12. Prejudice Flashcards
What is prejudice?
- A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership in that group
- People can hold prejudices against others based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, and obesity
- Affect component of attitudes
Explain stereotypes
- A generalization about a group of people in which identical characteristics are assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual variation among the members
- Cognitive aspect of attitudes
- Stereotypes serve to organize information so that it may be readily accessible (automatic processing)
- Once formed, stereotypes can be resistant to change
- Stereotypes don’t necessarily lead to negative behaviors
What are different types of stereotypes?
- Hostile stereotypes: negative stereotypes about groups of people (ex: women are weaker, less intelligent than men)
- Benevolent stereotypes: “positive” stereotypes about groups of people (ex: Asian people are good at math); although they may be positive, they create unrealistic expectations and inequitable treatment towards members of a particular group
What is gender stereotyping?
- Exaggerates differences between the genders, and ignores differences in personality traits and abilities within each gender
- Established at an early age
- We associate several occupations with mainly one gender, as reflected in job advertisements
- Influences choice of profession and also salary expectations
What is discrimination?
- Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because of their membership in that group
- Any group that is stigmatized in a society will experience discrimation, both blatant and subtle
- Behavior component of attitudes
How to detect hidden prejudices using behavioral measures?
- Send identical resumés to potential employers and varying informaiton about gender, ethnicity, or religion
- The existence of hiring discrimination has given rise to the trend of “Americanizing” or “Westernizing” one’s identity –> accomodating for the larger in-group, conforming to expectations because we don’t want to feel excluded
What are different questionnaires that measure prejudice?
- Modern racism scale: measure of racial prejudice in which people indicate their level of agreement with prejudice statements
- Neosexism scale: measure of sexist attitudes in which participants are asked to evaluate how much they agree with sexist statements
Explain social categorization
- We make sense of our social world by putting people into groups according to their characteristics
- Useful and necessary
- Categories are typically learned (newborns don’t show this until 3 months)
What is in-group bias?
- The tendency to evaluate in-group members more positively than out-group members
What is the minimal group paradigm?
- Our tendency to favour our in-group and denigrate the out-group occurs even when people are randomly assigned to groups (arbitrary division)
- However, the tendency to discriminate the outgroup is even stronger when individuals choose their groups
Why do we show in-group bias?
- Belonging to a group gives social identity
- Having a social identity contributes to self-esteem
What are implications of social categorization for reducing prejudice?
- Promoting a common identity between in and out group members
- Encouraging self-affirmation
When do stereotypes become activated?
Relate to schema theory and priming!
- Seeing photos of individuals is enough to activate stereotypes
- The physical environment can trigger automatic thinking
What is the two-step model of cognitive processing?
The activation of stereotypes is influenced by both automatic and controlled information
1- Automatic processes: trigger steoreotypes under certain conditions and without control; we make internal attributions
2- Controlled process: a conscious decision to suppress the stereotype; we think about external attributions, more effortful
What is the most important determinant of prejudice toward a group?
How they make us feel;
We can feel negatively towards a group when:
- the group promotes values that we don’t cherish or hinders values that we do cherish (frustration-aggression hypothesis)
- we anticipate that interacting with them will be unpleasant (self-fulfilling prophecy)
What is the ultimate attribution error?
- Our tendency to make dispositional attributions about an entire group of people
- For out-groups, poor outcomes are attributed to dispositional causes, whereas successful outcomes are often attributed to situational causes - relate to actor/observer difference
What is the realistic conflict theory?
- Limited resources lead to conflict among groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination
- ex: attitudes towards immigration are favorable when unemployment rates are low, and vice-versa
- ex: Robbers Cave Experiment
What is mutual interdependence?
- A situation in which 2 or more groups need each other and must depend on each other to accomplish a goal that is important to all groups
- Prejudice can be reduced by the creation of common goals
What is injunctification?
- A motivated tendency to see the status quo as the most desirable state of affairs
- Those who think this way are more likely to endorse stereotypes
Explain the role of normative rules in prejudice
Many people hold prejudices attitudes and engage in discriminatory behavior in order to conform to, or fit in with, the prevailing majority view of their culture
3 dimensions that affect how likely people are to hold negative attitudes towards out-groups
- Authoritarianism
- Religious fundamentalism
- Social dominance orientation
What is stereotype threat?
- The apprehension experienced by members of a minority group that they might behave in a manner that confirms an existing cultural stereotype
- Being reminded of a negative stereotype associated with one’s group may impair performance on a relevant task
What is authoritarianism?
- High degree of submission to authority figures
- Aggression towards groups that are seen as legitimate targets by authority figures
- High degree of conformity to rules established by authority figures
What is social dominance orientation?
- Belief that groups of people are inherently unequal
- Belief that it is acceptable for some groups to benefit more than others, and for some groups to receive poorer treatment than others
What is religious fundamentalism?
- Belief in the absolute and literal truth of one’s religious beliefs
- Belief that their religion is right and that forces of evil are threatening to undermine the truth
- Not to be confused with being religious
What are self-fulfilling prophecies in the context of prejudice?
When a member of a disadvantaged group is mistreated by a member of a majority group, the disadvantaged person is unlikely to perform well, thereby confirming the majority group member’s negative stereotype and perpetuating the discrimination
What are some solutions for overcoming stereotype threat?
- Reminding students of their abilities
- Reminding people that their abilities are not fixed, but improvable
- Having people engage in self-affirmation before starting a task
How to change stereotypes?
Exposure to counter-stereotypical examples can cause people to modify their attitudes over time
What is the contact hypothesis?
Bringing members of different groups together may reduce prejudice providing certain conditions are met:
- Both groups are of equal status
- They share a common goal (shared interests)
- The contact involves intergroup cooperation
- The contact is supported by societal social norms
What is the extended contact hypothesis?
Knowing that a member of one’s own group has a close relationship with a member of another group can reduce prejudice with that group
