Chapter 13 - Prejudice

Question 1

What is prejudice?

Answer 1

A hostile or negative attitude towards people in a distinguishable group based solely on their membership in that group; it contains cognitive, emotional and behavioural components.

Question 2

What are the cognitive element and behavioural element that arises out of prejudice?

Answer 2

cog - stereotyping

beh - discrimination

Question 3

Why do we stereotype?

Answer 3

The human mind cannot avoid creating categories, putting some people into one group based on certain characteristics and others into another group based on their different characteristics.
Researchers in the field of social neuroscience find that creating categories is an adaptive mechanism, one built into the human brain; humans begin creating categories almost as soon as they are born.
Newborns have no preferences for faces of one race or another, but if they live in a “monoracial” world, they will show a preference for faces of their own race by only 3 months of age.
If they repeatedly see faces of 2 or more races, however, they show no preference.
This research illustrates a major theme of social-psychological approaches to prejudice: We are born with the ability to notice different categories, but experiences shapes that ability, right from the get-go.
We make sense of our social world by grouping people according to characteristics that are important, most notably gender, age and race.
We rely on our perceptions of what people with similar characteristics have been liked in the past to help us determine how to react to someone else with the same ones.

Question 4

What is a stereotype?

Answer 4

A generalization about a group of people in which certain traits are assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual variation among the members.

Question 5

Describe the law of least effort in stereotyping.

Answer 5

Because the world is too complicated for us to have a highly differentiated attitude about everything, we maximize our cognitive time and energy by developing elegant, accurate attitudes about some topics while relying on simple, sketchy beliefs for others.
There is a neurological basis for the cognitive efficiency of stereotyping; given our limited capacity for processing information, it allows human beings to behave like “cognitive misers” - to take short cuts and adopt certain rules of thumb in our attempts to understand other people.
Information consistent with our notions about a group will be given more attention, will be rehearsed (or recalled) more often, and will therefore be remembered better than information that contradicts these notions.
Thus, whenever a member of a group behaves as we expect, this behaviour confirms and even strengthens our stereotype; we are not inclined to seek, notice or remember the exceptions.

Question 6

Why are positive stereotypes not good?

Answer 6

Sets up expectations for those who do not fit the stereotype or who do not wish to be part of it, can potentially ignore individual differences.

Question 7

distinguish between hostile and benevolent sexism and how they perpetuate sexism against women .

Answer 7

hostile: Holds negative stereotypes of women: Women are inferior to men because they are inherently less intelligent, less competent, less brave, less capable of math and science, and so on.
benevolent: Hold positive stereotypes of women: Women are kinder than men, more empathic, more nurturing and so on.

Both are demeaning to women because:
Both assume that women are the weaker sex
Benevolent sexists tend to idealize women romantically, may admire them as wonderful cooks and mothers, and want to protect them when they do not need protection.
This type of sexism is affectionate, but patronizing, conveying that message that women are so wonderful, good, kind and moral that they should stay at home, away from the aggressiveness and corruption (and power and income) of public life.
Because benevolent sexism lacks a tone of hostility towards women, it doesn’t seem like a prejudice to many people.

Question 8

What makes stereotypes so difficult to counter? how so?

Answer 8

emotional component - feelings

They become immune to rational, logical arguments, and these are not effective in countering their emotions.
They counter these rational and logical arguments not by challenging the data presented, but by distorting facts so that it supports their attitude, or simply ignore the facts and initiate a new line of attack.

Question 9

When we know we are wrong, do we eradicate this stereotype?

Answer 9

no.

The emotional component of prejudice, its deep-seated negative feelings, may persist even when a person knows consciously that the prejudice is wrong. The human mind does not tally events objectively; our emotions, needs and self-concepts get in the way.
Explains why a prejudice (a blend of a stereotype and emotional “heat” towards a particular group) is so hard to change. We see only the information that confirms how right we are about “those people” and dismiss information that might require us to change our minds

Question 10

What should be done to see if people are prejudiced?

Answer 10

Better to use more sophisticated measure to see whether implicit, unconscious negative feelings between groups have decreased along side with conscious, explicit negative feelings towards groups.
Maintain that implicit attitudes, being automatic and unintentional, reflect lingering negative feelings that keep prejudice alive below the surface.

Question 11

What is discrimination?

Answer 11

Unjustified negative or harmful action towards a member of a group solely because of his/her membership in that group.

Question 12

Provide evidence of discrimination

Answer 12

1) seattle drug arrest
2) microaggression: “slights, indignities, and put-downs” that many minorities routinely encounter.
- telling an Asian who has been living in USA all his life: oh your english is surprisingly good!

lol fuck u i cannot be good in english meh smh some of u dumb blondes cant differentiate between you’re and YOUR

it might just be hey YOUR so good at english!!

Question 13

Illustrate how social distance plays a part in employment interviews.

Answer 13

Employers spend less time interviewing people they are less comfortable with, making less eye contact and being less verbally positive.
Reflects a kind of discrimination measured by social distance, a person’s reluctance to get “too close” to another group

Question 14

List some stereotypes commonly held by people about the jobs females and males hold, and how they are harmful.

Answer 14

Female jobs require kindness and nurturance (eg childcare teacher)
Male jobs require strength and smarts (eg engineer)

OR

Male: STEM, female: arts

These stereotypes, in turn, stifle many people’s aspirations to enter a non-traditional career and also create prejudices in employers that motivate them to discriminate (eg male nurse, female engineer)

Question 15

While there are now more females in fields considered non-traditional for them, why are there still females who quit?

Answer 15

discriminatory practices still continue. smh men are TRASH.
1) Old prejudice that women are not naturally suited to STEM fields is slowly fading, but this is not the case everywhere and discriminatory practices still continue.

2) A study of nearly 2500 women and men in STEM, all of whom have the same levels of aptitude and skill, explored the reasons that many of these women eventually left their jobs, with some abandoning science together.
3) The women who left reported feeling isolated (many said they were the only woman in their work group), and ⅔ said they have been sexually harassed

4) Other reasons included being paid less than men for the same work and having working conditions that did not allow them to handle their family obligations.
Mothers are still more likely than fathers to reduce their work hours, modify their work schedules, and feel distracted on the job because of child care concerns.

TLDR: discriminatory practices or unsupportive work conditions.

• paid less than males for the same work
• sexually harassed at work (pls chop ur dick off thank u)
• cannot take leave off work to attend to children.
• are the only female at work.

Question 16

Illustrate the shooter bias with empirical evidence.

Answer 16

IV1: Black x white person holding item
IV2: Dangerous item (gun) vs non dangerous (phone)

Situations: naturalistic situations (eg supermarket carpark –> not a dangerous situation)
Participants: White people

When the person is white, equally accurate in both situations ie same number of errors
When person is black: shooter bias
- relatively fewer errors when the person is indeed holding a gun
- but also means that you are more likely to shoot an innocent person.

Question 17

How can implicit prejudice manifest themselves in deciding who to employ?

Answer 17

You either decide based on resume and Facebook account.

Main point is you discriminate based on gender (no prizes for guessing which gender ppl dont want to hire!!! ) and religion (Christian > Muslim). No discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Eg 1: Sending out identical resumes to potential employers, varying only a name that indicates gender, race, or mentions religious affiliation or sexual orientation or obesity.
Employer shows bias in responding if the applicant is female (what’s wrong with all these people fuck you all)
This method, combined with social media, can reveal other prejudices too.
Today, more than ⅓ of US employers check an applicant’s Facebook page or other online sources of information they would be prohibited from asking the candidate directly.

EG 2: One research team sent out more than 4000 fabricated resumes to private firms across the country that had posted job openings.
Then created fake Facebook pages containing information that the candidate was Muslim or Christian, or gay or straight.
Found that employers did not discriminate based on sexual orientation anywhere in the country
However, employers in the most conservative states revealed an anti-Muslim bias: Christian applicants were much more likely to get a callback than Muslim applicants were (17% vs 2.3%)

Question 18

How did the bogus pipeline study uncover implicit prejudice?

Answer 18

Participants were hooked up to this impressive-looking machine which they thought was a kind of a lie detector, when actually, it was just a pile of electronic hardware that did nothing.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions in which they indicated attitudes either on a questionnaire (where it was easy to give socially correct responses) or by using the bogus pipeline (where they believed the machine will reveal their true attitudes if they lied)
People expressed more racial prejudice when the bogus pipeline was used.
Asked for attitudes about women’s rights and women’s roles in society
Questionnaire: Both men and women expressed almost identically positive attitudes about women’s rights and women’s roles in society.
Bogus pipeline: Most of the men revealed their true feelings, which were far less sympathetic to women’s issues.

Question 19

What is the IAT?

Answer 19

A test thought to measure unconscious (implicit) prejudices according to the speed with which people can pair a target face (eg Black/White, old/young, Asian/White) with a positive or negative association (eg honest/evil)

Question 20

How does the IAT work?

Answer 20

Steps involved in IAT
Press left key for Black face, right for White face
Press left key for positive words, right for negative
Once you’ve mastered these tasks, the faces and words are combined: press left when you see Black + Positive and right when you see White + negative
Pairings get harder as you go along.

hope he doesnt ask us to describe this

Question 21

What is often seen on IAT when done on white participants about white vs black?

Answer 21

Repeatedly, people respond more quickly when White faces are paired with positive words and when Black faces are paired with negative words
That speed difference is said to be a measure of their implicit attitudes towards African Americans because it’s harder for their unconscious minds to link African Americans with positive words.

Question 22

The IAT is a highly valid measure of measuring implicit prejudice. t/f?

Answer 22

No. doesnt really measure what it is measuring.
- you are either really prejudiced or you are just reflecting cultural associations.

Prejudice and IAT only a modest correlation

Question 23

how to measure IAT validity?

Answer 23

How to judge the IAT’s validity: See if a high score predicts actual behaviour towards old people, fat people etc.
Some studies do show that the higher the person’s IAT score, the more likely he/she is to discriminate against the target in some way

modest relationship tho

Question 24

Illustrate the self-fulfilling prophecy in prejudice and how it appears in job interviews.

Answer 24

Real-life Application: White college undergrads asked to interview job applications, some White and some Black

1) Expectation: Think that Black applicants would be less capable perhaps?
2) Behaviour: Displayed discomfort and lack of interest when interviewing Black applicants - sat further away, tended to stammer, and ended the interview far sooner than when they were interviewing White applicants

2nd experiment: The researchers systematically varied the behavior of the interviewers (actually their confederates) so that it coincided with the way the original interviewers had treated the Black or White applicants.

3) Reaction
2nd Experiment: Applicants who were interviewed the way Blacks had been interviewed in the first experiment were judged to be far more nervous and far less effective than those who were interviewed the way White applicants had originally been interviewed.

4) Outcome
Behaviour aligns with interviewer’s expectations.

Question 25

Illustrate the self-fulfilling prophecy and how it manifests itself at a societal level.

Answer 25

1) Expectation
General belief that a particular group is irredeemably uneducable and fit only for low-paying jobs

2) Behaviour
Don’t waste educational resources on them, hence these people receive inadequate schooling

3) Reaction
Many drop out and fail to acquire the skills they need for well-paying careers. Hence, they face a limited number of jobs that are available and that they can do.

4) Outcome
30 years down the road: For the most part, members of the target group will be severely limited in the jobs available to them and otherwise disadvantaged compared to the rest of the population. → then bigots will think that they are right, and thank god they didn’t waste precious educational resources on these people.

Question 26

What is stereotype threat?

Answer 26

The apprehension experienced by members of a group that their behaviour might confirm a cultural stereotype.

Question 27

How does being reminded of race triggers stereotype threat?

Answer 27

Makes race appear salient. you will want to prove others wrong and this adds on to the burden of wanting to do well. this extra burden impairs your performance.

In one experiment, the difficult GRE test was administered individually to Black and White students at Stanford University.
½ of the students from each race were led to believe that the investigator was interested in measuring their intellectual ability.
The other ½ were led to believe that the investigator was examining the process of test-taking but didn’t care about the students’ abilities.
Results confirmed the researchers’ predictions
White students performed equally well (or poorly) regardless of whether they believed the test was used as a diagnostic tool,
The Black students who believed their abilities were not being measured performed as well as the White students.
However, the Black students who believed their abilities were being measured did not perform as well as the White students or as well as the Black students in the other group.

black vs white: applicable for sports too
white male vs asian male at math: applicable

Question 28

How does being reminded of gender perpetuate stereotype threat?

Answer 28

The common belief is that men are far better at math than women are, but in actual fact, the sexes’ math skills overlap far more than they diverge.
When women were led to believe that a particular test was designed to show differences in math abilities between men and women, they did not perform as well as men.
Asian American women do worse on math tests when they are reminded of their gender (stereotype: women are poor at math) than when they are reminded of their cultural identity (Asians are good at math)
The phenomenon applies to White males: They performed less well on a math exam when they thought they would be compared with Asian males.

Question 29

What is self-affirmation and how does it counter stereotype threat?

Answer 29

Self-affirmation: the practice of reminding yourself realistically - of your good qualities or experiences that made you feel successful or proud.

Self-affirmation directs a person to focus on important domains other than the stereotyped one.
Puts poor performance in that one area into broader perspective - their worth does not depend on performance in one domain alone.

Question 30

What else can be done to encourage counter-stereotypic thinking?

Answer 30

Other counter-stereotype mindsets can enhance performance as well; being reminded that abilities, including intelligence, are improvable rather than fixed, and being informed that anxiety on standardised tests is normal for members of stereotyped groups.

Question 31

What are 3 main causes of prejudice?

Answer 31

1) normative social influence
2) social identity theory
3) realistic contact theory

Question 32

Under what circumstances is normative social influence likely to prevail in terms of causing prejudice?

Answer 32

Institutional discrimination: when companies and other institutions are legally permitted or socially encouraged to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or other categories, prejudice would seem normal.

Question 33

What is normative conformity?

Answer 33

The tendency to go along with the group to fulfill the group’s expectations and gain acceptance. An understanding of normative conformity helps explain why people who hold deep prejudices might not act on them, and why people who are not discriminatory might act in a discriminatory way: They are conforming to the norms of their social groups or institutions.

Question 34

What are the consequences of breaking out of normative conformity?

Answer 34

The consequences of not speaking up against such discrimination: It not only affects the target of the racist/sexist remarks, who mistakenly assumes everyone else in the room agrees with it. It also affects the people who remain silent. They reduce dissonance by justifying their inaction, and thereby increasing the chance they will not speak up in future.

Why people don’t speak up: Being a non-conformist is not easy; you might be subject to rejection by friends or employers. Easier to just go along with the flow.

Question 35

What is social identity theory?

Answer 35

The part of a person’s self-identity that is based on his/her identification with a nation, religious or political group, occupation or other social affiliation.
Serves to give us a sense of place and position in the world
Feels good to be part of an “us”, but does that mean that we must automatically feel superior to “them”?

Question 36

What is ethnocentrism? How does it create prejudice?

Answer 36

The belief that one’s own ethnic group, nation, or religion is superior to all others.

It is universal, probably because it aids survival by increasing people’s attachment to their own group and their willingness to work on its behalf.
It rests on a fundamental category: us
As long as people have created an “us”, however, they perceive everybody else as “not us”.
The impulse to feel suspicious of “outsiders” seems to be part of a biological survival mechanism inducing us to favour our own family, tribe or race and to protect our tribe.
However, that statement can be refuted because human beings are also biologically prepared to be friendly, open and cooperative.

Question 37

Provide evidence on how ethnocentrism drives prejudice.

Answer 37

Study: When African American and Whites saw pictures of each other, activity in the amygdala was elevated; it was not elevated when people saw pictures of members of their own group.
Yet when participants were registering the faces an individuals or as part of a simple visual test rather than members of the category “Blacks”, there was no increased activation in the amygdala.
The brain is designed to register differences, but any negative associations with those differences depend on context and learning.
This is why social psychologists strive to identify the conditions under which prejudice and hostility toward out-groups are fostered and reduced.

Question 38

What is in-group bias?

Answer 38

The tendency to favour members of one’s own group and give them special preference over people who belong to other groups; the group can be temporary and trivial as well as significant → often leads to unfair treatment of others merely because we define them as being in the out-group

Question 39

How does in-group bias create prejudice?

Answer 39

In-group bias is an even more powerful reason for discrimination than outright prejudice and hostility are.
People prefer being with people who are familiar, who are similar to them in norms and customs, and whom they perceive as being “like them” in other important ways.
However, this bias can lead to unintended negative outcomes, such as a preference for the in-group in hiring and promotion

Question 40

Why is it that when the reasons for differentiation are minimal, being in the in-group makes you want to win against members of the out-group and leads you to treat the latter unfairly?

Answer 40

Such tactics build your self-esteem and feeling of “belongingness”. When you group does win, it strengthens your feelings of pride and identification with that group.

Question 41

Provide evidence about how in-group bias creates prejudice?

Answer 41

Study to examine the mechanisms behind this phenomenon: created entities called minimal groups
Complete strangers are formed into groups using the most trivial criteria imaginable
Eg: British schoolboys were shown a set of slides with varying numbers of dots on them.
The boys were asked to guess how many dots there were.
The boys were then arbitrarily told that they were “overestimators” or “underestimators”, and were then asked to work on another task.
In this phase, they had a chance to give points to other boys identified as overestimators and underestimators.
Although each boy worked alone in his cubicle, almost every single one assigned far more points to boys he thought were like him (over/under)
As the boys emerged from their rooms, they were asked “Which were you?”. The answers received either cheers or boos from the others.

Question 42

What is out-group homogeneity?

Answer 42

The perception that individuals in the out-group are more similar to each other (homogenous) than they really are, as well as more similar than members of the in-group are. In-group members tend to perceive those in the out-group as more similar to each other than they really are.

Eg: Your negative stereotype is that Bangladeshi workers are all perverts: you think ALL OF THEM are like that, ignoring the fact that there can be large differences between each person, and that not all of them are perverts.

Question 43

How does out-group homogeneity affect how we view rivals? Provide an example.

Answer 43

Perception of rivals: You probably value your institution more highly than you value the rival (thereby raising and protecting your self-esteem), and you probably perceive students at this rival school to be alike than you perceive students at your own college to be.

Study of students in Princeton and Rutgers University
The rivalry between these institutions has long been based on athletics, academics, and even social-class consciousness.
Male students at the 2 schools watched videotaped scenes in which 3 different young men were asked to make a decision, such as whether he wanted to listen to rock music or classical music while participating in an experiment on auditory perception.
The participants were told that the man was either a Princeton or Rutgers student, so for some of them, the student in the videotape was either an in-group or out-group member.
Participants had to predict what the man in the videotape would choose.
After they saw the man make his choice, they were asked to predict what percentage of male students at that institution would make the same choice.
Results supported the out-group homogeneity hypothesis.
When the target person was an out-group member, the participants believed his choice was more predictive of what his peers would choose than when he was an in-group member.
If you know something about one out-group member, you are more likely to feel you know something about all of them.
Similar results obtained in USA, Europe and Australia.

Question 44

What do you do when you blame the victim?

Answer 44

The tendency to blame individuals (make dispositional attributions) for their victimization, typically motivated by a desire to see the world as a fair place.

Question 45

Why do people blame the victim?

Answer 45

1) cannot relate to the difficulties they go through -> you’ve been assessed by merit all your life and not by other factors (you privileged ass)
2) wants to believe in a just world to mitigate your fear that all these events could possibly happen to you, and you have no way of controlling its occurrence. refuse to accept that the occurrence of these events on you has an element of luck attached it (for negative event, more like a lack thereof)

Question 46

Why is it difficult to relate to the difficulties others go through?

Answer 46

Difficult for people who have rarely been discriminated against to fully understand what it’s like to be a target of prejudice, as much as they try to understand.
Well-intentioned members of the majority will sympathize, but true empathy is difficult for those who have routinely be judged based on their own merit, and not on their race/ethnicity/religion/gender or other group membership.

Question 47

If you can’t relate, and yet know very well that these events can befall you anyday, what do you do?

Answer 47

believe in a just world. Such a tendency is typically motivated by an understandable desire to see the world as a fair and just place, one where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get

The stronger a person’s belief in a just world, the more likely he/she is to blame the poor and homeless for their own plight, or to blame overweight people for being lazy, rather than consider economic conditions, genetic predispositions, mental illness, lack of opportunities and so forth.

Most of us are good at reconstructing situations after the fact to support our belief in a just world
Simply requires making a dispositional attribution (it’s the victim’s fault) rather than a situational one (scary, random events can happen to anyone at any time)

Question 48

How does the belief in a just world operate in real life?

Answer 48

Most of us find it frightening to think that we live in a world, where people, through no fault of their own, can be raped, discriminated against etc.
It is much more reassuring to believe that they brought their fates on themselves.
One variation of blaming the victim is the “well-deserved reputation” excuse: they probably did something wrong since they were victimized, but they deserve it.
Such reasoning constitutes a demand that members of the out-group conform to more stringent standards of behaviour than those the majority have set for themselves.

Question 49

How does justifying Feelings of Entitlement and Superiority lead to prejudice?

Answer 49

Prejudices support in-group’s feelings of superiority, its religious/political identity and the legitimacy of inequality in wealth, status and power. Wherever a majority group systematically discriminates against a minority to preserve its power, they will claim that their actions are legitimate because the minority is so obviously inferior and incompetent.

Question 50

What’s the dangerous thing about feeling entitled and superior to others?

Answer 50

You are blind to how your prejudiced views harm others. Thus you don’t believe that change should be done, and that you turn a blind eye to the plight of others. In fact you think your prejudiced views are reasonable.

Most people who are in dominant positions in their society do not see themselves as being prejudiced; they regard their beliefs about the out-group as being perfectly reasonable.

Question 51

Since it is difficult to outrightly express your bias against a group of people without being labelled a bigot, what do such people do?

Answer 51

Most people struggle between the urge to express a prejudice they hold and their need to maintain a positive self-concept as someone who is not a bigot, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of others.
However, suppressing prejudiced impulses requires constant energy, so people are always on the lookout for information that will enable them to convince themselves that they are justified in disliking a particular out-group.
Once they find that justification, they can discriminate all they want and still feel that they are not bigots, thus avoiding cognitive dissonance.
Eg experiment where “black learner” purposely angered participant

Question 52

What is one common way people justifiy their prejudices?

Answer 52

Use religion to justify your beliefs, and how they are perfectly fine.

Eg: I don’t support LGBT rights and they should not have the right to marry because the bible opposes homosexuality OR the bible supports family values!

Question 53

What is the realistic conflict theory??

Answer 53

The idea that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination. Competition for scarce resources, political power, social status etc can lead to conflict and prejudice.

Question 54

How do weak leaders engineer prejudice against another group?

Answer 54

Blame the country’s problems against them (them versus us) and divert attention away from the world

Question 55

Ilustrate the realistic conflict theory using the USA gold miners story.

(3 time periods)

Answer 55

1) Time: California gold rush
Job: Gold miners
Perception: Chinese people who joined the California gold rush, competing directly with White miners, were described as “depraved and vicious”, “gross gluttons: and “bloodthirsty and inhuman”.

2) Time: Few years later after the gold rush
Job: Laborers on the railroad
Perception: These immigrants were willing to accept backbreaking work as railroad labourers, which was something the Whites themselves would not do.
Were now regarded as sober, industrious and law-abiding.
So highly regarded that they were seen as equal to White men by some people (very trusty, very intelligent and live up to their contracts)

3) Time: End of Civil War
Job: (not specified)
Perception: End of Civil War meant that former soldiers flooded into an already very tight job market
This influx of labour was immediately followed by an increase in negative attitudes towards the Chinese, who were seen as criminal, conniving, crafty and stupid.

Question 56

Why would prejudice occur when there is competition for scarce resources?

Answer 56

When times are tough and resources are scarce, in-group members will feel more threatened by the out-group.
Accordingly, incidents of prejudice, discrimination, and violence towards out-group members will increase.

Question 57

What is the contact hypothesis?

Answer 57

Believe in increasing contact between people to reduce prejudice.

Question 58

Illustrate how the propinquity effect can lead to a reduction of prejudice using empirical evidence.

Answer 58

Attitudes of White Americans towards African Americans in 2 public housing projects
Differed in the amount of racial integration
Stay in same building or separate building.
Randomly assigned to either condition
After several months, White residents in the integrated project reported a greater positive change in their attitudes towards Black neighbours than residents of the segregated project did, even though the former had not chosen to live in an integrated building initially.
Same case for army units, which became integrated in the 1950s: racism gradually decreased.
White students who have roommates, friends, and relationships across racial and ethnic lines tend to become less prejudiced and find commonalities across group borders.
Cross-group friendships benefit minorities and reduce prejudices too

Question 59

What conditions must be present in order for contact to reduce prejudice?

Answer 59

1) Both sides must depend on each other to accomplish their goals
2) Both sides must pursue a common goal.
3) Both sides must have equal status
4) Both sides must get to know each other in a friendly, informal setting where they interact on a one-to-one basis - discovering shared interests, having meals together etc.
5) Both sides must be exposed to multiple members of the other group, not just one token
6) Both sides must know that the social norms of the group, institution and community promote and support equality.

Question 60

How does the traditional classroom foster prejudice?

Answer 60

Highly competitive: everybody wants to answer questions in class to show the teacher they are smart.

• If cannot answer: You feel dumb if this occurs over time, and will be less inclined to answer.
• Others might laugh at you, and you feel negatively towards these classmates.

Black/Hispanic students vs White students

• B/H students usually come from less privileged background and the community they live usually don’t have that good education –> attending a White school after receiving inadequate education means that you and the White students fight on unequal grounds. Inadvertently lose out.
• White students: seen as arrogant and unhelpful
• B/H students: seen as dim-witted, unmotivated and sullen
• Self-fullfiling prophecy occurs, and this exacerabates stereotypes.

Question 61

What is the jigsaw classroom?

Answer 61

A classroom setting designed to reduce prejudice and raise the self-esteem of children by placing them in small, multi-ethnic groups and making each child dependent on the other children in the group to learn the course material.

Question 62

How does the jigsaw classroom work?

Answer 62

Students are placed in diverse 6-person learning groups
The day’s lesson is divided into 6 segments, and each student is assigned one segment of the written material.
Each student thus has a unique and vital part of the information, which must be put together before anyone can view the own picture.
Each student must learn his/her own section and teach it to other members of the group, who do not have any access to that material.

Question 63

What are the main differences between a jigsaw classroom and a traditional classroom?

Answer 63

Unlike the traditional classroom, where students are competing against each other, the jigsaw classroom has students depending on each other.

Through the jigsaw process, the children begin to pay more attention to each other and to show more respect for each other.

Compared to students in traditional classrooms, students in jigsaw groups became less prejudiced and liked their group mates more, both within and across ethnic boundaries.

Question 64

How does a jigsaw classroom foster interdependence?

Answer 64

In traditional classroom, other students can easily put down the less privileged student in their zeal to show the teacher how smart they are, and ignore the less privileged student, who, because of anxiety and discomfort, has trouble reciting.

In the jigsaw classroom, if the less privileged student is having trouble reciting, it is now in the best interests of the other students to be patient, make encouraging comments, and even ask friendly, probing questions to make it easier for him to bring forth the knowledge that only he has.

Question 65

How does paying attention to the less privileged child, and being paid more attention, reduce prejudice?

Answer 65

Less privileged child will respond to this treatment by simultaneously becoming more relaxed and more engaged; this would inevitably produce an improvement in his ability to communicate.
After a few weeks, the other students realised that this student is a lot smarter than they initially thought → began to like him
Student began to enjoy school more and began to see the White students as helpful and responsible teammates and not tormentors.
Begin to feel increasingly comfortable in class and started to gain more confidence in himself → acad performance improved along with his self-esteem.

Question 66

What was observed as a result of reduced prejudice using the Jigsaw classroom?

Answer 66

Also did better in exams, had higher self-esteem and began to like school better
Became more truly integrated: in the schoolyard, there was far more intermingling among ethnic groups than on the grounds of schools using more traditional classroom techniques.

Question 67

List reasons as to why the jigsaw classroom is effective in reducing prejudice.

Answer 67

1) The process of participating in a cooperative group breaks down in-group versus out-group perceptions and allows the individual to develop the cognitive category of “oneness”
2) Cooperative strategy places people in a “favour-doing” situation
3) Encourages the development of empathy. Working in jigsaw groups would lead to a sharpening of a child’s general empathic ability, a change that will reduce the tendency to rely on stereotypes.

Question 68

How does the development of empathy reduce prejudice?

Answer 68

Competitive classroom: Goal is to show the teacher how smart you are. You don’t have to pay much attention to the other students in your classroom.
But to participate effectively in the jigsaw classroom, you have to pay close attention to whichever member of the group is reciting
In doing so, the participants learn how to approach each classmate in a way that is tailored to fit his/her special needs.

The extent to which children can develop the ability to see the world from the perspective to another human being has profound implications for empathy, generosity and learning to get along with others.
When we develop the ability to understand what another person is going through, it increases the possibility that our heart will open to that person
Once our heart opens to another person, it becomes almost impossible to feel prejudice against that person, to bully that person, to humiliate that person.