factors affecting prejudice: individual differences: culture

Question 1

how can culture influence prejudice, and how can current prejudices be explored?

Answer 1

• culture can influence prejudice if social norms legitimise prejudiced practices or if religious laws endorse prejudice
• events can also trigger prejudice towards specific groups
• social norms, laws, and events are ever-changing, making it hard to determine if one culture is more prejudiced than another
• current prejudices in a culture can be explored by investigating national stereotypes

Question 2

what is the distinction between individualist and collectivist cultures in Psychology?

Answer 2

• individualist cultures:
• encourage people to pursue their own personal fulfilment and happiness
• value independence and autonomy (freedom to choose)
• collectivist cultures:
• encourage people to find fulfilment through family, work, and tribe
• value duty and put the needs of the group above the needs of the individual
• most cultures have a mixture of individualist and collectivist values
• western cultures (European and North American) are generally strongly individualist
• eastern cultures (Asian, particularly Chinese and Japanese) are generally more collectivist
• consistent with SIT as it would predict that prejudice towards out-group would be more prominent in collectivistic cultures

Question 3

supporting evidence + CA: K + B (cultural research)

Answer 3

• Katz and Braly 1933
• conducted a questionnaire to investigate national stereotypes of Americans about other cultures
• students were asked to pick 5-6 traits from a list of 84 (eg superstitious, lazy, ignorant) to represent different ethnic groups (eg Irish, Jewish)
• majority of students classified African Americans as “superstitious” and “ignorant”
• majority classified Jews as “shrewd”
• CA: responses might have been socially desirable at the time
• no verification that these were actually the students’ personal beliefs

Question 4

supporting evidence: K et al (culture research)

Answer 4

• Karlins et al. (1969)
• replicated Katz and Braly’s study 20 years later
• they found that some national stereotypes had changed, while others persisted
• this suggests that:
• culture does affect prejudice
• as cultures change, so do the prejudices they hold

Question 6

supporting evidence + CA: A-Z + K, CA: K (collectivist or individualist)

Answer 6

• Al-Zahrani and Kaplowitz (1993):
• cultural comparison of Saudi (collectivist) and American (individualist) people
• Saudis self-reported more in-group favouritism and negative out-group bias
• CA: Kleugel 1990:
• found that collectivism is associated with lower racism and greater tolerance.
• comparisons between cultures do not support the idea that one type of culture is more prejudiced than another
• cross-cultural comparisons of prejudice are extremely hard to measure