6- Hierarchy and Power Flashcards
1- Examples of hierarchy and power
-Indian hierarchy
-Fortune 500 CEOs by race and ethnicity: 95.8%= non-hispanic white
-Racial composition of the 114th Congress: House= 79.8% white, Senate=94% white
-Perception of group hierarchies power (from highest to lowest, rated by 4 racial groups): white, asian, latino, black
Status hierarchies are largely recognized.
But are they largely supported?
2- Social Dominance Orientation
Social Identity Theory cannot be the only contributor to discrimination. SIT cannot possibly account for the extreme levels of barbarism, brutality and oppression often found in intergroup relations in the real world.
Group-based social hierarchies are universal (and even unavoidable).
Every attempt to abolish group-based hierarchies within societies of
economic surplus have, without exception, failed.
Most intergroup conflict stems from the existence of these hierarchies.
Most forms of group conflict and oppression (e.g., racism, classism) can be
regarded as different manifestations of the same basic human predisposition to form group-based social hierarchies.
Both people and institutions exist along a continuum among those that are
“hierarchy-enforcing” or “hierarchy-attenuating”.
Hierarchies are a two-way street, requiring at least some coordination among
both high-status and low-status people. Systems of group-based social hierarchy are not simply maintained by
the oppressive activities of dominants or the passive compliance of subordinates, but rather by the coordinated and collaborative activities
of both dominants and subordinates.
3- Social Dominance Orientation: The SDO scale and other outcomes
The SDO Scale is an individual difference measure meant to capture variation in the extent to
which someone believes society should have group-based hierarchies.
Sample Items:
It is not a problem if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.
Some people are just inferior to others.
Inferior groups should stay in their place.
Sometimes other groups should be kept in their place.
When creating measures, researchers strive for a “normal distribution”
And here’s what SDO looks like…left skewed
SDO and Other Outcomes
How strongly is SDO associated with….
-Political ideology (i.e., conservatism)? r = .43.
-Explicit racial preferences (i.e., degree to which White people are preferred over Black people)? r = .27
-Gender (restricted to men and women)? Men are higher in SDO than women, r = .19.
-In a sample of 85 White police officers, greater SDO was associated with more
actual uses of forces while on patrol.
Another longitudinal sample found that higher SDO predicted greater likelihood of working in a hierarchy-enforcing job. And, working in a hierarchy-enforcing job was associated with longterm increases in SDO.
4- SDO as a Cause of Hierarchy Support
Does SDO cause support for hierarchies, or do people who find themselves in hierarchies develop SDO to support their current situation?
To answer this question, Nour Kteily (McGill alum!) and Sidanius used a “cross-lagged longitudinal design”, which tracked the same individuals over time and repeatedly measured
SDO and forms of intergroup prejudice like negativity towards racial/ethnic outgroups. If SDO is a cause of hierarchies, then changes in SDO should come before changes in negativity expressed towards racial outgroups.
Data were collected from White participants during freshman orientation (in 1996) and then
collected each Spring semester (through 2000).
SDO measured in 1996 was a stronger predictor of outgroup prejudice in 2000 than outgroup prejudice measured in 1996 was a predictor of SDO in 2000.
5- SDO and Hierarchy Maintenance
How might SDO facilitate the maintenance of intergroup hierarchies?
One route is through the experience (or lack thereof) of intergroup empathy.
Positive empathy: Feeling positive after seeing someone else experiences positivity.
Schadenfreude: Feeling positive after seeing someone else experiences negativity.
How does SDO relate to the experience of empathy and
schadenfreude towards racial ingroup and outgroup members?
White participants completed the SDO scale and an intergroup empathy task.
In the empathy task, participants saw a White, Asian or Black person experience something
mildly positive or negative (e.g., eating a good sandwich vs. stubbing one’s toe).
After each story (one for each race, one for positive vs. negative), participants reported both how good and how bad they felt upon reading the story.
Results:
As SDO increased, participants generally felt less positive empathy (sharing someone’s positive experience), but this
was particularly true for racial outgroup members.
As SDO increased, participants generally felt more schadenfreude (enjoying someone’s negative experience), but this was particularly true for racial outgroup members.
SDO may help maintain intergroup social hierarchies by blunting or muting empathy towards outgroup members, thereby making it easier to keep them in positions of lower
social status.
Experienci
6- Experiencing Lower Power: Scarcity
SDO can help (partly) explain why hierarchies emerge
and are sustained.
But what do we know about the psychological effects
of having lower status and resources?
’Scarcity’ – having lower status and power – is not only a resource problem.
Scarcity also impacts our psychology. Scarcity is more than just the displeasure of having very little. It changes
how we think. It imposes itself on our minds.
The experience of a scarcity mindset is like being under consistent “cognitive load” and reduces the bandwidth available to pay attention to other concerns in one’s life.
Scarcity in one walk of life means we have less attention in the rest of life.
‘Scarcity’ and Gambling
* Poorer people spend significantly higher portion of their income on lottery tickets.
* Households that bring in less than $10,000 annually put 3% of total income to lotteries.
* A ‘poverty trap’: From 1964-2003 average expected value of a lottery ticket is -.47 $ per dollar spent.
* In the U.S. saving rates have reached an all time low (0.4%) of annual income – down from 8%.
* Only 1/3 of families earning less than $20,000 saved any money in 2007.
* Many lower income jobs don’t offer “direct deposit”.
‘Scarcity’, Debt and Payday Lending
* In 2008 the U.S. national credit card debt was 951.7 billion
* Overdue penalties as high as an additional 5%.
* Low income individuals take high interest short term loans with rates of 800%.
Scarcity and ‘Cognitive Load’
Put off paying next month’s phone bill (to buy
food for the family today.)…Neglect routine
maintenance on house/car (to try and keep up with
mortgage/rent)… Take out 800% short-term loan (to pay off pressing debts.)….
ENHANCED FOCUS ON
IMMEDIATE ISSUES
ATTENTIONAL NEGLECT ON
LONG-TERM COSTS
Effects of ‘Scarcity Mindset’
* Resource scarcity creates a “different mindset”
* People lower in resources must make sporadic decisions and trade-offs.
* Increases focus on immediate short-term problems.
* Reduces focus on long-term global picture.
Creating Scarcity in the Lab
* Participants play Wheel of Fortune.
* Manipulation of Resource Scarcity : Number of
letter guesses received per round.
* ‘Poor’ get 6 guesses per round.
* ‘Rich’ get 20 guesses per round.
* Outcome: Cognitive Control (Dot-Probe Task)
Results:
Even though ‘poor’ participants made fewer guesses in Wheel of Fortune,
they performed WORSE in the Dot-Probe Task.
What are some problems with these studies?
Scarcity in the ‘real world’:
Indian sugarcane farmers are paid once annually, meaning there are times when they are comparatively rich (post-harvest) and comparatively poor (pre-harvest).
The same sugarcane farmers performed 10 points
higher on an IQ test when taken right after the harvest
than right before the harvest.
This is about 75% as effective as taking an IQ test wellrested versus taking an IQ test after an all-nighter.
-A $1,000 increase in income raises combined math and reading test scores by 6 percent of a standard deviation in the short run.
Test gains were largest for children from disadvantaged families.
