SCLOA – Sherif , Bandura

1. IB Psychology SCLOA – Sherif, Bandura

2. Pair & Share… • Review your Prejudice & Discrimination worksheet (homework) together with the person sitting beside you. • Hand it in! • Review Robber’s Cave questions and be prepared to discuss.

3. Sherif: Robber’s Cave • Study was better understood using Tajfel’s SIT, which helps us to see how prejudice and discrimination are explained. • Study looks at the role of group identity on intergroup conflict.

4. Sherif • How were the groups selected? • All boys, between the ages of 11 and 12 • Groups were carefully chosen to make the groups as homogeneous as possible. • All the boys were healthy, slightly above intelligence, European American, Protestant, and socially well-adjusted. • Came from stable, middle-class families, and none of them knew each other prior to the experiment.

5. How it all shook down… • The researchers posed as the Summer Camp leaders. • Boys were unaware that they were part of an experiment. • After a few days at camp, the boys were divided into 2 groups. • Sherif’s hypothesis: When 2 groups have conflicting aims, their members will become hostile to each other.

6. How do you diminish hostility between 2 groups? • The researchers established “superordinate goals.” • They created an urgent situation which affected both groups, and which required that they all participate in, in order for the problem to be solved. • ex. The water supply for the camp was disrupt, or the truck broke down on an outing • By being forced to work together, the individual group identities were broken down, and a more inclusive group identity was created.

7. In what situations are Superordinate Goals achieved? • Natural disasters • Families coming together over a tragedy • Rival schools coming together to fight a cause

8. Contact Hypothesis • At the end of Sherif’s experiment, all the boys united together and experienced a new inclusive group identity, which can be attributed to Allport’s “contact hypothesis.” • “It has sometimes been held that merely by assembling people without regard for race, color, religion, or national origin, we can thereby destroy stereotypes and develop friendly attitudes.”

9. What are some of the limitations of Sherif’s study? • Discuss with a partner (using Crane, page 134. • Review “Theory Heard Round the World,” and Be a Thinker on page 135. • To what extent do you think that psychology can be used to promote peaceful cooperation in the world? • Does prejudice always lead to discrimination?

10. Bringing Back Bobo… • Bandura explains that humans do not simply learn through direct experiences in daily life. • Instead, much of our modeling is vicarious, or through symbols given symbolic value. • Symbolic modeling has the potential to account for large amounts of social learning.

11. Ethnographies support Bandura’sBobo Experiment • The differences between learning and performance and the importance of symbolic modeling are applicable to considering cultural difference in aggression. • Experimental results about modeling of aggression are confirmed with ethnographies (scientific study of human societies)

12. Bandura & Aggression • Societies that value and reinforce aggression display more aggression. • Ex. DugumDani of New Guinea is an aggressive society. Many of their religious and social practices surround warfare. • Children are carefully prepared to take part in planned aggressive displays on specially prepared battlefields. • The Dani believe that spirits have the ability to cause sickness in a family unless the family takes the life of an enemy. Thus, warfare is started and maintained by a fear of making the spirits angry.

13. What the Danis do… • It has been recorded that families amputate the fingers of their female children to further console the spirits. • In contrast, Polynesians of the Society Islands do not value aggression and actively discourage its use. Tahitians are slow to become angry and get over it quickly. • Tahitian parents discourage aggression. • Verbal aggression typically receives no consequences so that it does not continue. • Tahitians believe that sickness and accidents are punishment from spirits for past actions. • Therefore, modeling is just one aspect of explaining aggressive behaviour.

14. In-Class Assignment & Homework… • Find something that interests you about terrorism in the media. Bring it to class. • Brainstorm questions with a partner that a Psychologist might be able to answer. • Discuss what the following phrase means: • “We are the agents of our own behaviour.” • Print off “The Role of Selective Moral Disengagement in Terrorism and Counterterrorism” for next class (can upload from my website)