Lecture 8: Prejudice Flashcards
Old fashioned
overly prejudice
Aversive
having both egalitarian attitudes and negative emotions towards members of different groups
Egalitarian= believing that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities
• when not overtly prejudice, at some level, have negative attitudes towards a certain group
• Some aspects of prejudice may be not consciously recognized by an individual
• People feel shame when they feel negative emotions towards a group as this goes against egalitarian values
Sexism
= the subordination of someone on the basis of their sex
Hostile: the view that women are inferior, irrational and weak
Benevolent: positive in valence and are characterized by idealizing women in traditional female roles such as ‘home maker’ or ‘mother’.-although positive stereotypes, restrict women in to specific roles
Prejudice and stereotypes
Some suggest that stereotype/prejudice reducing over time
¥ Katz & Brady (1933): participants asked to say which adjectives describe target group
¥ ‘Princeton trilogy’ studies indicated that stereotypes were fading
¥ Devine & Elliot (1995): distinction between stereotype and personal beliefs: argue that these stereotypes still prevalent, stereotypes may have changed-replaced by other stereotypical characteristics eg AA are sporty, used to be that they were superstitious
¥ Stereotype of African Americans still prevalent (although changing over time)
¥ Personal beliefs: negative characteristics (lazy, criminal, low intelligence) still highly prevalent among some respondents
Infrahumanization
=the tendency to attribute the uniquely human secondary emotions to outgroup members to a lesser extent than to ingroup members
(primary= joy, surprise ect secondary=admiration, hope ect)
¥ Implicit attitudes: implicit association test (IAT)
¥ Paladino et al. (2002): ingroup names more strongly associated with uniquely human emotions than are outgroup names
¥ Can justify discrimination if a group is believed to be ‘less than human’
¥ Dehumanization – most extreme form of infrahumanization
Implicit vs Explicit
Explicit= conscious, deliberate and controllable Implicit= attitudes that are unintentionally activated by the presence of an attitude object, whether actual or symbolic triggered by seeing someone from another group, or something associated with that group
Implicit associate test (IAS)
- Identifies the speed which participants can categorise either positive or negative stimuli along side ingroup or outgroup stimuli
- Usually demonstrates people have ingroup bias: easier to associate own group with positive stimuli
- Interesting to study the in the context of prejudice towards social group towards whom no longer socially acceptable to express negative attitudes
- Evidence that although explicit and implicit prejudice both influence behaviour, they do so in different ways.
- Explicit: conscious, deliberate vs implicit: subtle, indirect, spontaneous biased non-verbal behaviours eg avoiding eye contact
Authoritarian personalities
- Some individuals predisposed to have negative attitudes towards groups tp which they don’t belong
- Arise as a defensive reaction against over strict parenting methods
*Freud
If child treated strict gives rise to authoritarian and prejudice attitudes in later life.
Child cannot express negative attitudes toward strict parents, bottled up negative attitudes that in adulthood these feelings are targeted at another target, vulnerable/minority groups in society
F-scale
measures extent to which individuals have authoritarian characteristics
Realistic group conflict theory
intergroup conflict develops due to competition for scare resources
Robbers cave studies (1953/55)
=importance of superordinate goals
Minimal group paradigm
Tajfel, Flament, Billig & Bundy, 1971
• Participants allocated to two groups on basis of painting preference
• Identities of other group members unknown
• Participants asked to allocate points (money) to a series of unknown ingroup members and outgroup members
• No individual gain to participants
Results:
• Participants tend to allocate more points to their own
• Tendency to maximise differences between groups even if that means awarding fewer points to ingroup member
• Even though
• Meaningless categories
• No interaction between groups
• No “group history”
• No personal gain
Group membership or similarity?
• Dissociating similarity (liking painting) for pure group membership (categorization by coin-toss)
• The explicit grouping of people, even on an arbitrary basis, is sufficient for discriminatory responses to occur
Social Identity Theory
(Tajfel & Turner, 1979)
- Individuals strive to achieve or maintain positive social identity
- positive social identity partly based on favourable comparisons
- in-group must be perceived as positively different or distinct from relevant outgroups
*so we are motivated to maximise the positive difference between in-group and outgroup
Reducing prejudice
¥ Intergroup contact
¥ Bringing together members of different groups should reduce prejudice (Allport, 1954), but only if
Ð Co-operation; Common goals; Equal status; Institutional support
¥ Cognitive dissonance – change our attitudes: when have to work with group you have negative feelings towards, have negative thoughts on one hand and actual behaviour on the other where you are working well with them. These don’t sit well together so change attitudes to fit in with cooperative behaviour
Extended contact
•
Just knowing ingroup members who have outgroup friends can reduce outgroup prejudice
¥ +ve ingroup exemplar (social norms, reduce anxiety)
¥ +ve outgroup exemplar (reduces stereotypes)
¥ other can be included in self
¥ Wright et al. (1997) – based on Robbers Cave experiments
¥ 1 person from each different group worked together
¥ Discussed experience with other ingroup members
Wright et al. (1997) – based on minimal group paradigm
¥ Watched one group member working with a member of the other group
¥ 3 conditions:
Ð Hostile
Ð Neutral
