Exam #2/ Chp 13 Prejudice Reduction

Question 1

what levels do we need to fight stereotypes and prejudice on?

Answer 1

Individual
Relational
Collective/Group
Societal/Cultural

Question 2

why is fighting prejudice on the individual level hard?

Answer 2

Requires motivation and ability

Requires more than “good intentions”

Question 3

how do we control our own stereotypes?

Answer 3

• replace stereotypes with your conscious beliefs.
• Stewart & Payne: Found that people who made a specific replacement plan to not just suppress but CORRECT by replacing with their own conscious beliefs (e.g., when I see Black, I will think “safe”) were more accurate at the shooter bias game – significantly less racial bias, but equivalent accuracy compared to in control conditions when more unarmed blacks than unarmed whites get shot in the game.
• Just being aware that you have these unwanted stereotypic associations means you can make an effort to consciously correct for it

Question 4

shooter bias game

Answer 4

people shot unarmed blacks more than whites; replacement helped fight this

Question 5

what is ineffective for control our own stereotypes?

Answer 5

• thought suppression and rebound
• Wegner: don’t think of a white bear, white bear thoughts rebound later
• MacCrae & Bodenhausen: don’t stereotype an individual while writing about his day. Successful at the time (essays were not stereotypic)– but rebounded to influence later social behavior (people sat further away from the sereotyped target!)

Question 6

Bodenhausen’s morning people vs night owls study

Answer 6

-Correction requires conscious motivation AND ability/capacity
-Measured chronotypes, then randomly assigned larks vs owls to act as jurors in morning or night. Read the identical court transcript with identical evidence, only difference was defendant race.
Night owls biased by defendant’s race in the morning, and morning larks biased by race at night. BUT when tested at ‘preferred’ time were significantly less biased
Why? When tired, we lose some cognitive resources that could allow us to correct for any automatic biases –when we do have motivation and ability, however, we CAN correct for automatic stereotypes and not use them in judgments

Question 7

why is interracial interaction uncomfortable?

Answer 7

• it’s rare;75% of white adults have no black or latinx friends.
• Pluralistic ignorance

Question 8

So does “practice” at positive interracial interaction help with social discomfort and reduction of prejudice?

Answer 8

YES: One cross-race friendship can reduce prejudice . . .even in others in your clique

Question 9

UCLA cross-race friendship study

Answer 9

Self-disclosure 1 (share answers to questions that start small, “Would you like to be famous? In what way” then get more personal “What do you value most in a friendship” etc)
The pair competes against other pairs in a bunch of games
Self-disclosure 2 – (share answers about being a part of their racial group, what aspects they like, are proud of, etc)
Trust game – each partner navigates the other blindfolded partner through a maze
Immediate effects: reduced even automatic prejudice, and reduced stress (as measured by cortisol and cardiovascular measures) when interacting even with other members (strangers) from the new friend’s racial groups
Extended effects: Impact of new cross-race friendship in one another’s same-race friends! Reduces their prejudice and discomfort as well.

Question 10

Shook & Fazio: Roommate study (Let friendship develop naturally over time).

Answer 10

White students randomly assigned a black or white roommate in the dorms
Tested implicit/automatic prejudice and interracial anxiety at beginning and end of academic quarter
Found reduction in implicit/automatic stereotyping as well as reports of lower interracial anxiety at end of quarter

Question 11

What inhibits spontaneous cross-race friendships?

Answer 11

Pluralistic ignorance

Question 12

Pluralistic ignorance

Answer 12

Everyone equally open to cross-race friends, but thinks the other person won’t be interested because of the racial difference.

Question 13

The Contact Hypothesis

Answer 13

Old idea proposed by Gordon Allport (1954)

Contact between groups will cause people to see others as individuals, and thus cause prejudice to breakdown.

Question 14

Robbers Cave

Answer 14

-showed that contact isn’t enough
-but w/ addition of common goal
-(1) Created prejudice
Categorized the boys Rattlers vs Eagles
Created an ‘us and them’ by segregation and within group cooperation, between group competition

(2) Tried reducing prejudice
Tried contact in pleasant non-competitive situations (meals), BUT prejudice even in these situations.
Contact not enough.
Then tried cooperative contact : superordinate goals (water pipes, broken truck) Observed personalized friendships begin between groups
Prejudice between groups faded

Question 15

jigsaw classroom

Answer 15

-Cooperative learning technique applied to also combat prejudice

Assign children to diverse groups
Give each child important info so each can contribute
Was successful!
White children were less prejudiced, and learned/performed just as well as before
Black and Latinx children reported enjoying school more and performed better academically

Question 16

intergroup contact is most effective when..

Answer 16

Groups are equal in status going into group contact or norms clearly favor equality
There is cooperation/superordinate goal***
Contact situations include some that are informal, allowing people to exhibit a broader range of counterstereotypic behavior
All of the above make it more likely that individual relationships/friendships can form

Question 17

Tropp & Pettigrew (2006)

on intergroup contact

Answer 17

Meta-Analysis
Results found that greater intergroup contact is associated with lower levels of prejudice in 94% of the samples in their analysis
Not only did attitudes toward the immediate participants usually become more favorable, but so do attitudes toward the entire outgroup

Question 18

how can we fight prejudice on a societal level?

Answer 18

Demand fairer media depictions of race and gender

Question 19

Bias in interpretations of behavior in media

Answer 19

-“Looting” or “Finding” food after Katrina? (2005)

What is rowdy vs a riot? (2014)

Question 20

use media for good for racial representation?

Answer 20

• Important, because given little exposure/opportunity for cross-race friendships in current childhood in the US (neighborhoods and schools often racially segregated), media could have powerful effect
• Extended/indirect/vicarious contact” Cameron & Rutland: used illustrated storybooks depicting cross-race friends. Found reductions in prejudice for kids ranging in age from 5-11.