Psyco 241

Group Dynamics I
The Name of the Rose
Philosopher King
• Plato’s philosopher king is the lover of
wisdom (philos – sophia)
• Ship of states and allegory of the cave
(coming soon)
• Most people are in the Matrix
• You need a navigator (star-gazer) to
steer the ship
• Or a Neo/Keanu Reeves

• Karl Popper blamed this idea for 20th

century totalitarian leaders (Hitler,
Stalin)

Wisdom of the Crowds

• Individuals are biased, limited,
corporeal, etc.
• Truth is shaded for the individual
• Averaged together, these individual
biases cancel out
• Group collectively ascertains truth
• Idea first associated with Aristotle

• Democracy, Wikipedia, the rational

market and laissez-faire economics
etc. etc.

Group Processes
• This Lecture
• Individual in the group

• Next lecture
• Group performance and decision-
making

 What Is A Group?
• Group in social psychology defined as three or more people who
interact and influence one and another (e.g. Cartwright & Zander, 1968;
Lewin, 1948; Levine & Moreland, 1998).
• E.g., PM or President with cabinet of ministers, community members
meeting to solve a problem, campus clubs, etc.

• Groups vary in size, tightness, longevity, etc.

 What Is A Group?
• Which of the following is a group?
• Stockbrokers trading on a stock exchange.
• Parents at a parent-teacher meeting.
• Diners at a restaurant.
• Members of a hockey team.
• Patients sitting in a doctor’s waiting room.
• Relatives at a family reunion.
• Residents in the same apartment complex.
• Students in a social psychology class.
• Passengers on a commercial jet.
• Prisoners on the same cell block.

 What Is A Group?
• Defining a group difficult because sometimes same aggregate can
fit the bill, while at other times it may not.

• Groups provide various benefits to the individual (e.g. Baumeister &

Leary, 1995; DeWall, 1996; Gardner et al., 2000; Hogg et al., 2008).
• May fulfill fundamental need to belong.
• Advantages for protection, food acquisition, mating, child rearing, etc.
• Groups also provide individual with sense of self and identity.

 Characteristics of Groups
• Social Norms (e.g. Hogg, 2010; Marques et al., 2005; McAuliffe et al., 2003):
• Groups possess norms about acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
• Implicit or explicit pressure to conform to group norms.
• Strong penalties for deviance through ostracism, animosity, and threats.

• Social Roles (e.g. Hare, 2003; Zimbardo, 2007; Tubre & Collins, 2000; Lu et al., 2008):
• Groups also have specific expectations about how particular people are
supposed to behave.
• Roles can be helpful because people know what to expect from each other
(role ambiguity negatively related to job performance).
• However, dangerous when people lose sense of individuality.
• Deindividuation

 Characteristics of Groups
• Group Cohesiveness (e.g. Dion, 2000; Holtz, 2004; Gully et al., 1995; Levine &
Moreland, 1998; Mullen & Copper, 1994):
• Qualities of a group that bind members together.
• If group formed for social reasons, then group cohesiveness desirable.
• However, if group formed to work together, then more complex
relationship:
• Group cohesiveness leads to better performance if close cooperation
required, but backfires when people focused on maintaining close
relations than finding best answer.
• Stronger evidence that performance influences group cohesiveness more
than cohesiveness influences performance.

Individuals in Groups
The Presence of Others
 Social Facilitation
• How does the presence of others influence our performance?

• Presence of others could mean:

• Performing a task with others doing the same.
• Performing a task in front of an audience.

• Norman Triplett first interested in question and found evidence for

presence of others enhancing performance (e.g. Triplett, 1898; Travis,
1925; Chen, 1937):
• Observed bicyclists rode faster in competition than alone.
• Experimentally showed that children reeled fishing lines faster
when working alongside others than alone.
• Evidence that even presence of audience enhanced performance.
• Also evidence from other species further supported facilitation
effect.

Deal or No Deal
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O13cjtMSiq4
• In front of a crowd
• Not good performance
• Statistically awful performance
• For a number of reasons

 Social Facilitation
• Other work began to show that presence of others inhibited
performance (e.g. Allport, 1920; Dashiell, 1930; Pessin, 1933; Allee & Masure,
1936).
• Quality of arguments stronger when working alone than in presence of
others.
• Performance of math problems, memory tasks, and maze learning
worse in presence of others than alone.

• How do we reconcile these discrepant findings?

 Social Facilitation
• Zajonc offered a solution:
• Presence of others from
own species creates
arousal.
• Increased arousal increases
tendency for dominant
response.
• For easy or well-learned
tasks, the dominant
response is the correct
response; for difficult or
novel tasks, the dominant
response is an incorrect
response.

 Social Facilitation
• Social facilitation: The process by which the presence of others
enhances performance on easy tasks, but impairs performance on
difficult tasks.

• Zajonc and colleagues (1969) first tested theory:

• Built simple or complex maze for cockroaches.
• Cockroaches ran either alone, with another cockroach, or with an
audience of cockroaches behind transparent wall.

 Social Facilitation
• Zajonc and colleagues (1969) found:

• Cockroaches took less time to run simple mazes when in the

presence of others, but more time to run complex mazes with
others present.

 Social Facilitation
• Social facilitation later shown in humans in many contexts (e.g. Ben-
Zeev et al., 2005; Blascovich et al., 1999; Cottrell et al., 1968; Bond & Titus, 1983).
• E.g., Ps did better on rapid response task in the presence of others than
alone when allowed to get practice on task, but showed opposite pattern
when task was new.
• Skilled pool players did better in presence of others than alone, but
opposite for unskilled players.
• Meta-analysis provides support for social facilitation theory across
range of domains.
• Recent work suggests that even the picture of a favourite TV
character or a virtual person sufficient for social facilitation effects.

 Alternatives to Social Facilitation

• Some have challenged the notion that the mere presence of others
increases arousal in social facilitation effects.

• Evaluation apprehension theory: The presence of others will

produce social facilitation effects because we are concerned how
we appear in the eyes of others (e.g. Cottrell et al., 1968; Seta & Seta,
1992; Henchy & Glass, 1968).
• E.g., Ps did not show social facilitation effects in front of a blind folded
audience, but did with an evaluative audience.

 Alternatives to Social Facilitation

• Distraction-conflict theory: The presence of others will produce
social facilitation effects only when those others distract from the
task and create attentional conflict (e.g. Sanders & Baron, 1975; 1978;
Baron, 1986).
• E.g., Ps showed social facilitation effects when asked to perform
two tasks simultaneously.

• However, mere presence found to be sufficient in other work (e.g.

Markus, 1978; Rajecki et al., 1977; Platania & Moran, 2001).
• For example, mere presence of someone facing backwards lead to
similar social facilitation effects as target closely observing.

• These theories may all be accurate, but in different contexts.

 Social Loafing
• What happens to people’s performance
when their individual efforts cannot be
evaluated?

• In 1880s, Ringelmann interested in

individual performance in presence of
others, only he found that people
produced less effort in presence of
others.

• Social loafing: The tendency for people

to relax in the presence of others when
their individual performance cannot be
evaluated.

 Social Loafing
For example, in a classic study:
•Participants blindfolded and asked 10

to wear headphones. 8.3

Loudness
•Researchers led participants to 6.5
believe on some trials they were
cheering alone or with 1 or 5
4.8

others. 3
1 2 6
•Individual cheers were then Perceived Group Size
recorded and assessed.

• Several other studies have now shown social loafing in many other
contexts including sports, team projects, cognitive tasks, etc (e.g.
Karau & Williams, 2001; 1993; Liden et al., 2004; Miles & Greenberg, 1993;
Ingham et al., 1974).
• Sometimes intentional and other times unintentional.

 Social Loafing
• Tendency for social loafing influenced by (e.g. Williams et al., 1981;
Brickner et al., 1986; Hardy & Latane, 1988; Karau & Williams, 1993):
• Size of the group: larger the group, the less effort individuals exert on
joint tasks.
• Perceived anonymity: if people believe that their own performance can
be identified, social loafing disappears.
• Importance of group: people are less likely to loaf when the group is
important to them.
• Value of individual effort: social loafing less likely when people
believe their own efforts are necessary for the group’s success.
• Negative consequences to group: social loafing is less likely when
people expect the group to have negative consequences for poor
performance.

 Deindividuation
• Feeling anonymous in large groups can
lead to deindividuation.

• Deindividuation: The loss of a person’s

sense of individuality and the loosening
of constraints on behavior when people
can’t be identified (e.g. Zimbardo, 1969; 1970;
Festinger et al., 1952; Diener et al., 1976; Prentice-
Dunn & Rogers, 1989).

• French scholars, Le Bon and Tarde first

to propose that in groups, individual
mind gives way to less reflective ‘group’
mind.

 Deindividuation
• Classic study (Diener et al., 1976):
• Used 1000+ children celebrating Halloween in costume.
• Children either alone or in groups.
• Randomly assigned to be anonymous or identifiable by experimenter.
• Asked to take only one piece of candy from a bowl (with coins nearby)
while covertly watched.

! In later work, researchers found that

children made identifiable by
experimenter were less likely to steal
when mirror placed near bowl.

 Processes Underlying Deindividuation

• Deindividuation may lead to anti-social acts because they feel less
accountable for their actions (e.g. Diener et al., 1976; 1980; Postmes & Spears,
1998; Zimbardo, 1970).
• E.g., using identifying information about the individual reduces the
likelihood of anti-social behavior.

• Deindividuation may also lead to anti-social tendencies because it

shifts attentional cues from the self to the situation thereby
decreasing cognitive control (e.g. Diener, 1979; Postmes & Spears, 1998; Spivey
& Prentice-Dunn, 1990).
• E.g, Ps engaged in more aggressive and uninhibited behavior in a
highly stimulating environment.

 Processes Underlying Deindividuation

• Deindividuation may lead to greater reliance on social norms
which could lead to prosocial or antisocial behavior (e.g. Johnson &
Downing, 1979; Mullen, 1986; Gergen et al., 1973; Postmes & Spears, 1998).
• Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE): Whether
deindividuation affects people for better or worse reflects the norms
and characteristics of the group immediately surrounding the
individual.
• E.g., a political rally can turn into a riot if a norm of aggression
against authority develops and members feel deindividuated.
• However, deindividuation in a rally promoting positive deeds can
facilitate prosocial tendencies.

 Processes Underlying Deindividuation

• Classic demonstration of SIDE (Johnson & Downing, 1979):
• Women asked to wear either robes of Ku Klux Klan or nurse’s
uniform.
• They were either highly identifiable by a name tag or not.
• All given opportunity to influence intensity of shock to be given to a
learner in verbal task
• (DV: Shock levels)

Prosocial Role
An social Role

Individuated Deindividuated
ti

 Deindividuation in Other Contexts

• Brutality of wars may be related to
deindividuation (e.g. Watson, 1973; Mullen, 1986).
• Across 23 cultures, deindividuation strongly
correlated with aggressiveness in war.
• 80% of those wearing war paint and masks
were found particularly aggressive
compared to only 13% of those that did
not.

• While there are many positive benefits to

online media, the internet has become ripe
context for deindividuation (e.g. Hsueh et al.,
2015; Postmes et al., 2001; Spears et al., 2002; Lee,
2004).
• People may express bigoted and harsh
sentiments toward specific individuals or entire
groups that they wouldn’t otherwise.
• Mob mentality

Psyco 241
Group Dynamics II
Group Performance and Decision-Making
 Group Performance and
Decision-Making
• Group decisions are made in several aspects of everyday life.

• How do the decisions and performance of groups compare with

that of individuals within the group?

• Assumption that decisions made by groups are typically better than

those of individuals and groups outperform individuals.

• However, groups can sometimes make very poor decisions and

perform in less than ideal ways.

 Group Performance
• Group versus individual performance may depend on task type:

• Additive tasks: Activities in which the group output reflects the

total of all individual members’ contributions.
• E.g., assembly tasks, manual tasks, or idea generation.
• Groups tend to be more productive than single individuals, but less
efficient than additive effect of all individuals.

 Group Performance
• Conjunctive tasks: Activities in which the performance of the
group depends on the least talented member.
• E.g., challenging physical tasks, teaching/learning, or study groups.
• Groups usually perform worse than individuals on such tasks.

• Disjunctive tasks: Activities in which the performance of the group

depends on the most talented member.
• E.g., tasks that involve single correct answers or certain decisions.
• Groups usually perform better than individuals on such tasks.

 Group Decision Making

• How do groups fare on decisions relative to individuals?

• Although groups ought to have access to more information and

multiple perspectives, groups do not always make good decisions
because of faulty group dynamics.

• Explore two such problems in group dynamics:

• Group think
• Group polarization

 Group Think
• Group think: A group decision-making style characterized by
excessive pressure among group members for consensus leading to
inadequate appraisal of options and poor decisions.

• Suspected to play a role in several real world events.

• Bay of Pigs
• Pearl Harbor
• Swissair collapse
• Umpires in MLB
• Others?

 The Bay of Pigs Invasion

• CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba
• April 1961
• Plan formulated by Eisenhower and initiated by
Kennedy
• During the Cold War, Cuba switched to communism
and forged ties with USSR
• Based on very dim view of Castro and Cuban
people
• Can’t fight back, the forces are paltry, and people are
ready to revolt
• Plan: Overthrow government with exiled Cuban
nationals and CIA help
• Outcome: Invading force surrendered in 3 days
• As the world learned of US involvement, Kennedy
pulled out the necessary air support
• Aftermath: Made Castro a hero, strengthened his
leadership, increased US Cuba animosity,
strengthened Cuba-USSR ties

 The Bay of Pigs Invasion: CIA conclusions

• The C.I.A. exceeded its capabilities
• Failure to realistically assess risks
• Insufficient involvement of leaders of
the exiles.
• Failure to competently collect and
analyze intelligence about Cuban forces.
• Poor internal management of
communications and staff.
• Insufficient employment of high-quality
staff.
• Insufficient Spanish-speakers, training
facilities and material resources.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion

• Irving Janus coined the term
Groupthink and used this event as a
case study
• Kennedy had allowed the CIA total
control, objections were immediately
refuted and never revisted
• Concurrence was the general
assumption during planning
• Cuban Missile Crisis one year later,
the same people learned from their
mistakes and took steps to avoid
groupthink

 Groupthink - Antecedents
Groupthink occurs when groups:
• are cohesive and desirable – want
to be liked by others in group and
keep group together
• are relatively isolated from
dissenting viewpoints
• have a directive leader who signals
a favoured decision
• try to reach consensus
• high stress

 Groupthink - Symptoms
• Illusion of invulnerability
• Rationale
• Unquestioned belief in group’s
morality
• Stereotyped view of opponent
• Conformity pressure
• Self-censorship
• Illusion of unanimity
• Mindguards
• Members who protect the group from
information that calls into question the
quality or morality of their decision.

 Groupthink - Consequences
Groupthink results in defective decision-making
procedures:
• A poor information search
• An incomplete survey of alternatives perspectives
• A failure to examine risks of the favoured alternative
• A failure to develop contingency plans

 Group Think
• Preventing group think (e.g. Janis, 1972; 1982; Janis & Mann, 1977):
• Leader should be non-directive
• Leader should not state own opinion until after others have expressed own
views.
• A norm of openness should be established.
• The leader and others should establish that open discussion is desirable and
people should be rewarded for doing so.
• One member could be designated to be devil’s advocate each time to
reduce group think.
• People from outside of the group should be included in the decision-
making process.
• Inclusion of a few outside experts.
• Seek anonymous opinions from group members.

 Wisdom of the Crowds vs. Groupthink

• Crowds are wise unless they form a group that strongly coheres and communicates
• Is this always true? Can a group be wise?

• Centola et al., 2017

• Online study, 1,300 people
• Random assignment to Egalitarian (decentralized) vs. Centralized (had a leader) networks
• …vs. a control
• Networks had 40 people
• DV: Estimation tasks (e.g., plate of food, how many calories?)
• Results:
• Egalitarian groups (shared the groups guesses) significantly improved individual guesses
• Centralized groups (shared the leader’s guesses) tended to do worse

• Type of group can not only prevent groupthink, produce the ‘wisdom of the crowds’
effect
• Everyone has to have the same goal too

 Group Polarization
• Group produced enhancement of groups’ pre-
existing tendencies
• Risky Shift: Group decisions are riskier than
individual decisions (Stoner, 1961)
• Cautious Shift: Group decisions are more
cautious than individual decisions
• Strengthening of the members’ average tendency.

 Bob, a competent chess player, is participating in a national chess

tournament. In an early match, he draws the top-favoured player as his
opponent. Bob has been given a relatively low ranking. During the course of
his play with the top-favoured man, Bob notes the possibility of a deceptive
though risky manoeuvre which might bring him a quick victory. If the
attempted manoeuvre should fail, however, Bob would be left in an exposed
position and defeat would almost certainly follow.

Imagine that you are advising Bob. What is the lowest probability that you
would consider acceptable for this risky play?

Chance the play would succeed are:

1 in 10 (small chance the play will succeed)
2 in 10
3 in 10
4 in 10
5 in 10
6 in 10
7 in 10
8 in 10
9 in 10
10 in 10 (play is certain to succeed)

 Group Polarization
Risky Cautious
Small Large
chance chance
of success of success

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
_________________________________________________________

midpoint

 Group Polarization
Risky - Cautious -
Small Decision 1 mean
(ABC) Large
chance chance
of success of success

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
_________________________________________________________

A B C & D E F

 Jane is slowly going blind in one eye. Jane has spoken with a doctor who
says that a new surgery exists which may prevent this blindness. There is
a chance, however, that by manipulating the optic nerve the surgery may
result in complete blindness in both eyes. Jane must decide whether it
would be best to settle for blindness in one eye or whether she should try
the surgery which would prevent this from occurring but which might
result in total blindness.

Imagine that you are advising Jane. What is the lowest probability that
you would consider acceptable for surgery to be attempted?

Chance the surgery would succeed are:

1 in 10 (small chance the surgery will succeed)
2 in 10
3 in 10
4 in 10
5 in 10
6 in 10
7 in 10
8 in 10
9 in 10
10 in 10 (surgery is certain to succeed)

 Group Polarization
Risky - Cautious -
Decision 2 mean
Small Large
(DEF)
chance chance
of success of success

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
_________________________________________________________

A B C & D E F

 Why do we polarize
after a group discussion?

• Persuasive Arguments
• Groups generate more arguments that support the position
endorsed by the majority of the group. The group persuades
itself.
• Active participation leads to rehearsal and validation
• Social Comparisons
• Individuals spontaneously compare themselves to others
and if they find a difference they move toward the group’s
view. Discover the group norm and then take a view that
exceeds this norm
– Trying to be a better group member -- to be different from the norm
but in the right direction and to the right degree.

Individual processes and group decision-making:

• Isaac Newton

“I can calculate the motions of

heavenly bodies, but not the
madness of people”

• On risk-taking fueling the South

Sea Market Crash (1720) and
losing today’s £3 million (5 mill
CAD)

Individual processes and group decision-making:

• Alan Greenspan
• Ex-Chairmen of US Fed. Reserve

• “…irrational exuberance…”
• Risk-taking drives an overvalued
market

• caused ~3% dip in markets

world-wide

 Social Dilemmas
• Conflicts can emerge at the:
• Individual level (e.g. between partners, friends, strangers).
• Group level (e.g. between political parties, states, nations).

• Me vs We

• Social dilemmas: Situations in which a self-interested choice by

most people will lead to harmful effects for everyone.

 Social Dilemmas
• One popular social dilemma is
the prisoner’s dilemma.
• Competitive move appears to be in
one’s self interest, but if both
parties make competitive move,
both suffer more than if they both
cooperated.

• This is evident in arms race,

divorce, and other types of
conflicts.

 Social Dilemmas
• Another social dilemma is illustrated by
the commons dilemma.
• If people take as much as they want of a
limited resource, nothing will be left for
anyone.
• This is evident in concerns about
deforestation, pollution, over consumption
of resources by richer nations, etc.

• Related social dilemma seen with the

public good dilemma.
• Individuals expected to contribute to
common pool (e.g. taxes, donating blood,
etc) but if no one gives, services cannot be
provided.

Risky Decisions after Anxious Events?

Risk and Hardship – World Values Survey
Mata et al., 2016



Risk and Hardship – World Values Survey
Nash et al., unpublished

Low HDI = Increased hardship



 Approach as Palliative
RECALL: Class 5 lecture
• Approach ‘Tunnel Vision’

• Sensitive to positive outcomes/

stimuli Goal Approach
Conflict Anxiety Motivation
• Less sensitive to negative
outcomes/stimuli

• Promotes unconflicted action/

relieves anxious state



Risk-Taking as Approach
• Risk-Taking:
• Often reward focused
• insensitive to negative
outcomes
• Related to approach
phenomena
• (Lerner & Keltner, 2001; Maner &
Gerend, 2007; Platt & Huettel, 2008)

• Risk-taking reflects approach-

related anxiety-regulation?

 Achievement Anxiety

Where n (eta) is an m by 1 vector of latent endogenous variables; ξ (xi) is an n by 1

vector of latent exogenous variables; B (beta) is an m by m matrix of coefficients of
the effects of endogenous on endogenous variables; r (gamma) is an m by n matrix
of coefficients of the effects of exogenous variables (ξ’s) on endogenous variables
(n’s); ζ (zeta) is an m by 1 vector of residuals, or errors in equations. It is assumed
that the means of all the variables are equal to zero – that is, that the variables are
expressed in deviation scores. Also, it is assumed that ζ and ξ are uncorrelated, and
that B is nonsingular. The measurement model specifies the relations between
unobserved and observed, or latent and manifest, variables. Two equations
describe this model:
y = Λyn + є…
x = Λrξ + δ
Control Condition “Easy Stats”:
“describe the usefulness of statistics”

DV: Blackjack
• After instructions, see following:
• Dealer:

• HIT or
STAY?
• You:
• About half
HIT - Risky
option

Study 1 Results
90

80

Risky Hit % 70

60

50
Achievement Anxiety Easy Stats
DV: Investing Scenarios
• 4 items
• Have a sum of money

• Stocks vs. bonds

• High risk-high reward vs. low risk-
low reward

• Risky Investing

STUDY 2 Results
0.4

0.3

0.2

Risky Inves ng
0.1

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
Anxious Insecurity Pain
ti
STUDY 2 Results: Felt Anxiety
3.2

2.65

Felt Anxiety
2.1

1.55

1
Anxious Insecurity Pain
 S2 Results Cont.
Felt Anxiety Mediates Risk-Taking
Anxiety Risky
Condition Beta = .33* Investing

Felt-
Anxiety
Beta = .87* Beta = .15*

Anxiety Risky
Condition Beta = .21 Investing
(ns)



Morals and Markets
• Groups can get riskier based on…
• Polarization
• individual shifts towards risk in decision-making during wide-scale, anxiety inducing events
• Economic hardship (2008???)

• What about moral decision-making?

• Falk & Szech, 2013, SCIENCE

• Random assignment to individual vs market decision-making contexts
• Bilateral and Multilateral markets
• Real moral decision-making
• Basic, worldwide consensus:
• Harming others in unjustified and intentional way is immoral

 Morals and Markets: The Mouse Paradigm

• “Surplus Mice”
• Subjects for
research but can’t
be used
• Surplus mice are
killed, usually
• Participants found
out in debriefing
• So, experiment was
actually saving mice
that would have
been killed

 Morals and Markets: The Mouse Paradigm

Bilateral Market Multilateral Market

1 seller – 1 Buyer 9 sellers – 7 Buyers

Morals and Markets: Results

Morals and Markets: Results
Morals and Markets: Ethical?

They are killing mice They are saving mice

 Psyco 241
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination I
 Columbus’ First Encounter

“They took and gave everything they had with good will…They were built,
with handsome bodies and fine features. Their hair is thick, almost like
horse’s tail…They do not carry arms and do not know of them because I
showed them some swords and they grasped them by the blade and cut
themselves…They are all fairly tall, good looking, and well proportioned.
They ought to make good slaves.”

 The Current Topic

• It is tempting to dismiss Columbus’ reaction as outdated.

• In some ways, people are more enlightened today living in an

increasingly multicultural societies.

• However, need to think back in recent western history for world

wars, civil wars, religious conflicts, and genocide.

• Conflicts continue in many places even today.

• We can also consider the impact of prejudice and discrimination in
many everyday contexts.

 The Current Topic

• We will consider the following:
• How does intergroup bias manifest itself?
• Where do these biases come from and why do they persist?
• How do these biases affect members of stigmatized groups?
• What can be done to reduce intergroup bias?

 What is Intergroup Bias?

• Systematic tendency to perceive one’s own group (the ingroup)
more favourably than a group to which one does not belong to (the
outgroup).

• Groups can be defined in many ways (e.g. ethnic, national,

religious, gender, university, sexual orientation, etc).
• Cultural context influences which group membership people choose
to focus on (e.g. nationality, ethnicity, gender, religious identity,
political orientation, etc).

 Intergroup Bias
• Intergroup bias pervasive in different parts of the world.
• For example: Racial groups in the Canada, castes in India, sects of
Christianity in Ireland, ethnic groups in Rwanda, religious groups in
the Middle East, immigrants in Canada, NZ, Australia, and Europe.

• Bias can manifest itself in terms of attitude (prejudice), behaviour

(discrimination), or cognition (stereotyping).

 Manifestations of Intergroup Bias

• Stereotypes: Generalized belief that links a whole group of people
with certain traits or characteristics (e.g., friendliness, intelligence,
athleticism, etc.).

• Prejudice: Negative attitudes or feelings toward a certain group and

its individual members.

• Discrimination: action or behaviour in favor or against an individual

based on their group membership.
• E.g., willingness to vote, hire, or help member of group x vs. y.

Overlapping Normal Distributions of Two

Groups with Different Mean Heights
• The normal distribution of
Chinese and American males’
heights, based on the group
means, might look something
like this. The shaded areas
represent cases in which we
would be wrong if we simply
assumed that American males
are taller than the average
Chinese male or that Chinese
males are shorter than the
average American male.
 Blatant to Subtle Forms of Bias
• Intergroup bias may emerge in blatant or subtle forms.
• Blatant forms of bias may emerge in racist epithets or derogatory sexist
comments.
• Social norms have lead to a decline in such expressions as they are
seen as morally wrong.
• However, bias hurtful when people treat cultural differences as
problematic, mock another for being different, or exclude others based
on their identity.
• Bias maybe more subtle in the form of aversive racism or implicit
stereotyping or prejudice.

Measuring Explicit Bias: Modern Racism Scale

• Over the past few years the government and the media have
shown more respect to Blacks than they deserve.
• It is easy to understand the anger of Black people in America. (R)
• Blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights.
• Discrimination against Blacks is no longer a problem in Canada.

 Aversive Racism
• A form of racism that surfaces in subtle ways when it is safe,
socially acceptable, and easy to rationalise (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004;
2000; 1986; Gaertner & Dovidio, 1977).
• Studies have shown the discrepancy in self-reported attitudes and
behaviour.

 Aversive Racism
• For example, White participants were assessed for racial attitudes in 1989
and 1999.
• Later asked to evaluate Black or White candidate with either strong,
ambiguous, or weak qualifications.
• Results: Levels of explicit bias decreased over time…HOWEVER:
White Candidate Black Candidate White Candidate Black Candidate

100
1989 Data 90 1999 Data

75 68
Percentage Recommended

Percentage Recommended
50 45

25 23

0 0
Strongly Quali ed Ambiguously Quali ed Weakly Quali ed Strongly Quali ed Ambiguously Quali ed Weakly Quali ed
fi
fi
fi
fi

fi
fi

 Implicit Bias
• Implicit Bias: Stereotypes or prejudice considered unconscious or
implicit when people express them without awareness and without
being able to control their responses (e.g. Dasgupta, 2009; 2004;
Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Nosek et al., 2002).

• Implicit prejudice and stereotypes broadly represent mental

association between a group and feelings or beliefs.

 Measuring Implicit Bias: Implicit Measures

• How can we measure bias without people’s awareness or control?

• Several tools used to measure implicit bias including the IAT

(Implicit Association Task), evaluative priming, GNAT (Go/No-
Go Association Task), etc.

• People may be implicitly biased even when their explicit

responses are unbiased.

 Race Implicit Association Task (IAT)

unpleasant pleasant
or or
BLACK WHITE

Are We Biased?
• If measured with Modern Racism
Scale - N
• If measured with IAT - YE
• Preference for White
~70% (- 80%
• Little or no preferenc
17
• Preference for Black
12%
%

s
s
e
S

 Implicit Bias
• Over a hundred studies have shown that implicit attitudes and
stereotypes predict a variety of behaviours (e.g. Dovidio et al., 2002; Amodio
& Devine, 2006; Rudman & Ashmore, 2007; Yogeeswaran & Dasgupta, 2010; Sabin &
Greenwald, 2012; Galdi et al., 2008).
• Implicit attitudes predicts greater seating distance and more negative
nonverbal behaviours.
• Implicit biases predict medical doctor’s recommendations, evaluations
of a lawyer’s performance, and ratings of one’s work.
• Implicit attitudes predict job discrimination toward women and ethnic
minorities in real world contexts.
• Research may need to be considered vis a vis the replication crisis

 Implicit Bias
• Debate on the extent to which these represent one’s true attitudes
or cultural beliefs (e.g. Uhlmann et al., 2011; Olson & Fazio, 2004).

• Nevertheless, they do predict behaviour often even better than self

report measures (e.g. Greenwald et al., 2009; 2015; also see Oswald et al.,
2013).
• Also a debate here

• Other measures such as shooter bias, weapon/tool identification

tasks, etc also used to capture implicit biases (e.g. Correll et al., 2002;
2008; 2011; Payne, 2001).

The Shooter Bias

 Implicit Bias
• Neuroscientific measures such as ERP and fMRI also used to
study implicit biases (e.g. Bartholow et al., 2006; Correll et al., 2006; Amodio et al.,
2006; Harris & Fiske, 2006; Olsson et al., 2005; Richeson et al., 2008).
• ERP and fMRI studies have shown that people perceive greater threat
from outgroup than ingroup members.
• Studies using fMRI show that people dehumanize certain outgroups.

Stereotype Content and fMRI

• Stereotype content model (Fiske
et al., 2002)
• The stereotypes we have of
different groups can range
along two dimensions of
competence and warmth.
• As a result, we have different
emotional reactions to different
types of groups.
(Data from Fiske et al. 2002)

 Harris & Fiske 2006

Picture viewing of people

embodying each quadrant
activated the mPFC, part of the
social brain and mentalizing
network, except the disgust
pictures. These pics activated the
amygdala and insula, indicative of
a negative, visceral response.

 Sexism
• Gender stereotypes are distinct:
• They are not only descriptive, but also prescriptive (i.e. they tell people
what they should do or be).

• Both men and women across many cultures believe that men are
competent and independent, while women are warm and
expressive (communal vs. agentic; Williams & Best, 1982; Eagly, 1987;
Deaux, 1985).
• Professional and relational consequences…

Social Roles
Social role theory (Eagly, 1987)
• Stereotypes come from roles and behaviors that societal pressures may impose on a
particular group.
• Stereotypes attached to groups are often a function of historical and culturally
embedded social constraints.

 Gender and Social Role Theory

• Small gender differences are magnified in perception by the
contrasting social roles occupied by men and women.
• Gender differences tend to get exaggerated and generalized.
• Perceived group differences on various traits were significantly greater
than actual difference between sexes (e.g. Martin, 1987; Diekman et al.
2002).

• Influence occurs in three steps (Eagly, 1987; Eagly & Karau, 2004):
• Combination of biological and social factors influence division of
labour in the first place.
• People behave in ways that fit the roles they play.
• These behavioural differences provide a continual basis for social
perception that men are dominant and women are domestic ‘by nature’.

 Gender Backlash
• Violation of gender stereotypes can result in social and economic
backlash (e.g. Rudman & Glick, 2001; 1999; Heilman et al., 2004).
• Studies find that agentic female candidates less liked and less hired for
managerial jobs that require interpersonal skills relative to identically
agentic men.
• When qualifications are ambiguous, women seen as less competent
than men but equally liked as men; however, when sufficiently
qualified for a job, women are less liked than men.

 Bias Against Homosexuals,

Handicapped & Overweight
• Attitudes toward homosexuals quite varied across history and
geography (e.g. Gosselin & Wilson, 1980; Batson et al., 1993; Herek & Glunt, 1988;
Tilcsik et al., 2011).
• Homosexuality removed from list of mental disorders only in 1973.
• Fundamentalist Christian attitudes correlated with prejudice toward
homosexuals.
• Persons 40% less likely to be interviewed after indicating volunteer work
for gay organization.

• Bias against the physically and mentally handicapped long standing

problem.
• Afflicted people labeled witches and killed; exterminated under the final
solution; label used to justify executions in other places.
• Some attempts to improve the conditions of these groups, but still much
variability in bias around the world.

 Bias Against Homosexuals,

Handicapped & Overweight
• Attitudes toward obese individuals also tend to be negative
(especially for overweight women; e.g. Crandall, 1994; Harris et al., 1982; Hebl
& Heatherton, 1997; Crandal et al., 2009).
• Held as personally responsible, therefore often internalized.

• Bias against obese individuals in various contexts (e.g. Hebl & Mannix,
2003; Crandall et al., 2009; Hebl et al., 2009):
• For example, obese perceived to be lazy and offered less support for
university education.
• Person sitting beside an overweight woman judged more negatively
than person sitting beside average weight woman, even when
strangers.

 Sources of Intergroup Bias

• Economic • https://www.youtube.com/
• Realistic Conflict watch?v=Bu2wNKlVRzE
• Motivation
• Identity
• System Justification
• Uncertainty Reduction
• Cognition
• Social Categorization
• Biased processing
• Individual Differences
• Culture

 Economic Perspective
• Competition for material resources can lead to
intergroup bias.

• Scape-goating when dominant groups become

frustrated and displace aggression onto relatively
powerless, visible, and disliked outgroups.

• Poor economic conditions appear to be related to

increased hatred toward outgroups (e.g. Hovland & Sears,
1940; Hepworth & West, 1988; Green et al., 1998; Butz & Yogeeswaran,
2011).
• For example, economic conditions in the US
between 1882-1930 correlated with lynchings of
Blacks.
• Experiments reveal that economic threat does not
lead to increased prejudice against all outgroups, but
specifically those perceived as a threat to economic
resources.
• RECALL: Economic hardship and risk-taking
• Underlying process anyone?!?

 Realistic Conflict Theory

• Competition for scarce resources between groups breeds prejudice,
stereotypes, and hostility (e.g. LeVine & Campbell, 1972; Sherif & Sherif, 1963;
Sherif et al., 1961; Zarate et al., 2004).
• Classic Robbers Cave study using 22 well adjusted, middle class, White
fifth graders -- divided into two groups (Eagles & Rattlers).
• Each independently engaged in activities that built ingroup unity.
• Then, groups introduced for tournament comprising various activities.
• Name calling, fights, theft, and other anti-social acts against other team;
self-glorifying comments about own team members.
• Simple non-competitive activities not sufficient to reduce tension.
• However, superordinate goals reduced prejudice, name calling, and
fostered friendships between the two teams.

 Realistic Conflict Theory

• Main Conclusions: (e.g. Sherif et al., 1961; Brewer & Mills, 1988; Bettencourt et al.,
1992; Stephan & Stephan, 1996)
• Competition between two groups sufficient for intergroup hostility and
not necessarily differences in background, histories, etc.
• Superordinate goals that require groups to work together (not just
putting them together) helps reduce hostility between them.
• Resource conflict doesn’t have to be real; it may be perceived or
subjective.
! Realistic conflict may underlie various conflicts.

 Motivational Perspective
• Humans live, work, play, and fight in
groups.

• A fundamental motive is need to belong

and affiliate.
• Serves basic motive of self-protection.
• Also can generate readiness for “us vs.
them” mentality.

• Minimal Groups Paradigm: Paradigm in

which researchers create groups based on
arbitrary criteria and then examine how
members of these ‘minimal groups’ behave
toward each other (e.g. Tajfel et al., 1971; Brewer &
Brown, 1998; Ellemers et al., 2004).

Dot Estimation Task

. .. .. . . .
…. .. . . . .
. . . . . .
… …. . . .

. … . . ... . …
. …. .. . . . .
. …... . ...
. .… … ……

…... . . . . . .
.. . . . .
…………. . .
… …. …. .

 Motivational Perspective
• Humans live, work, play, and fight in groups.

• A fundamental motive is need to belong and

affiliate.
• Serves basic motive of self-protection.
• Also can generate readiness for “us vs. them”
mentality.

• Minimal Groups Paradigm: Paradigm in which

researchers create groups based on arbitrary
criteria and then examine how members of
these ‘minimal groups’ behave toward each
other (e.g. Tajfel et al., 1971; Brewer & Brown, 1998;
Ellemers et al., 2004).
• Based on an arbitrary dot estimation task,
people allocate more resources toward their
‘ingroup’.

 Social Identity Theory (SIT)

• Our self concept and self esteem are
not only derived from our personal
identity and accomplishments, but also
from the status and accomplishments of
groups to which we belong.

• SIT: People favour ingroups over

outgroups in order to enhance their
self-esteem (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; 1986; Turner
et al., 1987; Oakes et al., 1989; Ellemers et al.,
2004; Brown, 2000).

 According to Social Identity Theory

People still show bias (discrimination/prejudice) even

if:

a) they are explicitly told that they are classified in an

arbitrary way (e.g., coin toss)

b) they are never at a personal advantage regardless of

how they divide the points

c) they never meet members of any of the group

members

 Social Identity Theory (SIT)

• Studies have shown that by giving preference to ingroup members,
people boost the group’s standing and elevate self-esteem (Lemyre &
Smith, 1985; Hirt et al., 1992; Oakes & Turner, 1980; Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990; McCoy &
Major, 2003).
• People allowed to engage in ingroup favouritism showed higher self-
esteem than those not allowed to engage in ingroup favouritism.
• Watching one’s team win a game led to increased self-esteem and more
optimistic predictions about the future.

• Some studies have also shown derogating outgroup members can

boost self-esteem (e.g. Fein & Spencer, 1997; Sinclair & Kunda, 1999; Abrams et al.,
1988).

 Social Identity Theory (SIT)

! For example, participants received positive or negative feedback on
their abilities and were then asked to evaluate a Jewish or non-Jewish
job candidate using her resume, photo, and a video of the interview.
 System Justification
• In contrast to motive for ingroup
favouritism, system justification theory
argues for ideological motive to justify
the status quo even if it negatively
impacts one’s own group.

• Evidence in different domains (e.g. Jost &

Hunyady, 2002; Jost et al., 2004; Jost & Banaji,
1994).
• For example, women paid themselves
on average 18% less than men did for
the exact same quality work.
• People may vote for policies that go
against their best interests.

 Uncertainty Reduction
• We are motivated to know who we are and
how we relate to others – we like to feel
relatively certain about things in life.

• Social identification one way to reduce

uncertainty by offering prototypes and
defining our place with respect to others.

• Findings on uncertainty and intergroup bias

(Grieve & Hogg, 1999; Hogg et al., 2007):
• People identify with groups more strongly
under times of uncertainty.
• Identification especially likely with
groups that are normative,
homogenous, intolerant of dissent, and
governed by a more ideologically
orthodox system.

 Goal Approach
Conflict Anxiety Motivation

 Goal Approach
Conflict Anxiety Motivation

 Psyco 241
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination II
 Cognitive Perspective
• Intergroup biases result from the ways in which we process
information about people.

• Social categorization: The classification of people into groups on the

basis of various attributes (e.g. Fiske, 2004; Taylor & Fiske, 1991; Ito & Urland,
2003).
• For example, categorization of race and gender occurs at 100 and 150
milliseconds respectively.

 Social Categorization
• Social categorization adaptive and helpful in processing complex
world.

• However, categorization problematic because it can lead to

overestimation of between group differences and underestimation of
within group differences (e.g. Tajfel & Wilkes, 1963; Allen & Wilder, 1979).
• Biologists and anthropologists find more genetic variation within race
than between, but yet race assumed to be biologically distinct.
• When placed in ‘minimal groups’ participants assume their beliefs are
more similar to those of another ingroup member and more different
from outgroup members.

 Social Categorization
• Stereotypes especially likely when we are tired, cognitively loaded,
or low on mental energy (e.g. Macrae et al., 1994; Pratto & Bargh, 1991; Wigboldus
et al., 2004; Bodenhausen, 1990).
• For example, people more likely to make stereotypical judgments when
they were at a low point of their circadian rhythm (i.e. ‘morning people’
at night and ‘night people’ in the morning).

 Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

• Social categorization can lead to outgroup homogeneity effect (e.g.
Quattrone & Jones, 1980; Linville et al., 1989; Park & Judd, 1990).

• Outgroup homogeneity effect: Tendency to assume that there is

greater similarity among members of outgroups than among members
of ingroups.

• Outgroup homogeneity effects occurs because:

• Often have more contact with ingroup members to notice divergent
opinions.
• We do not treat ingroup members as representative of the whole; we
think of it as idiosyncrasies of the individual.

 Biased Information Processing

• Stereotypes also influence how we communicate, process
information and interpret events (e.g. Duncan, 1976; Sagar & Schofield, 1980;
Stone et al., 1997; Allport & Postman, 1947; Lyons & Kashima, 2001).
• Participants rated drawings of ambiguous behaviour as more aggressive
and less playful when performed by a Black child than White child.
• Although Ps told story of an Australian football player that included
both stereotype consistent and inconsistent information only included
stereotypic information by the time it was told to the 4th person.

 Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Sometimes our stereotypes create a self-fulfilling prophecy by
leading us to act toward outgroup members in ways that encourage
the very behaviour we expect (e.g. Shelton & Richeson, 2005; Word et al., 1974;
Hebl et al., 2002).
• For example, participants interviewing Black candidates tended to sit
farther away, paused, and ended the session earlier than when the
candidate was White.
• White applicants who were treated the same as the White or Black
candidates from before behaved in similar ways to that observed in the
previous study.

 Subtyping
• What happens when people encounter individuals who do not fit
the stereotype of their group?

• RECALL: Assimilation

• Subtyping: Explaining away exceptions to a stereotype by creating

a subcategory that differs from the group as a whole (e.g. Richards &
Hewstone, 2001; Weber & Crocker, 1983; Crocker et al., 1983; Taylor & Jaggi, 1974).

• Tend to be more critical of exceptions to the rule than those

congruent with the stereotype.

 Individual Differences
• Researchers have also been interested in how individual
differences on certain dimensions can influence intergroup biases.

• Social Dominance Orientation (SDO): Extent to which one sees

hierarchy of groups and desires their ingroup to dominate over
others (e.g. Duckitt, 2006; Duckitt & Sibley, 2007; Pratto et al., 1994).
• SDO related to beliefs in social ideologies and policies that support
group based hierarchy (e.g. civil rights, war, social programs, etc).

 Individual Differences
• Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA): Extent to which one values
conventionalism, authoritarian aggression and submission (e.g. Altemeyer,
1981; Duckitt, 2006; Duckitt & Sibley, 2007).
• High RWAs show especially strong prejudice toward deviant groups (e.g.
drug dealers), but not necessarily subordinate groups (e.g. housewives or
physically disabled).

• Motivation to Control Prejudice: Expressions of intergroup biases may

be influenced by the extent to which one is motivated to control
prejudice (e.g. Plant & Devine, 1998; 2001; Maddux et al., 2005; Monteith et al., 1998).
• People may be externally motivated to control prejudice by not wanting
to appear prejudiced in front of others (OR)
• People may be internally motivated to control prejudice by not wanting
to be prejudiced because they personally think it is wrong to do so.

Intergroup Bias in Behaviour: Discrimination

• People strongly differ in biased behaviour
• Not well understood
• IAT and personality measures have offered mixed results (e.g., Hewstone, 2002)
• Neuroanatomy?
• Theory of mind and social brain regions?

 RECALL: Theory of Mind and the social brain

• ‘Social brain’ (blue)
• DMPFC
• Temporal Parietal Junction
• Right
• Precuneus/Posterior cingulate
• Anterior temporal pole
• Inferior frontal gyrus
• Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus
pSTS
• Self-referential (red)
• MPFC
• PCC

Neuroanatomy measures
• Objective, stable differences in brain structure or function
• EEG: Resting state frequencies
• MRI: Voxel-based morphometry
• Can explain stable individual differences in personality and behavior
• Take care with functional inferences
• Supplement with data related to the psychological process

 Baumgartner et al., 2012

• Intergroup discrimination associated with
increased grey matter in:
• Temporal Parietal Junction (TPJ)
• Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex (DMPFC)
• Mediated by degree of mentalizing
• E.g., perspective-taking to understand another’s
actions
• Empathy
• TPJ and DMPFC
• share rich, reciprocal connections
• functional connectivity in decision-making
• Part of a mentalizing network
• Better mentalizing/ToM = more egalitarian
behaviour?
• Re-analysed this study: White matter

Third-Party Punishment
Results – White Matter Integrity
Results – White Matter Integrity
Results – White Matter Connectivity
Results – White Matter Connectivity
Neuroanatomy and Discrimination
• White matter integrity at TPJ and connectivity between TPJ and
DMPFC predict reduced intergroup bias
• Non-biased mentalizing mediated both links
• Individual differences in intergroup bias are explained by
neuroanatomical differences in an interconnected mentalizing system

 Cultural Influence
• Socialisation refers to process by which people learn the norms, rules,
and information of a culture or group.

• Intergroup bias is influenced by media and socialization (e.g. Gilovich et

al., 2011; Davies et al., 2002; Rudman & Borgida, 1995; Paluck, 2009; Geis et al., 1984).
• For example, the manifesto ‘Hutu ten commandments’ published in a
popular paper warned of the dangers of Tutsis instigating the genocide.
• However, after the genocide, radio programming that promoted
intergroup cooperation and communication helped reduce bias.
• Media messages can also influence self-conceptions.
• For example, women exposed to gender stereotypic TV commercials
indicated less interest in being leaders and fewer career aspirations in a
follow up task.

 Being a Member of a
Stigmatised Group
• Members of stigmatised groups may suffer setbacks in health,
wealth, employment prospects, and more.
• Members of such groups are often aware of the biases others may
hold against their group.

• Biases have negative consequences through:

• Negative health outcomes
• Attributional ambiguity
• Stereotype threat

 Negative Health Outcomes

• Research from many parts of the world find that stigmatised groups
tend to experience worse health outcomes than advantaged groups or
the majority (Major et al., 2013; Sue et al., 2007; Fuller-Rowell et al., 2012; Williams et
al., 1997; Berry & Kim, 1988; Cheryan & Monin, 2005; Baumeister & Leary, 1995).
• Perceived discrimination negatively impacts mental and physical
health.
• Subtle biases also quite detrimental for health and well-being.
• Exclusion and marginalisation in society leads to negative mental and
physical health outcomes.
• Similar effects found among ethnic minorities, immigrants, sexual
minorities, and the poor.

 Attributional Ambiguity
• Stigmatised group members often face dilemma of how to attribute
experiences they have (e.g. Crocker et al., 1998; Herek, 1998; Jones et al., 1984;
Shelton et al., 2005).

• This may impact their experience of both positive and negative

feedback.
• Black students receiving negative or positive evaluations by a White
student experienced change in self-esteem when they were told the
White evaluator could not see them, but not when told they could see
them.
• White students showed same change in self-esteem after positive and
negative feedback irrespective of whether the other person could see
them or not.

 Attributional Ambiguity
• Attributing negative feedback to bias may protect self-esteem, but
backfire for two reasons (e.g. Crocker et al., 1991; 1998; Cohen et al., 1999;
Aronson & Inzlicht, 2004; Schmitt et al., 2002):
• Stigmatised group members may miss opportunities to improve
themselves.
• Stigmatised group members may feel less sense of control over their
lives which may have consequences on health.

• However, these individuals may receive such feedback better if it is

clear that they are held to high standards and they have the ability to
meet those standards.

 Stereotype Threat
• Stereotype threat is the fear of • Classic studies by Steele and
being evaluated by or confirming Aronson (1995).
negative stereotypes about one’s • Black and White Stanford undergraduates
group. administered difficult questions from the GRE.
• Half told test was diagnostic of intellectual
• Stereotype threat can: ability and other half that it was simply
• Negatively impact performance in research task.
a domain of importance; and 10

• In the long run, lead members of

stigmatized groups to disidentify 7.5
with the domain.

Mean Items Solved

Black Par cipants
5 White Par cipants

2.5

0
Stereotype Threat No Stereotype Threat


ti
ti

 Who is Susceptible to the Effects of

Stereotype Threat?
• Stereotype threat shown to impact performance across a number of
target groups and domains (e.g. Steele & Aronson, 1995; Ben-Zeev et al., 2005;
Aronson et al., 1999; Stone et al., 1999).
• Women performed worse than men on a test they were told tends to
reveal gender differences, but just as well as men when told the test
reveals no gender differences.
• White students performed worse on a math test when reminded of
Asians’ proficiency in math.

 Who is Susceptible to the Effects of

Stereotype Threat?
• Stereotype threat effects emerge across multiple domains and
target groups (e.g. Shih et al., 1999; Stone et al., 1999; Steele, 1997; Aronson et al.,
1998; Yeung & von Hippel, 2008).
• Whites performed worse than Blacks at golf when the game framed as
diagnostic of ‘natural athletic ability’, but Whites did better than
Blacks when framed as ‘sports intelligence’.
• Women drove worse on a driving simulator after being reminded of
stereotypes about female drivers.
• Asian women performed better than controls on a math test when their
race was made salient, but worse than controls when their gender was
made salient.

• Stereotype threat effects do not require that the target believes the
stereotypes – simple awareness can impact individuals.

 Why Does Stereotype Threat Impact

Performance?
• Stereotype threat may negatively impact performance in many
ways (e.g. Schmader & Bielock, 2012; Bosson et al., 2004; Croizeet et al., 2004; Inzlicht
& Schmader, 2012):
• By triggering physiological arousal.
• By getting the individual to suppress thoughts about stereotype, which
can drain cognitive resources, and possibly backfire.
• Impairs working memory.
• Can facilitate negative thoughts and avoidance of failure as opposed
to achieving success.

 How Can The Negative Effects of

Stereotype Threat Be Alleviated?
• Research has identified several possible ways to alleviating
stereotype threat (e.g. Cohen et al., 2006; 2009; Miyake et al., 2010; Ouwerkerk et al.,
2000; Ben-Zeev et al., 2005; Marx & Roman, 2002; Rydell et al., 2009):
• For example, engaging in self affirmation shown to reduce both race
and gender gap.
• By informing targets that the stereotype of their group does not apply in
the particular context, negative effects are erased.
• Exposing target individuals to positive role models from their ingroup
can help reduce negative effects of stereotype threat.
• Being reminded of other categories to which one belongs that are
considered favourable in same domain can help reduce stereotype threat
effects.

 Walton and Cohen, 2011

• Racial gap in GPA

• Stanford U
• First year White and Black students
• Randomly assigned to a belonging-intervention condition or a control condition in first class, second
term
• Tracked them for 3 years

• “Intervention framed social adversity in school as shared and short-lived…encouraged

students to attribute adversity to common and transient aspects of college-adjustment…
Participants wrote an essay describing how their own experiences in college. These materials,
participants were told, would be shown to future students to help ease their transition.
Beyond facilitating internalization, this procedure averted the potential stigma of receiving an
intervention.”

Reducing Prejudice
• Reducing prejudice entails changing the values and beliefs by which
people live.

• Challenges to this change

• Values and beliefs are integral to psychological security.
• Prejudice often serves specific psychological functions for people.
• Established prejudiced views and stereotypes constitute self-
perpetuating schemas.
• Some people are unaware of their prejudices and their influences.

Controlling Prejudice in Intergroup

Interactions
Dual-process view of prejudice
• Process 1 (Experiential): Stereotypes and biased attitudes are
brought to mind quickly and automatically through a reflexive or
experiential process.
• Process 2 (Rational): People employ reflective or cognitive processes
to regulate or control the degree to which those thoughts and
attitudes affect their behavior and judgment.

Prejudice Is Not Always Easily Controlled

People face limitations when they attempt to control their biases.
• Cognitive control is impaired when judgments of others are made when a
person is aroused or upset.
• Regulation of automatically activated thoughts can be difficult when people
are pressed for time or distracted.

Controlling biases can have negative effects.

• Exerting control in one context makes it more difficult to do so in another.

The Contact Hypothesis

Ingredients for positive intergroup contact (Allport, 1954):
• Equal status between groups in situation
• Intimate and varied contact that allows people to get acquainted
• Intergroup cooperation toward a superordinate goal
• Institutional support
Research

Why Does Optimal Contact Work?

Key mechanisms by which optimal contact creates positive change
• Reducing stereotyping (decategorizing)
• individuation
• Reducing anxiety
• Fostering empathy

Reducing Prejudice Without Contact

Perspective taking and empathy
Although white participants in a control
condition chose to keep their distance from
a black interviewer, after having vividly
imagined the day in the life of a young black
man, this implicit form of bias was
eliminated.



Psyco 241
Aggression I
Aggression: Origins and Moderators
• Defn Aggression
• Any physical or verbal behavior that is intended to harm another
person or persons (or any living thing)
• Harm can be physical or psychological

Defining Aggression: Intent

Aggression requires an intention to harm
• Can be a deliberate action or a deliberate failure to act

Violence: Acts of aggression with more severe consequences

Affective and Instrumental Aggression

Social psychologists distinguish between two types of aggression
• Affective aggression: Harm-seeking done to another person that is
elicited in response to some negative emotion
• Instrumental aggression: Harm-seeking done to another person that
serves some other goal

“The devil gets all of the best lines”

Origins: Motivation to aggression
• TRUST GAME:
• 1 round: Investor (P1) can give $ to
trustee (P2)
• $ increases
• Trustee can give back some (investor
profits) or none

• ‘Rational’ choice = Invest $0 (trustee

should never return money)
• Actual = Invest $
• Trustee returns profit

 De Quervain et al., 2004, Science

• Trust Game
• Previously: Striatal activation during
Trust Game
• Trustee caudate activated after investee
trust behavior
• Caudate signalled ‘intention to trust’
• Caudate activation = learned trust as
reward
• Donating and observing donation to charity
also activates striatum
• De Quervain
• Investor inflict punishment =
caudate activation
• Punishment feels rewarding…!

Origins: The Aggressive Unconscious

• Eros: Freud’s term for what he
proposed is the human inborn
instinct to seek pleasure and to
create

• Thanatos: Freud’s term for what

he proposed is the human inborn
instinct to aggress and to destroy
• Displacement and Catharsis



Origins: The Aggressive Unconscious

• Jung’s Shadow: the dark side of
personality, can be positive, but
is mostly negative because it is
the hidden and unwanted part of
ourselves

• Projection
• And the destruction of things
embodying those unwanted
aspects

Origins: Learning to Aggress

• Counter to psychodynamics

• When aggressive actions result in desired attention, specific rewards, or

alleviating negative feelings, they become more likely.

• Aggressive actions can create dissonance, which leads to attitude shifts that
justify actions.

• Social Learning Theory: People learn by watching the actions of others

(Bandura, 1973).
• RECALL: BOBO doll study
• Opposite of catharsis or displacement!





You and I, per early psychology…
• Psychoanalytics • Behaviorism
You and I, empirically…
• http://www.worldometers.info/
world-population/
Awareness
• Existence is a bummer
• Existence unmoored from meaning
• Religious authority undermined
• However, we aware!
• This capability and struggle for
meaning elevates and unites us
• ‘Know Thyself’

 Origins: Existential ‘Bad Faith’

• Escape from the dilemma of
existence
• Don’t worry about the meaning of
life
• Don’t try to think for yourself
• Don’t examine your life; do what
society, convention, peers, etc., tell
you to do.
• Living in bad faith: ignoring the
existential questions and ignoring
our moral imperative

Bad Faith:
Erich Fromm and Theodor Adorno
• Escape from the angst of freedom
• 1. Impersonal identity
• Conform to a social ideal
• Removes the burden of choice
• 2. Authoritarianism
• Submission to external power
• Nietzsche's herd mentality
• 3. Destruction
• The source of angst is the world
• Eliminate that world

 Origins: Evolution
• Evolutionary basis for aggression (e.g. Daly & Wilson, 1996; 2005; Hobart,, 1991):
• Male aggressors more likely to obtain resources and attract mates through higher
status, thereby increasing odds of reproductive success.
• Females from an evolutionary perspective protect offspring and therefore use indirect
means.
• Social animals can coordinate against other groups
• Violent takeover of territory
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM

 Origins: Evolution
• Evolutionary basis for aggression (e.g. Daly & Wilson, 1996; 2005; Hobart,, 1991):
• Male aggressors more likely to obtain resources and attract mates through higher
status, thereby increasing odds of reproductive success.
• Females from an evolutionary perspective protect offspring and therefore use indirect
means.
• Social animals can coordinate against other groups
• Violent takeover of territory
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM
• Increased aggression found in step families.
• Children younger than 2 years 100 times more likely to suffer lethal abuse in hands of
step parent than genetic parent even controlling for several factors.

Origins: Genetics
• Behavioural genetics basis for aggression (e.g. Coccaro et al., 1997; Miles & Carey, 1997;
Hines & Saudino, 2002):
• E.g., identical twins show greater overlap in aggression and irritability than fraternal
twins or siblings.
• However, twin studies reveal overlap in physical, but not relational aggression.
• Meta-analysis suggests that genetic factors account for an important portion of the
variance in aggression.

Origins: Neurobiology of Aggression

Research confirms physiological
mechanisms involved in the
detection of social threat, the
experience of anger, and engaging
in aggressive behavior.

Brain regions
• Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex
(dACC): Detection of social
threat; unjustified wrongdoings
• Hypothalamus and amygdala:
Anger and fear

The Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex (dACC)

This brain area is active when people
detect actions and outcomes that
interfere with their goals, including
social threats.

See frustration ! aggression link

(later)

Fight or Flight
The hypothalamus and the amygdala
are two brain regions that play a key
role in people’s emotional
experiences of fear and anger and
prepare them for a fight-or-flight
response.

Adrenaline (epinephrine) and

Noradrenaline (norepinephrine)

Impulse Regulation
• The dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex and medial prefrontal
cortex help regulate impulses,
share connections with the
limbic system, and contain
serotonin receptors.
Origins: Testosterone
• Sex hormone
• Development of primary and secondary male sex characteristics
• About ~10 times higher concentration in men
• Link with aggression is complex
• Mostly a positive relationship, however
• Role in control and inhibition of aggression and sexuality
• Best description:
• Energizer; accentuates existing behavioral tendencies

In Utero Testosterone Exposure and Aggression

(Reinisch, 1981, Science)

Girls
Boys



Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and “Boy Toys:” In Utero Testosterone and Active Play
Preferences
(Berenbaum & Hines, 1992, Psychological Science)

Girls
Boys


2D:4D

Typical Female Typical Male

2D:4D - the digit ratio
• Lower 2D:4D ratio (as seen in men) correlates with:
• good visual and spatial performance (Bull et al., 2010)
• athletic achievement (Tester and Campbell 2007)
• dominance and masculinity (Neave et al. 2003)
• sensation seeking and psychoticism (Austin et al. 2002)

• Characteristics typically associated with women correlate with higher

2D:4D ratio
• verbal fluency (Manning 2002)
• emotional problems (Williams et al. 2003)
• neuroticism (Austin et al. 2002)

Situational Triggers:
The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
Original version: Aggression is always preceded by frustration, and that
frustration inevitably leads to aggression (Dollard et al., 1939)
• Revised to suggest that frustration produces an emotional readiness
to aggress (Harris, 1974)
• The hypothesis has received cross-cultural support.

Situational Triggers of Aggression

• Context
• Priming
• Culture
• Physical threat
• Psychological conflict

Context: It’s Getting Hot in Here

Priming Aggressive Cognitions
Situational cues which prime hostile concepts and feelings can lead to
aggression.

Weapons effect: The tendency for the presence of firearms to increase

the likelihood of aggression, especially when people are frustrated.

The Weapons Effect

• Berkowitz and LePage’s (1967)
classic weapons effect study
shows that participants became
the most aggressive when they
were in a condition in which they
were both angered and in the
presence of a gun and a rifle,
administering an especially large
number of shocks to another
person.
 The Weapons Effect and Gun Ownership
• For some people (e.g., sport
hunters), guns are not cues to
aggression, but most Americans
are not recreational hunters.
• Gun-related homicides occur at
a much higher rate in the
United States than in other
industrialized nations.

• Switzerland???

Culture and Aggression

• Culture influences the extent of aggression within a society.
• Among national cultures
• United States: Murder rate is double the world average; aggression used to
solve interpersonal conflict; availability of firearms; individualistic
• No single set of variables that accounts for a given nation’s violence record.
• Within nations
• Culture of honor, especially in United States South and West
• Status protection
• Gangs

Culture of Honor
Threat and Aggression
• Physical: Attack
• Perception of imminent, intentional physical or verbal attack is the most
reliable provocation of an aggressive response.
• Fight or Flight system

• Psychological: Insult and social rejection

• Insults and social rejection can arouse anger and the impulse to aggress to
protect self-esteem.
• People high in rejection sensitivity tend to expect, readily perceive, and overreact
to rejection with aggressive responses.
• Narcissism and unstable self-esteem…

Kurt Lewin
Push and Pull Forces: B = (P, E)


Psychological Conflicts
• Drives towards things we want (Approach) and
drives away from things we don’t want (Avoid)
• Drives can conflict
• Approach-Avoidance Conflict
• RECALL: Key motives lecture and conflicts

 Psychological Conflict cont.

• Drives can be blocked
• Frustration – Aggression
hypothesis

• Aggression after frustration has

utility
• Can help remove the block or
obstacle
• Not always appropriate, however

The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

Displaced aggression is directed toward a target other than the source
of one’s frustration.

Triggered displaced aggression occurs when someone does not

respond to an initial frustration but later responds more aggressively
than would be warranted to a second event.


Triggered Displaced Aggression
E.g., Pederson et al., 2000



E.g. Narcissism and Noise blasts
• Cyberball reject vs accept

• DV: Noise blasts

• Max 105 db (lawn mower or
motorcycle loud)

• Narcissism and rejection !

increased dACC and increased
noise blast

 Goal Approach
Conflict Anxiety Motivation

 Emotion and Motivation

Avoidance? Approach?

Sad Happy
Anxious – + Excited
Fearful Interested
Angry Calm

Anger is Approach
• Anger is clearly negative
• People don’t like it

• Anger and…
• Left PFC
• Approach personality
• Reward sensitivity

 Goal Approach
Conflict Anxiety Motivation

Psyco 241
Aggression II
Morals: Cause or Constraint of Aggression?
• Morals largely concerned with reducing harm and promoting prosocial
behaviour
• However, moral violations seem to unleash increased aggression
• As seen in culture of honor studies

• Where do morals come from?

• Are morals based on rational, logical prepositions and conclusions?

• E.g., Utilitarianism allows discovery of moral behaviour through rationality and
observation

Social Intuitionist model of emotions

Haidt, 2001 (RECALL: Moral Foundations Theory)

• “Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are traveling together in
France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying
alone in a cabin near the beach. They decide that it would be
interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would
be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth
control pills, but Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. They both
enjoy making love, but they decide not to do it again. They keep that
night as a special secret, which makes them feel even closer to each
other. What do you think about that? Was it OK for them to make
love? Why?”



 Morals and aggression
• Morals are largely based in emotion, preceding cognition
• Should be intimately linked with anger and aggression, in a couple of
ways
• As a cause:
• As observer, what we want is violated by another individual
• Frustration ! aggression
• Aggression is turned on the transgressor

Utility of Aggression?
• Serve a purpose?

• Proximal function vs Distal function

• Proximal: Aggression is emotion-driven, irrational, harmful, bad for

relationships, etc.

• Distal: Aggression serves to help groups or societies cohere

• Aggression is turned on those who might hurt the group

E.g., Anger and ‘Altruistic’ Punishment

• Altruistic punishment
• Punishment that has no direct benefit but has significant cost for the punisher
• Why would people do this?
• Anger as a proximal cause

• Free riding or not helping the group should make people angry
• Anger should then cause increased altruistic punishment

Proximal: Free Rider and Anger

• ``You decide to invest 16 [5] francs to
the project. The second group
member invests 14 [3] and the third
18 [7] francs. Suppose the fourth
member invests 2 francs to the
project. You now accidentally meet
this member. Please indicate your
feeling towards this person.'‘

• Results: Increased anger, increased

punishment

Distal: Altruistic punishment and functioning society

Fehr & Fischbacher 2003

Decay of cooperation Cooperation sustained by punishment



Morals and aggression
• Morals appear largely based in emotion, preceding cognition
• As a cause:
• As observer, what we want or value is violated by another individual
• Frustration ! aggression
• Aggression is turned on the transgressor
• As a constraint:
• As actor, we feel angst and guilt as our behaviour conflicts with morals and values we cherish and
motivates us to…
• a. pre-emptively avoid the behaviour altogether (“better not, I’ll feel bad about this”)
• b. repair or address the harm done
• An obvious question about our own harmful actions:
• Would muting emotion increase aggression and violence?
1. Moral disengagement (cognitive)
2. Oxytocin (anxiolytic)
3. Personality (impaired emotion systems)

1. Moral Disengagement
• Albert Bandura
• RECALL social learning theory

• Internalized moral codes and values

guide us away from aggression and
violence
• Aggression and violence conflict with
morals, causes self-sanction
• Negative emotions like guilt and shame
that motivate behavioural change
• We can cognitively disengage our
morals to allow for immoral acts

Moral Disengagement
Moral Disengagement ! Aggression
 2. Oxytocin: The ‘Hug’ drug…
• https://www.ted.com/talks/
paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin?
language=en#t-889154
• Or the love drug, moral molecule, trust drug,
generosity hormone…
• Oxytocin increased by:
• Pregnancy, birth
• Breast-feeding
• Cuddling, hugs
• Sex
• Sharing, giving
• Can be administered intranasally
• Increased trust in the trust game
• Increased generosity in the Ultimatum Game
by 80%
• but no effect in the Dictator Game…
• Improved mind-in-the-eyes

…or the ‘Mother Bear’ drug?

• Mechanism appears to be that anxiety is
decreased by oxytocin and approach
motivation is increased, particularly for
valued social stimuli and objects

• So, sometimes, this means increased

trust, cooperation, affiliation

• But, it might reduce self-sanctioning

emotions and risk-sensitivity, increase
prioritizing and aggressively protecting
valued vs non valued social stimuli

Oxytocin and aggression in animals

• In prairie voles, oxytocin treatment after birth, enhanced aggression
• In mice, oxytocin decreased aggression towards pups, but increased
aggression towards intruders
• In squirrel monkeys, oxytocin is associated with enhanced territorial
aggression
• In rats, aggressive tendencies correlate with oxytocin receptor density

Oxytocin and Dishonesty:

Coin-toss benefits self vs ingroup (Shalvi and De Dreu, 2014)



Oxytocin and outgroup aggression in PDG
De Dreu et al., 2010



Oxytocin and ingroup bias: ERP study
Sheng et al., 2013



Oxytocin and partner violence
De Wall et al., 2014

• Oxytocin has both positive and

negative effects

• Hypothesized to promote
relationship goals
• Including typical strategies for
affiliation and social maintenance
• Can be both positive and negative

• Oxytocin and aggression in

relationship maintenance?



3. The Dark Triad
• Morals are largely emotion based
• We feel that something is wrong, build the
rationality later

• Disengagement from moral emotions should

increase aggression and violence
• Similar to moral disengagement (reduced self-
sanction, i.e., guilt, shame, anxiety, etc.)

• Personality cluster called the dark triad

centers on low self-sanctioning:
• Narcissism: selfishness, lack of empathy
• RECALL Narcissism x rejection ! Noise blasts
• Machiavellianism: self-regard, exploitation,
disregard for morality
• Psychopathy: harmful to others, impaired
empathy, impulsive

 Psychopathy
• Ted Bundy • Hare: Psychopathology
• Serial killer • General pop.: 1%
• “charismatic, ability to verbalize • Wall Street: 10%
right from wrong but with little to • E.g., hedge fund manager Martin
no effect on behavior, absence of Shkreli
guilt or shame” • Daraprim
• Chameleon-like appearance • Life-saving drug in HIV, some
cancers
• "Guilt doesn't solve anything,
really.” “I guess I am in the enviable • One-of-a-kind drug
position of not having to deal with • 13.50!750/pill (5455%)
guilt.”

 Neuroscience of psychopathy
• Impaired emotional system?
• Self-report low levels of negative
affect
• Reduced reactivity to negative
stimuli
• Faces, sounds, images, negative
feedback, etc.
• Abnormalities in insula (body
sense, disgust) and amygdala
(fear, salience)
• Shane & Groat, 2018
• Impairment or just not using it?
• Most studies were passive task
studies
• Passive viewing of empathy
inducing images vs. instruction to
increase or decrease emotion

Neuroscience of psychopathy:
“All you had to do was ask” (Shane & Groat, 2018)

Passive

Instruct



Religion as cause of aggression?
Religion as inhibitor of aggression?
When religion increases aggression:
• Promotes
• divisions between groups and dehumanizes outgroups
• illusions of moral superiority and invulnerability
• irrational thinking

When God sanctions killing

• “Do not think that I have come to
bring peace upon the earth. I have
come to bring not peace but the
sword. (Matthew 10:34, New
American Bible)

• “Soon shall We cast terror into the

hearts of the Unbelievers, for that
they joined companions with Allah,
for which He had sent no authority:
their abode will be the Fire: and evil
is the home of the wrong-doers! (The
Glorious Qur’an, 2003, 3:151)”

 When God sanctions killing

• People who believe in God/Bible vs Not
• 2 studies
• Brigham Young 99% belief
• Amsterdam students 50% belief
• Read biblical passages of God Sanctioned
violence vs No mention of God in violent
passage
• “The assembly fasted and prayed before the
LORD and asked ‘‘What shall be done about
the sins of our brothers in Benjamin?’’; and the
LORD answered them, saying that no such
abomination could stand among his people.
The LORD commanded Israel to take arms
against their brothers and chasten them before
the LORD”
• DV: Noise blast in RT comp.

When religion decreases aggression:

• Armstrong: The core of religion is the golden rule
When religion decreases aggression:
• Content-free or unadulterated
content
• Religion without corrupted aspects
• A benevolent God to follow
• A punitive God to obey

• How do you study that?

• Prayer (personal)
• Primes

Prayer and aggression

Bremner et al., 2011

Noise blast in RT comp. Blaming others for bad outcomes



Content-free: Religious Primes Before Threat
• Prime religion before threat: Content free prime

• DV: revenge against unethical company

• Past research demonstrates that primes drive reactions after threat
• Core of compassion ! reduce defensive reactions

Religious Primes Before Threat

4

3.25
Control
Threat
2.5

1.75

1
No Prime Prime
God is good
Ginges et al., 2016

• Religion is supposed to promote

intergroup conflict by cementing
tribalism and devaluing non-believers
• Religion emphasizes God as universal
• Moral laws for all
• Muslim Palestinian Youth sample
• Self vs God’s perspective
• The trolley problem(s)
• Save Jewish vs. Palestinian children
• DV: ingroup preference

God is good
Ginges et al., 2016



God is watching: Priming God and DG
Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007



Psyco 241
Altruism 1
Prosocial Behaviour
Altruism
Desire to help another, to improve their welfare, regardless of whether we
derive any benefit. Helping another without conscious regard for one’s self-
interest

All altruistic behavior is prosocial behavior, but not all prosocial behavior is
altruistic behavior.

 Prosocial Behaviour
• Behavior that benefits another person
• Helping
• Giving
• Sharing
• Cooperating

92

Why do we help?
1. Evolutionary Theory
• Survival of the Fittest - The “Selfish Gene”
• Helping has survival advantages:
• Kin Selection – Help your kin = Help your genes

Who would you save?

Burnstein, Crandall, & Kitayama, 1994



Why do we help?
Evolutionary Theory
• The “Selfish Gene”
• Helping has survival advantages:
• Kin Selection – Help your kin = Help your genes
• Reciprocity – Help strangers = Help your survival chances

Human Nature and Prosocial Behavior

Reciprocal helping
• Reciprocity patterns can provide
adaptive advantages to individuals
and groups (norms of reciprocity).
• Reciprocal helping can be found in
many species.
• Requires rlPFC
• Knoch et al., 2009

 Why do we help?
2. Social Exchange Theory
• “minimax” strategy
• Unconscious weighing of costs and
rewards
• If we can minimize the costs and
maximize the rewards – we will
help

• Suggests that true altruism does

not exist

 Social Exchange Theory

Benefits of helping: Costs of helping:

• Make us feel good • Physical danger
• Avoid punishment for breaking • Pain
social norms
• Embarrassment
• Social approval of others
• Time consuming
• Decrease stress (aversive arousal)
of seeing someone in need of help
• Be reciprocated in future – an
investment

Why do we help?
3. Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
• Daniel Batson (1991)
• Empathy
• The ability to experience events and emotions the way another person
experiences them.
• When we feel empathy for a person we will attempt to the help them
regardless of what we have to gain.
• Help motivated by empathy lasts longer than when there is no empathy (help
for some other reason, e.g., rewards)

• Altruistic or not? E.g., feel good about ourselves

• Empathy Joy explanation

Batson, Ahmad, & Stocks (2004)

Empathy Joy Explanation
Procedure
Story related to Katie’s misfortune

Two Independent Variables

• Empathy
• High Empathy – take Katie’s perspective.
• Low Empathy – take an objective perspective
• Feedback
• No feedback – not meet Katie; not find out the results
• Feedback – not meet Katie; but receive follow-up info

Dependent Variable
• Whether they agreed to help Katie by volunteering to stuff envelopes next week or not.



 Batson, Ahmad, & Stocks (2004)
Empathy Joy Explanation
Percent who volunteered to help Kati
Empathy
Lo High
No Feedbac 3 8

Feedback 6 5

Which condition demonstrates truly altruistic behaviour,

according to Batson et al.?

Is there true altruism?

k

3
7
w
e

3
8



Empathy: The fragile flower

• “I will gladly sacrifice my time to
help others in need”
• Socially valued behavior
• Correlates very highly with social
desirability scale
• Empathy ! “The fragile flower,
easily crushed”
• Empathy and giving to homeless
• Attributions:
• Dispositional, low effort = less help

When we fail to help: Kitty Genovese case

New York City, 1964 – Kitty Genovese was murdered by Winston Mosley
over the course of half an hour. She was raped and stabbed repeatedly.
After her assailant left, she staggered to the corner and screamed for
help. Of the 38 people who heard from the nearby apartments, no one
helped or called the police.

103
When we fail to help
Bystander effect (Darley & Latané, 1968): A person who witnesses
another in need is less likely to help when there are other bystanders
present to witness the event; the effect increases as the number of
bystanders gets larger.
• More likely to occur when need for help is minor
• Less likely to occur among friends

Smoke from the vents

Latane and Darley (1968)
People were more likely and faster to report the
potential emergency when alone compared to with
others
80 3-person
Percent Reported Smoke

alone
60

40

20

0
1 2 3 4 5 6
Time in minutes


When we fail to help
Diffusion of responsibility: A situation in which the presence of others
prevents any one person from taking responsibility (e.g., for helping)

Pluralistic ignorance: A situation in which individuals rely on others to

identify a norm but falsely interpret others’ beliefs and feelings,
resulting in inaction

NYT story revisted: Manning et al., 2006

• Re-examined evidence for Kitty Genovese NYT story
• Probably many fewer than 38 eye-witnesses
• Witnesses could not have seen the attack for more than moments
• Witnesses intervened (called police, screamed and yelled at assailant)
• “the three key features of the Kitty Genovese story that appear in
social psychology textbooks (that there were 38 witnesses, that the
witnesses watched from their windows for the duration of the attack,
and that the witnesses did not intervene) are not supported by the
available evidence”

Bystander effect revisited

• Meta-analysis of bystander studies (Fischer et al., 2011)
• Strong effect for passive bystanders and non-instructed bystanders
• Nearly opposing effect for active bystanders (at least 1 helper)
• i.e., increased the likelihood of helping

Steps to Helping…or Not!

Self-Control as a lens to view human nature:
“Are we selfish or selfless people?”
• First impulse defines us
• Self-control can reveal our basic nature, our first instincts
• Are we selfish?
• Self-control is necessary to restrain our base impulses towards temptation
• Are we prosocial?
• Self-control is necessary to restrain blind altruism to enable personal achievement



We are selfish first
• Gordon Gekko
• “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to
build a society in which individuals
cooperate generously and unselfishly
towards a common good, you can expect
little help from biological nature. Let us
try to teach generosity and altruism,
because we are born selfish. Let us
understand what our own selfish genes
are up to, because we may then at least
have the chance to upset their designs,
something that no other species has
ever aspired to.”
• "The Selfish Gene" by Prof. Richard
Dawkins (1976)

RECALL: Evidence for Selfish Nature

• Right Lateral PFC associated with
self-control
• If you could turn off the rlPFC,
then people should be less
controlled, more selfish
• Ultimatum game
• Rejection of offer is self-control
over selfish greed
• rTMS

rTMS knock out of self-control (rlPFC) increases

selfishness in ultimatum
(Knoch et al., 2006)



We are prosocial first
• We are social creatures

• More social than any other

animal

• Sacrifice for others with no

personal gain (reputation) nor
gain for the group
• Irrational according selfish theories

Spontaneous Giving and Calculated Greed

Rand et al., 2012

• Much like rTMS studies, sought to strip people of self-control

• Time-pressure!
• Decision time
• Act fast!
• Intuitive, trust your gut
• Reduce deliberation and control
• Measure cooperative behavior

Spontaneous Giving and Calculated Greed

Rand et al., 2012



So, which is it?
• Probably both
• Interaction:
• (P)ersonality x (E)nvironment (as always!)
• Personality
• Prosocial traits
• Agreeableness? Extraversion?
• Selfish traits
• Power? Achievement motivation?
• Environment
• Social cues, social norms

Self-Control and Selfish-Prosocial

• Some may need self-control to curb greed and be able to sacrifice and
care for others

• Some may need self-control to stop sacrificial altruism or submission

and assert themselves and their personal goals

• Some may need self-control for both of these outcomes

Altruism vs Egoism cont.

• Push and pull of motivation toward
prosocial vs selfish behaviour

• Self-control allows us to peek at our

basic nature, our first impulse

• But personality and environment

shape this dynamic

• Maybe the most important extrinsic

variable…
• Money!!!

Money Primes and Prosocial behavior

Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006

• Money associated with:

• free of dependence (no help)
• people feeling self-sufficient and behaving accordingly
• work toward personal gain and being separate from
others.



 Money and Prosocial behavior
Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006

• Independent variable
• Scrambled Sentence Task; Monopoly
• Money prime vs. No prime
• Dependent variables related to helping
• Study 1 - # of data sheets volunteered to code
• Study 2 - # of seconds helping a peer
• Study 3 - # of pencils gathered
• Study 4 - $ given in donations



Money and Prosocial behavior
Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006

No Money Money
Prime Prime

Study 1 7.2 4.5

(data sheets)
Study 2 153.0 76.0
(sec. helping a
peer)
Study 3 11.0 10.0
(pencils gathered)
Study 4 1.18 0.76
($ donated) 

 Money:
Good for me, bad for you
• Similar to narcissism and feelings of
power

• Money makes me feel good,

promotes autonomy and justifies
sense of superiority
• “I earned it” “You get what you put in”

• RECALL: Wealth and happiness link

• At the expense of compassion and

empathy?

Paul Piff – TED - Does money make you

mean? www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean/discussion
Rich and Mean?
• High SES predicts reduced offer
(less fair) in the dictator game
• High SES moralize self-interest
and greed
• Gordon Gekko
• Nicer cars less likely to stop at
crosswalk
• Manipulated status decreases
support for prosocial behaviour

Social Class and Chaos: Differing values

Piff et al., 2010; 2012



Compassionate action
• RECALL: Self-determination theory

• Basic psychological needs

• Autonomy
• Relatedness
• Competence

• Compassionate action (e.g., using money earned to help others) should serve
these needs
• Whereas attaining money as an end in of itself might not

• Increased well-being…

Money and giving to others

Dunn 2014



Toddlers and Giving
Psyco 241
Altruism II
 RECALL: Compassionate action
• Self-determination theory

• Basic psychological needs

• Autonomy
• Relatedness
• Competence

• Compassionate action (e.g., using money

earned to help others) should serve these
needs
• Whereas attaining money as an end in of itself
might not

• Increased well-being…

 Goal Approach
Conflict Anxiety Motivation

Prosocial Ideals
Ideals,
Ideals,
Values,
Values,
Self-
guides,
Worldviews
Worldviews

Concrete Behaviors
 Goal Approach
Conflict Anxiety Motivation

 Wisdom: Reorienting towards altruism

• Create a
frustration!compassion link
• Prosocial and Compassionate
ideals
• Priming
• Religion Prime study last lecture
• Cemetery study…
• Gailliot et al., 2008

 Wisdom: Reorienting towards altruism

• Change the response to anxiety • Wisdom:
• Create a frustration!compassion link • Pursuit of prosocial, compassionate
ideals
• Prosocial and Compassionate ideals
• Dialecticism
• Defusing anxiety • Ok with conflict
• Halts the frustration!aggression/
obsession link • Self-control (temperance)
• Reasoning in the face of conflict
• Allows empathy and mutes narcissism • Long-term focus
and power
• Perspective-taking
• Core feature of empathy
• ‘Escape the self’

Charlie Wilson’s War

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2cjVhUrmII

• “We’ll see…”

• I think this is pretty wise (and we all know how that situation turned out) but
tough to say exactly why…

• What makes it wise?

We’ll See: Temperance-Prudence

• Merriam-Webster (simple def)
• The practice of drinking little or no alcohol
• Temperance Movement
• Tangled up in conflict of moral authority
• Prudence: Facet of temperance
• Has become synonymous with reluctance
• “Prude”
• Prig, Puritan, Killjoy
• Negative tone…
• Not someone you want at a party, at least
• Almost no empirical research

Prudence, Practical Virtue, and the Golden Mean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhASOdM
 Plato’s Tyrant and Philosopher
• Tyrannus
• Terrible
• The tyrant ruler:
• Cruel
• Heedless
• Consumed by selfish cravings
• Philo –love
• Sophia –wisdom
• The philosopher ruler:
• The ideal ruler
• Keen, relinquished fatuous pursuits,
seeks truth

Platonic Cardinal Virtues

 Aristotle’s Golden Mean
• The Golden Mean
• Virtue is found between excess and
deficit
• appropriate action is contextually-
dependent and divined through
intellect and wisdom

The Golden Mean

Aristotle’s Phronesis
• Phronesis
• often translated as prudence
• practical wisdom that allows one to
judge whether actions fit this
golden mean
• Beyond mere restraint
• Could ‘restrain’ good impulses, too

Western Traditions:
Prudence as the Path to Virtue
• St. Thomas Aquinas

• Platonic Virtues
• Included temperance and prudence

• Prudence was the path through which

all other virtue flowed

• Directly reflects Aristotle’s view on

Phronesis and the Golden Mean



 Paradise Lost
“The Rule of Not Too Much”
“…I yield it just,” said Adam, “and submit.
But is there yet no other way, besides
These painful passages, how we may come
To death, and mix with our connatural dust?”

“There is,” said Michael, “if thou well observe

The rule of not too much, by temperance taught…”

• Book XI, 526-531

• The only divine advice Michael had

• Direct reference to the Golden Mean

The Divine Comedy: Purgatory

All Sin Comes From Love



Eastern Traditions
Temperance in Hinduism
• Dama (Damah)
• Self-restraint
• Primary facet of good character

• Required for adhering to Dharma

• duties, values, morals, and ideals
that sustain social and universal
order.

Temperance in Buddhism
• First Noble Truth
• Life is Dukkha
• Uneasy, friction, anxiety, stress, pain,
suffering

• Du: Bad
• Kha: Space
• Dukkha: Bad axle hole

• We find easy escape from Dukkha in

impulsive desires and cravings

Temperance in Buddhism
• Noble Eightfold Path
• Ways to build insight and eliminate
these impulsive cravings in an
impermanent world

• Avoidance of excess and contact

with the world as it is.
• i.e., temperance and prudence

Temperance 2.0
Moral Philosophy
• Virtue Ethics
• Contrasted with consequentialism (morality is contingent on the value of an
action’s outcome) and deontology (morality is the action we ought to do)
• Emphasizes being and developing good character
• Draws heavily on Classical Antiquity
• Temperance again classified as virtue

Temperance 2.0
Positive Psychology



So…What is it?
• Temperance (Character Strengths and Virtues)
• Humility and modesty: accurate assessment of personal attributes, escape
myopic self-focus, open to other perspectives and ideas.
• Prudence (phronesis): pragmatic wisdom, involves deliberation, foresight and
planning, restraint of shallow impulses and persistence in long-term goals
• Self-regulation: effortful inhibition of unwanted impulses and emotions
• Forgiveness and mercy: Revenge is seductive, but forgiveness fosters trust and
connection

Why is it important?
• Staging a comeback!

• Contrasted with myopic

convictions, arrogance,
impulsivity, and aggression

• When and for whom might these

negative behaviors be restrained
and more appropriate actions be
taken?

Defensive Impulses vs. Temperance

• Anxious circumstances can cause the reverse of Temperance

• Reduced humility, prudence, control, and forgiveness
• Temperance ‘when it counts’
• when aggressive, extreme, impulsive reactions loom large

Who: Temperance and Self-Control

• Self-control
• DF: Detection of conflict and restraint of inappropriate impulse for more
appropriate goal
• The same ‘starting point’ as defensive impulses
• Different outcome
• Self-control sounds a lot like temperance in anxious circumstances
• Trait self-control capable of restraining defensive impulses after goal
conflict and anxiety?

Trait Self-Control
• Appear to have found a way through ‘painful passages’ mentioned by
Adam in Paradise Lost
• High Trait Self-Control are…
• Healthier
• Less stressed
• Better relationships
• Better grades in school
• Better workers
• Etc.

 Personal Projects Analysis: Myopic

Conviction
“Do whatever it takes”
(McGregor, Nash, 2007, PSPB; Nash , McGregor et al., 2010a, JPSP)

Determination

Value-congr.
Conviction
Certainty
Personal Goals
1 Get fit 10 9 7 9
2 Get better grades 9 9 8 7
3 Make money 7 6 9 9
4 Be nice to Mom 9 8 10 8

Trait Self Control and

Myopic Conviction in Goal Pursuit
6

Myopic Convic on
5.25

4.5
Control
Anxiety

3.75

Lo SC Hi SC
ti


 Age and Wise Reactions?

My husband, "Ralph," has one sister, "Dawn," and one brother, "Curt." Their
parents died six years ago, within months of each other. Ever since, Dawn has
once a year mentioned buying a headstone for their parents. I'm all for it, but
Dawn is determined to spend a bundle on it, and she expects her brothers to
help foot the bill. She recently told me she had put $2,000 aside to pay for it.
Recently Dawn called to announce that she had gone ahead, selected the
design, written the epitaph and ordered the headstone. Now she expects Curt
and Ralph to pay "their share" back to her. She said she went ahead and
ordered it on her own because she has been feeling guilty all these years that
her parents didn't have one. I feel that since Dawn did this all by herself, her
brothers shouldn't have to pay her anything. I know that if Curt and Ralph
don't pay her back, they'll never hear the end of it, and neither will I. What
should I do about this?
Wise Reactions
(Grossmann et al., 2010)

• coded participants’ open-ended responses to social conflicts

• derived wisdom characteristics from most frequently mentioned
characteristics in literature
• i) perspective shifting from one's own point of view to the point of view of
people involved in the conflict
• (ii) recognition of the likelihood of change
• (iii) prediction flexibility, as indicated by multiple possible predictions of how
the conflict might unfold
• (iv) recognition of uncertainty and the limits of knowledge
• (v) search for conflict resolution
• (vi) search for a compromise

 Grossmann et al., 2010 Results

White bar:
Young

Striped bar:
Middle age

Black bar:
Elderly

Group conflict Interpersonal conflict

 Grossmann et al., 2010 Results

Top 20% age:

64.9
Bottom 80% age:
45.5

 Remembering to be Wise
■ Doing, not knowing (being smart can be a trap)
Socrates “I know that I know nothing”
Martin Shkreli? Fairly logical rationalization of +5000% price hike on life-saving
drug
Mark Zuckerberg and “Let’s create a global community where everybody is
connected (through my product)! Everyone will get along great!”
■ Clearly didn’t think that one through…
■ Even when anxious or eagerly excited.
These promote escape via the tunnel vision of approach, particularly personally
powerful ideals
■ How to quell anxiety yet avoid the perils of power (e.g., low empathy,
high aggression, narcissism etc)?

 Escape the self:

Wisdom and Hypo-Egoic States
• Hypo-egoic: relinquish deliberate, conscious control over personal
behavior so that you will respond more naturally, spontaneously, or
automatically
• Psychological distance
• Awe
• Gratitude
• Mindfulness (present-focus)
• Common Humanity
• Compassionate Action
• Inspirational people, symbols, reminders
• Prayer and religious/ spiritual rituals for some people…

Wisdom via Psychological Distance

(Kross & Grossmann, 2012)
• Think about the economic recession (Study 1) or the government run by political opponents and
then reason about personal impact from a(n)…

• immersed perspective:
• “imagine the events unfolding before your own eyes as if you were right there”
• distanced perspective
• “imagine the events unfolding as if you were a distant observer”



Wisdom via Psychological Distance
(Kross & Grossmann, 2012)



Wisdom via Psychological Distance
(Kross & Grossmann, 2012)



 Hypo-Egoic States
• Hypo-egoic: relinquish deliberate, conscious control over their own
behavior so that they will respond more naturally, spontaneously, or
automatically
• Psychological distance
• Awe
• Gratitude
• Mindfulness (present-focus)
• Common Humanity
• Compassionate Action
• Inspirational people, symbols, reminders
• Prayer and religious/ spiritual rituals for some people…

 Awe
- possibly from
Greek word achos
- pain, ache
- Threatening but
uplifting, affirming







Awe in Religion
Piff and Awe
Piff et al., 2015



 Hypo-Egoic States
• Hypo-egoic: relinquish deliberate, conscious control
over their own behavior so that they will respond
more naturally, spontaneously, or automatically
• Psychological distance
• Awe
• Gratitude
• Mindfulness (present-focus)
• Common Humanity
• Compassionate Action
• Inspirational people, symbols, reminders
• Prayer and religious/ spiritual rituals for some people…

Meditation
• Hindu-Buddhist roots

• Huge variety today

• Two broad components

• Present awareness (here and now)
• Emotional acceptance

Meditation and the UHOH! Signal

(Teper & Inzlicht, 2013)



Meditation Training and
Prosocial Behavior
(Condon et al., 2013)

• 8 week training group vs.

Control group
• 3 chairs in waiting room,
one open spot
• Participant takes that chair
• Someone in crutches, in
discomfort shows up
• Give seat or not?

• Meditator group 5x more

likely to give up seat