Chapter 2
2.1 Archival analyses of groupthink by Janis
- Archival data = data from stored records of facts (like personal documents, creative products,
(auto)biographies and histories or governmental records
- Janis studied archival data relating to 4 major US foreign policy fiascoes (Bay Pigs invasion,
Korean War, Pearl Harbor and Vietnam War)
- Later research (more quantitative) by Tetlock: public statements of decision-makers in
groupthink crises are less complex than in non-groupthink crises, decision-makers also gave
more positive evaluations to their own political groups, but there was no difference in
negative evaluations of their political opponents
- Advantages of archival research: the data is not distorted by participant’s knowledge that
they’re being studied, behavior took place in natural settings
- Disadvantages of archival research: the researcher is dependent on the quality of the archival
data, the causal relationship between variables is unclear
2.2 Field experiment of helping behavior by Darley and Batson
- They studied the cost of helping and whether this was a reason why bystanders wouldn’t
come to help
- Method: participants walked past a ‘’victim’’, with time pressure or not, and being reminded
of the Good Samaritan or not
- Results: people who didn’t have to hurry and people who were reminded were more likely to
help
- Natural, every day setting with high internal validity
Chapter 3
3.1 Correspondence bias in attributing knowledge to quizmaster or contestant by Ross, Amabile and
Steinmetz
- They argued that people pay too little attention to role-conferred advantages (a quizmaster
has more opportunity to show specialized knowledge than the candidate) when arriving at
attributions for behavior, so people with relatively greater social control appear wiser and
able than they really are
- Method: people got the role of contestant or quizmaster (quizmasters were allowed to
devise the questions beforehand) and afterwards they rated their own and others knowledge
- Results: participants rated the quizmaster’s knowledge as higher than their own, but
quizmasters did not rate their own knowledge as better
- Contestants failed to take into account that quizmasters could devise the questions, and this
is an example of correspondence bias
- But this might be rational because they had to make inferences based on a limited sample
3.2 Reversing the actor-observer effect by manipulating perspective by Storms
- He proposed that actors’ and observers’ attributions depend partly on their different physical
points of view (actors’ attention is typically directed outwards towards the situation and
other actors, observers’ attention focuses on the observed actor)
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, - Method: actors had a conversation and were observed by observers and afterwards had to
watch a videotape of the conversation (same or reversed perspective), and then rate
friendliness, nervousness, talkativeness and dominance during conversation and whether
these behaviors had been caused by personal or situational characteristics
- Results: in the no-video and same-perspective conditions the actors’ attribution scores were
more situational than observers’, but in the reversed-perspective condition the observers’
attribution scores were more situational than actors’
- Actor-observer differences can be reversed by showing actors their own behavior and
showing observers the situation that actors are responding to
- Criticism: the usual actor-observer difference was not demonstrated in this study
Chapter 4
4.1 Priming effects on behavior by Bargh, Chen and Burrows
- Previous research: recently activated trait constructs or stereotypes can persist and affect
interpretation of behavior
- The authors argue that behavioral responses to situations can also occur in response to an
activated trait or stereotype, they can be represented internally and can be activated
automatically when triggered by the environment
- Method: some participants were primed by an ‘’elderly’’ prime in a scrambled sentence task
and then they were recorded to assess the amount of time they took walking when leaving
the experiment
- Results: primed participants walked more slowly down the hallway
4.2 Implicit goals overriding stereotype activation by Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel and Schaal
- Previous research: there may be an effortless, preconscious form of cognitive control that in
certain individuals prevents stereotype activation
- Chronic egalitarian people pursue goals to be fair, tolerant and open-minded, and the
question is whether these implicit goal states have an effect on stereotype activation
- Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA) = manipulating the length of time between a prime and the
presentation of attributes
- Method: chronic and non-chronic egalitarians were shown pictures of men/women with
stereotype relevant or irrelevant attributes
- Results: non-chronic egalitarian people showed stereotype activation by quicker responding
to stereotype relevant attributes
- So stereotype activation is goal-dependent, not due to conscious goals, so stereotype
activation is not inevitable
4.3 Automatic and controlled components of stereotypes and prejudice by Devine
- Previous research: people high and low on prejudice are equally knowledgeable on black
stereotypes and when participants’ ability to consciously monitor stereotype activation is
prevented, all participants respond in line with the activated stereotype
- Devine’s theoretical model: dissociation between automatic and controlled processes, so
when a stereotype has been activated automatically you can still prevent stereotypic
response (when you have time and motivation)
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