Chapter 13

Question 1

good graph on pg 607

Answer 1

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Question 2

Gordon Allport (1954) noted that although bringing members of different groups into contact did not always improve intergroup attitudes, many times it did. Based on a review of the research conducted up to that time, he proposed four conditions that had to be met if intergroup contact were to lead to improved intergroup attitudes:

Answer 2

Members of each group must have equal status in the situation.
Members of the different groups must work cooperatively to achieve common goals.
The situation must allow participants to get to know each other as individuals (referred to as acquaintance potential).
The intergroup effort must have the support of authorities, law, or custom (referred to as institutional support).

Question 3

Extended contact. Stephen Wright and colleagues (1997) proposed that having an ingroup friend who has one or more outgroup friends is associated with lower prejudice. This extended contact effect operates through several interrelated processes

Answer 3

Seeing an ingroup friend interact with outgroup members reassures us that it’s possible to have a close, harmonious relationship with an outgroup member. It also indicates that such relationships are permissible and do not violate social norms.
Witnessing another’s intergroup friendship signals that members of the outgroup are open to having a relationship with us, which reduces our fear of rejection by the outgroup.
Disliking someone our ingroup friend likes creates cognitive dissonance, but this imbalance can be alleviated by changing our attitude toward the outgroup.
An ingroup friend can provide information about the outgroup that disconfirms negative stereotypes we might have. This information can be especially powerful because it comes from a trustworthy source: one’s own friend.

Question 4

dual identity

Answer 4

A potential solution to these problems is to create a dual identity rather than a single common identity (Dovidio et al., 2009). People with dual identities retain and take pride in their valued group identities while simultaneously thinking of the higher-order identity they have in common with other groups.

Question 5

Personalization. In the first stage, personalization,

Answer 5

people come to see members of the outgroup as individuals rather than as undifferentiated members of social categories. Viewing people in personal terms rather than as members of groups reduces stereotyping, leads people to see members of the outgroup as similar to themselves, and increases empathy for outgroup members

Question 6

But that answer raises another question: What does nonprejudice mean in practice? Researchers have investigated three main viewpoints, often called diversity ideologies,

Answer 6

that address how to achieve nonprejudice: colorblindness, assimilationism, and multiculturalism.

Question 7

colorblind perspective

Answer 7

The colorblind perspective holds that social group membership should have no influence on how people treat one another and so people should ignore group membership when interacting with or making decisions about others (Guimond et al., 2014).

Question 8

Color evasion

Answer 8

reflects the belief that one should avoid recognizing, discussing, or otherwise engaging with issues related to race or ethnicity.

Question 9

Equality orientation

Answer 9

reflects the belief that one should view outgroup members as individuals and focus on intergroup similarities rather than differences.

Question 10

chart on color evasion and equality orientation pg 632

Answer 10

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Question 11

The assimilationist perspective on intergroup relations holds that

Answer 11

minority groups should give up their own cultures and replace them with the language, values, behavior patterns, and other aspects of the majority culture

Question 12

diversit initiaitves

Answer 12

pg 638

Question 13

diversity training

Answer 13

A major way that diversity initiatives are implemented is through diversity training, defined as a broad set of programs aimed at facilitating positive intergroup interactions

Question 14

Self-regulation is an approach to reducing prejudice and discrimination in which people learn to recognize situational cues that alert them to the possibility that they will act in a prejudiced manner in that situation. Having been alerted by these cues, people replace

Answer 14

the prejudiced response with an appropriate nonprejudiced response. People learn the cues through experience: Having acted in a prejudiced manner, they regret doing so, think about their behavior and what caused it, and come up with ways of responding differently in the future. Over time, the process of substituting nonprejudiced responses for prejudiced responses can become automatic and the person does it without thinking about it.

Question 15

Perspective taking, or imagining the world from another person’s point of view, can take many forms, including from writing about a day in another person’s life, listening to media or reading about outgroup members, or having a discussion with another person about issues that affect their social group. Putting oneself in another’s shoes has many positive effects, including

Answer 15

reduced stereotyping and prejudice and more positive intergroup interactions. People who consider another’s viewpoint also have more positive interactions with them. One reason perspective taking is effective is that it encourages people to see similarities between themselves and outgroup members.

Question 16

Perspective taking has its limits, however. For example, although it results in reduced prejudice toward individual social group members and to their social group more broadly, it does not appear to

Answer 16

reduce prejudice toward people from other outgroups. Asking someone to take the perspective of a person from a disliked group can backfire, resulting in increased prejudice. Finally, perspective taking may be more likely to reduce prejudice for people from Western rather than Eastern cultures.

Question 17

The contact hypothesis, or intergroup contact theory, holds that, given the proper circumstances, contact between members of different groups can lead to a reduction of prejudice. Four conditions make it more likely that intergroup contact will reduce prejudice: (1)

Answer 17

when members of each group have equal status in the situation; (2) when the group members work cooperatively to achieve common goals; (3) when the situation allows participants to get to know each other as individuals (acquaintance potential); and (4) when the intergroup effort has the support of authorities, law, or customs (institutional support).

Question 18

When properly implemented, intergroup contact is reasonably successful at reducing prejudice, although it is more successful in some situations and for some groups than others. The extent to which prejudice is reduced depends on

Answer 18

such factors as preexisting intergroup attitudes (people very high and very low on prejudice are likely to show the least change) and intergroup anxiety, which might be exacerbated by intergroup contact.

Question 19

To be effective, contact need not be between an ingroup and an outgroup member. If an ingroup friend of ours has contact with an outgroup member,

Answer 19

that extended contact can reduce our own biases. Simply imagining contact with an outgroup member can also reduce prejudice.

Question 20

The contact process has three stages. In the personalization stage, intergroup contact reduces prejudice by leading people to see the members of the outgroup as individuals rather than as members of social categories; viewing people in personal terms leads to liking for them and so to less prejudice. In the second stage, people come to see outgroup members as typical of their group, which facilitates generalizing attitudes from individuals to their group. However,

Answer 20

for group members to be seen as typical, group membership must remain salient. In the third stage, ingroup and outgroup members develop a common ingroup identity; prejudice is reduced because people see themselves as members of a single unified group rather than as two competing groups.

Question 21

Formation of a common identity will be hindered if members of the majority group assume that members of other groups must give up their current identities and take on the majority group identity. This assumption can lead

Answer 21

minority group members to resist forming a common identity. This problem can be alleviated by encouraging the development of dual identities in which group members retain their original social identities while taking on a higher-order common identity.

Question 22

The stages of the contact process are not always distinct from one another and the processes they represent can overlap. In addition,

Answer 22

the order in which the processes described in the combined model take place depends on the nature of the contact situation.

Question 23

There is some controversy about what kind of attitude should replace prejudice. The colorblind perspective holds that people should ignore racial and ethnic group membership in their dealings with other people; instead, people should focus on the commonalities that exist across groups and on group members as individuals. Colorblindness has two components—color evasion (the belief that people should avoid engaging with issues related to race or ethnicity) and equality orientation (the belief that people should

Answer 23

view outgroup members as individuals and focus on group similarities rather than differences). Colorblindness may be impossible to achieve because people cannot easily overlook basic social categories. The color evasion component also ignores the effects that prejudice and discrimination have on people’s lives.

Question 24

The assimilationist perspective holds that minority and immigrant groups should give up their own cultures and replace them with the majority culture. Advocates of assimilation believe that

Answer 24

if everyone shares the same culture, then intergroup differences are not possible because there is only one group. However, the assimilationist perspective only values the majority culture, leading to prejudice against people from minority cultures.

Question 25

The multicultural perspective emphasizes the importance of ethnic group membership. Rather than trying to do away with ethnic identities, multiculturalism aims to preserve them while encouraging ethnic groups to interact and coexist harmoniously. Although the multicultural perspective is associated with low prejudice, it is also associated with stronger perceptions of group differences and greater stereotyping. Multiculturalism may hold the most promise for prejudice reduction because

Answer 25

it incorporates aspects of intergroup contact theory that are associated with reduced prejudice. It also emphasizes the value and contributions of both majority and minority groups to the common culture, allowing people to feel more secure in their group identities and therefore feel less animosity toward other groups.

Question 26

The goals of diversity initiatives include increasing opportunities for the advancement of underrepresented group members, increasing organizational leaders’ responsibility for diversity, and improving the experiences of people who come from underrepresented groups. Although most organizations have diversity initiatives, they are not .

Answer 26

always effective. Issues to consider include whether participation should be mandatory or voluntary, whether organizational leaders recognize their employees’ success in meeting diversity-related goals, and whether the initiatives are integrated into the organization or stand alone. The college environment offers a unique opportunity to provide students with beneficial diversity-related experiences

Question 27

Affirmative action programs are designed to enhance the diversity of an organization’s workforce and to ensure that

Answer 27

members of all groups are treated fairly in terms of promotions and other personnel decisions. However, people differ in how they define affirmative action and they often misunderstand the goals of affirmative action programs. These misunderstandings can explain why some people are opposed to affirmative action.

Question 28

Diversity initiatives that signal that members of underrepresented groups cannot succeed without help can undermine their self-confidence and reduce their chances of success. If majority group members believe that diversity initiatives unfairly penalize them, they will be resistant to the programs, which can result in increased, rather than reduced, prejudice and discrimination. Programs that

Answer 28

emphasize individual merit while also acknowledging the ways in which organizational structures and history have disadvantaged some groups offer promise for affecting these unintended consequences of diversity initiatives.

Question 29

The chapter closed with a list of things that you can do to help reduce prejudice. You can influence your own attitudes by reflecting on your thoughts and behaviors, putting intergroup contact theory into practice, and learning more about other groups. You can influence other people’s attitudes by helping them

Answer 29

become aware of their attitudes and behavior, encouraging intergroup contact, and helping them become better informed. These tasks are not easy, but they hold the promise of a better world.