Discrimination In Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of learning that relies on rewards and punishments to teach new behaviors. In operant conditioning, stimulus discrimination refers to responding only to the discriminative stimulus and not to similar stimuli.
For example, imagine that you have trained your dog to jump in the air whenever you say the command, “Jump!” In this instance, discrimination refers to your dog’s ability to distinguish between the command for jumping and similar commands such as sit, stay, or speak.
Another example might be the type of behaviors that are appropriate in one situation but not in another. Because of stimulus discrimination, you recognize that eating with your hands with your elbows on the table might be appropriate in a casual, fast-food restaurant, but that such behavior would be considered inappropriate in a more formal dining setting.
What Is Discrimination In Psychology Quizlet
Define discrimination. The act of treating someone differently based on their group, race or religion. Define emigrate.
What causes discrimination in psychology?
Research shows that the attitudes of people who discriminate are a reflection of a complex set of factors including their history, sociocultural practices, economic forces, sociological trends and the influence of community and family beliefs.
Discrimination In Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning is a type of learning that involves forming associations between two stimuli. In this process, discrimination is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
For example, if a bell tone were the conditioned stimulus, discrimination would involve being able to tell the difference between the bell sound and other similar sounds.
Classical conditioning works like this:
- Forming an association: A previously neutral stimulus, such as a sound, is paired with an unconditioned stimulus . The unconditioned stimulus represents something that naturally and automatically triggers a response. For example, the smell of food is an unconditioned stimulus, while salivating to the smell is an unconditioned response.
- Responding to a conditioned stimulus: After an association has been formed between the previously neutral stimulus, now known as the conditioned stimulus , and the unconditioned response, the CS can evoke the same response, now known as the conditioned response, even when the UCS is not present.
In Ivan Pavlov’s classic experiments, the sound of a tone was repeatedly paired with the presentation of food , which naturally and automatically led to a salivary response .
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Why Does Discrimination Occur
Some years ago I launched into a PhD on the phenomena of mental illness prejudice and discrimination.
I was initially confused about why the mentally ill experienced stigma and other minority groups experienced prejudice or discrimination. I was quite taken back to find that other minority groups experienced an ism but not those with mental illness! I found lots of isms such as sexism, weightism, ageism and no psychism!
Is There Discrimination In Psychology
Join Britannicas Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work! Discrimination, in psychology, the ability to perceive and respond to differences between stimuli.
Which is more advanced, generalization or discrimination in psychology?
Discrimination, in psychology, the ability to perceive and respond to differences between stimuli. It is considered a more advanced form of learning than generalization , the ability to perceive similarities, although animals can be trained to discriminate as well as generalize. Learn more about this topic
What is the difference between discrimination and prejudice?
Sometimes people will act on their harmful attitudes towards a group of people, and this behavior is known as discrimination. Discrimination is a negative action towards an individual because of his belonging to a particular group .
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Types Of Prejudice And Discrimination
When we meet strangers we automatically process three pieces of information about them: their race, gender, and age . Why are these aspects of an unfamiliar person so important? Why dont we instead notice whether their eyes are friendly, whether they are smiling, their height, the type of clothes they are wearing? Although these secondary characteristics are important in forming a first impression of a stranger, the social categories of race, gender, and age provide a wealth of information about an individual. This information, however, often is based on stereotypes. We may have different expectations of strangers depending on their race, gender, and age. What stereotypes and prejudices do you hold about people who are from a race, gender, and age group different from your own?
Issues Pertaining To The Study Of Discrimination
Social psychologists study several aspects of discrimination, including overt or old-fashioned discrimination and subtle or modern forms. For example, overt discrimination might involve explicitly excluding job applicants who are women or people of color. Subtle discrimination occurs when, for example, the job interviewer unwittingly might sit farther away, not make eye contact, and conduct a shorter interview with a job applicant who is a woman or person of color.
Social psychologists distinguish individual discrimination from institutional discrimination. Individual discrimination, which is typically studied by social psychologists, includes discriminatory behavior by one person toward another. Institutional discrimination can take the form of government-sponsored laws and practices such as the Jim Crow laws during the post-Emancipation era in the United States that legally segregated Blacks and Whites in public places and denied African Americans many civil rights. Laws banning same-sex marriage are more recent manifestations of institutional discrimination.
One issue worth noting is that discrimination, because it is behavior, tends to be illegal, whereas stereotyping and prejudice are not. In other words, a supervisor might believe women are not fit for management positions, but it is only when and if that supervisor treats women and men differently that legality becomes relevant.
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Moving Others Closer To Us: The Benefits Of Recategorization
The research on intergroup contact suggests that although contact may improve prejudice, it may make it worse if it is not implemented correctly. Improvement is likely only when the contact moves the members of the groups to feel that they are closer to each other rather than further away from each other. In short, groups are going to have better attitudes toward each other when they see themselves more similarly to each otherwhen they feel more like one large group than a set of smaller groups.
This fact was demonstrated in a very convincing way in what is now a classic social psychological study. In the Robbers Cave Experiment, Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, and Sherif studied the group behavior of 11-year-old boys at a summer camp. Although the boys did not know it, the researchers carefully observed the behaviors of the children during the camp session, with the goal of learning about how group conflict developed and how it might be resolved among the children.
During the first week of the camp, the boys were divided into two groups that camped at two different campsites. During this time, friendly relationships developed among the boys within each of the two groups. Each group developed its own social norms and group structure and became quite cohesive, with a strong positive social identity. The two groups chose names for themselves , and each made their own group flag and participated in separate camp activities.
Key Takeaways
Exercises and Critical Thinking
What Is Discrimination In Social Psychology
Discrimination is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people and groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, age or sexual orientation.
What are the 4 theories of prejudice?
As described by Society: The Basics, the four theories of prejudice include: the scapegoat theory, authoritarian personality theory, culture theory, and the conflict theory.
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The Direct Perceived Discriminationhealth Pathway
Figure 1 shows the hypothesized direct link between perceived discrimination and health . This pathway was examined through the meta-analysis of nonexperimental study results.
Mental Health
One hundred ten studies presented sufficient data on the zero-order relationship between perceived discrimination and mental health to be included in the meta-analysis on the effect of perceived discrimination on mental health. These mental health outcomes included symptomatology scales for mental illness , psychological distress, and indicators of general well-being .
After being weighted for sample size, the average correlation under a random effect model was .20, with a 95% confidence interval from .22 to .17. These results support the hypothesized Path a in Figure 1. Increases in perceived discrimination were significantly related to more negative mental health outcomes.
What Is The Difference Between Generalization And Discrimination
The psychology definition of discrimination is when the same organism reacts differently to different stimuli. For example, lets say you were bitten by a dog when you were a young child. In generalization, on the other hand, the organism has the same reaction to different stimuli.
What is light discrimination?
The Light Discrimination Apparatus illustrates the various psychophysical methods used in visual discrimination. Light stimuli are presented using high-intensity LEDs, which are calibrated to give consistent and highly reliable intensity throughout its operating range.
What are the reasons for discrimination in society?
People may be discriminated against because of their age, disability, ethnic origin, origin, political beliefs, race, religion, sex or gender, orientation gender, their language, their culture and many other reasons.
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What Are Some Examples Of Conflict Theory
Assumptions of conflict theory include competition, structural inequality, revolution and war. Some examples of conflict theory include pay inequalities between groups and inequalities in the justice and educational systems of governments.
What does discrimination mean in sociology?
Introduction. Discrimination is an action or practice that excludes, disadvantages, or merely differentiates between individuals or groups of individuals on the basis of some ascribed or perceived trait, although the definition itself is subject to substantial debate.
Katz And Braly Racial Stereotyping
Aim: To investigate the stereotypical attitudes of Americans towards different races.
Method: Questionnaire method was used to investigate stereotypes. American university students were given a list of nationalities and ethnic groups , and a list of 84 personality traits. They were asked to pick out five or six traits which they thought were typical of each group.
Results: There was considerable agreement in the traits selected. White Americans, for example, were seen as industrious, progressive and ambitious. African Americans were seen as lazy, ignorant and musical. Participants were quite ready to rate ethnic groups with whom they had no personal contact.
: Ethnic stereotypes are widespread, and shared by members of a particular social group.
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Why Is Discrimination Stimuli Important
The ability to discriminate between stimuli is crucial for learning. You can respond to the right stimuli without generalizing your response to other stimuli when you have the ability to discriminate between different stimuli.
One method for teaching people to behave solely in the presence of a specific stimulus is called stimulus discrimination training. This could be useful when instructing people to behave a certain way only in particular circumstances.
Although the types of things or situations that are feared vary depending on the anxiety disorder, a general mechanism causes dread to spread to unrelated but harmless things. This causes avoidance of things and situations that are not actually dangerous.
This tendency to overgeneralize seems to be a key factor in maintaining anxiety disorders. Promoting discrimination learning can lessen the fear of generalization. Limiting the generalization of the fear response might also be beneficial for lowering anxiety and phobic reactions.
The ability to respond to stimuli is crucial because our schooling primarily aims to develop them. We have mastered the art of responding to verbal cues with appropriate speech. Everything we do is founded on knowledge. We have learned how to respond appropriately to every stimulus the globe presents.
The Effect Of Social Norms On Prejudice
Minard investigated how social norms influence prejudice and discrimination. The behavior of black and white miners in a town in the southern United States was observed, both above and below ground.
Below ground, where the social norm was friendly behavior towards work colleagues, 80 of the white miners were friendly towards the black miners. Above ground, where the social norm was prejudiced behavior by whites to blacks, this dropped to 20.
The white miners were conforming to different norms above and below ground. Whether or not prejudice is shown depends on the social context within which behavior takes place.
Pettigrew also investigated the role of conformity in prejudice. He investigated the idea that people who tended to be more conformist would also be more prejudiced, and found this to be true of white South African students.
Similarly, he accounted for the higher levels of prejudice against black people in the southern United States than in the north in terms of the greater social acceptability of this kind of prejudice in the south.
Rogers and Frantz found that immigrants to Rhodesia became more prejudiced the longer they had been in the country. They gradually conformed more to the prevailing cultural norm of prejudice against the black population.
Evaluation: Conformity to social norms, then, may offer an explanation for prejudice in some cases. At the same time, norms change over time, so this can only go some way towards explaining prejudice.
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Implications From Individual Level Theories
During the COVID-19 pandemic, personal differences in terms of discrimination tendencies were seen related to certain characteristics such as . Societal threats like pandemics bring about increases in the support of authoritarian beliefs . National identity becomes more salient when global crises like pandemics come to the fore, and is therefore the strongest determinant of xenophobia . As previously addressed, being authoritarian and endorsing social hierarchy is one of the main predictors of prejudice and discriminatory tendencies . Both RWA and SDO are founded as predictors of prejudice and intolerance . Recently, Hartman et al. found that the existential threat that stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic led to associations between RWA and nationalism, and anti-immigrant attitudes conditional on levels of perceived threat. To summarize, it could be said that the COVID-19 pandemic activated authoritarianism in society and thereby triggered discrimination .
Implications from intergroup level theories.
Theoretical And Methodological Implications
Another important area of future inquiry is the synergistic effects of mental and physical health outcomes. Depression has been related to suppressed immune functioning , emotional distress has been related to elevations in cortisol and other neuroendocrines , and symptoms of anxiety and depression predict future incidence of coronary heart disease . In addition, increases in discriminatory experiences over time are associated with subsequent deteriorations in physical and mental health . However, not all research has found this pattern. Caputo , in an analysis of youth over time, found that although perceived discrimination was related to decrements in mental health over time, it was not related to decreased physical health.
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Prejudice And Discrimination In Therapy
Therapists are not immune to prejudicial attitudes. Indeed, most schools offer therapists little training on the role of racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice and discrimination in therapy. Prejudice can undermine the therapeutic process and harm clients. Some examples of how prejudice can affect therapy include:
Prejudice can manifest in other ways, too:
- Prejudice directed at a therapist may undermine the therapists ability to help.
- A client may seek therapy to deal with the effects of prejudice on their life and mental health. Prejudice can make virtually every aspect of life more difficult, and has measurable lifelong mental and physical health consequences.
- Prejudice may be a factor in couples or family therapy. To offer comprehensive help, a therapist must recognize prejudice and identify its role in the family.
- A client might seek therapy to overcome prejudicial attitudes. Though prejudice is not a mental health diagnosis, it can have profound and lasting effects on people and the world.
Prejudice infects an entire society, but making change begins with changing individual minds and lives.
References
What Is Discrimination In Sociology Quizlet
discrimination. unfair treatment of people usually because of race sex or religion. prejudice. unfair or false beliefs about a person or group of people. sociologists minority.
What are the psychological effects of discrimination?
Effects of discrimination on the individual. It can result in individuals feeling worthless, guilty, angry, sad and upset as well as be a cause of mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and stress. It can be a precursor to hatred and conflict that can result in harm, injury and even death. It can also lead to individuals being
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Discrimination And The Stress Response: Psychological And Physiological Consequences Of Anticipating Prejudice In Interethnic Interactions
Article notesCopyright and License informationDisclaimerContributors
P.J. Sawyer, B. Major, S.S.M. Townsend, and W. Berry Mendes had primary responsibility for the conceptualization and design of the study. P.J. Sawyer and B.J. Casad had primary responsibly for the data analysis and interpretation, with B. Major, W. Berry Mendes, and S.S.M. Townsend making contributions to data interpretation. All authors were involved in drafting and revising the article and approving the final article.
The Perceived Discriminationstress Response Link
We focused on studies that used experimental methods to manipulate perceptions of discrimination experiences to test the hypothesized link between perceived discrimination and stress responses . These experimental methodologies included watching racist film clips, imagining racially noxious scenes, receiving feedback from supposed sexist evaluators, reading articles describing discrimination against the participants in-group, speaking about racially charged topics, and writing about past experiences of discrimination. Twelve studies presented sufficient zero-order data to use within the meta-analysis. Of these 12 studies, 2 examined physical stress response in the form of cardiovascular reactivity, whereas the remaining 10 considered psychological stress responses to perceived discrimination. Psychological responses to stress included anger , reports of psychologically felt stress , changes in state self-esteem , changes in feelings of well-being and life satisfaction , feelings of depression and anxiety , and self-reported positive and negative emotion .
Not enough data were available to perform moderator analyses between studies on race or gender.
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