Culture, Norms, and Conformity - AP Psychology

A stereotype is a widely held belief about a group of people, place, or thing that is a simplified generalization. In this instance, the group of people is "blondes" and the generalization is that they "have more fun." The belief could be based on the images in the media or real life experiences, but the quality that results in stereotype is the generalization to the demographic as a whole. Of course, stereotypes are not always true and can be very misleading. This applies to how we think about many other groups in society and can contribute to prejudice and animosity towards them.

Those with authoritarian personalities have a strong tendency towards sticking to tradition and cultural norms. They believe in their own authority over others and display an oppressive attitude toward their subordinates. Moreover, they are defined by a lack of oppenness and fluidity in the face of newer ideas and innovations in society, choosing to instead stick with their own practices and beliefs.

The difference between prejudice an discrimination is that discrimination MUST involve an action, whereas prejudice can simply be an attitude. For example, a cat may be prejudiced against a dog on his street. The dog, however, is discriminating against the cat by eating the cat's food and chasing the cat every time he sees her.

This particular conformity experiment was conducted using 123 male participants under the guise that the experiment was testing visual judgment. Participants were shown a series of cards, each with varying lengths. This experiment showed that the majority of participants would conform to the responses of the "confederates" instead of trusting in their own perceptive faculties.

Mistrust is not one of the five stages of grief described by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. These stages are, in order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

A morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit of language. A morpheme is not necessarily a word, but it can be. It can also be part of a word. For example, the word "smaller" is made up of two morphemes.

1. small: adjective and root of this word

2. er: morpheme that changes the word into a relative adjective, as opposed to a stand alone adjective

A phenome is the smallest distinctive unit of sound in language.

Milgram led people to believe that they were shocking a person in another room in response to incorrect answers on a memory test. The levels of shock administered by some got to be deadly and the person being "shocked" (they were an actor) repeatedly cried out in pain. Many people in the study obeyed the researcher, especially if the researcher was from a presitigious university. The effect was also stronger in unfamiliar environments.

In Adolescence by John Santrock, male behaviors are said to have been taught as masculine, although they lack social approval. As a result, doing things like engaging in premarital sex, drinking alcohol and taking drugs, and participating in delinquent activities, make adolescent males feel like they are being manly and masculine.

Contrary to "opposites attract," more generally speaking we are attracted to people who are very similar to us physically, emotionally, morally, and interest-wise. More than this, the more we see a person, the more we will like them. If they return positive feelings, than we will like them even more!

The Army Beta was a follow up exam that provided illiterate or foreign language speaking individuals an opportunity to have their intelligence evaluated. The Army Beta was normed against men in institutions for the feeble-minded. It was an intelligence test designed to determine an individual’s ability for upward mobility and capacity in the Army. The Army Beta was heavily racially weighted and created many arguments around discrimination in the US Army and it was discontinued after World War 1.

Although standards of beauty change from culture to culture, there are some standards that are considered universal due to evolutionary factors. These standards include the following: symmetrical facial features for both sexes (indicators of health); hourglass figures for women and inverted triangle figures for men (indicator of sexual maturity); and mature facial features for men and immature facial features for women (indicators of physical abilities in both sexes).

Descriptive norms occur because of the observance of the behavior of others around you. These norms are associated with the idea that individuals will behave according to a social pattern (e.g. standing up with a crowd for an ovation). Injunctive norms are associated with behavior that is considered to be socially acceptable or unacceptable. These behaviors include what one “ought to do” (e.g. not smoking in an elevator and driving on the right side of the road).

An injunctive norm is constructed when there is a set of expected behaviors in a designated space or place, such as whispering in a library. Injunctive norms are socially constructed behaviors of what one “ought to do.” On the other hand, descriptive norms represent behaviors that are accompanied by a pattern.

In Asch's study, people rarely contradicted the opinions of the group, even if that opinion was clearly wrong. 70% of the people reported at least one obviously incorrect answer. Asch's study did not possess elements regarding rewards and it was not designed to study the effects of age on conformity.

An "asexual" individual is a person who does not experience sexual attraction. Asexual people have the same emotional needs as other people, but do not feel the need to engage in sexual acts with others.

Social loafing is a social phenomenon whereby an individual makes less effort towards a goal when they are working towards it with others. The most relatable example is when students are put together for projects at school. In these circumstances, there is considerably less effort put into the project than if everyone was working separately.

A stereotype is a widely held belief about a group of people, place, or thing that is a simplified generalization. In this instance, the group of people is "blondes" and the generalization is that they "have more fun." The belief could be based on the images in the media or real life experiences, but the quality that results in stereotype is the generalization to the demographic as a whole. Of course, stereotypes are not always true and can be very misleading. This applies to how we think about many other groups in society and can contribute to prejudice and animosity towards them.

Those with authoritarian personalities have a strong tendency towards sticking to tradition and cultural norms. They believe in their own authority over others and display an oppressive attitude toward their subordinates. Moreover, they are defined by a lack of oppenness and fluidity in the face of newer ideas and innovations in society, choosing to instead stick with their own practices and beliefs.

The difference between prejudice an discrimination is that discrimination MUST involve an action, whereas prejudice can simply be an attitude. For example, a cat may be prejudiced against a dog on his street. The dog, however, is discriminating against the cat by eating the cat's food and chasing the cat every time he sees her.