Lecture 5

Question 1

Race

Answer 1

Grouping of humans according to physical or social qualities (a social construct).

Question 2

Racism

Answer 2

A culturally socialised system in which some groups (usually minority groups) are disdvantaged as compared to another group (usually the majority group).

Question 3

Predujice

Answer 3

Culturally socialised bias based on group membership.

Question 4

Discrimination

Answer 4

Differential treatment based on group membership (when bias/prejudice results in behaviour).

Question 5

Privelege

Answer 5

Benefits of being in the majority or more powerful group, irrespective of other disadvantages.

Question 6

Institutional racism

Answer 6

Policy that leads to discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, political power, education, health care etc. This is argued to be the biggest source of health disparities (ongelijkheden).

Question 7

Attitudes, biases and prejudice

Answer 7

• Are often very implicit
• Can be stereotypes over the minority group that maintain the power balance of the majority group
• Can be based on xenophobia (distrust of the unknown/ vreemdelingenhaat)
• Are often historically developed
• Are often represented in cultural messages (social media)
• Are often engrained into society, socialisation starts at birth
• Having a bias is considered as ‘bad’, which makes it hard to talk about it
• Not addressing biases sustains them, but having biases does NOT equal action!

Question 8

How to measure bias

Answer 8

• Direct: attitude questionnaires (RACES)
• Indirect: implicit association test (IAT), based on reaction time.

These are different from measures for racism or microagressions!

Question 9

Change in a culture

Answer 9

Cultures are often resistant to change. Whether a culture changes depends more on where people are coming from (how flexible they are) than on how useful it is to be flexible. The minority group has no power other than public opinion (protests).

Question 10

Othering

Answer 10

Magnifying boundaries between groups, attributing negative characteristics that separates you from them.

Question 11

Micro-aggressions

Answer 11

Brief, commonplace and daily verbal, behavioural or environmental indignities (treatment that causes shame), which can be intentional or unintentional) that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights and insults. Is often very hard to recognise, but is a very important cause of stress, which is related to negative health outcomes.

Question 12

Intersectionality

Answer 12

Multiple group membership (like being female and being non-white). Can cause compound (mixed) effects.

Question 13

Racism in NL

Answer 13

27% of people in the Netherlands experience discrimination. 2-3% stopped their studies due to this. It is also increasing in school and workplaces.

Question 14

Discrimination can affect acculturation in 2 ways

Answer 14

1. Identity denial: questioning someones cultural identity because he or she does not match the prototype of their culture (micro-aggression).
2. Stereotype threat: Anxieties about one’s own groups negative stereotypes lead one to confirm those stereotypes. Can cause race priming: scoring lower on a test because your race was asked.

Question 15

People deal with stereotypes by:

Answer 15

• Disidentifying with the stereotyped domain.
• Avoiding reminders of the stereotype.

Holding negative stereotypes about your own group is inherently stressful and harmful to mental health.

Question 16

Minorities within a culture

Answer 16

There are 6 variables that influence this:
1. Social image (positive or negative)
2. Nationality and legality
3. Normality (perceived by majority)
4. Relative culture distance to majority culture
5. Relative language distance to majority language
6. Reference group (size of minority group)

Question 17

Potential psychological consequences of being part of minority group

Answer 17

• Homesickness
• Frustration
• Isolation
• Paranoia
• Anger
• Depression

Question 18

Acculturation

Answer 18

The process of people migrating to a culture (that is different from the culture of origin) where they have to learn the new culture. A process in which an individual adopts, acquires and adjusts to a new cultural environment.

Question 19

Physical effects of discrimination (stress)

Answer 19

• High blood pressure
• Heart problems
• Low birth weight
• Depression
• Somatisation
• Smoking and alcohol use

Question 20

Integration (acculturation strategy)

Answer 20

++ Integration / alteration: positive attitude to host and heritage culture. Participating in host culture, but maintaining heritage. Most successful, least prejudice and greatest social support.

Question 21

Assimilation (acculturation strategy)

Answer 21

+- Assimilation: positive attitude to host, but negative to heritage culture.

Question 22

Separation (acculturation strategy)

Answer 22

-+ Separation: negative attitude to host, but positive attitude to heritage culture.

Question 23

Marginalisation (acculturation strategy)

Answer 23

• • Marginalisation: negative attitude towards host and heritage culture. No engagement. Rare and least successful.

Question 24

Pitfalls of acculturation

Answer 24

• Downwards assimilation: entering a new culture as a minority with low SES and stigma.
• Acculturating may not always be benificial, not all cultural habits are inherently good.
• Immigrant paradox: children of immigrants may experience more negative outcomes than their parents.

Question 25

Clinical implications

Answer 25

• Culture-sensitive clinicians recognise impact of racism.
• Explore your own biases, learn about socialised biases.
• Refrain from inferring feelings about race for others.
• Anticipate possible conflicts due to socialising into a system as a minority group with negative stereotypes.
• Increase education on mental health in specific groups.
• Interventions: interrupting historically-based inequalities.

Question 26

The noun bias

Answer 26

The fact that young children know relatively more nouns compared to verbs, because this is the first that they learn. The noun-bias is not universal, because different languages empathise different parts of the sentence (Asian children have a verb-bias).

Question 27

Process of acculturation (after migration)

Answer 27

1. Honeymoon: positive attitude towards the host culture.
2. Crisis / culture shock: negative feelings towards the host culture arise (after 6-18 months). Problems start to occur (homesickness, language barriers etc.)
3. People start to adjust to the host culture and people become more skilled in their new culture (takes several years).

Question 28

Cultural distance

Answer 28

The difference between two cultures overall. Cultural distance predicts how difficult acculturation is.

Question 29

Cultural fit

Answer 29

The degree to which an individuals’ personality is compatible with the dominant values of the host culture. Improves the acculturation process.

Question 30

Blending (being multicultural)

Answer 30

The tendency for multicultural people to show psychological tendencies that mingle between their two cultures (averaging them). Blending their two identities.

Question 31

Frame-switching (being multicultural)

Answer 31

The tendency for multicultural people to switch between different cultural selves.

Question 32

Third culture kids / global nomads

Answer 32

People who travel with their parents and spend large parts of their formative years living abroad. They have 3 cultures:
1. First culture: heritage culture of the parents.
2. Second culture: culture of the current host.
3. Third culture: the other cultures that they are exposed to.
They typically form a relationship with each culture, but do not feel a strong connection to any of them and often feel like a minority group.

Question 33

Multiculturalism

Answer 33

People who have lived in more than one culture are usually more creative and think of outside-the-box solutions for problems.