Pluralistic Ignorance: Misinterpreted firsthand information
As human beings, we have a strong desire to be accepted by others. We engage in behavior based on what we assume those around us are engaging. We misinterpret the firsthand information we gain from observing other people’s behavior. People’s behavior sometimes spring from a desire to create an impression that is not a true reflection one’s own beliefs, which may lead to errors in judgment. When a majority of group members privately reject a norm but assume that most others accept it, they are engaging in pluralistic ignorance. (Gilovich, Keltner, Chen & Nisbett, 2013, p. 112) Pluralistic ignorance occurs whenever people act in ways that conflict with their private beliefs because of a concern for the social consequences.
Another type of pluralistic ignorance sheds light on interactions between different ethnic groups. Research done by Nicole Shelton and Jennifer Richeson (2005) predicted that due to pluralistic ignorance, outgroup members avoid intergroup interactions. The study shows that outgroup members have interpersonal conflicts about outgroups rejecting other outgroup members which deters intergroup interactions. This study highlights the possible causes for why interracial contacts maybe low because ethnic groups misconstrue the feelings held by outgroup members (Shelton & Richeson, 2005). It is important to understand why and how social groups implement attributional biases about other social groups. This understanding will further our knowledge of how human beings choose not to interact with other groups due to the fear that the other group will reject them.
We will study the ways in which people engage in pluralistic ignorance. In experiment 1, a se...
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...embers may differ in the way they may or may not adhere to group consensus when interacting with other ethnic groups. This study will help shed light on the understandings of group conflicts and social interactions in our societies today. The results of these experiments will perhaps convey the ways in which we adhere to illusory group consensus without truly knowing the actual group consensus. These results may indicate that as a society we must interact and communicate with those around us to be able to adequately work together in our communities.
References
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Shelton, J. N., & Richeson, J. A. (2005). Intergroup Contact and Pluralistic Ignorance. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 88(1), 91-107. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.88.1.91
Blindspot, authors Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald reveal how people formulate decisions and judgments automatically based on their exposure to cultural attitudes regarding age, gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, disability status, and nationality. They claim a section of our brain, a“blind spot,” is responsible for storing the hidden biases that lead us to select choices and decisions in our life. Furthermore, the authors aim to unfold the scientific logic of their analysis of the effects of hidden biases so people will be “better able to achieve the alignment,” between their behavior and intentions (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013) preface
In any given culture, people are proud of their heritage. However, when an individual of one group meets with people of another, and the element of ignorance is added, the individual will be socially ostracized. Of mixed descent, Rayon...
Myers, David G. “Chapter 14: Social Psychology.” Psychology. 10th ed. New York, NY US: Worth
Arizona State University (2005), stated humans have learned to be prejudiced “through evolution as an adaptive response to protect ourselves from danger”. However, this instinct goes wrong because a majority of people are unable to see past prejudices and develop better understandings of their environments. This often results in harmful acts between different groups and would suggest that it must be controlled if not eliminated. Based on Rauch's thinking however, prejudice and its developments should not be removed from public environments like the university campus because it is necessary to have true intellectual pluralism based on unfiltered human thoughts. The question remains of whether the benefits of intellectual pluralism have to come at the cost of allowing harmful acts of prejudice to exist. In the university setting, the answer is no. So long as universities work to channel prejudice as a means of advancing knowledge the way Rauch believes it should, the negative developments of prejudice that people attempt to eradicate would be kept to a
Immediately after reading the introduction to the article, the first word to come to mind was “out-group”. This term is referenced several times in our textbook, and in class. During chapter five (stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination), the term is consistently used. The out-group has a tendency to be subjected to stereotypes, discrimination, and prejudice by the in-group. A stereotype is defined as a belief based on attributing traits to a group of people, in a sense making a generalization about the individuals that consist of a group. Dehumanization could be a consequence of stereotyping. One does not see an individual when one is stereotyping a group of people. Therefore, it is easier to discriminate ag...
Race and ethnicity is a main factor in the way we identify others and ourselves. The real question here is does race/ethnicity still matter in the U.S.? For some groups race is not a factor that affects them greatly and for others it is a constant occurrence in their mind. But how do people of mix race reacts to this concept, do they feel greatly affected by their race? This is the question we will answer throughout the paper. I will first examine the battle of interracial relationship throughout history and explain how the history greatly explains the importance of being multiracial today. This includes the backlash and cruelty towards interracial couple and their multiracial children. Being part of a multiracial group still contains its impact in today’s society; therefore race still remaining to matter to this group in the U.S. People who place themselves in this category are constantly conflicted with more than one cultural backgrounds and often have difficulty to be accepted.
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In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into misconceptions. Usually, stereotypes are utilized to humiliate and degrade the person or group; they also do not provide any beneficial outcomes. Stereotypes focus on how a particular group acts because of the radical ideas and actions of the few, how a particular group looks, or how that group is physically lacking in some way. These stereotypes often lead to conflicts because the group does not appreciate the way it is being perceived. Seldom are the stereotypes placed on a group of people truthful and accurate. Some hardly even apply to the particular group people it claims to. It is true that how people are perceived has a big impact on how other individuals interact with them; however, people are not perceiving these groups correctly.
...onson, E., Wilson, T.D., & Akert, R.M. (2013). Social Psychology (8th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
The astute reader may notice that this review does not include any papers that did not find a false consensus effect. The reason for this is not that this paper is not representative of the literature, but rather, that it is. The uniformity of the literature suggests that the phenomenon is fairly common. Some interesting arguments as to why this is are motivational or cognitive in nature. The motivational premise is based in the idea that people are motivated to believe that they have a place in their social environment. This argument is a based in self-justification, in that if many people share a given belief or behavior, it makes it easier to justify that this attitude or behavior is either right, or not as bad as it might seem.
Gall, S. B., Beins, B., & Feldman, A. (2001). The gale encyclopedia of psychology. (2nd ed., pp. 271-273). Detroit, MI: Gale Group.
In the recent weeks, I have noticed a trend in our cultural beliefs regarding groups outside of our own. As a nation, while the United States has a strongly individualistic nature from a personal perspective, there is also a strong collectivist belief regarding everyone outside of themselves and their groups. Rather than believing that each member of an external group is responsible for their decisions alone (myth of individualism), separating them from a collective (one bad apple), the consensus is generally geared opposite. For example, the belief that all immigrants want to steal American jobs, when one is not an immigrant, or that feminists are actually misandrists, when one is not a feminist. What I believe we have
To what extent do those around us affect the way we think; they we perceive a situation; or they way we form our prerogatives? There are many different trains of thought, some of which are adopted, others of which are taken into account based on experience and periods of introspection, but there is one that lies with it, a fundamental difference in comparison to others: the group mind. To which it involves several individuals, a group mind is in essence, a collective following to a set of beliefs and/or practices, usually brought together through forms of social pressure and preconceived notions of moral obligation. Furthermore, these groups are often characterized by the absence of individualism and a sense of obliviousness towards how their unspoken rules influences their view of the world as a whole. Moreover, group minds also involve social pressures, often enticing some to forsake their opinions to fit the given status quo of the group. Indeed, humans are social creatures that want to feel as if their participation in a group has value, but without the awareness of how social pressures affect their ability to make decisions and how one can overcome such pressure, they are nothing more but mental toxins, or in other words, group minds.
...ciety has intergrouped individuals for many years. Society creates an image for various individuals, and many follow through with those associations and do not try to negate it.