Lecture 4 - Perceiving Groups

Question 1

What is the definition of discrimination?

Answer 1

A positive or negative behaviour directed towards a social group and it’s members.

Question 2

What is the definition of a social group?

Answer 2

3 or more people with common socially meaningful interdependence and goals.

Question 3

What is the definition of prejudice?

Answer 3

A positive or negative evaluation of a social group and it’s members.

Question 4

What is the definition of a stereotype?

Answer 4

A cognitive representation of the features thought to characterise a social group and it’s members.

Question 5

What is the definition of social categorisation?

Answer 5

The process of identifying individuals as part of a social group or category.

Question 6

What is this the definition of?

A positive or negative behaviour directed towards a social group and it’s members

Answer 6

Discrimination

Question 7

What is this the definition of?

A positive or negative evaluation of a social group and it’s members.

Answer 7

Prejudice

Question 8

What is this the definition of?

A cognitive representation of the features thought to characterise a social group and it’s members.

Answer 8

Stereotype

Question 9

What does non-categorisation prejudice typically target?

Answer 9

Feature detection - e.g. prejudice based on someone’s nose, height, etc.

Question 10

What are 4 types of characteristics that stereotype content could be based on>

Answer 10

• Physical appearance/features
• Personality traits
• Habits & Traditions
• Preferences & Motives

Question 11

What is the function of stereotypes?

Answer 11

• Mastery (summarising personal experiences/for prediction and control of situations)
• Connectedness (shared beliefs within our in-groups)
• Self-enhancement (feel better about our own group status when we stereotype)
• Efficiency

Question 12

What is the definition of social norms?

Answer 12

Generally accepted ways of thinking, feeling or behaving that people in a group agree on and endorse as right and proper.

Question 13

What did Macrae et al., (1994) find about the efficiency of using stereotypes?

Answer 13

When stereotype labels were present, recall of information heard in a passage was remembered with much greater accuracy than when stereotype labels were not present.

Stereotypes provide us with scheme-type ideas which allow us to save processing capacity.

Question 14

Do categorisation and stereotype activation occur automatically, and who’s study supports the answer?

Answer 14

Yes. Fiske et al., (1998) found that, if you encounter someone and make a social categorisation about them, you automatically activate and apply the related stereotype.

The correction occurs later and is not automatic.

Question 15

What does the automatic activation of categorisation and stereotypes depend on?

Answer 15

• Perceiver’s level of prejudice (Lepore & Brown, 2002)
• Perceiver’s goals (whether interactions are based on role/function, or an individual as part of society)
• Dimension of categorisation (e.g. race or gender, etc)

Question 16

What did Kurzban et al., (2001) find about gender vs race biases?

Answer 16

Easier to reduce race biases than gender biases. This is due to deep rooted gender biases in evolutionary history - small social groups will not have known groups of other races, but will always know and stereotype people of other genders.

Question 17

How does stereotype activation influence processing?

Answer 17

• Stereotype activation guides attention and memory for specific aspects of people/groups. Acts as a confirmation bias, in terms of seeking out/only paying attention to behaviours which prove the stereotype to be true.
• Changes the way we react to information. We are fluent and accepting of stereotype-consistent information, but challenging of stereotype-inconsistent information, and therefore strive to explain it away.

Question 18

What influences stereotype activation and application?

Answer 18

• capacity
• emotion (more likely to use stereotypes when we are happy, to sustain positive affect)
• motivation (more accountability leads to more processing, and therefore less stereotype activation)

Question 19

What are the barriers to stereotypic change?

Answer 19

• Explaining away inconsistent information
• Compartmentalising inconsistent information (e.g. creating subtypes)
• Differentiating atypical group members

Question 20

What fosters stereotype change?

Answer 20

• Repeated inconsistency
• Widespread inconsistency
• Typicality (of the group) and inconsistency