Exam 4 Chapter 13

Question 1

What is prejudice? Why is prejudice dangerous?

Answer 1

Hostile/negative attitude toward people in a group based solely on their membership in that group
Victims can experience loss of opportunities, stress, depression, and diminished self-esteem. It can escalate to hatred, violence, or even murder.

Question 2

How is prejudice related to emotions (affect), behaviors (discrimination), and cognitions (stereotyping)?

Answer 2

A: It is an emotional (typically negative) response toward a specific group
B: Discrimination occurs - an unwarranted hostile behavior toward a member of a group bc of their group membership
C: Stereotyping occurs - generalization about a group of people

Question 3

What are stereotypes? How are they related to schemas?

Answer 3

A list of qualities you associate with a group (positive or negative)
A cognitive process (not emotional)
Stereotypes are schemas for a group of people

Question 4

Why is understanding a person different than understanding an object?

Answer 4

People have hidden unobservable qualities. How you treat a person may change them

Question 5

How are categorization and distinction related to stereotyping?

Answer 5

Categorization: You sort people into groups and look past differences and focus on similarities
Distinction: You see your group as different than other groups

Question 6

What is the out-group homogeneity effect? Why do we think about in-groups differently than out-groups?

Answer 6

Tendency to perceive more variability among in-groups than out-groups. Difficult to find differences in out-group members
Preserves stereotypes

Question 7

How does stereotyping influence the interpretation of behavior?

Answer 7

Ambiguous behaviors are interpreted in stereotype-consistent ways

Question 8

Sagar & Schofield (1980): What were the methods and results of the study?

Answer 8

6th graders saw pics and descriptions of ambiguously aggressive behaviors by black and/or white children.
Both black and white children rated the black kids’ behavior as meaner

Question 9

How do stereotypes affect memory?

Answer 9

Encoding: can bias what you put into memory; may just pay attention to stereotype-consistent info
Retrieval: Can bias what you take out of memory; may recall stereotype-consistent info, even if it isn’t true

Question 10

What is the illusory correlation and how does it maintain stereotypes?

Answer 10

When targets of stereotyping behave in stereotype-consistent ways, we notice it. We’re more likely to notice minorities. We “perceive” the two events as related when they actually aren’t.
Ex: if we see a minority act aggressively, we assume all the minorities of the same group act the same

Question 11

What are attributions, and how do they maintain stereotypes? What is the ultimate attribution
error?

Answer 11

Believing something was caused by a person or thing. We tend to attribute the cause of behavior to a person’s traits and ignore situational influences.
Ultimate attribution error: generalizing the cause of one person’s behavior to an entire group

Question 12

Bodenhausen & Wyer (1985): What were the methods and results of the study?

Answer 12

Students made parole decisions for fictional prisoners after reading their files
If the crime matched the stereotype of the offender (Hispanic male - assault and battery, wealthy caucasian - embezzlement), the decision was harsher

Question 13

What causes people to blame victims for their victimization?

Answer 13

We want to see the world as a fair place where people get what they deserve

Question 14

How can you use attributions and sub-typing to ignore information that disconfirms your stereotype?

Answer 14

You can avoid making a dispositional attribution about that person’s behavior. Something about the situation caused the behavior, or they don’t represent the group they belong to.
Sub-typing: we can label people as exceptions to prevent stereotypes from being disconfirmed

Question 15

What is the self-fulfilling prophecy, and how can it maintain stereotypes? How can it function not only at the personal but also at the cultural level?

Answer 15

A prediction that comes true bc of a person’s/groups beliefs/expectations. The perceiver treats the target in a manner consistent with a false belief, so the target responds to the treatment in such ways as to confirm the false belief.
If society believes that a particular group is unintelligent, they may not provide educational resources to that group.

Question 16

Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid (1977): What were the methods and results of the study?

Answer 16

Men were shown pictures of attractive and unattractive women and revealed their expectations of each woman’s behavior before they spoke to them over an intercom.
Men expected attractive women to be more sociable, poised, and funny, resulting in their conversations being more positive.

Question 17

What is Devine’s (1989) Dissociation Model? How is it related to controlled and automatic processing?

Answer 17

We all have stereotypes, but only some people are prejudiced (endorse stereotypes). Stereotypes can be automatically applied when we’re not careful
Controlled: Occurs with your awareness; conscious, intentional, voluntary, effortful
Automatic: Occur w/o your awareness; unconscious, unintentional, involuntary, effortless

Question 18

Gilbert & Hixon (1991): What were the methods and results of the study?

Answer 18

Tested if stereotypes influence your judgments w/o your awareness. Low cognitive busyness: you have lots of time to think and question stereotypes; High cognitive busyness: less time to think, automatic processing
People were put in each scenario and interacted with an Asian experimenter. If they were under high cognitive busyness, they were more likely to use stereotypes

Question 19

How can stereotypes help our self-esteem?

Answer 19

Low self-esteem participants were more likely to activate stereotypes. People can use stereotypes to boost or defend their self-esteem

Question 20

What is stereotype threat, and how does it affect the performance of stereotyped people?

Answer 20

A victim of prejudice may internalize stereotypes, and experience anxiety about confirming stereotypes. This may cause arousal or cause self-handicapping that interferes with performance.

Question 21

Steele & Aronson (1995): What were the methods and results of the study?

Answer 21

Gave black and white college students items from the SAT test. Some subjects were told the test measured general intelligence; some subjects were told it did not.
When black students thought the test measured intelligence, they became nervous that they would perform more poorly and confirm a stereotype.

Question 22

How does Realistic Conflict Theory explain prejudice?

Answer 22

Competition for limited resources leads to conflict and prejudice. Frustration often leads to prejudice

Question 23

How does Social Identity Theory explain prejudice? What is in-group bias, and what causes it?

Answer 23

We enhance our own group (in-group-love) and/or belittle other groups (out-group-bias) to boost our self-esteem
In-Group Bias: positive feelings and special treatment for people in our group, and negative feelings to out-group members to enhance self-esteem

Question 24

What is the minimal groups paradigm?

Answer 24

Proposes that the minimal condition for group biases (like favoritism towards your own group and prejudice towards other groups) is simply being a member of a group.

Question 25

How does economic and political competition lead to prejudice?

Answer 25

When times are tough and resources are scarce, in-group members feel more threatened by the out-group. Prejudice, discrimination, and violence increase

Question 26

What’s the difference between old-fashioned racism and modern racism? How do we assess modern racism?

Answer 26

Old-fashion: openly racist
Modern: typically hide racism
Can use the bogus pipeline (fake lie detector), Implicit Association Test (IAT) (measures speed of reactions to target groups), or Modern Racism Scale (measures “acceptable” ways to express prejudice)

Question 27

Why don’t persuasive messages or intergroup contact lower prejudice?

Answer 27

Persuasive messages: if presented with disconfirming evidence, people strengthened their stereotypes. They felt challenged to come up with more reasons to hold stereotypes
Intergroup: can lead to increased prejudice bc cognitive processes related to stereotyping prevent change and maintain stereotypes.

Question 28

What factors enhance the ability of contact between different groups to lower prejudice?

Answer 28

A common goal and friendships

Question 29

What’s wrong with positive stereotypes? What’s the difference between benevolent and hostile sexism?

Question 30

What are the stereotypes of gender?

Question 31

What is everyday discrimination?

Question 32

What is the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and how does it measure prejudice?

Question 33

What is ethnocentrism?