Stereotypes & Attributes
What is a stereotype?
A generalised belief about a group.
What is prejudice?
A preconceived attitude or judgement about a person or group.
What does the THINK component represent?
Beliefs and thoughts.
What is multiculturalism?
The presence of multiple cultural groups in society.
What is conformity?
Changing behaviour or beliefs to fit in with a group.
What is attribution in psychology?
The process of explaining the causes of someone's behaviour or an event.
What is discrimination?
Unfair treatment based on group membership.
A student feels nervous about meeting someone. Which component is this?
Feel
A school has students from many different cultural backgrounds. Students celebrate festivals such as Diwali, Christmas and Lunar New Year. Which concept does this demonstrate?
Multiculturalism
Who conducted the famous line experiment on conformity?
Solomon Asch.
Assuming all teenagers are irresponsible is an example of what?
Stereotyping
Refusing to employ someone because of their cultural background is an example of what?
Discrimination
What is an attitude?
A positive or negative evaluation towards a person, object, group or issue.
A community has people from different cultural backgrounds. Each group is encouraged to maintain its traditions, language and customs while respecting other groups. Which concept is being demonstrated?
Pluralism
What is altruism?
Helping others without expecting a reward or personal benefit.
What is the fundamental error of attribution
when people overemphasize the internal attributes and ignore the external attributes
Explain the difference between stereotype, prejudice and discrimination.
Stereotype = belief; prejudice = attitude; discrimination = behaviour.
A student believes that volunteering is a waste of time. Whenever the school organises a charity event, the student feels uninterested and chooses not to participate.
Question: Explain how the three components of the Think–Feel–Act model are demonstrated in this scenario.
Think: Believes volunteering is a waste of time.
Feel: Feels uninterested.
Act: Chooses not to participate.
How is pluralism different from multiculturalism?
Pluralism emphasises equal respect, inclusion and participation.
How is conformity different from obedience, even though both involve changing one's behaviour in response to others?
Conformity involves changing behaviour to match a group's behaviour or expectations, whereas obedience involves following a direct instruction from an authority figure.
A student receives a low exam mark. Their teacher believes it happened because the student is lazy, while the student believes the exam was unfair and too difficult.
Question: Identify the two different types of attribution being made and explain the difference.
Teacher: Internal attribution – explains the result through the student's personal characteristics (laziness).
Student: External attribution – explains the result through an external situation (exam difficulty).
A school principal believes that students from a particular cultural background are less academically capable. Although the principal never openly expresses this belief, they consistently give students from that background fewer opportunities to participate in advanced academic programmes.
Question: Explain how both prejudice and discrimination are demonstrated in this scenario.
Prejudice: The principal holds a biased negative belief about the academic ability of students from that cultural background.
Discrimination: The principal acts on this belief by denying those students equal opportunities to participate in advanced programmes.
Explain how the three components of an attitude (ABC) work together to influence a person's overall attitude towards something.
Cognitive: Thoughts and beliefs.
Affective: Feelings and emotions.
Behavioural: Actions or behavioural intentions.
A country has a diverse population with many different cultural groups. However, minority groups are expected to abandon their cultural traditions and adopt the customs of the dominant group to be accepted into society.
Explain why this society demonstrates multiculturalism but does not fully demonstrate pluralism.
Multiculturalism: Different cultural groups are present within society.
Pluralism: Is not fully demonstrated because minority groups are not equally respected or encouraged to maintain their cultural identities.
How does Asch's conformity experiment demonstrate that group pressure can influence an individual's behaviour, even when the correct answer is obvious?
Participants sometimes gave an incorrect answer to match the majority, despite knowing the correct answer. This demonstrates the influence of group pressure on individual responses.