Lecture 6- Social categorisation and prejudice Flashcards
What is a category?
Collections of instances that have a family resemblance organised around a prototype.
What is a prototype?
Cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category eg standards against which family resemblance is assessed and membership decided.
What does Rosch (1978) say about categorisation?
Categories not rigid but fuzzy as depends on prototype and that categorisation of less typical members is more difficult
What are the 3 reasons why we categorise?
Save cognitive energy
Clarifies perception of world
Maintains pos self esteem
What is saving cognitive energy in terms of categorisation?
Saves time and cognitive processing so simplifies how individuals think about the world.
What is clarifying perception of world in terms of categorisation?
Once a category is activated, all members tend to possess all traits of stereotype which reduces uncertainty so we can predict social world.
What is maintaining pos self esteem in categorising?
Motivational function for social identity and self-concept.
What is the illusory correlation of stereotypes?
-Negative stereotypes may occur when people inaccurately pair minority groups with negative events/behaviours because they are both distinct.
What does Hamilton + Sherman (1996) study say about illusory correlations of stereotypes?
Asked white Americans to estimate arrest rate of various types of Americans and found African American were estimated to have higher levels despite being the minority.
What are the 3 effects of stereotyping?
Behavioural assimilation
Stereotype threat
Prejudice and discrimination.
What is behavioural assimilation regarding effects of stereotyping?
Stereotypes don’t just influence our perceptions of others; they can influence our own behaviour
What is stereotype threat regarding effects of stereotyping?
The threat of negative evaluations can actually lead to poor performance, e.g., sinking to the level expected of you when expectations are low.
How does Bargh et al (1996) study behavioural assimilation?
- ‘Scrambled sentence’ task, making sentences out of randomly ordered words.
IV: word types (2 conditions): -‘Elderly’: task used words associated with elderly stereotypes eg grey
-Neutral: words unrelated to age (e.g. thirsty, clean).
DV= Participants directed to the exit and hidden confederate timed how long it took them to leave room.
What were the results of Bargh et al (1996) study on behavioural assimilation?
Ppts primed with ‘elderly’ words behaved in a way relating to elderly stereotype eg slower to leave room.
What is a negative of studies priming stereotypes?
Often don’t replicate as effects might not be universal
What did Papies (2015) study say about priming stereotypes in behavioural assimilation?
Found that people who want to become thinner are likelier to make healthy food choices if they are primed, say, with words on a menu such as ‘diet’, ‘thin’ and ‘trim figure but only in those with a healthy diet as a central goal.
What did Steele + Aronson (1995) say about stereotype threat?
When negative stereotypes define our own groups, and we behave in line with them eg elderly people and memory. -This negative impact is not inevitable; reframing low expectations as a challenge instead of a threat can eliminate the effect
How did Tan + Barber (2020) test replication of stereotype threat across groups?
Examined whether age-based stereotypes impacted older Chinese adults by testing memory recall under a stereotype threat condition and results found poorer memory recall in stereotype threat condition compared to control
What was a downside of Tan + Barber (2020) study on replication of stereotype threat?
The ppts were immigrants in the US so stereotype threat may not be seen by Asian ppts still in an Asian country
What is prejudice?
Strong, highly accessible negative attitude which is dominated by cognitive bias and negative stereotypes.
What is discrimination?
Behaviour based on untrust treatment of certain groups such as reluctance to help and tokenism.
What is reluctance to help regarding discrimination?
Participants were more reluctant to help a minority member (than their own group) when faced with an emergency, but only when others were present.
What is tokenism regarding discrimination?
Process of favouring a member of a minority group in isolated episodes.
What did Monin and Miller (2001) find about discrimination?
Found that participants who were given the opportunity to hire a well-qualified minority candidate were willing to discriminate against other minorities in future hiring, as they had already “proved” that they were not prejudiced.
What is reverse discrimination?
Opening displays pro-minority behaviour but as a way to deflect accusations of prejudice, e.g., giving more money to a minority member when feeling threatened.
What did Dovidio et al (1996) find about racism and sexism?
Decline of racist attitudes over 60 years
What did Quillian and Lee (2022) find about racism and sexism?
Found that hiring discrimination among 170k apps for minority groups has not fallen over the past decades.
Suggests specific stereotypes changed, but negativity remains
What is modern racism now?
Conflict between evaluation towards out-group and values of equality and egalitarian attitudes eg more implicit aversive/discomfort
What are the 3 types of subtle prejudice?
Ambivalent racism
Ambivalent sexism
Modern/symbolic racism
What is Ambivalent racism ((Katz & Hass, 1988)?
Subtle prejudice
High scores on pro-black attitudes (pity for disadvantaged) but high scores on anti-black attitudes (hostility towards deviant).
What is Ambivalent sexism (Glick + Fiske, 1996)
Subtle prejudice
Hostile sexism paints women in negative light. Benevolent sexism could be seen as apparently positive
What is Modern/symbolic racism (Kinder + Sears, 1981)
Subtle prejudice
Blaming the victim and support of policies that all disadvantage racial minorities.
What are the 2 causes of prejudice?
Historical/economical
Pyshcological
What is historical/economic prejudice?
Psychological notion of frustration of agg.
What is psychogical prejudice?
Individual differences in personality, group processes eg unequal status.
What is the Frustration-agg hypothesis (Dollard et al ,1939)
-Frustration causes aggression as ‘psychic energy’ built up by frustration needs an outlet, so we find a scapegoat eg minority group. -Linked to Freud’s notion of displacement as when we get angry, we misdirect our anger.
What are the 5 stages of the Frustration-aggression hypothesis (Dollard et al, 1939)
Identification of personal goals -> Psychic energy activated -> frustration of goal achievement -> Source of frustration too powerful -> Scapegoat found w/ catharsis achieved by displacing agg.
How does Holland + Sears (1940) provide evidence for the Frustration-agg hypothesis?
Archival study about cotton workers in which over 50yrs period was measured through price of cotton and number of lynchings of black workers.
Found that as frustrations increased (price of cotton fell) the lynchings increased (displaced agg)
What are the personality traits of authoritarian personalities?
Extreme reactions to authority figures, obsession w/ rank and status and tendency to displace anger. Often related to harsh upbringing
How does Adorno (1950) provide evidence for authoritarian personalities?
Retrospective interviews about childhood with questionnaires monitoring antisemitism, ethnocentrism and potential for fascism.
-Found correlation between harshness of upbringing and measures of prejudice.
What are the 3 criticisms of Adorno (1950) study on authoritarian personality?
-Correlation evidence so can’t determine cause and effect
-Poor methodology as relies on memory of upbringing and not all strict upbringings cause fascism. -Ignores social context as need to consider history and culture.
What does Tajfel (1981) suggest about Social learning?
Suggested hatred and suspicion of groups are learnt in early life.
How does Barrett + Short (1992) provide evidence to Tajfel social learning theory?
They studied English children aged 4-5yrs and found that French and Spanish like most but Germans liked he least suggesting parental prejudices impacted.
Parental prejudice - Modelling (child witness racial hatred). Conditioning - Parents’ approval of racist behaviour)
How does Minard (1952) support the group process of Conformity?
Investigated attitudes of white miners and found 60% would readily switch between racism and not depending on situational norms that either encouraged or not.
What is group relation theory?
Suggests we have social identity as well as a personal one. Social is made up of how we categorise ourselves in terms of social groups
-Intergroup differentiation such as: in group vs out group, in group bias, depersonalisation.
Why is social identity important?
Maintains self-esteem, social bonding
Why is social identity not important?
Implications for interaction with, out group members, hypothesised cause of prejudice and stereotyping.
How does Hogg + Vaughan (2011) highlight varying levels of importance of social identity?
Blue/brown eye study to highlight effects of prejudice in school environment. Blue eyed children were deemed inferior and lost key privileges and it found that brown eyed children were quick to derogate those w/ blue eyes.
What happened in Akrami (2011) study?
Explored whether personality (RW authoritarian) or social psychological (group member) or a combination of both predicted sexisms.
What were the results of Akrami (2011) study?
Sexism was best explained by considering combined influence of both personality and social psychology constructs. The findings imply that it’s necessary to integrate various approaches to explain prej.
