Lecture 3: Chapter 5: Perceiving Groups Flashcards
What is discrimination? What is the difference between positive and negative discrimination?
Positive or negative behavior towards a social group and its members
Negative = Group is disadvantaged
Positive = Group is advantaged
What are the 2 types of prejudice?
Hot = emotional hatred for other groups
Cold = based on calm assumptions that other groups are inferior to ours
What are prejudices?
Positive or negative evaluations of a social groups and its members
It’s the underlying process leading to discrimination
What are stereotypes?
Mental representation or impressions that people of certain groups have by association groups to specific characteristics
Can be positive/negative or accurate/inaccurate
What is a social group?
Two or more people that have an agreement that is socially meaningful for them or others
They are the target of prejudice
What is the difference between prejudice and discrimination?
Discrimination concerns behavior, prejudice evaluation/thoughts
What is social categorization? What are benefits and what are downsides?
If people are seen as members of social groups instead of individuals
Benefit: better understanding of interactions
Downside: see individuals not for who they are, but only as members of one group
What do we mean with social roles?
Ascribing specific properties based on group membership
e.g. city worker is more assertive and a child-care worker is more nurturant and considerate
What is the negative impact of positive stereotypes? Give 3 aspects
- Assume everyone is the same and ignore individuality
- Set impossibly high standards
- Be a part of overall paternalistic attitudes toward a social group that reinforce the group’s weakness and interdependence
What is benevolent sexism? What kind of stereotype is this?
Women are pure, moral and in need of men’s protection
This reinforces the group’s weakness and dependence
This is a positive stereotype
In what cases are stereotypes accurate?
When they reflect small differences between groups that all members agree to be true for them
How do stereotypes and prejudice develop? Give 2 ways
- Through learning: conditioning, media, socialization
- Cognitive processes
How are stereotypes conditioned?
Repeated emotions associated with group encounters are conditioned and then they form stereotypes
What are category accentuations?
When for example there is a continuous spectrum of 6 things. The top 3 are a group and the bottom 3 are a group. You perceive the 2 groups as totally different, whilst actually between thing 3 and 4 there isn’t much of a difference
What is illusory correlation?
Perceived association between two variables that are unrelated in reality
If something is more salient, groups form stereotypes through forming illusory correlations
What is outgroup homogenization? What is a potential mechanism for this?
Outgroup members are perceived to be more similar to one another than ingroup members
Familiarity is a potential mechanism. People know ingroup members better than outgroup members
Which 4 factors would make people more likely to act based on stereotypes?
- Time pressure –> reduce cognitive capacity
- Complex information
- Ambiguity –> strong top-down effects of stereotypes on perception
- Emotion –> exaggerate effects of stereotypes on perception
What is ambiguity?
When something has more than 1 possible meaning
How can stereotypes and prejudice be measured while overcoming self-report biases?
Implicit association test: automatic activation of stereotypes
What are 3 motives behind stereotyping?
- Understanding/controlling the world (mastery)
- Connectedness with others
- Justification of inequality