Lecture 4 - Prominent Theories 1 Flashcards
What are the theories of prejudice and discrimination
Scientific racism
Psychodynamic theories
Sociocultural theories
Cognitive theories
Evolutionary theories
Intergroup relations theories
True or false: the different theories complement one another and look at different levels of analysis without there being a right or wrong theory
True
Describe scientific racism - give the dominant period, the context, the focus and its view on prejudice
Dominant period: before 1920s
Context: use of scientific research to justify White cultural domination
Focus: Identifying exotic & negative differences in non-White people
View of prejudice: Justified by data
What are some examples of “modern” phrenology
Using AI to determine of the person you are interviewing has the facial structure of a person that would be a good VS a bad employee
Using facial features to predict one’s sexual orientation
Explain the psychodynamic theory - give the dominant period, context, focus and the view on prejudice
Dominant period: 1920s-1950s
Context: Prevalence of explicit racism, aftermath of the Holocaust
Focus: identifying why individuals are prejudiced
View of prejudice: irrational and unjustifiable, rooted in individual differences - prejudice as an aberration of the mind - personality, unconscious defense mechanisms and projection of frustrations onto minorities
Explain Displaced Frustration and Aggression
- People experience frustration when one of their goal’s is blocked
- People feel aggression which creates an intention to harm
- Aggression is displaced because the source of frustration is too powerful
- Aggression is displaced onto a weaker target - the weaker the target, the more satisfying the release of aggression
What was Adorno responsible for in the 1950s
The Authoritarian Personality
A set of personality traits associated with beliefs in obedience to authority and oppression of subordinate groups
What is the psychodynamic explanation for the Authoritarian Personality
The “id” produces negative impulses which cannot be properly controlled by the “ego” and this “psychic conflict then projects those negative impulses onto minority groups and greater respect for authority
A person with what kind of personality is most likely to agree with these statements:
- An insult to our country’s honour should always be punished
- Nobody ever learned anything really important except through suffering
Authoritarian Personality
What is the state of psychodynamic theories today
Similar personality traits but not psychodynamic explanations
Authoritarians have increased sensitivity to societal threats
Conservatives tend to be higher in respect / faith in authority - people vary in how much faith/blind faith they have in authority which is a strong predictor of prejudice
Which of the Theories of Prejudice & Discrimination are less popular today
Scientific racism and psychodynamic theories
Explain the Sociocultural Theory - give the dominant period, context, focus, and view of prejudice
Dominant period: 1960s-1970s
Context: civil rights movement
Focus: social and cultural influences on prejudice (internalization) - makes everyone susceptible
View on prejudice: prejudice is a manifestation of cultural norms
Summarize the Clark & Clark study of 1947
White and Black children choosing the dolls they prefer
At the time Black dolls were not sold - some people said this is enough proof to not have to do the study
Children internalize the cultural norms and values and then manifest them
This was a very important study that influenced the “separate but equal” laws and changed them
Give examples of prejudice as an expression of cultural norms
Biased algorithms on the internet reflecting what people put into the internet
- “why are black women so….”
- the google search of “beautiful women” and it’s all white women
- google search of person shows more men than women
What is the relationship between the gender gap index and the percentage of men in google images searches
The higher the gender gap index, the more overrepresentation of men in a google search of “person”
Explain the cognitive theory - give the dominant period, context, focus, and view of prejudice
Dominant period: 1980s-present
Context: Prejudice appears to be a universal phenomenon that emerges from low-level mental processes, refutation of the psychodynamic perspective, we’re all set-up to form stereotypes and be prejudiced, we don’t have to constantly re-learn something
Focus: how prejudice arises from “ordinary” aspects of cognition
View of prejudice: prejudice is a feature of the mind, not a “bug”
Fill in the blank: ________ argues that people organize information in their minds by unconsciously creating categories and scripts through experience or exposure
Schema Theory
Fill in the blank: Schema theory explains stereotypes as ___________ by arguing that we naturally categorize people into groups and make ________ about those groups
Schemas gone wrong, generalizations
Explain the Evolutionary theory - dominant period, context, focus, view of prejudice
Dominant period: 1990s-present
Context: Prejudice appears to be a universal phenomenon that emerged from challenges in evolutionary history
Focus: How prejudice may have been evolutionarily adaptive
View of prejudice: prejudice helped address social problems in our evolutionary past
What is the main prediction of evolutionary theories
Across cultures, prejudice is stronger against social group members that are men than women due to increased probability of intergroup violence
Finish the sentence: all psychological phenomena, including those concerning intergroup relations, have to begin with the question…..
What “adaptations” would have lead our ancestors to reproduce
What is the approach/avoid task and what do we normally expect to see
Pressing forward (approach) and backward (avoid) and looking at RTs
Results:
- If there is a negative stimulus on the screen, you should be quicker to avoid and slower to approach
- If there is a positive stimulus on the screen you should be quicker to approach and slower to avoid
Are we quicker/slower to approach/avoid ingroup and outgroup members based on group membership?
Approach ingroup members and avoid outgroup members - could be based on our evolutionary ancestors and that they were rewarded for this
Assuming that the participant is white, what would we expect to see in an approach/avoid task with white and black faces
White faces: faster to approach and slower to avoid
Barack faces: faster to avoid and slower to approach
