ch5: perceiving groups Flashcards
discrimination
any positive or negative behaviour directed toward a social group and its members
o Discrimination against one group inevitably amounts to discrimination in favour of others
o Economic discrimination victimizes women and people of colour when they try to purchase a used car, rent or purchase a home, or negotiate a salary
prejudice
a positive or negative evaluation of a social group and its members
o Its roots can be traced to the kids of motivational and cognitive processes that guide our every interaction with groups
types of prejudice
o Hot – virulent and emotional hatred for other groups
o Cold – calm assumption that certain groups just “don’t have what it takes” and should be excluded from desirable positions
stereotype
– a mental representation or impression of a social group that people form by associating particular characteristics and emotions with the group
o Basis for prejudice and discrimination
o Can be changed but not easily
social group
two or more people who share some common characteristic that is socially meaningful for themselves or for others
socially meaningful
individuals who believe they share socially significant attributes
categorization
the process by which we group things or people, an intrinsic part of the way we think about and try to understand the nonsocial world
social categorization
the process of identifying individual people as members of a social group because they share certain features that are typical of the group
why does social categorization occur
o It’s a useful tool – we can master our environment and function effectively in society
Ex: we categorize a man as a librarian – allows us to ignore unimportant information, focus on what’s relevant
o It allows us to feel connected to others – dividing the world into those who’re like you and those who aren’t
effects of categorization
o Makes all members of a group seem more similar to each other when they would be if they were not categorized – overestimate group members’ uniformity and overlook their diversity
o Exaggerates differences between groups – more aware of the characteristics that make one group different from another rather than of those that make them similar
1922 definition of stereotype
- Walter Lippman – 1922 introduced the current meaning of stereotypes as “pictures in the head” – simplified mental images of what groups look like and what they do
what do stereotypes incorporate
physical appearance, typical interests and goals, preferred activities and occupations, and similar characteristics + personality traits the group members are believed to share
o Also – positive or negative emotions that group members arouse in others – feelings of digust and repulsion, fear and apprehension or respect and admiration
problems of “positive” stereotypes
o The implication that everyone in the group is the same, and ignores people’s individuality
o Stereotypes may set unreasonably high standards – an Asian student who gets average grades may be regarded as especially dull
o A positive stereotype might be part of an overall pattern of paternalistic attitudes towards a social group that actually reinforces the group’s weakness and dependence
Benevolent sexism – women are pure, moral, delicate, in need of protection – positive connotation, but these beliefs are held by people who also hold more hostile beliefs about women
benevolent sexism research
19 nations – nations whose citizens have higher average scores on benevolent sexism also tend to have more gender inequality (lower representation of women in powerful and well-paying jobs)
are some stereotypes accurate
- Some stereotypes have some accuracy in the sense that they reflect small differences between groups or small differences that group members themselves feel to be true about their groups
o Ex: Black and White college student’s stereotypes of their respective groups on attributes such as “dance well”, “have high SAT math scores” and “self-centred” – differ in the same direction as the group member’s self-descriptions
o People often join together in clubs, political parties, professional associations, and other groups because they share attitudes, feelings and beliefs – this creates real group differences
Californians and Armenians
Californians’ stereotypes of Armenian Americans
o Compared official statistics on this minority with popular stereotypes about their behaviour
o Only about 1.5% had arrest records compared to 6% of the rest of the population
o Only every 1/500 Armenians had applied for welfare, 5 times more Californians
gender leadership research
belief that men are more effective leaders, but research found no sex differences or a small preference towards women
when was the firs systematic approach to explain stereotypes
triggered by genocidal policies of Nazis – called for equally extreme explanations and led to the idea that hatred of other groups is abnormal
authoritarian personalities theory
- Freud, Theodor Adorno – authoritarian personalities – people who’re prejudiced because they cannot accept their own hostility, believe uncritically in the legitimacy of authority and see their own inadequacies in others
o Attempt to protect themselves from an awareness of their painful inner conflicts and self-doubts
o Doesn’t stand up against the accumulated evidence
o Some individuals’ extreme prejudice may in fact flow from deep inner conflict, but stereotypes seem to be the rule and not the exception – grow out of the same social and cognitive processes that affect all aspects of our lives
rude confederate experiment
white students observed a confederate who behaved in a rude and hostile manner towards the experimenter: white, black or no rudeness
o Conduct a mock interview of another student for a position of residence hall counsellor – given a list of questions, told it could last up to 20 minutes
o Black – ended the interview much sooner (8 minutes) vs the two other conditions (10 minutes)
can bringing to mind positively evaluated group members make feelings about a group more positive?
yes, When people have recently thought about well-liked black people their opinions became more positive
what feelings can influence stereotypes
- Feelings of uncertainty and concern when people interact with novel groups
dutch adults experiment
Dutch adults described these feelings when asked about their everyday interactions with Surinamese, Turks and Moroccans – anxiety and irritation (especially Moroccans and Turks)
us student interactions with people of different race
US college student reported irritation, dislike, apprehension and anxiety when talking to a person of different race
o The presence of a gay man can make straight men nervous and uncomfortable
why are interactions across groups full of anxiety
o Lack of knowledge of or familiarity with members of other groups – the less Asian Americans and White ppl in Hawaii knew about each others’ groups, the more anxious and irritated they felt when they met
Latinos and White ppl in New Mexico – awkwardness, frustration and impatience
o Members of different groups may be pursuing different sorts of goals during cross-group interactions
When white and black ppl interact, black ppl are hoping to be respected and seen as competent and white ppl want to be seen as unbiased and liked – the stronger they feel about this, the more they feel anger and irritations
classical conditioning
a form of learning in which a previously neutral stimulus, when paired with a stimulus that elicits an emotion or other response, itself comes to generate that response
o After several uncomfortable interactions, the emotions arising from the encounter become associated with the group
the desire to appear non-prejudiced may become salient creating stress
o Ex: white US students interacted with a white or black research assistant
o Those highly motivated to appear non-prejudiced for external reasons showed greater cortisol activity when talking to the black assistant
o Ex: white us students provided saliva samples early in the fall term and then in the spring term + questionnaires regarding that day’s social interactions – externally motivated individuals who had more interracial contact over the academic year showed cortisol patterns that diverged from what’s typical and healthy
men vs women crimes experiment
read a list of the actions of 50 men, 10 of whom had committed nonviolent crimes, others read the same list but 10 men committed violent crimes
o Exposed to the violent crimes – estimated that more group members had committed crimes
illusory correlation
a perceived association between two characteristics that aren’t actually related
A vs B list
series of sentences describing a desirable or undesirable behaviours performed by a member of group A or group B, ratio being 2:1
o Disliked group B more – less information about them in general
explanation for AB list
- When one of the behaviour descriptions involves two distinctive characteristics occurring together it really stands out – disproportionate impact when people combine what they know into judgements about the groups
examples of how stereotypes come to be
o In the middle ages, Jewish people were allowed to handle money and not a lot else – now are seen as sharp as frugal – same for Chinese in Indonesia, Muslim merchants in Africa, Korean merchants in black neighbourhoods in the US
o Socioeconomically disadvantaged groups are seen as ignorant, lazy, dirty, loud, carefree – poor Irish immigrants, poor Italian immigrants and now Latino immigrants
o Stereotypes adapt rapidly as a group’s role change – as peace is replaced by war stereotypes about Germans change
how do males’ and females’ differing social roles contribute to gender stereotypes
o Men are employed outside the home (requires task-orientation, assertiveness, rationality), while women are more likely to be responsible for home and family (requires interpersonal-orientation, sensitivity, warmth)
Men and women act in ways that are appropriate for their roles
Corinthians vs ackmians
Orienthians (childcare) vs Ackmians (employed)
o All child care workers described as nurturant, affectionate, and gentle while employees are competitive and ambitious
o Assumed that all Orienthians even those who’re employed are nurturant and the other way around – seen as having psychological characteristics appropriate for the group’s typical role
representation in media
- Tv: crimes committed by black people are overrepresented + crimes that white ppl committed were underrepresented
o Video games: systematic overrepresentation of whites, men, adults and underrepresentation of women, Hispanic ppl, native Americans, children, elderly - Tv ads: Asian Americans appear frequently (8% vs 3.6 of the US population) but are cast in stereotypic ways in business settings
o Latinos are 12.5% of the us population but only about 4% characters were Latino – often portrayed as unintelligent and inarticulate - 2.9% of the characters are gay or bi, but 3.5% of the adult US population identified as gay or bi while 8% reported participating in sexual behaviour with a person of the same sex
- In the UK: 4.5% of 126 hours analysed showed gay, lesbian or bi characters – positively and realistically less than 15% of their time
- Media messages about women – contradictory (strong female characters but sexist ads)
ads about women
o Male voice-overs dominate when the voice of an “expert” is required + men sell lawnmowers and computers while women sell shoes and toilet bowl cleaners
o 70% of internet ads portrayed women in stereotypic ways as sex objects or housewives
stereotypes in cartoons
female characters were more likely to show fear, be supportive, behave more romantically and politely
college women saw ads
either an ad depicting women as alluring and subordinate or saw men in the same role
o Those who watched the traditional ad – lower self-confidence, less independence, fewer career aspirations
in which contexts do we learn about stereotypes
social, economic, cultural, religious and political
by what age and how do children pick up stereotypes
by 5, by observing and imitating their elders – listening to disparaging group labels or derogatory jokes or by following family rules against playing with those other children
social norms
generally accepted ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving that people in a group agree on and endorse as right and proper
rated groups by hatred experiment
- Ex: students rated groups in terms of how socially acceptable it would be to hold negative views of the group + rated their own views of the same groups – almost perfectly related
o People’s views are strongly driven by their perceptions of social norms
when are impressions more stereotypic
- When people form impressions of a group by being told about them second-hand
watched a woman receive electric shocks
most concluded that she must have done something wrong (such as rape victims, victims of spouse abuse, people with AIDS)
o It is a comforting belief that bad things happen only to bad people – AIDS as punishment for taking drugs, homeless people are lazy
personal interactions
attentions, illusory correlation, interactions shaped by social roles, emotion in interactions
social learning
learning from others, learning from the media
male voice computer experiment
when computers are programmed to talk in a male voice people take the evaluations more seriously than when it’s a female voice
o On matters related to relationships – listen to the female voice, even when told that a man programmed it
when are differences particularly salient
when only a single membr of the group is present – draw much more attention which leads to particularly stereotypic perceptions
o A solo male seems more masculine and a solo female more feminine
o Token integration – actually leads to more stereotype thinking
black and white stereotypes priming experiment
saw XX on a screen followed by a word or nonsense letter string, some words were associated with black or white stereotypes – had to press a key to indicate if the letters spelled an English word
o On some trials the words black or white also flashed on the screen before the XX – couldn’t be registered
o Responded to black stereotypic words more quickly if primed with “black” – also true for white
new technique to measure facial expressions that aren’t visible
- Facial electromyography (EMG) measures electrical activity in the facial muscles
downsides of EMG
o Requires specialized equipment, a carefully controlled environment, extremely cooperative research participants
primed with black or white faces experiment
priming technique in which participants saw images of black or white faces on a computer screen, followed by words that were clearly positive or negative but unrelated to racial stereotypes
o Responses to positive words faster after a white person’s face
how were stereotypes studied in the past
researchers could just ask about stereotypes and would receive honest answers – social norms were much more accepting of group-based biases
implicit measures
alternatives to self-report measures such as priming or the IAT, based on difficult-to-control aspects of people’s performance such as their response speed or accuracy
do implicit and explicit measures of stereotypes measure the same thing
may simply measure different aspects of an individual’s overall views of a social group
o Implicit measures of prejudice are related to white students’ subtle nonverbal friendliness toward a black confederate – relatively spontaneous + students’ levels of overtly reported racial prejudice was related to the positively of the verbal statement toward the black confederate (more deliberate)
what does implicit racial prejudice influence
how quickly a person perceives anger on black male faces, explicit racial prejudice didn’t have effects on this outcome
what can stereotypes cause people to do
focus on one group membership and ignore other competing group memberships – being treated as an anonymous, interchangeable group member
gun/tool experiment
black and white faces shown as primers followed by a photo or a handgun or a tool, had to press a button if it was a tool or a gun
o Identified gun factors and misidentified tools as guns more often when primed with a black face
shoot experiment
students were instructed to press a button to “shoot” if a person on the screen had a gun
o Quicker to pull the trigger if the person was black
o When time pressure: black people were shot 16% of the time (white 12%), failed to shoot an armed black person 7% and white 12% of the time
o Police officers – noticeably less racial bias in the decision to shoot black people, but still were faster to shoot an armed black target and to refrain from shooting an unarmed white – doesn’t impact their actual shoot/don’t shoot decisions
when are people more likely to rely on stereotypes
when they must make quick decisions about others + when the information is more complex
night owl experiment
questionnaire if you’re a morning person or night owl and then assigned randomly to experimental sessions at 9am, 3pm or 8pm
o Participants were asked about if Garcia or Garner was guilty – more prone to rely on stereotypes when it’s their worst time
how does familiarity impact stereotype usage
sense that they don’t have to think carefully about previously encountered material (presumably already did that in the past) – information processed superficially
familiarity experiment
students read about several pictured targets described with various occupational labels (some countered a prevailing stereotype about those types of workers), photos of some targets shown to people before
o For targets seen only once – pay attention to these counter-stereotypic descriptions and rated them low on stereotypic attributes
o Targets seen before – much higher stereotype ratings
how do emotions increase our reliance on stereotypes
- Emotions interrupt our careful processing and short-circuit attention
anger manipulation experiment
students playing mock jurors were asked to decide the guilt or innocence of a defendant whom some believed to be Latino
o Those made angry by the manipulation more likely to deliver a guilty verdict against the Latino than against the other defendant, those who weren’t angered – the same verdict
do powerful people stereotype less or more
- Some work shows that those with power stereotype more than less powerful ones, but some works shows the opposite
o Powerful people are highly attuned to their goals and will pay the most attention to information that helps them pursue those goals
intersections of race and gender
o Stereotypes of ethnic groups are very similar to those of men of that groups, stereotypes of women across ethnicities are more similar to each other
o When people think of a group – think about men
o Black stereotypes held by US students overlap more with the male stereotype, Asian stereotype overlaps more with the female stereotype
o Heterosexual white men generally preferred Asian women and heterosexual white women preferred black men, black ppl more likely than Asians to be selected for leadership positions and are more heavily represented in masculine college sports
skinhead experiment
students shown a photo of skinhead and were asked to write a paragraph about their life, half were told to avoid using stereotypes other half wasn’t
o Those who were told to avoid stereotypes did so, but sat further away from skinheads’ clothes
who can suppress stereotypic activation
o People who’re high on intrinsic motivation exhibit better stereotype control even in the gun-vs-tool task
Higher levels of control monitoring (EEG) – apt to notice when competing responses are activated so that behaviour control is necessary – especially when a black face was the prime and a tool as the target
o High internal-low external motivated respondents – less activation of the stereotypic response in the first place
bad essay experiment
white college students read essays that were intentionally filled with major stylistic flaws – more positive feedback when told that the writer was black (withholding honest feedback on major flaws derivates the students of an opportunity to learn and improve + intentionally correcting judgements takes time and mental resources)
two experiments about counter stereotypic information
- Ex: asked people to self-generate counterstereotypic mental images – imagine a strong woman
o Reduced the tendency to stereotype women as weak according to an implicit measure - Ex: people pressed “yes” to counterstereotypical pairings of names and traits
o Reduced implicit stereotypes
why do people believe stereotypes are accurate
o When we learn information that appears consistent with our expectations – will leap to the conclusion that those expectations were correct (and stereotypes can bias information processing)
o Confidence flows from consensus – stereotypes are socially shared and boost our confidence since people agree with us
stereotypic expectations
we tend to notice and remember what we expect to see (when offered stereotypical and not information, think and read more about the stereotypes)
o More likely to ask for stereotype-consistent information
how do stereotypes affect what we remember
special processing of unexpected behaviour less likely to occur with groups
stick figures experiment
- Ex: showed schoolchildren stick-figure drawings of children who were identified as black or white, described each stick-child’s behaviours
o When the person poking the other in the story was black, he was seen as more mean and threatening
o The same behaviour interpreted differently depending on who the actor was
shifting our standards for judgements experiment
o Ex: students gave an essay on a feminine topic a better letter grade when they believed it was written by a woman, but their ratings on a subjective scale showed no differences by the author’s gender
“good” but for a man
gpa shifting experiment
- Ex: student communicators reviewed the academic transcript of an alleged male students with average credentials who was black or white + an impression “this person’s GPA is strong”
o Three groups: one read the impressions and ratings of the target, learned the target’s race and estimated the GPA
One made the same estimate but without knowing the target’s race
Final group – no info, just guessed the GPA of black and white male students
o Communicators described a more positive impression of the black student – an average GPA perceived as very good for a black person
o But people estimated GPA as lower when told he’s black
what happens when teachers’ expectations are high
tend to treat children with more warmth, teach them more material, give them more chances to contribute to the discussions and answer questions in class – differences in student achievement
o Expectations for black children – consistently lower
self-fulfilling prophecies in the workplace
o Interviews who believed who believe that a candidate isn’t suitable for a position are likely to probe for negative information wheras those with positive preconceptions tend to spend time gaining positive information
o When interviewing black people – briefer interviews, set further away – applicants less confident and effective
contact hypothesis
the theory that certain types of direct contact between members of hostile groups will reduce stereotyping and prejudice
conversion
changing a stereotype
special circumstances barrier
when people notice information that fails to fit their expectations, they just explain it away
subtype
– a narrower and more specific social group, such as a housewife or a feminist, that is included within a broad social group, like women
o Protect stereotyped beliefs from change – place a group of people who’re exceptions ot the rule in a new category so that the rule stays inviolate
students read statements from mental hospital patients
- Ex: students read statements by patients from a mental hospital that revealed them as either severely disturbed or only mildly disturbed + read a statement by other patients who showed a moderate level of pathology
o Those who expected severe disturbances rated them as only mildly ill, those who expected mild thought they were extremely ill
what kind of situations should contact expose people to
to information that cannot be explained away, subtyped or constrasted
a behavior needs to be repeated experiment
- Ex: gave people information about many behaviours performed by members of a group, some learned that just a few performed stereotype-inconsistent behaviours and the others were in line with the stereotypes
o Didn’t change their stereotype, only did when learned that a lot of people perform such behaviours
contrast effect
if individual stereotype violators provide strong and consistent reminders of their group membership
rival college experiment
rival college people who were positive and friendly – positive opinion if the person acted in a typical way of their school
contrast effect stereotype Latinos
- Ex: white students interacted with a male Latino student and learned info about him that confirmed or disconfirmed the stereotype
o Stereotypical judgements of Latinos decreased only for those who interacted with the stereotype disconfirming Latino and perceived him as typical of the group
can one positive encounter reduce prejudicial evaluations
yes, stereotype judgements of Latinos decreased only when the Latino disconfirmed the stereotype and was perceived as very typical of his group, but did improve white students’ evaluations of Latinos – warm and positive feelings about the group even if it doesn’t change stereotypes
fake conflict between groups experiment
- Ex: creating a conflict between two experimentally created groups and then trying friendly contact as a way of reducing it
o Then had to participate in a dyadic get-to-know-you task that established feelings of personal closeness + rated the other group
o Members who built close relationships rated the group more positively + the other group members did so as well (knowing that someone else from your group has a member of the other group as a friend is enough to reduce negative feelings)
experiment - cooperative task
- Ex: 1 hour lab session in which participants interacted with a confederate posing as a former mental patient
o Cooperative – students came to like their partners – improved attitudes towards that group
