1.1.5 factors affecting prejudice

Question 1

individual differences in prejudice

Answer 1

Some psychologists argue, our individual characteristics affect our behaviour rather than the situational factors suggested by theories like RCT and SIT

Question 2

what is personality?

Answer 2

The combination of characteristics or traits that form an individual’s distinctive character.

Adorno et al. suggested people may be prejudice due to their personality

Question 3

what is culture?

Answer 3

A way of life of particular groups of people

Question 4

what are the personality theories?

Answer 4

• authoritarian personality
• right wing authoritarian

Question 5

Authoritarian Personality

Answer 5

• Hostile to people they see as inferior to themselves (minority groups ie. out groups)
• Rigid in their thinking (not open-minded) and Intolerant to change
• Traditional/ conservative attitudes
• Submissive and obedient to authority figures

because often experienced strict (high expectations) and un-affectionate parenting, so they project anger onto others.
This represents their upbringing - be respectful to parents, while learning they can be cruel to those who are inferior

Question 6

F-scale (Fascism scale)

Answer 6

Adorno developed the F-scale, a questionnaire to measure the authoritarian personality.

It aims to measure prejudice and anti-democratic tendencies at the personality level.

Question 7

Right wing authoritarianism (RWA)

Answer 7

RWA personality suggests prejudice is caused by a learned set of beliefs that the world is threatening resulting in hostility to out groups who do not follow shared norms

People high in RWA tend to hold prejudiced attitudes towards various groups, including women and LGBTQ+

Question 8

evidence supporting RWA and prejudice

Answer 8

• Cohrs et al. (2012) found RWA is positively correlated with generalised prejudice. So the more RWA someone is, the more likely they are to hold prejudiced beliefs because they are hostile towards people who do not adhere to their norms.
• Cohrs also looked at the Big 5 personality traits. If a person scores highly on openness (how open minded they are) they would be less likely to be prejudice.

Question 9

factors affecting prejudice - culture

collectivist

Answer 9

Research doesn’t suggest that one culture is more prejudice than another, but culture affects the type of prejudice:

• People from collectivist cultures are more likely to show intergroup prejudice ie. be prejudice towards other cultural groups as a whole
• People from individualistic cultures (UK, USA) are more likely to show interpersonal prejudice

eg. Mainland China prejudice towards Hong Kong.

Question 10

baldwin

factors affecting prej - culture

Answer 10

P - It could be that all cultures are ethnocentric to an extent, so we are all prejudiced towards other cultures.

E - Baldwin argues that even though some cultures strive to be more accepting of diversity and tolerant of differences, prejudice still exists, such as donating money to a homeless shelter but not wanting a shelter to be built on your street.

T - this shows that we might underestimate how much our cultural norms influence attitudes.

Question 11

what contradicts the influence of culture/personality on prejudice

Answer 11

situational factors
* sherif - rct
* tajfel - social identity theory