Discussion

Objectives

• Distinguish between the personal and interpersonal self, and relate these to cultural differences in individualistic versus collectivistic aspects of self-concept.
• Define attitude and discuss the origins of attitudes and their susceptibility to change.
• Differentiate prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination.
• Evaluate social influence by distinguishing among conformity, compliance, and obedience.
• Identify types of group influence, including social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, group polarization, and groupthink.
• Discuss person perception, including first impressions, our use of dispositional and situational attributions, and the types of attributional biases that can occur.

[Required Discussion Prompt]

• Read the Heinz dilemma (Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral DevelopmentLinks to an external site.), and consider what you would do if you were in his place. Post your response and your reasoning for this response. How would your response fit in Kohlberg’s stages? Are there other responses that Kohlberg would consider “more moral”? If so, how do you feel about this? Do you think Kohlberg’s “Heinz dilemma” is a good measure of one’s morality? Explain. (C05.1)

[Optional Discussion Prompt – Select ONE of the questions from either one of the groups below.]

1.  
   1. Are people fairly accurate when making attributions about why they have experienced difficulties? What about when good things happen?
   2. Describe and illustrate internal and external attributions. What difficulties can occur if individuals are excessively internal in their attributions? What about someone who is excessively external?
   3. Recall a time when you or someone you know made an attributional error. What circumstances led to the error, and what was the impact of the error?
   4. How does our individualistic culture tend to support correspondence bias? Explain.
   5. Using an example to support your ideas, explain what has been called the “victim mentality” in terms of attribution.