Problem 1: Using racial discrimination as the topic, explain how different disciplines might tackle the problem. Specifically, describe the emphasis or approach of a (a) social psychologist; (b) personality psychologist; and (c) sociologist. (d) What theoretical mechanisms might each focus on? (i.e., what does each believe most "causes" discrimination). (e)What would each of these three focus on to reduce or eliminate discrimination?
Problem 2: Social psychologists care about isolating the processes involved in understanding a phenomenon. That is, they care about having sufficient evidence that X causes Y in their research, and that it does so in the real world as well. Discuss their concerns and how they deal with, or solve, these concerns, and why these solutions work
Problem 3: Define each of the following mental shortcuts and explain why each may be inaccurate:
(a) the availability heuristic, and
(b) the representativeness heuristic.
Provide an example of the availability heuristic leading to a reasonable (or "correct") outcome, and an example of it leading to a biased (or "incorrect") outcome. Then do the same for the representativeness heuristic.