Factors Affecting Prejudice Flashcards
What are The Big 5 personality variables?
Openness to experience
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
(OCEAN)
How does conscientiousness affect prejudice?
Thought that the more conscientious a person is, the more likely they are to be prejudice.
Because they can be quite stubborn and rigid in their thinking. Overly concerned with doing the right thing. Leads to them being fixed in their ideas about people and slow to change their minds.
How does agreeableness affect prejudice?
Less likely to be prejudice.
Compassionate, cooperative and friendly. Value getting on with others and have empathy.
How does openness to experience affect prejudice?
Less likely to be prejudice
Curious, adventurous, independent and value variety in life. Often have experience of other cultures.
Strengths for The Big 5
Cohrs et al:
-people that are conscientious are more likely to be right wing in their attitudes and therffore more likely to be prejudice
-Openness and agreeableness correlated negatively with prejudice (0.43 and -0.2 respectively)
Weaknesses for The Big 5
Many tests are self report data, which may not be accurate, reducing validity.
How does authoritarianism affect prejudice?
More likely to be prejudice
People with authoritarian personalities are rigid in their thinking, adhere to social hierarchies and rules and are terrified of being weak (so despise those weaker than them)
Evaluation of authoritarianism affecting prejudice?
Cohrs et al - found links between right-wing authoritarianism and prejudice - positive correlation of 0.57
However, a criticism of theory is that it is best to describe small scale prejudice such as school bullies rather than wide scale prejudice.
What is dogmatism?
Refers to a way of thinking where people have a closed set of beliefs about reality that provide a framework for patterns of intolerance towards others.
How does dogmatism affect prejudice?
Highly susceptible to authoritarian ideologies of the left or right and are likely to reject those who have different views.
Evaluation of dogmatism affecting prejudice
Baptists who scored highly on the d-scale were more likely to be prejudice toward ethnic minorities.
However, it has been criticised for having poor reliability and validity, as well as correlating too highly with Adorno’s F scale.
Strength of situational factors affecting prejudice
Minard - found that below ground, where the social norm was friendly behaviour between colleagues, 80 of the white miners were friendly towards the black miners. Above ground, where the social norm was prejudiced behaviour by white people towards black people, the number dropped to just 20.
