Altered perception people overestimate the rate of violence
- Cognitive priming it elicits aggressive thoughts

- Collective identity being in a group enhances aggression due to social polarization, anonymity…
 people also tend to receive more aggression when they are in group
- Gender there are some stereotypes that men and more aggressive than women

Reasons: - testosterone is believed to be more connected to aggressive behaviors

- the crime rate is higher in men

 however, researchers believe that these stereotypes are false, because the measured of
aggression can be biased there can be many others biological foundations, beside hormones
 women tend to report crime more often
 statistics don’t report all kinds of crimes

Strategies to reduce aggression:

- Teaching of self-control
- Teaching of prosocial behaviors
- By making institutions and media understand what are the consequences of exposing people to violence

12. PREJUDICES AND INTERGROUP RELATIONS

Prejudice= preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members it’s an attitude
Discrimination= unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members It’s a behavior

Prejudices can lead to a discrimination when we have a prejudice toward a person of a group, we might
discriminate him (ex. I think that people with red hair are bad, so I
don’t talk to them)

Discriminations and prejudices are usually connected to minorities, like races, sexuality…
The most common prejudices and discriminations are the ones connected to particular races

Individual level Racism= individual’s prejudicial attitude and discriminatory behavior toward people of a
given race
Institutional level Racism= institutional practices that subordinate people of a given race

Stereotypes = Prejudices they are always negative

= belief about the personal attributes of a group of people

- they can be positive, neutral, or negative
- resistant to change because they affect how we perceive other groups
Social psychologists in the past developed a theory on “The prejudiced personality”

- they believed that some personalities are more prone to develop prejudices toward others
- Ethnocentric attitude= believing in the superiority of one’s own ethnic and cultural group, and
having corresponding disdain for all other groups
People with this attitude tend to subdue others

- Adorno Authoritarian personality= personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority and
is intolerant toward outgroups and those of lower status
 he developed the F-scale= scale composed by 77 items, that aims to measure anti-
democratic personalities
 people that agreed with “hostile ideas” were the ones with an
authoritarian personality
 he conducted an In-depth analysis he conducted clinical interviews with some
participants to collect material to better understand
their responses and backgrounds. He noticed that
most authoritarian people grew up with strict parents

the key point of Adorno’s studies is that he didn’t only focus on people’s
personalities, but also on cultural influences

- Adorno’s studies were criticized the items in the F-scale were too similar to each other
 he mainly analyzed white middle class US citizens. They were not
very representative of the general population

Theories on prejudice:
 Social Dominance theory
- in our society, there is a hierarchy among social groups some are in a dominant position
- the way people respond to this Social hierarchy depends on their Social Dominance Orientation

= individual motivation to have one’s group dominate other social groups

- the higher the group identification is, the higher the Social Dominance Orientation is
- the higher the Social Dominance Orientation is, the more prejudices and discriminations a person
tends to have

 Terror management theory

- human beings are the only living beings that are aware that one day they will die
- the awareness of death creates an anxiety and terror in people
- being a member of a culture provides a sense of protection from this anxiety and terror

- people tend to adhere to their social group in order to reduce the terror a stronger adherence to a
group increases the prejudices

- Experimental evidence some researchers made participants think about death, by subliminally
exposing them to 9/11 related pictures. They demonstrated that people
tended to have more support for President Bush and more prejudices
toward terrorists, because their fear of death led them to adhere to the
social group
Critique: it usually works better in individualistic cultures
 Social identity and self-categorization theory
- people tend to seek their own positive identities from their group membership it raises self-esteem
- Strategies to do this Basking in reflected glory= to associate with a successful individuals or group,
despite having no direct involvement in their success
(ex. when Milan wins, I say that WE won)
 these are self-serving bias
 Cutting off reflected failure= to distance oneself from an individual or group
that you would usually identify with, when that
individual group fails
(ex. when Milan loses, I say that THEY lost)
 these are ingroup bias

- the more important our social identity is and the more strongly we feel part of a group, the more we
react prejudicially to threats from other groups
- Ultimate attribution error= tendency to attribute positive behaviors in one’s own group to the
ingroup’s characteristics, and positive behavior in outgroups to individual
characteristics, that are seen as an exception
(ex. If I believe that Germans are rude, If I meet a kind German I believe
that it’s just an exception. Indeed, if someone of my group is kind, I
justify his kindness saying that it’s typical of our group)

- Outcome: prejudices tend affect the attributes to a group. We always tend to look for attributions
that support our prejudices

SUBTLE AND IMPLICIT PREJUDICES

In western countries, implicit prejudices have taken the place of blatant prejudices

Implicit prejudices exaggerating ethic differences

 feeling less admiration and affection for immigrant minorities
 rejecting people for supposedly non-racial reasons

With subtle prejudices, there have been the development of several forms of Subtle Racism

We don’t discriminate people out loud, but we feel an ambivalence toward minorities

Experiments when showing participants pictures of a black man and of a white man, holding a bottle
of water or a gun. Then, they were asked to shoot or not shoot them. Results showed
that people were more likely to shoot the black man, rather than the white man
INTERGROUP CONFLICT
Intergroup behavior= interaction between two different groups it’s fundamental that the people
strongly identity with their group
Conflict= perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, and values between two different groups
 it is not always negative

Intergroup conflict= negative relation between social groups

Theories on conflict :
 Realistic conflict Theory (Sherif & Sherif) negative relations between social groups arise when there
is a real competition due to the lack of resources
 it is an environmental explanation of conflict
 Robbers Cave conducted an experiment on this theory

- he divided 22 children in a camp into 2 groups

- Phase 1: Bonding stage children were asked to bond with their groups
- Phase 2: Competition stage groups played competing activities against each other
 when prizes and costs were introduced, the groups started
being in conflict with each other
 when asked to describe the outgroups, people used
prejudices and discrimination
- Phase 3: cooperation stage groups were asked to perform non-competing activities
together, through collaboration
 results showed that different groups were able to collaborate,
and the prejudices and discriminations disappeared

 intergroup contact and communication is not enough to

reduce conflict
 in order to resolve a conflict, groups need some
Superordinate goals (= goals in common between groups)

 Social identity theory he reanalyzed Robbers Cave’s experiment, and he believed that conflict
was created because there has been the formation of Ingroup Bias, that
generated stereotypes and prejudices toward other groups
 Benjamin conducted an experiment of this theory

- he compared children from different socioeconomic backgrounds

- he demonstrated that middle-upper class children and working-class children tended to form two
different groups and attribute their success to different aspects.
Middle-upper class children attributed their academic results to their skills, so that they appeared
superior to the low-class.
Children from the working-class, on the other hand, attributed their academic success to the fact
that they lived in the street

 social identification rises the self-esteem people with a low self-esteem tend
to identify a lot with their group, in
order to improve it
 social identity is strengthened when the group feels prejudiced by others
CROWD CONFLICTS
Early social psychologists examined conflicts and aggressive behavior in crowds

 Le Bon’s theory when individual become part of a crowd, the lose their conscious rationality
 when the rationality is lost, the racial unconscious develops, and the crowd starts
behaving aggressively
 in the crowd, people lose their individual responsibility, and they feel invisible
 in crowds there is a Social contagion aggressive impulses are transmitted
among members

Issues with this theory: - he didn’t consider the circumstances (decontextualization).

In fact, he only considered the revolutionary riots
- he assumed that crowds have a fixed behavior
- not everyone gets influenced by the crowd
- not everyone feels invisible and becomes irrational

 Social Identity theory it includes the context

 members of a crowd are connected through a common social identity
 crowds behaviors and individual behaviors in a crowds actually have a rational
base, that is due to the social identity
 Example: during a riot in Bristol, people that participated had a shared history.
The riots attacked the police, because they were considered a
legitimate target, whereas the members of the riot were considered
Illegitimate target. The police was chased, but only until the limits

This demonstrates that the crowd had a sense of control, because they chased the
police but they didn’t go beyond the limits

 Deindividualization = loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension. It takes place

when people in a group feel anonymous and they don’t respond to the
group’s norms
 Mann studied Suicidal attempts, to observe deindividualization

He noticed that, when people try to commit a suicide, if there were many people around,
they don’t end up committing a suicide. While, if they are alone, they do it

 Diener created a Model of Crowds

- he developed it after seeing that kid, when trick or treating, tend to steal more candies
when they are in a group
- 5 Stages Stage 1: most of the time, we are not self-aware and self-regulated
 Stage 2: there are some cased in which we are self-aware and self-regulated
 Stage 3: the activation of self-awareness and self-regulating create some changes
 Stage 4: when self-awareness and self-conception are blocked (ex. we are in a group),
deindividualization takes place
 Stage 5: when we are deindividuated, self-regulation is lost
 Emergent Norm theory crowds tend to form their own Emergent norms
 norms develop when certain individuals become dominant and their
behaviors become characteristic of the crowd, creating the group norms
 crowds are simple groups, but they are spontaneous and don’t have
common history

Issues: - it focuses only on some individuals of the crowd

- when people are in a crowd, there can actually be a common history

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE INTERGROUP ARMONY:

- Contact hypothesis prejudices and intergroup conflicts are caused by the fact that there is a lack of
(Allport) knowledge about the other group
 putting conflicting groups together enables them to get to know each other. The
Better knowledge could improve appreciation for the other group
 Tho, there must be Optimal conditions for the contact:
1. it must be frequent and prolonged
2. it must include members that are usually stereotyped
3. it must be done with a genuine goal to improve relations
4. it must occur between members of equal status
5. it must be supported by formal structures (ex. education)
6. there must not be competition
7. there must be a subordinate goal and a successful outcome of the goal

Evidence that prolonged contact works when people develop a friendship with outgroup members, they
tend to develop more positive attitudes toward the outgroup

Limit: at first, we tend to minimize the friend’s group identity. Over time, tho, the friend’s
group identity must become prominent, in order to overcome prejudice

- De-categorization group members are put in contact with outgroup members that have similar
individual characteristics, and not based on social identity

- Common ingroup identity model members of different groups re-categorize themselves into one group
 this dissolves the two different group identity, by creating only one

- Re-categorization members of different groups are put into common group with a subordinate goal

- Dual identities minority groups become part of a group, as subordinate identities

 It’s the opposite of assimilation

- Communication Bargaining= direct negotiation between groups, in order to resolve a conlit

 Mediation= attempt to resolve a conflict by a neutral third party, who tries to facilitate
communication and who offers suggestions
 Arbitration= resolution of a conflict by a neutral third party who studies both sides and
imposes a settlement
 Conciliation= gradual and reciprocal initiatives in tension reduction
 Step 1: the initiator declares its desire to reduce tension and declares the
conciliatory act, inviting the other party to reciprocate
 Step 2: the initiator carries out several conciliatory acts
 Step 3: if the other party takes place, a spiral reconciliation takes place
 HELPING
There are 2 kinds of help emergency help (social psychology only focuses on this one)
 care giving

Helping is connected to: - Altruism = motive to increase another’s welfare without self-interest
- Egoism = motive to increase another’s welfare with elf-interest
 ex. I help others because I want others to think I’m generous

Reasons why people help others:

 Social exchange theory
- people exchange rewards and costs
- when we decide if we want to help someone, we do a calculation of rewards and costs
(ex. if I want to donate money, I calculate the costs and benefits of it)
- we help others if rewards are higher than costs
- it can be conscious or unconscious
- rewards can be: - external ex. money
- internal Distress: feeling empathy for someone usually pushes us to help them
 Guilt: feeling guilty for something pushes us to help others, so that
we release the guilt
 Happiness: being relieved promotes help.
Reason: Positive mood produces positive thoughts, which
predispose positive behavior
- Exceptions for internal rewards: - anger
- grief we think others feel better than us

 Attribution
- we tend to help others when we believe the other person is not responsible for being in a
difficult situation

- Rudolph helping is mediated by people’s explanation of the need for help and their resulting
degree of sympathy
 Attribution of the problem: external causes we feel sympathy we help the person
 Attribution of the problem: internal causes we don’t feel empathy we don’t help

- Brickman he proposed the “Four models of Helping”, depending on who is responsible for the
problem and who is responsible for the solution
 Moral model: people in need are considered responsible for their problems, and for the
solution as well
 Medical model: people in need are not seen responsible for the problem, and neither for
the solution
 Enlightenment model: people in need are considered responsible for their problem, but
not for the solution ex. they need discipline
 Compensatory model: people in need are not considered responsible for the problem, but
they are for the solution
 Helping norms
- Reciprocity norms we believe that, if we help others, then they will help us
 it usually works with people we know
 this also works for people who ask for help. If we feel like we can’t pay
people back, we don’t ask for help
- Social-responsibility norm people feel responsible for helping those in need of help

- different cultures have different norms and they endorse them differently

In collectivistic cultures, people are more exposed to social-responsibility

norms, compared to the individualistic cultures

 Gender
- women tend to seek for and receive more help than men due to gender norms and expectations
 females are usually less scared to show
their weaknesses and difficulties
- women are more prone to care giving

 Evolutionary psychology
- Genetic selfishness = tendency to protect our inheritance and heritage
 it predisposes us to 2 kinds of helping:
- Kin protection we tend to help more our relatives
- Reciprocity we seek for survival by helping others in order to
receive the favor back

- parents tend to help their children more than vice versa in some cultures, tho, helping parents is
considered a social norm

- Group selection when groups collaborate with each other, they are more likely to survive,
compared to groups that are in competition with each other

- this theory, tho, doesn’t explain why we help strangers as well

 Genuine altruism
- Batson believed that helping behaviors can be motivated both by Selfish motives (ex. I expect
something back), but also by Altruistic motives (people help without no rewards)
- Genuine altruism = willing to make others feel better, without any kind of selfish motive
- it takes place when people activate empathic responses ex. when we see someone who is suffering

- he conducted many experiments he elicited empathy in participants and gave them the
possibility to either reduce the distress by leaving, or to help.
Results showed that people who felt empathy decided to help others

- this theory was criticized, because people said that it’s very hard to eliminate selfish motives. It could
be that, when we feel empathy, we feel sad, and in order to reduce the sadness, we help others. This
would still be a selfish motive
Factors that influence when people decide to help:
- Presence of Bystanders = the presence of several bystanders(=people that don’t do anything to
help others) makes it less likely that people will provide help
 this is due to a diffused responsibility and social comparison
 it is not dependent on people’s personality

 Latané and Darley created the Decision tree: (it explains the 3 steps before helping)
1. Notice the incident
2. Seeing the incident as a situation in which someone needs help
3. Assuming responsibility for help

Bystanders influence the Decision tree Noticing: when there are a lot of bystanders, we
are less likely to notice someone in danger
 Interpreting: when there are a lot of bystanders, we tend
to interpret the situations as not dangerous
 Assuming responsibility: when there are a lot of
bystanders, we tend not to
assume the responsibility

Assuming responsibility is influenced by: - status of people (people with higher

status are expected to help)
- urban density
- culture (people in collectivistic cultures
are more likely to help)

- Helping factors prosocial models can promote altruism

- Time pressures when we are late, we tend not to help others, in order not to waste time
 Batson con ducted an experiment, in which he divided people in 2 groups.
The first group was told to be late, while the other was told to be on time.
Both these groups were split into 2 subgroups. One in which people’s participation
at the meeting was important, and one group in which people’s participation was
not essential for the experimenter.
Results showed that people that had time, stopped to help, even if their help was
not essential. People in a hurry didn’t stop to help, even when their help was vital

- Similarityit promotes liking and, therefore, empathy, which induces more help
 it comprehends both physical and social similarity

- Personality, gender, and age  personality traits are NOT connected to helping
 there are personal characteristics that make people more or less
helpful empathic people
 people with high prosocial values
 positive emotionally people
 women tend to be more prone to help
 older people usually help more
How to increase helping:
2 path To reduce the obstacles for helping: - by reducing anonymity and increasing responsibility
- by enabling guilt and self-concern for self-image

Door-in-the-face technique = manipulation technique for gaining concession, in which,

after requesting something large, the same requester
counter-offers with a more reasonable request.
People tend to accept the second offer because they feel
guilty for not having accepted the large one

 To socialize altruism: - to teach not to exclude anyone from our moral system
- to model altruism
- to learn by doing the more we help, the more we become prosocial
- to attribute helping behaviors to altruism
- to learn about altruism once we acknowledge the influence of
bystanders on us, we tend to become more altruistic
 PREJUICE – additional chapter
= any attitude, emotion or behavior towards members of a group, which directly or indirectly implies
some negativity or antipathy towards that group

Allport Prejudice= antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization

This definition, tho, is not very precise

Reasons: - we can’t determine the correctness of a belief

- the perception of things is subjective
- prejudices change over time it is not inflexible

There are a lot of kinds of prejudice (ex. vs women, vs some races, vs gay…),
Sexism, Racism, Homophobia… are specific cases of prejudice

Prejudice regards not only cognitive and attitudinal aspects, but also emotional and behavioral ones

Globally, prejudice is considered to be a group process

Reasons it is an attitude toward an entire social group, not only toward a person
 it is a socially shared attitude
 it comes from particular groups and it is referred to another particular group.
Therefore, the relationship between these two groups influences the prejudice

Prejudices have an intergroup nature

Social psychology, tho, doesn’t view prejudice as a group process, but it is rather concerned with
individuals who act as members of a group
Individuals are considered as a part of the group processes they get influenced by the group

Prejudices can be linked to some particular psychological functioning and personalities, which are the
result of certain family histories

PERSONALITY APPROACHES
Adorno and collogues believed that people with prejudices have an Authoritarian personality

These individuals were raised in a too strict family, that was too concerned with obedience and that taught
the children that their behavior could be categorized into “right” and “wrong”.
Children raised in this kind of family tend to displace away their anger on more vulnerable people and they
tend to judge people with different ideas and that are part of a different group

Some studies have been conducted of the authoritarian personality and they have shown that these people
tend to have an intolerance for ambiguity, less integrative complexity, increased uncertainty avoidance and
greater need for more cognitive closure

They crated an F-scale that was used to measure the Authoritarianism

Some critiques were moved about the fact that this F-scale could confuse Authoritarianism with the
tendency to agree with authoritarian statements
Some social psychologists, instead, believed that an authoritarian personality is due to a lack of education

Altemeyer created a Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale (RWA scale) which measures 3 main factors:
- Submission to authorities
- Aggression toward outsiders
- Conventionalism

The scale is called “Right-wing” because an authoritarian personality is typical of extremist people of the
right
This scale has a high reliability, but it doesn’t prove a certain evidence of authoritarianism

Shils moved a critique toward the Authoritarian Personality and the RWA scale.
He said that they deal with only one kind of prejudice. It could also be that people with other political views
are authoritarian and also prejudiced

Rokeach talked about the Dogmatic personality, also called Closed mind, which, in his opinion, is typical of
people with prejudices
He believed that prejudices were typical not only of extremist of the right, but also of the left
He developed 2 different scales Opinionation scale (it measures the level of intolerance)
 Dogmatism scale (it measures the level of authoritarianism)

Through the use of his scales, he demonstrated that there is no connection between left or right extremes
with authoritarianism. The relation between them depended on the social and cultural context

Sidanius and Pratto developed the Social Dominance Theory

According to it, prejudices and discriminations are manifestations of a universal

human tendency to form group-based structures of social dominance, in which
members of some groups want to subjugate members of others

This tendency can be seen by the fact that all the societies are hierarchically organized. The only difference
among society is the “arbitrary set” = composition of the hierarchy

Despite the difference in the arbitrary set, Age and Gender are two categorical dimensions which have an
influence in the hierarchy of all the societies
In most societies, old men tend to be at a higher place in the hierarchy

The group-based hierarchies are inevitable in societies. There are 2 main reasons for it:
- Otherwise, there would be a competition which would create social disparities
- Hierarchically organized societies are more stable everyone collaborates for the society’s survival

Despite the stability of the hierarchically organized society, there can sometimes be some tensions

Sidanius and Pratto created the Social Dominance Orientation scale (SDO scale), which measures the
differences among groups and also among individuals
Limits of the personality approach:
1. It underestimates the influence that an immediate social situation can have on people’s attitudes
2. The differences in the personality can be due to different social and cultural contexts
3. It’s not able to explain the uniformity of prejudiced attitudes across whole groups of people
4. It’s not able to explain the historical changes in the expression of a prejudice

Some studies show that authoritarianism and social dominance are not the prime cause of
prejudice, but they are rather responses to changing intergroup conditions

SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
Bruner Categorization is an inescapable feature of every human being, because the world is so complex
that we need to simplify it by creating some orders and categories

Therefore, we do some categorization, in which we assign people to

certain groups based on their differences and similarities

Social categorizations are at the basis of all prejudices we categorize people as part of a group, and we
assume their characteristics

Campbell categorization leads stereotypes to enhance the contrast between different social
groups and categories

Categorization has 2 main effects of how people perceive the world:

- Intercategory differentiation the differences between two stimuli are enhanced when these two are
categorized as part of different groups
- Intracategory assimilation the similarities between two stimuli are enhanced when these two are
categorized as part of the same group

Categorization also tends to create some Intergroup Discrimination = tendency to favor our own group
over others

In order to prove this Intergroup Discrimination, Tajfel used the Minimal Group Paradigm

1. people were showed two paintings and, based on their favorite one, their were placed in one of
the two minimal groups
2. people were asked to place money on some numbers (which represented a person).
The only thing they knew was the group to which those numbers belonged to

Results: people tended to place money on numbers that represented people of their same group.

It shows that individuals express favoritism to members of their group, even when there
is a minimal ingroup affiliation (no interaction, anonymity…)

It is called “Minimal group Paradigm” because it investigates the minimal conditions required for
discrimination between groups to occur
People don’t belong to only one category, but, often, they have several cross-cutting category dimensions.
Studies showed that the presence of multiple overlapping categories tends to reduce the amount of bias
toward someone who is an outgroup of a certain dimension

Ex. A person who likes both men and women belongs to two different overlapping categories. These
bisexual people are shown to have fewer prejudices over people who like only men/only women

Despite the Intracategory assimilation, in big groups, there is usually an Outgroup Homogeneity effect

= tendency to see members of another groups as more similar among

each other, compared to the members of my group

Familiarity hypothesis: it hypothesizes that this effect is due to the fact that I know the members of my
group better than the ones of another group. Therefore, I notice more differences
among the members of my group, and I cannot see the differences among people
from other groups, because I don’t know them well

However, in minority groups, there is usually an Ingroup Homogeneity effect

Researchers believe that is due to the fact that minority groups are often threatened by big
groups, and, therefore, in order to protect themselves, they tend to be more homogeneous

HOW WE CATEGORIZE:
In a situation, there are different levels of Categorization Basic, Subordinate and Superordinate
Rosch when we categorize the world, we tend to use the “basic level” of categorization

For people, the basic level of categorization is their social group

When we categorize the world, we also create sub-types withing a group

Bruner people tend to use those categories which are more accessible to a person, and those which
best fit the stimuli that the person faced

(ex. I can distinguish students from (ex. I can distinguish students from professor
professor by looking at them) because I know that, in a class, there are both)

 fit and accessibility influence each other accessible categories influence how we perceive the
world, and, therefore, the fit of things

Turner the most common form of categorization is the Meta-Contrast ratio

we tend to minimize the difference between self and the most prototypical member of the
ingroup and we tend to maximize the differences between the prototypical member of the
ingroup and the prototypical outgroup member
Campbell Entitativity= capacity to recognize two people as part of the same groups
 there are several factors that allow us to assign two people to the same group
 These factors are: - common fate= general knowledge about a group
- similarity
- proximity

Common fate, similarity and proximity are people’s personal properties that influence categorization
Sometimes, Priming can also influence categorization

if an event has occurred recently and it is evocative of a particular categorization, it is likely that
subsequent events will also be interpreted in terms of that same category system
Ex. If the police killed a man due to racial reasons, it is probable that, if a policeman kills a black
man again, we would think that it’s due to racial reasons as well

In addition to these personal and situational factors, there can also be some attributes of the perceiver that
can influence how he categorizes another person

These attributes are: - Current task

- Goal of the person doing the categorizing
- Accessibility of the person to the categories
- His intergroup-outgroup relationship to the target person Ingroup Over-Exclusion effect

= tendency to be very vigilant about people of our group. We find it

easier to miss classify a real ingrouper as an outgrouper, rather than
to take the risk to letting in a member of the outgroup

Though, after all, the perception of someone as belonging to a different group from our own has less
influence on the creation of prejudices, compared to other factors

Rokeach The congruence of thoughts and belief system between us and another person has a higher
influence on the creation of prejudices
 prejudices are the result of Belief Incongruence when our opinion disagree with someone
else’s, we feel like our belief system has
been threatened

DEVELOPMENT OF PREJUDICES IN CHILDREN

The structure and dynamics of a family can make a child grow with a personality more prone to prejudices

Development of prejudices in children:

 Category awareness
- children learn social categories at an early age (3 years old ca)
- ethnicity is one of the first social categories that children acquire
- Clark and Clark they conducted an experiment in which they gave a white doll and a black one to
some children and asked them to determine the dolls’ ethnicity. They noticed that
the 75% of children between 3 to 7 years and the 90% of 5-year-old children was able
to do so
 Category identification & preference
- at the age of 3, children start identifying with one category and preferring some more than others
- the strength of preferences varies across cultures
- most important category identifications: grander and ethnicity

Gender identification & preferences:

 Katz and Zalk: they made an experiment with children, making them pick a doll among 4 different
ones (2 black and 2 white, 2 of each gender)
Results showed that the choice was only a bit influenced by the ethnicity of the dolls,
but most children, especially girls, picked based on the gender

 gender identity and preferences are established around 3 years of age (but it depends on the culture)
However, knowing the personal gender doesn’t mean understanding the concept of gender

 the “Gender constancy” is established around 5 years of age before this age, children believe
that, if they wear clothes of the
opposite sex, their sex will change
 gender segregation (=hanging out with people of the same sex) can change over time

Ethnic identification and preferences:

 Clark and Clark: they asked children to pick a doll to play with (white or black).
Results showed that most of them picked the doll with their same skin color
However, results show that some black children preferred the white dolls

Asher and Allen they conducted an experiment about pro-white preferences.

They noticed that pro- white bias increased from 3 to 4 years of age and
reached a peak at 5 years. Then, at 7-8 years, they decreased

 Barret: he conducted an experiment with children of different cultures and ages, in which they had
to evaluate some groups. Results showed that children of all ages preferred their own
country, and only some of them had negative opinions about some other countries.
Moreover, children were more inclined to differentiate countries based on positive aspects

This is called the positive-negative asymmetry effect = tendency to use more positive than
negative aspects to discriminate among groups

Studies show that children below 8 years old tend to use more negative attributes to differentiate
countries. Researchers believe that this is due to the fact that young children haven’t learned the social
inappropriateness of making negative evaluation of other countries

Children tend to do an Intergroup discrimination = they tend to favor their own ethic group
 this works especially for girls

Yee and Brown they conducted an experiment with some boys and girls, who were asked to indicate
their favorite drawing between two, one made by a boy, and one made by a girl
Results show that boys tended to vote for the better drawing, while girls always
voted for the drawing made by the girl

Similar to the minimal group paradigm

In standard situations, Intergroup discrimination takes place because of the minimal group paradigm
(= people are told that they are part of a group) , while in real life, it happens because there is a
common fate (ex. same status, gender…) among members of the same group

Bigler he made an experiment with children in a school, in which teachers divided the classes in two
groups, and assigned to each group a specific t-shirt color. In one class, the t-shirt was not
further mentioned, while in the other, the teachers used the different colors to organize the
children’s activities.
Results showed that, in the first class, there was no discrimination among the different groups,
while in the second class there was a group discrimination and preference

This shows that, in real life, mere categorization alone is not necessary for discrimination. There must
be a common sense that pushes people to prefer their group over another

Factors that influence the onset of stereotype in children:

- Mass media
- Different treatment from parents caretakers/ parents treat boys and girls differently
 ex. gender stereotypes arise because parents give boys certain
toys, and girls other kinds of toys
- Direct socialization sometimes, parents have stereotypes, and they transmit them to the children
 it depends on the level of identification with the parents
 it’s a traditional explanation. Psychologists don’t believe in it anymore

Nowadays, psychologists don’t believe that direct socialization with parents determines the children’s
attitudes and prejudices

Supporting facts:
- Category awareness children at the age of 3, hence before socialization, are already able to
differentiate different categories and they identify with one.
- Growth of prejudice at the age of 7, children reach a peak of discrimination and prejudices, but
then, around 10 years of age, they decrease. If socialization influenced the
prejudices, there wouldn’t be a decrease in them at 10 years of age
- Different levels of prejudice some studies showed that prejudices have decreased in adults, but
they haven’t changed in children
- Castelli’s experiment he created an Implicit Association test, in order to verify if the parents’
prejudiced attitudes can influence the children’s attitudes.
Results showed that only the mothers’ attitudes have a correlation with the
children’s attitudes. The fathers’ attitudes don’t have any kind of correlation.
He believed that these results are due to the fact that the mother is the first
caretaker, and, therefore, also the more constant source of info for children
 it showed that parents’ attitudes and children’s have a very low correlation

Due to these reasons, social psychologists developed new theoretical models, in which prejudices are
connected to more general cognitive, social, and affective changes that occur in children in the first 10
years of their life
Therefore, they believe that children play a more active role in the development of prejudices
 Aboud she developed a theory which demonstrates the arise and development of prejudices
 0-5 years: - classification of the world into broad and polarized categories (ex. male/female)
- association of these categories with different emotional responses.
- classification of ourselves as part of one of these categories
 5-7 years: - arising of conservation (= children realize that categories remain stage over time)
- strong focus on the group
- arising of stereotypes
 7+: - recognition that not all the individuals in a group are the same
- loosening of stereotypes

Nesdale in older children, there are 2 factors that influence the arise of prejudices:
- strength of the child’s identification with the ingroup the stronger it is, the more likely
the child will incorporate the
prejudices and stereotypes that the
ingroup created about an outgroup
- nature of the intergroup relationship between ingroup and outgroup

There are also some gender differences in the development of prejudices girls develop gender
segregation earlier

Psychologists believe that these gender differences are due to different styles of plays

STEREOTYPES – additional chapter

Stereotype= attribution to a person of some characteristics which are seen to be shared by most of his
fellow group members

Stereotypes can have different origins:

- Socio cultural origin they are part of the culture in which we are raised, and we live and they are
reproduced and transmitted through socialization

- “Grain of truth theory” (by Allport) the structure and behaviors of a group can generate stereotypes
 it’s called “grain of truth” because it has truth as its foundation.
Tho, it doesn’t mean the stereotype is true
 ex. a poor group in society is considered to be more stupid
- Ideologies the different social positions that groups occupy in a society can generate stereotypes.
 these stereotypes have an ideological function
 they make the privileged group as the dominant one

- Illusory correlation effect events that happen less commonly tend to capture more attention and to be
remembered more easily
 sometimes, we see a correlation between two event, which doesn’t exist.
This false correlation causes stereotypes
 ex. if a white policeman kills a black man, we believe it’s because of his race.
 But the reason might be another one

- Group entitativity groups with a high entitativity are usually the ones that are more stereotyped,
because the members are very similar to each other, and so the characteristics of
a member are generalized to all the other members

Darley and Gross stereotypes are Hypothesis, from which we seek more information about a person
 Without any information, we tend to hesitate to use the stereotypes

Stereotypes can influence the recall of the past and they can also generate expectations about the future
Regarding the future, they can generate expectancies and judgments about social groups

Expectancies they can sometimes lead to the instruction of biases into our search, but they can also
enable us to perceive some things more easily
Judgments when we have some stereotypes about someone, the judgments about the person are
influenced by them

Devine stated that stereotypes are Automatic Processes if I have stereotypes about someone, as soon as
the category is activated, the Stereotypical
Associations are activated

Ex. I believe that black man are aggressive. As soon as I see a black
man in the street, I believe he will attack me
However, usually, in everyday life we re aware of this activation and, therefore, we try to stop the negative
association and to replace it with a more acceptable behavior
Ex. I believe that black man are aggressive. As soon as I see a black man in the street, I avoid him

Stereotypes’ functions:
- motivational functions they protect our fragile ego from criticism
 ex. kids are considered to be less reliable. So, if I receive a critique from a kid, I
convince myself that it was not true because it came from a kid
- they influence people’s explanations of social events influence on Attribution Theory

People are often led to an Ultimate Attribution error negative behaviors coming from outgroup
members are seen as internally caused, while
those coming from the ingroup members are
seen as externally caused. Positive behaviors
are the exact opposite
Factors that inhibit the use of stereotypes:
- Cognitive busyness stereotypes are used as short-cuts to get to a conclusion, when we are already
busy with another cognitive task

- Role in intergroup situations high emotional situations can increase the likelihood of stereotypical
judgments
 ex. meeting an ethic minority can generate anxiety and the perception of
a greater outgroup homogeneity and negative outgroup attitudes

Cuddyhe belied that there is not a direct connection between stereotypes and behaviors. In fact, the
direct connection is between emotions (generated by stereotypes) and behaviors
 group stereotypes can be organized into a Taxonomy: 1. Groups that are seen as competent
2. groups that are seen as kind and warm
 The position of groups in the taxonomy depends on the social status (usually, groups with a high
social status, are seen as competent, whereas those in a lower social status are seen as warm)
 these 2 different stereotypical beliefs generate intergroup emotions (ex. admiration toward the
competent groups), which then lead to some specific behavior. It’s not the stereotypes that lead
to a certain behavior

- Positive interdependence with the target if a person relies on another person for the achievement of
something, he is more likely to look for information which
are specific to that person, and, therefore, not to use
stereotypes

Synder Besides being hypothesis, stereotypes can be Self-fulfilling Prophecies (= assumptions about
someone that become true just because we assumed it)

Demonstrations:
- Rosenthal effect having good stereotypes/ expectations about a target can positively influence the
performances of this target
- when there is a stereotype, the receiver and the perceiver (= the one with the stereotype) influence
each other (ex. if a teacher has a good stereotype about the students, she will be better at teaching. On
the other hand, the students will improve because they know about the teacher’s stereotype)
- some people internalize the stereotypes that they receive, and this makes them be true
(ex. there is the stereotype that, when people grow, they lose energy. Some studies tho, show that the
fact that they lose energy is also due to the stereotype, and not only to scientific reasons)
Stereotypes can change when a person meets many disconfirming information
Changes in stereotypes:
- Inconsistencies we realize that the stereotype doesn’t apply to an entire group of people
 ex. if female golf players are believed to suck at golf, but I see some wo men that are
good and other that are not bad, I may change my mind about the stereotype
- Conversion we meet some stereotyped people who are the opposite of the stereotype
 in order to change the stereotype, the stereotyped group must be pretty homogenous
 ex. if I see even a few exceptional female golfer player, I may change my mind about the
stereotype that female golfer players suck

Allport Refencing/ Sub-typing: sometimes, when we meet some people who don’t resemble a
stereotype that was assigned to their group, we place these people to a
“sub-group”. This allows to maintain a stereotype about a group, even if
we met some contradictions
Ex. If I meet some good female golf player, I might believe that they are
just an exception and I may create a “professional players sub-group”

- Sub-typing it can have a positive change on stereotype change

 if we create too many “sub-groups”, the main stereotyped group becomes weaker and
smaller, therefore the stereotype loses its power and becomes less potent
 ex. If I create a sub group of professional golfer players, one of talented players, one of
experienced players…, the stereotype that female golfer players suck becomes weaker

Some stereotypes are more likely to change than others unfavorable traits are easier to be
acquired but harder to disappear

Sometimes, conscious attempts to suppress stereotypes can lead to their stronger reappearance

Rebound effect when we are asked to judge someone without any stereotypes, we are able to do so, but
when we are back in normal conditions, the stereotypes rebounds back, and they can be
even stronger than they were before the suppression
 tho, a prolonged training in the dissociation between a category and a stereotype can
lead to the loosening of the stereotype