Lecture 16 - Prejudice (1) Basics & Race Flashcards
Prejudice - Has it changed?
Public opinion polls show steady decline in negative
evaluations of minority groups after WWII
But racial conflicts only show moderate reduction…
Has racial prejudice really been abandoned, or just changed it’s face?
Old Fashioned Racism Scale
“It is a bad idea for blacks and whites to marry one another”
“It was wrong for the United States Supreme Court to outlaw segregation in its 1954 decision”
Too explicit, people self-present in desirable ways
MRS (1970s): Bias expressed in “rationalizable” ways
Modern Racism Scale
“It is easy to understand the anger of Black People in America” (rev.).
“Discrimination against Blacks is no longer a problem in the
United States”
“Over the past few years, Blacks have gotten more economically than they deserve”
More subtle to try to avoid some self-presentation
Stereotype
Prejudice
Discrimination
a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing
Prejudice
preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience
a “feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or
not based on, actual experience” _Gordon Allport
Discrimination
unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things
treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which
the person or thing is perceived to belong rather than on individual
attributes
Categorization
How do we form impressions of others?
Brewer’s Dual Process Model
Fiske & Neuberg’s Continuum Model
Start with category based, theory driven processing
We categorize people based on salient features (“the big 3”)
1 - Age
2 - Race
3 - Gender
Easy, effortless, automatic
But do we go beyond the category to form an
individuated impression?
Brewer’s Dual Process Model
When you see a stimulus person you use identification to evaluate them automatically
This process is automatic and everyone does it
The second process is effortful and only gets done when you are willing to do it
Ask yourself is this person relevant
If no, you stop and use the generalized info you already have
If yes you ask “is this person involved with me”?
If yes = PERSONALIZATION
if no you categorize them according to what you know such as stereotypes
Then ask do they fit this categorization, if yes, stop here
If no, Individuation (via effort)
Brewer’s Dual Process Model
2 things that determine individuation (or not)
1 Motivation (it it worth the effort)
2 cognitive capacity (if tired, wont do it)
Devine’s (1989) model of prejudice
Knowledge vs. belief (in accuracy)
Everyone knows the stereotype
Knowledge acquired in early childhood, and overlearned as a result of socialization
Therefore available in memory and can be automatically activated
Rejection of stereotype arises from non-prejudicial beliefs that are acquired later in socialization process
Later beliefs are less overlearned (less automatic)
Therefore, rejection (of stereotype) requires operation of controlled process
Inhibition is a controlled process that requires:
(1) motivation
(2) cognitive capacity
Automatic stereotype activation is equally strong among low and
high prejudice people
But LP and HP differ in level of controlled processing
Stereotype activated automatically but impact on behavior can be controlled through effortful processes
LP (but not HP) person tries to inhibit use of stereotype information
“I don’t believe the stereotype”
But requires motivation and cognitive capacity
Study 1: Does everyone know the stereotype?
Recruited White Intro Psych students
“We’re not interested in your personal beliefs but rather your knowledge of the content of cultural stereotype of Blacks in
America”
List components of stereotype
Complete Modern Racism Scale
Do high and low prejudice ps report the same things?
Yes
There were no sig differences in any of the stereotyped traits between the high and low P groups
Study 2: Automatic Priming &
Prejudice
“Perceptual vigilance task”
Identify the location of the stimuli
Parafoveal priming
Primed subliminally with one of these words:
(Taken from study 1)
poor afro jazz slavery musical Harlem athletic lazy Blacks blues rhythm Africa ghetto welfare
G1 High condition (80% of primed words were stereotyped)
G2 Low condition (20% of words were stereotyped, the rest control)
This whole exercise was to prime the pts without them knowing
Impression formation
THEN given an ambiguous story about Donald and asked to rate him on certain traits
Read paragraph about Donald and form impression…
Those in the high prime condition had a significantly higher ascription of stereotype consistent traits than those in the low prime condition
There was no difference in the high prime vs the low prime conditions for the amount of stereotype irrelevant words chosen (even if primed for them)
It was the serotype being activated not just negativity
Devine study conclusion
Supports the activation of a stereotype in both high and low P people
Once a stereotype is activated, if there is no reason to control it, it gets worse
Because ptps did not know they were primed, they had no reason to control anything (so even the low P people did not)
Thought Listing–Controlled Process
Ptps told to
List all of YOUR thoughts in response to the social group
Black Americans”
“Any and all thoughts, flattering and unflattering are
acceptable”
Anonymous responding
Thoughts coded for positivity and negativity
High P group create more negatives than positives, low P the reverse
See lots of stereotype inhibition by low P group
There IS reason and room to inhibit here
What is automatically activated for low prejudice Ps?
Devine
Knowledge/content of culturally shared stereotype
What is automatically activated for low prejudice Ps?
Fazio
Not knowledge about what people believe in general but personal evaluations
Attitude
“mental association between an object and a
person’s summary evaluation of that object”
The affective tag that goes along with the object
Fazio and associative networks
How do you measure the association
Felt concepts are associated to one another cognitively
eg snake - grass or snake - fear
You can measure these relationships with lexical tasks and reaction times
