Prejudice Flashcards
Intergroup Attitudes
Reacting to others differently because of their category membership
Cognitive → stereotype
Affective → prejudice
Behavioral → discrimination
discrimination
behavior
Discrimination should always be treated with caution
discrimination against sexual minorities
discrimination on the basis of physical and mental handicap
Prejudice
Unfavourable attitude towards a social group and its members
serious problem when it is associated with dehumanisation of an outgroup
Intergroup attitudes: affective
prejudice may go undetected, prejudice can be expressed in many indirect and subtle ways
A tight correspondence between knowing and believing occurs only among people who are highly prejudiced
genocide
The ultimate expression of prejudice by exterminating an
entire social group
stereotypes
cognitive
widely shared and simplified evaluated image of a social group and its members
Generalized beliefs about characteristics and behaviors of a group taken as a whole
Image of a typical group member
Traits that are perceived to be more common, or frequent, among members of a particular social category than among others
consensual social stereotypes
social shortcut: need these stereotypes to guide us behave in different social context
Minimal group paradigm
Mere classification of individuals into arbitrary groups results in discrimination, although
◦ there are no interactions between groups
◦ there is no history of intergroup conflict
◦ individuals’ identities are unknown
◦ there is no self-interest involved
When participants are asked to make allocations between two other individuals, participants would allocate …
◦ equally between the two individuals if …
◦ category membership of the two individuals are not known, or
◦ both individuals belong to the same group
When participants are asked to make allocations between two other individuals, participants would allocate …
◦ differently if the two individuals belong to different groups
◦ Specifically, the participant would allocate more to the individual who is in the same group as the participant
When participants are asked to allocate rewards according to performance between own group and another group, participants would use …
◦ an equity rule if own group performs better than another group (so that own group will get more than another group)
◦ an equality rule if own group performs worse than another group (so that own group will not get less than another group)
*doing anything to maximise group’s interest
Theory of category accentuation
the proposition that classification of items produces encoding biases, that is, that individuals tend to exaggerate (accentuate) the similarities among items placed in the same category and the differences among items placed in different categories
Once we impose categories, we judge items …
◦ within same categories are perceived as more similar and homogeneous–assimilation
◦ in different categories are perceived as more different and heterogeneous–contrast
gender
sex-stereotypical attributes of a person
bias
tend to think that an individual have all the characteristics of that social group
racism
prejudice and discrimination against people based on their ethnicity or race
aversive / modern / symbolic / regressive / ambivalent racism
people experience a conflict between, on the one hand, deep-seated emotional antipathy towards racial outgroups, and on the other, modern egalitarian values that exert pressure to behave in a non-prejudiced manner
detecting racism
unobtrusive measures > people usually behave in a socially desirable way
> automaticity: automatic cognition
> implicit association test: reaction-time test to measure attitudes - particularly unpopular attitudes that people might conceal
ageism
prejudice and discrimination against people based on their age
Age-related, or generational stereotypes eg. traditionalist, baby boomers, Generation X, Millennials
face-ism
media depression that gives greater prominence to the head and less prominent to the body for men but vice versa for women
properties predicting popularity
- age
- gender
- critical recognition
success for different gender
For masculine task, male success was attributed to ability,
female success was attributed to luck or easy task
Effect of Aging on Popularity of Male vs. Female Screen Actors
Male actors were found to be more popular than female actors that illustrates a gender discrepancy in the artistic profession of screen
actors:
◦ movie roles are distributed across gender have found a significant imbalance that has remained consistent over the last 70 years (Bazzini et al., 1997; Powers et al., 1993).
◦ Female actors also earn less money than their male counterparts (Markson & Taylor, 1993).
> Research on the gender-wage gap shows equivocal evidence regarding its magnitude, which likely stems from the different wage-related variables researchers include in their calculations. To examine whether pay differentials solely based on gender exist, we focused on the earnings of top performing professionals within a specific occupation to rule out productivity-related explanations for the gender-wage gap. Specifically, we investigated the interaction of gender and age on the earnings of Hollywood top movie stars. The results reveal that the average earnings per film of female movie stars increase until the age of 34 but decrease rapidly thereafter. Male movie stars’ average earnings per film reach the maximum at age 51 and remain stable after that.
◦ Although an equal number of prestigious acting awards are typically allotted to male and female actors, the movies for which female actors win these awards are less likely to receive best movie awards.
◦ Indeed, Best Actresses winners are less likely to be associated with award winning movies than even Best Supporting Actors (Simonton, 2004)
> For both measures, the effect of a male best actor award or nomination is larger that for a female best actor award or nomination
The discrepancies hold for both the lead and supporting categories
No gendered aging effects in the popularity of screen actors
◦ Popularity of both genders declined with age at a similar rate.
Discrimination
Can be expressed in terms of social distance or ambivalence behaviors or feelings
social distancing
sexism
prejudice and discrimination against people based on their gender
sex / gender stereotypes
men and women believe that men are competent and incompetent and women are warm and expressive
sex role
behaviour deemed sex-stereotypically appropriate
Hostile Sexism
“Most women fail to appreciate all that men do for them.”
“Women seek to gain power by getting control over men.”
“Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist.”
Benevolent Sexism
◦ “Women should be cherished and protected by men.”
◦ “Many women have a quality of purity that few men possess.”
◦ “A good woman ought to be set on a pedestal by her man.”
Tokenism
Giving trivial concession to a minority group in order to deflect accusations of discrimination
The practice of publicly making small concessions to a minority group in order to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination
Reverse discrimination
Publicly in favor of a minority group over a majority group in order to deflect accusations of discrimination
The practice of publicly being prejudiced in favour of a minority group in order to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination against that group
reluctance to help
reluctance to help other groups to improve their position in society, by passively or actively failing to assist their efforts, is one way to make sure they remain disadvantaged
stigma
Group attributes that mediate a negative social evaluation of people belonging to the group
> members of stigmatised groups tend to internalise these evaluations to form an unfavourable self image that can depress self-esteem in relavant context
stereotype threat
feeling that we will be judged and treated in terms of negative stereotypes of our group, and that we will inadvertently confirm the stereotypes through our behaviour
attributional ambiguity
attribution processes can impact stigmatised people in a rather unusual way, via attribution ambiguity. People who are stigmatised can be very sensitive to the causes of other’s treatment of them eg. Did she serve me first because I am black?
> lead to suspicion and mistrust in social interactions
> Lower individuals’ self-esteem > stigmatised people often fail to take personal credit for positive outcomes
self-fulfilling prophecy
expectations and assumptions about a person that influence our interaction with that person and eventually change their behaviour in line with our expectations
eg. experimenter primed participants to have high expectations for the performance of their platoon > After the training program, platoons with a high expectation leaders outperformed the ‘no-expectation’ counterpart
essentialism
pervasive tendency to consider behaviour to reflect underlying and immutable, of an innate, properties of people of the group they belong to
Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination
No perfect associations among Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination
Realistic group conflict
Prejudice stems from competition between various social groups over valued commodities or opportunities (jobs, homes, status)
◦ Competition contributes to increases negativity between groups
◦ 35 year data shows correlation between bad economic conditions & incidents of violence towards blacks
when economy is bad > more black lynching, because of fighting for resources
lynch: kill (someone) for an alleged offence without a legal trial, especially by hanging.
In-group bias
tendency to favor one’s own group over others
Out-group homogeneity
◦ individuals in an out-group are perceived to be more similar to each other those in an in-group
◦ (or similarly, we perceive in-group to be more heterogeneous than outgroup)
Resolving intergroup conflict
- Superordinate goals
- Allport’s Contact hypothesis
- Osgood’s GRIT (graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tensionreduction)
◦ One party takes the initiative to concede unilaterally, without requiring prior commitment from another party and assuming the other party will reciprocate with concession eventually
*structured program is more effective in reducing prejudice
Superordinate goals
shared efforts to achieve shared goals
Allport’s Contact Hypothesis
Conditions required for contact to be effective in reducing intergroup conflict (or in-group bias). The contact should be … ◦ Of a structured contact that promotes 1. Equal status 2. A common goal 3. Cooperation
more contact > less prejudice
facilitating conditions that enhance the tendency for positive contact outcomes to emerge
> the tendency for familiarity to breed liking
> Uncertainty reduction (reducing intergroup anxiety)
◦ Intergroup anxiety refers to feelings of threat and uncertainty that people experience in intergroup contexts.
◦ These feelings grow out of concerns about how they should act, how they might be perceived, and whether they will be accepted
Effects generalized beyond people in the immediate contact environment
Results show that intergroup contact effects typically generalize beyond participants in the immediate contact situation.
Not only do attitudes toward the immediate participants usually become more favorable, but so do attitudes toward
◦ Entire outgroup
◦ Outgroup members in other situations, and even
◦ Outgroups not involved in the contact.
Graduated reciprocation in tension reduction (GRIT)
- Be first, be nice
- Reciprocate
~ tit-for-tat
Mutual Assured Destruction: reduce the nuclear a little first
> showing the intention to cooperate
> wait for the other party to respond
explanations of prejudice and discrimination
- innate component to prejudice: fear of the unfamiliar and unusual > Mere exposure effect
- learnt prejudice
- frustration-aggression hypothesis: theory that or frustration leads to aggression, and or aggression comes from frustration
used to explain prejudice and intergroup aggression
scapegoat: individual or group that becomes the target for anger and frustration caused by a different individual or group or some other set of circumstances
displacement
collective behaviour: The behaviour of people en masse - such as in a crowd, protest or riot
relative deprivation: A sense of having less than we feel entitled to - The authoritarian personality: personality syndrome originating in childhood that predisposes individuals to be prejudiced inc. ethnocentrism
Acquiescent response set - Dogmatism: cognitive style that is rigid and intolerant and predisposes people to be prejudiced; and closed mindedness
- right-wing authoritarianism
conventionalism: adherence to sell societal convention that are endorsed by established authorities
authoritarian aggression: support for aggression towards social deviance
authoritarian submission: submission to societies established authorities - social dominance theory: theories that attribute prejudice to an individuals acceptance of an ideology that legitimises ingroup-serving hierarchy and domination, and rejects egalitarian ideologies
System justification theory: theory that attribute social status to peoples adherence to an ideology that justifies and protect the status quo - Believe congruence theory: The theory that similar beliefs promote liking and social harmony among people while dissimilar beliefs produced dislike and prejudice
minimal group paradigm: experimental methodology to investigate the effect of social categorisation alone on behaviour
> similar > liking
