8 and 9- Forms of Prejudice Flashcards
1- Prejudice Continuum
From more blatant to more subtle:
Old-fashioned prejudice
Symbolic prejudice
Aversive prejudice
Ambivalent prejudice
Implicit prejudice
2- Historical Context of Prejudice
- The prejudice of the era after Reconstruction until the 1960’s is called Jim Crow
Racism or old-fashioned racism
1. Whites’ absolute belief in their (biological) superiority over other races
2. A firm belief in racial separation (and subjugation)
3. The use of the government to establish a system of segregation and other
forms of discrimination (e.g., curtailing voting rights)
3- Theories of Contemporary Prejudice
- Over the past half-century, racial prejudice has often taken more subtle forms, either in attitudes or behavior.
- Theories of symbolic and aversive prejudice were originally developed
to explain anti-Black prejudice on the part of White people. These
theories have since been extended to other fields. - Theories of symbolic and aversive prejudice assume that prejudice resides within most White people in some fashion.
- A genuine shift in social norms since World
War II toward belief in the principle of equality for all people. - However, not all people have accepted the
norm of equality to the same degree.
o More among those with politically liberal
values (Meertens & Pettigrew, 1997)
o More in younger generations than older
generations (Schuman et al., 1997)
Ex: sexual orientation… older generations approve less. Also correlates with sushi attitudes
“Old-Fashioned” Prejudice
≠
Currently Non-Existent Prejudice
Most people want to be at least perceived as non-prejudiced.
Consequence: People may express prejudices in ways that can be justified on seemingly unprejudiced grounds.
Lee Atwater…the southern strategy
Dog-Whistle Example: “Welfare Queen”: It’s used to imply that Black women on social programs like welfare are lazy people who don’t do anything to “help themselves.” Instead, they have children to use up government money and the tax dollars of “hard-working” (read: white) Americans to live luxuriously.
Apart from implicit prejudice, all others= Different conceptualization of prejudice: Prejudice as a SYSTEM of attitudes and beliefs
4- Symbolic Prejudice
- Also called modern prejudice (like we saw last class)
- A set of beliefs about Black people as an abstract group rather than as individuals (e.g., “if they would only work harder“)
- Beliefs portray members of stigmatized groups as
morally inferior because they violate traditional values such as hard work and self-reliance. - The beliefs are expressed through specific acts that
could be (mostly) justified on a non-racial basis, but
that maintain the racial status quo.
o E.g., opposition to welfare & affirmative action,
pro-school choice
Symbolic prejudice is characterized by five themes that:
(a) justify policies that promote inequality, while
(b) generally endorsing equality as an abstract principle
- Racial prejudice/ discrimination no longer exist (or are not barriers to success)
o “How much discrimination against black people do you feel there is in the United States today, limiting their chances to get ahead?” - Differences in economic status results from lack of motivation
o “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if Black people
would only try harder they could be just as well off as White people. ” - Anger over inequality & unfair treatment is unjustified
o “How much of the racial tension that exists in the United States today do you
think Black people are responsible for creating?” - Rather than working to get ahead, Black people seek special favors from the
government
o “The government shows more respect for Black people than they deserve.” - Black people are now getting more than they deserve economically
o “Black people have gotten more economically than they deserve.”
Distribution skewed towards the left
The paradox of symbolic prejudice: People with symbolic prejudice endorse racial equality in principle, but oppose policies that could bring it about.
* Sears, Henry, & Kosterman (2000) argue that paradox is resolved because there are two meanings of equality:
o Equality of opportunity: Everyone deserves the same chance to succeed
* Higher modern racism predicts agreement with this type of equality
o Equality of outcome: Everyone should have an equal share of successes
* Higher modern racism predict lower agreement with this type of equality
(example of the boxes to see the baseball game)
Comparison:
* Old-Fashioned: biological inferiority
* Symbolic: not about “race” per se; it’s social/political issue
Criticism of Symbolic Prejudice
How do you distinguish anti-Black prejudice from principled ideological views?
- “Symbolic racists” endorse the idea that members of marginalized groups violate traditional values such as hard work & independence.
- “Symbolic racists” express prejudices in ways that could be justified on ‘unprejudiced’ grounds.
Mahathir Mohamad (Prime Minister of Malaysia) is asked about affirmative action for ethnic Malays
- Key components of symbolic prejudice broadly:
1. Move away from biological superiority
2. Focus on outgroup violation of shared cultural values
3. Justification of inequality and unfair treatment due to negative internal characteristics of outgroup
5- Aversive Racism
Aversive racism: Having positive explicit attitudes toward Black people while
holding negative implicit attitudes toward Black people
o Characterized by feelings of unease and discomfort rather than hostility
Partner Discomfort Study (Mendes, Blascovich, Lickel, & Hunter, 2002)
o Non-Black male participants
o Do a word-find task with partner
o Interact with White or Black confederate
Takeaway: People with aversive prejudice are uncomfortable, anxious around minorities
- Many aversive racists support equality and see themselves as egalitarian
o This results in a strong motivation to appear unprejudiced.
Aversive Racism → Discrimination under certain conditions
o Clear “correct” behavior: fair responses
o Unclear “correct” behavior: discriminatory responses
White people will default to favoring White over Black people in ambiguous situations.
Reason: Less threat of appearing prejudiced
6- Ambivalent Prejudice
Ambivalent Prejudice: Negative & positive feelings about a group.
Non-Black people see Black people as:
* Disadvantaged (which elicits a positive sympathy response)
* “Culturally deviant” (which elicits a negative aversion response)
* Being made aware of this mental conflict causes psychological discomfort, which people are motivated to reduce (i.e., cognitive
dissonance).
- Positive + Negative = conflict
o Uncomfortable
→ Motivated to reduce conflict - How to fix?
o Increase positivity or….
o Increase negativity
Response Amplification:
More extreme behavior towards a stigmatized group
o More positive when receiving ‘good’ information
o More negative when receiving ‘bad’ information
Ambivalent Persuasion Study (Bell & Esses, 2002)
o Measure ambivalence toward Indigenous peoples
o Receive persuasive information
* PRO-Indigenous land grants
* ANTI-Indigenous land grants
o Measure attitudes again
Main Point: To reduce conflict, ambivalent people swing more extremely to one side or the other.
Participants interacted with a “control” confederate or a confederate who
was facially stigmatized (a port wine stain birthmark). Interaction lasted
for ~3 minutes and included some basic “get to know you” questions. Afterwards, participants’ physiological reactions were tracked to assess the degree of a “threat response”.
Participants low in cardiovascular threat showed no differences in positive treatment to confederates with versus without a birthmark.
However, participants high in cardiovascular threat showed greater behavioral positivity
towards the confederate with a birthmark.
7- Summary so far
Old-fashioned: “I hate minorities; they are biologically inferior; discrimination is justifiable.”
Modern-symbolic: “I don’t like minorities; they are morally
inferior; discrimination no longer exists.”
Aversive: “I don’t like discrimination, but don’t like minorities either; they make me anxious.”
Ambivalent: “I don’t like discrimination; I have positive and negative beliefs about minorities.”
8- Implicit Prejudice
Explicit prejudice: deliberate and slow and/or controllable
Implicit prejudice: automatic and fast and/or difficult to control
3% pro-black, 58% neutral, 39% pro-white
IAT taken by white people: 11% pro-black, 16% neutral, 73% pro-white
IAT taken by black people: 41% pro-black, 25% neutral, 34% pro-white
IAT= NOT DIAGNOSTIC
* A noisy measure of mental content that fluctuates over time
o Think: blood pressure
* Doesn’t predict an individual person’s future behavior well from a single IAT
Implicit Gender-Science Stereotypes
implicit “male=science, female=arts”
Male: 11% not, some neutral, 70% bias
Female: 10% not, some neutral, 71% bias!
(see other graph)
Roots of Implicit Prejudice
Where do implicit prejudices & stereotypes come from?
-Our understanding of social hierarchy:
What groups in society are higher status
-Our personal identity:
Who we are, what our experiences have been
(see perception of groups in hierarchy)
9- Implicit Prejudice: Implicit Biases and Behaviour
Meta-analyses show that IAT scores show a (small but consistent) ability to predict a wide variety of real-world behaviors
White participants with higher implicit racial bias tended to have more
awkward + stilted conversations with the Black experimenter
Implicit Bias and Employment
Sample = 192 hiring managers in 12 occupation categories who handled job postings in Sweden
Responded to 1,552 job ads of the Swedish Employment
Agency
Manipulated name to be
typical Swedish or Arab Muslim
Measured manager’s implicit & explicit stereotypes
Results:
* Weak correlation between explicit stereotypes and callbacks
* Stronger negative correlation between implicit stereotypes and callback rate for Arab/Muslim applicants
Gender gap in 8th grade
science
r = .39
10- When do implicit biases influence behavior?
Motivation & Ability
1. When you don’t think things through
* Stressed
* Tired
* Drunk
* Lazy
* On a deadline
Ex: average hand washing rate on shift goes down the more hours have passed during the shift
Ex: Time Pressure and Fatigue Increases ‘Shooter Bias’
Discretion
2a. When criteria for making a decision are unclear
2b. When information is ambiguous or incomplete
Male police= Streetwise Female police= Formally
Educated
They chose the male police.
“Why? Because being streetwise is more important.”
Male police= Formally educated
Female police= Streetwise
They chose the male police
“Why? Because being educated is more important.”
How to solve?
Write out the values that are important for being a police chief in advance
Pick the police chief consistent with those values, regardless of gender
Organizations & Institutions
3. When policies & systems allow for it
Ex: the percentage of female musicians in orchestras increased a lot when blind auditions started
