16- Prejudice to Discrimination Flashcards
1- From prejudice to discrimination:
What prejudices are relevant for behaviour?
On a CV
black names like Lakisha Washington and 50% Less
Likely to Get a Callback! compared to white names like Emily Walsh and Greg Baker
Ex 1:
Behavior: Going to church next Sunday
Global attitude: “How much do you like Christianity?”
Attitude toward specific target: “How much do you like attending church worship service?”
Attitude toward behavior in a given time, target, & context:
“How much do you like attending your church’s worship service next Sunday?
(most accurate to predict behaviour)
Ex 2:
Behavior: Voting for giving undocumented Mexican immigrants a path to legal status
Global attitude: “How much do you like Mexicans?”
Attitude toward specific target : “How much do you like undocumented Mexican immigrants?”
Attitude toward behavior in a given time, target, & context:
“For the upcoming election, how much do you support giving undocumented Mexican immigrants a path to legal status?
Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002
White participants had a conversation with a Black confederate
Measured:
* Implicit prejudice (automatic, based on reaction time, IAT)
* Explicit prejudice (deliberate, self-reported)
* Coders’ ratings of verbal friendliness
* Coders’ ratings of nonverbal friendliness
Results:
Explicit prejudice + Verbal friendliness r = -.36* (big-ish correlation)
Implicit prejudice + Verbal friendliness r = .17 (small correlation)
Explicit prejudice + Nonverbal friendliness r = -.04 (very small correlation)
Implicit prejudice + Nonverbal friendliness r = -.41* (big-ish correlation)
2- From prejudice to discrimination:
Social norms
- In the U.S., the number of hate crimes increased from 6,121 in 2016 to 7,175 in 2017, and recent years have seen an even larger growth.(Trump elected)
- Canadian data tells a similar story.
Hate crimes against asian americans (covid)
Crandall, Miller, & White, 2018
2016 U.S. Election
Design: Participants took measures of prejudice and
perceived norms about prejudice at two times:
o 9-12 days before election (Oct 28-31)
o 3 days after election (Nov 11)
Measures of prejudice & prejudice norms assessed:
* 9 groups targeted in Donald Trump’s campaign:
o Asian Americans, disabled people fat people, immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, socialists, women considering an abortion
* 9 groups not targeted in Donald Trump’s campaign:
o alcoholics, atheists, Canadians, car salesmen, drug dealers, lazy people, members of the NRA, people who cheat on their taxes, politicians, porn stars, rich people
Results:
* Self-reported prejudice
decreased
o Social comparison against
Trump (I’m not as bad as Trump so….)
BUT
* At the same time, prejudice
was perceived to be more
normatively acceptable
Takeaway: Perceived social norms surrounding the
expression of prejudice matters!
Tankard & Paluck, 2017
Study 2: Longitudinal study
Tracked perceptions of norms & attitudes over time:
Perceived status quo of norms supporting same-sex marriage increased when legalized, but personal attitude towards gay marriage stayed the same. (So doesn’t really convince people, but if they perceive being open to gay marriage as the norm, they will be less explicit about their prejudice)
In one study at the University of Wisconsin, exposure to messages about social norms of combatting prejudice increased perceptions of an inclusive environment:
In one study, disadvantaged students exposed to the
social norms manipulation reported two weeks later that their ”advantaged student” peers treated them with more respect and behaved more inclusively.
Interestingly, participants who were advantaged students did not self-report actually behaving in a more respectful or inclusive manner following the social norms video manipulation
-A final “field” study looked at the effect of the video on actual classroom achievement in STEM courses (randomly assigning different sections within the same course to see the video vs. a short statement in the syllabus).
Results: grades went up for marginalized students! Stayed the same for advantaged students
3- From prejudice to discrimination:
Motivations to respond without prejudice
Internal Motivation to Respond without Prejudice:
Motivation to be unprejudiced for its own sake
Example Items:
* “I attempt to act in nonprejudiced ways toward Black people because it is personally important to me.”
* “I am personally motivated by my beliefs to be nonprejudiced toward Black people.”
* “Being nonprejudiced toward Black people is important to my self-concept.”
External Motivation to Respond without Prejudice: Motivations to appear unprejudiced to others
Example Items:
* “I try to act nonprejudiced toward Black people because
of pressure from others.”
* “Because of today’s PC (politically correct) standards I try to appear nonprejudiced toward Black people.”
* “If I acted prejudiced toward Black people, I would be
concerned that others would be angry with me.
- Internal motivation is weakly to moderately negatively related to prejudice
- External motivation is weakly positively related to
prejudice - Internal & external motivation are not really correlated with each other (r = .03)
More recently, researchers have focused on a (reliable but relatively small) proportion of people who have a motivation to express prejudice.
“My beliefs motivate me to express negative feelings about Black people”, “Minimizing my contact with Black people is personally
important to me.”
Percentage of participants above the scale midpoint when scale was
about…
Race: 7.0%
Sexual Orientation: 6.5%
Political Orientation: 14.3% (This is April 2015)
4- From prejudice to discrimination:
Ability to control prejudiced behaviour
- People are often regulating their prejudicial tendencies.
- When the ability to do so is impaired, people are more
likely to discriminate.
Factors that impact ability
to control prejudiced behavior:
* Time of day
* Age reduces the ability to inhibit automatic impulses
* Alcohol reduces inhibition
* Cognitive resources
One study randomly assigned participants to either get a full nights rest or
to stay up for the entire night. Racial bias increased for participants who
lacked rest. (target game)
5- Obedience and genocide:
Stanley Milgram’s study of obedience. Why did people obey?
- Milgram was interested in trying to understand situations like Nazi Germany
o Was there something special about the Germans or would most people behave that way in that kind of situation?
Eichmann in Jerusalem book by Hannah Arendt (that inspired Milgram)
Half a dozen psychologists had certified him as “normal”…This was obviously no case of moral let alone legal insanity… Worse, his was obviously no case of insane hatred of Jews.
Alas, nobody believed him… because they were too good and perhaps too conscious of
the foundations of their profession to admit that
an average, “normal” person… could be
perfectly incapable of telling right from wrong.
They missed the greatest moral and even legal
challenge of the whole case. Their case rested on the assumption that the defendant, like all
“normal persons”, must have been aware of the criminal nature of his acts, and Eichmann was indeed normal insofar as he was “no exception within the Nazi regime.”
However, under the conditions of the Third
Reich only “exceptions” could be expected to act normally. This simple truth of the matter created a dilemma for the judges which they
could neither resolve nor escape.
- Experimental setup:
o Experiment described as a
“study of learning”
o Participants instructed to
shock other participants
for any wrong answers - The other participant is a
confederate who never
receives any real shocks
o Shock level increased for each wrong answer - Shock levels ranged from 15 volts (slight shock) to
450 volts (danger: severe shock)
o During the experiment, the confederate begins to
scream in pain and demand that the experiment end - Later the confederate stops making any sounds, indicating he may be possibly injured or dead
- If the participant does not obey:
o An experimenter in a white lab coat instructs the
participant to continue with the experiment
o “Please continue.” “The experiment requires that you
continue.” - Everyone went up to at
least 300 volts (when the
confederate began to pound
on the wall)
o But 65 percent went all
the way to the end after
that
o Everyone who reached
375 volts continued to
the end
Forces Influencing Obedience
Follow-up studies have found that obedience depends on…
Proximity: If you are physically or socially closer to the victim, you were less likely to comply
Social Power: If the experimenter is perceived to be less powerful, you’re less likely to comply.
o Experimenters that gave order over telephone or were
contradicted by another experimenter
Social Status: If the setting conveys authority, you’re more likely to comply
- Milgram’s results were surprising
o High percentages of Americans showed obedience to authority to the extent that they could have harmed another person
o Many people find it difficult to believe that they would
ever personally be capable of doing so - But there are many historic examples of ordinary
people acting in ways that they’d never expect
6- Obedience and genocide:
Stanley Milgram’s study of obedience. Why did people obey? (part 2) How does this explain why Nazis obeyed?
“No Exit”
* Attempts to leave the situation are blocked by the
authority
* In Milgram’s study, participants called attention to the learner, said they didn’t want to continue, and so on, but most continued anyway
-Prejudicial norms against Jews and other minorities were universal across Nazi Germany. No way to escape without emigrating.
- Participants were motivated to “follow the rules”.
o The experimenter ignored reasons offered by the
participant
o The confused participant conformed to the objective
rules established by the experimenter - Feeling of responsibility is transferred to the experimenter
- In Milgram study, the experimenter stated that he was responsible for everything that happened
o The experimenter provided a cover for their actions
o E.g.,“It was his fault, I was following orders” - The victim was blamed for their situation
o “Well, he volunteered for this” - After WW1, Germany suffered a flagging economy, food shortages, and
were at the mercy of the Western powers - Jewish people were made to be scapegoats for the state of the country
- As Jewish people were to blame, violence and oppression were justified
- ‘Escalating Commitment’: Step-by-step situation
o Can arrive at extreme situations in step-by-step
process: a “slippery slope” - In Milgram study, each increment is only 15 volts, so
each one seems like a small step, but step-by-step it
gets to an extreme point - In Nazi Germany, Hitler was democratically elected, and the anti-Jewish laws were
introduced a little at a time in a step-by-step progression toward the Holocaust - People may have never intended to go so far,
but each small step helps justify the next
7- Life after genocide
Rwandan Genocide
* Mass slaughter of Tutsi by
Hutu majority from April –
June 1994
* 500,000 – 1,000,000 Tutsi
killed
o (70% of Tutsi population)
* Radio stations “set the
stage” for genocide
Design: Communities randomly assigned to
reconciliation-focused soap opera or control soap opera
about health
o Radio often listened to in group within communities
-Reconciliation Soap Opera (New Dawn):
* Featured typical Rwandans as protagonists
* Roots of prejudice & violence were located in frustration of basic
psychological needs
* Trauma is normal and can be healed
Results:
* Did not change personal beliefs about prejudice & violence
* Changed perceived norms about how people do and should behave in situations related to prejudice, conflict, & trauma
* Increased empathy for genocide survivors
* More likely to share radio batteries at the end of the study
