Steven Fein

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Steven Fein is a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Fein has two daughters named Alina and Hannah. [1]

Williams College liberal arts college in Massachusetts

Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was killed in the French and Indian War in 1755. The college was ranked first in 2017 in the U.S. News & World Report's liberal arts ranking for the 15th consecutive year, and first among liberal arts colleges in the 2018 Forbes magazine ranking of America's Top Colleges.

Williamstown, Massachusetts Town in Massachusetts, United States

Williamstown is a town in Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,754 at the 2010 census. A college town, it is home to Williams College, the Clark Art Institute and the Tony-awarded Williamstown Theatre Festival, which runs every July and August.

Contents

He attended Princeton and the University of Michigan, where he received his Ph.D. in social psychology. His primary research interests are stereotypes and prejudice, suspicion and attribution theory, and how the media affects both men and women’s views of women. [2]

Princeton University University in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later, and renamed itself Princeton University in 1896.

University of Michigan Public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States

The University of Michigan, often simply referred to as Michigan, is a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The university is Michigan's oldest; it was founded in 1817 in Detroit, as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, 20 years before the territory became a state. The school was moved to Ann Arbor in 1837 onto 40 acres (16 ha) of what is now known as Central Campus. Since its establishment in Ann Arbor, the university campus has expanded to include more than 584 major buildings with a combined area of more than 34 million gross square feet spread out over a Central Campus and North Campus, two regional campuses in Flint and Dearborn, and a Center in Detroit. The university is a founding member of the Association of American Universities.

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others. In this definition, scientific refers to the empirical investigation using the scientific method. The terms thoughts, feelings and behavior refer to psychological variables that can be measured in humans. The statement that others' presence may be imagined or implied suggests that humans are malleable to social influences even when alone, such as when watching television or following internalized cultural norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the interaction of mental states and social situations.

Experiments

One of Fein’s experiments, Hype and suspicion, examined the effects of pretrial publicity (PTP) on prejudice in jurors. In the context of the OJ Simpson trial, mock jurors were exposed to PTP, after which they tended to vote “guilty.” However, when the PTP indicated that the defendant was African American, the jurors became suspicious of a racist motive within the publicity. [3]

Jury sworn body of people convened to render a verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment

A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt or lack thereof in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty or not guilty. The old institution of grand juries still exists in some places, particularly the United States, to investigate whether enough evidence of a crime exists to bring someone to trial.

O. J. Simpson murder case criminal trial decided October 3, 1995

The O. J. Simpson murder case was a criminal trial held at the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Former National Football League (NFL) player, broadcaster, and actor O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder for the June 12, 1994, deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. On the morning of June 13, 1994, they were found stabbed to death outside Brown's condominium in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. Simpson was a person of interest in their murders. He did not turn himself in, and on June 17 he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white 1993 Ford Bronco SUV owned and driven by Al Cowlings. TV stations interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals to broadcast the incident live. It was watched by an estimated audience of 95 million people. The pursuit, arrest, and trial were among the most widely publicized events in American history. The trial, often characterized as the trial of the century because of its international publicity similar to that of Sacco and Vanzetti and the Lindbergh kidnapping, spanned eleven months, from the jury's swearing-in on November 9, 1994. Opening statements were made on January 24, 1995, and the verdict was announced on October 3, 1995, when Simpson was acquitted on both counts of murder. Following his acquittal, no additional arrests or convictions related to the murders have been made. According to the newspaper USA Today, the case has been described as the "most publicized" criminal trial in history.

Another study by Fein and Spencer argued that self-image affects stereotypes and prejudice. They found that participants whose self-image was reinforced were less likely to view a member of a stereotyped group as negative. On the other hand, when self-image was threatened, those participants tended to degrade the stereotyped member, which bolstered their self-image. [4] Also, he has studied culture/ethnicity, media influences, interpersonal processes, self/identity, self-affirmation theory and social cognition. [5] [6]

Stereotype thought that may be adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things

In social psychology, a stereotype is an over-generalized belief about a particular category of people. Stereotypes are generalized because one assumes that the stereotype is true for each individual person in the category. While such generalizations may be useful when making quick decisions, they may be erroneous when applied to particular individuals. Stereotypes encourage prejudice and may arise for a number of reasons.

Prejudice is an affective feeling towards a person or group member based solely on that person's group membership. The word is often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavourable, feelings towards people or a person because of their political affiliation, sex, gender, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality, beauty, occupation, education, criminality, sport team affiliation or other personal characteristics. In this case, it refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on that person's perceived group membership.

Social cognition is "a sub-topic of social psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in social interactions."

Fein also conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated how people's perceptions of political candidates can be influenced dramatically by the reactions of others around them. For example, in one experiment, subjects watched a tape of a Presidential debate between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. In one condition, there was no manipulation of the tape. In another condition, two brief, amusing "soundbites" by Reagan that got a very positive audience reaction were edited out. In a third condition, the soundbites were left in, but the audience reaction was edited out. In the unedited condition, the large majority of subjects thought Reagan's debate performance was superior to Mondale's. In the condition in which the soundbites were cut out, the preference for Reagan was completely eliminated, showing how strong an effect a couple of jokes were to influence overall perceptions of a 90-minute-long debate. But the results were even more dramatic for the third condition. Here, with the soundbites left in, but the audience reaction cut out, the subjects overwhelmingly thought Mondale's overall debate performance was superior to Reagan's. This demonstrated that it wasn't what Reagan actually said that made the difference, but rather the perceptions of the audience's reaction to what he said that had the biggest impact. Without the validation of the audience's laughter and applause, Reagan's one-liners flopped rather than soared, and viewers were affected significantly by that. [7] This work was cited during the 2008 presidential debates between Barack Obama and John McCain when CNN showed a graph reflecting the reactions of a group of undecided voters live during the debates; Fein was quoted in numerous stories criticizing CNN for potentially influencing numerous voters in this way. [8]

Ronald Reagan 40th president of the United States

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975.

Walter Mondale 42nd Vice President of the United States

Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American politician, diplomat and lawyer who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A United States senator from Minnesota (1964–1976), he was the Democratic Party's nominee in the United States presidential election of 1984, but lost to Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College landslide. Reagan won 49 states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and District of Columbia. He became the oldest-living former U.S. vice president after the death of George H. W. Bush in 2018.

Barack Obama 44th President of the United States

Barack Hussein Obama II is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008.

Publications

Other publications by Fein include research on the role of arousal in stereotype threat, [9] suspicion and the fundamental attribution error, [10] and a study testing whether measuring the personalities of new medical students could predict what area of medicine they would specialize in several years later. [11] His two most cited papers are Steven Fein and Steven J. Spencer "Prejudice as Self-image Maintenance: Affirming the Self Through Derogating Others" in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1997 Vol. 73, No. 1,31-44 (cited 932 timesaccording to Google Scholar) and SJ Spencer, S Fein, CT Wolfe, C Fong "Automatic activation of stereotypes: The role of self-image threat" in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin November 1998 vol. 24 no. 11 1139-1152 (cited 308 times) [12]

<i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</i> journal

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Psychological Association that was established in 1965. It covers the fields of social and personality psychology. The editors-in-chief are Shinobu Kitayama, Kerry Kawakami, and M. Lynne Cooper.

<i>Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin</i> journal

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin is a scientific journal published monthly published by SAGE Publications for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). The journal's editor is Chris Crandall. This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

In addition to the text Social Psychology, Fein co wrote other books including Readings in social psychology: The art and science of research with Saul Kassin and Motivated social perception: The Ontario symposium, with S. J. Spencer, M. Zanna, and J. M. Olsen. He has also represented the American Psychological Association as well as the committee of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. [13]

Fein also has co-hosted "Live From E Street Nation" with Dave Marsh on Sirius-XM's "E Street Channel" station on several occasions. One two of these occasions he has had the LA-based rock band, The Airborne Toxic Event, come on to the show for extensive interviews and live performances.

Related Research Articles

Self-perception theory (SPT) is an account of attitude formation developed by psychologist Daryl Bem. It asserts that people develop their attitudes by observing their own behavior and concluding what attitudes must have caused it. The theory is counterintuitive in nature, as the conventional wisdom is that attitudes determine behaviors. Furthermore, the theory suggests that people induce attitudes without accessing internal cognition and mood states. The person interprets their own overt behaviors rationally in the same way they attempt to explain others' behaviors.

The out-group homogeneity effect is one's perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members, e.g. "they are alike; we are diverse". The term "outgroup homogeneity effect", "outgroup homogeneity bias" or "relative outgroup homogeneity" has been explicitly contrasted with "outgroup homogeneity" in general, the latter referring to perceived outgroup variability unrelated to perceptions of the ingroup.

Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. Stereotype threat is purportedly a contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance. It may occur whenever an individual's performance might confirm a negative stereotype because stereotype threat is thought to arise from a particular situation, rather than from an individual's personality traits or characteristics. Since most people have at least one social identity which is negatively stereotyped, most people are vulnerable to stereotype threat if they encounter a situation in which the stereotype is relevant. Situational factors that increase stereotype threat can include the difficulty of the task, the belief that the task measures their abilities, and the relevance of the stereotype to the task. Individuals show higher degrees of stereotype threat on tasks they wish to perform well on and when they identify strongly with the stereotyped group. These effects are also increased when they expect discrimination due to their identification with a negatively stereotyped group. Repeated experiences of stereotype threat can lead to a vicious circle of diminished confidence, poor performance, and loss of interest in the relevant area of achievement.

Claude Steele American psychologist

Claude Mason Steele is an African-American social psychologist. He was the executive vice chancellor and provost at the University of California, Berkeley, and he currently serves as a professor of psychology at Stanford University.

Social perception is the study of how people form impressions of and make inferences about other people as sovereign personalities. People learn about others' feelings and emotions by picking up information they gather from physical appearance, verbal, and nonverbal communication. Facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures, and body position or movement are a few examples of ways people communicate without words. A real-world example of social perception is understanding that others disagree with what one said when one sees them roll their eyes. There are four main components of social perception: observation, attribution, integration, and confirmation.

Aversive racism is a theory proposed by Samuel L. Gaertner & John F. Dovidio (1986), according to which negative evaluations of racial/ethnic minorities are realized by a persistent avoidance of interaction with other racial and ethnic groups. As opposed to traditional, overt racism, which is characterized by overt hatred for and discrimination against racial/ethnic minorities, aversive racism is characterized by more complex, ambivalent expressions and attitudes.

Self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others, but also items that have been learned by that person about themself, either from personal experiences or by internalizing the judgments of others.

Mark Schaller is a psychological scientist who has made many contributions to the study of human psychology, particularly in areas of social cognition, stereotyping, evolutionary psychology, and cultural psychology. He is Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia.

Steven Neuberg American psychologist

Steven L. Neuberg is an experimental social psychologist whose research has contributed to topics pertaining to person perception, impression formation, stereotyping, prejudice, self-fulfilling prophecies, stereotype threat, and prosocial behavior. His research can be broadly characterized as exploring the ways motives and goals shape social thought processes; extending this approach, his later work employs the adaptationist logic of evolutionary psychology to inform the study of social cognition and social behavior. Neuberg has published over sixty scholarly articles and chapters, and has co-authored a multi-edition social psychology textbook with his colleagues Douglas Kenrick and Robert Cialdini.

Within social psychology self-stereotyping is a process described as part of social identity theory (SIT) and, more specifically, self-categorization theory (SCT). Self-stereotyping occurs when an individual integrates commonly held characterizations of an in-group into his or her self-concept.

An implicit bias, or implicit stereotype, is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group. Measurement of this effect has been termed as pseudoscience by some peers.

Stereotype embodiment theory (SET) is a theoretical model first posited by psychologist Becca Levy to explain the process by which age stereotypes influence the health of older adults. There are multiple well-documented effects of age stereotypes on a number of cognitive and physical outcomes.

In social psychology, the stereotype content model (SCM) is a model, first proposed in 2002, postulating that all group stereotypes and interpersonal impressions form along two dimensions: (1) warmth and (2) competence.

The imagined contact hypothesis is an extension of the contact hypothesis, a theoretical proposition centred on the psychology of prejudice and prejudice reduction. It was originally developed by Richard J. Crisp and Rhiannon N. Turner and proposes that the mental simulation, or imagining, of a positive social interaction with an outgroup member can lead to increased positive attitudes, greater desire for social contact, and improved group dynamics. Empirical evidence supporting the imagined contact hypothesis demonstrates its effectiveness at improving explicit and implicit attitudes towards and intergroup relations with a wide variety of [stigmatized] groups including religious minorities, the mentally ill, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, and obese individuals. Researchers have identified a number of factors that influence the effectiveness of the imagined contact hypothesis including vividness of the imagery and how typical the imagined outgroup individual is. While some researchers question the effectiveness of the imagined contact hypothesis, empirical evidence does suggest it is effective at improving attitudes towards outgroups.

Patricia Grace Devine is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was the psychology department chair from 2009 to 2014. She was also the 2012 president of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

There is a great deal of research on the factors that lead to the formation of prejudiced attitudes and beliefs. There is also a lot of research on the consequences of holding prejudiced beliefs and being the target of such beliefs. It is true that advances have been made in understanding the nature of prejudice. A consensus on how to end prejudice has yet to be established, but there are a number of scientifically examined strategies that have been developed in attempt to solve this social issue.

Intergroup relations refers to interactions between individuals in different social groups, and to interactions taking place between the groups themselves collectively. It has long been a subject of research in social psychology, political psychology, and organizational behavior.

References

  1. ↑ Kassin, S. M., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). Social psychology (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
  2. ↑ Steven Fein
  3. ↑ Fein, S., Morgan, S. J., Norton, M. I., & Sommers, S. R. (1997). Hype and suspicion: Effects of pretrial publicity, race, and suspicion on jurors' verdicts. Journal of Social Issues, 53, 487-502.
  4. ↑ Fein, S., & Spencer, S. J. (1997). Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 31-44.
  5. ↑ Associated Press (August 13, 1988). Pitchers throw more beanballs in hot weather, study suggests."
  6. ↑ De La Mater, B. W. (2006, March 8). MTV: For better or worse. The Berkshire Eagle
  7. ↑ Fein, S., Goethals, G. R., & Kugler, M. B. (2007). Social influence on political judgments: The case of presidential debates. Political Psychology, 28, 165-192.
  8. ↑ Schechner, S. (2008, October 10). When your political opinion isn't yours alone; Broadcasts of political debates that include live audience feedback can influence what you're thinking--hecklers can too. Wall Street Journal, A14.
  9. ↑ Ben-Zeev, T., Fein, S., & Inzlicht, M. (2005). Arousal and stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 174-181.
  10. ↑ Fein, S. (1996). Effects of suspicion on attributional thinking and the correspondence bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1164-1184.
  11. ↑ Maron, B. A., Fein, S., Maron, B. J., Hillel, A. T., El Baghdadi, M. M., & Rodenhauser, P. (2007). Ability of prospective assessment of personality profiles to predict the practice specialty of medical students. Proceedings, Baylor University Medical Center, 20, 22-26.
  12. ↑ Google Scjolar results
  13. ↑ fein.socialpsychology.org
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