Prejudice Flashcards
What is prejudice?
Unfavourable attitude towards a social group + its members” (Hogg & Vaughn, 2018)
Traditionally made of three components:
1. Cognitive = beliefs and stereotypes about a social group.
- Affective = strong, usually negative feelings about a social group + qualities it is believed to possess.
- Conative: intentions to act upon your prejudice – not behaviour itself.
Is discrimination included in prejudice?
No - discrimination sometimes don’t take action in bhvr (laws can prevent discrimination)
Do all researchers support the three component view of prejudice?
No
Other models of prejudice = bhvrl component (discriminatory actions towards a social group) as part of prejudice
What themes are linked to prejudice in research?
Prejudice = unfavourable + devaluing to the people of the group bc of their membership
Prejudice = core to intergroup inequalities, conflict, violence, exploitation e.g dehumanisation + genocide
What is the context of research studies?
The are various targets = mostly done in the West USA
Most researched types of prejudice = sexism + racism.
Theories of prejudice assume some similarities in psychological processes of different forms of prejudice,. NEEDS TO also account for differences between different types of prejudice.
Dynamics underlying sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, ableism etc may not always be similar!
What is some criticism of research on prejudice?
There are less interest in research in types of prejudice = different parts of the world, e.g. prejudice toward Roma people, prejudice based on sect (sectarianism) (e.g. see Bouzeineddine et al., 2022).
Prejudices in mainstream social psychology itself…
* Theories = limited if we don’t include more research on prejudice from diff. economic, cultural, social + political systems
What types of prejudice is there?
Explicit attitudes
Implicit attitudes
Describe explicit attitudes as a type of prejudice
Attitudes = controllable, overt, reflective and monitorable..
Measured through self-report = measures of attitudes toward a social group.
Limitation: social desirability concerns = people conceal real attitudes.
Behavioural manifestations = Hate crimes, Hate speech, Discriminatory policies and laws, Racial profiling, Police brutality
Describe implicit attitudes as a type of prejudice
Implicit attitudes = reflexive attitudes, outside conscious awareness, uncontrollable + subtle. They are inferred based on behavioral task performance.
Behavioural manifestations = Implicit hiring discrimination, Implicit glass ceiling at work, Implicit housing discrimination
E.g Women at work = law doesn’t say women can’t be in high positions, but work is organised so they can’t get to high managerial positions.
How can we measure implicit measures?
Implicit Association Tests (IAT):
Participants rapidly categorise a series of African American vs European American faces paired w/ pos. words (e.g. good)/ neg.
words (e.g. bad).
If the African American + bad task is
completed faster + w/ fewer errors vs African American + good task = shows more negative implicit attitudes toward African Americans.
How would racism be measured?
Racism = explicit and implicit measures.
Prejudice =held at implicit but not explicit level.
Aversive racists do not hold racist beliefs at the explicit level but hold racist beliefs at the implicit level.
What are aversive racists?
Aversive racists:
- support principles of racial equality
- sympathise w/ victims of racism
- view themselves as non-prejudiced. But hold negative feelings + beliefs abt Blacks often at an unconscious level, acquired through socialization + socio-cultural influences.
Name the two models that use individual differences as an explanation for prejudice
- Authoritarian personality and Right-Wing Authoritarianism
- Social Dominance Orientation
Name the three models that use intergroup theories as an explanation for prejudice
- Realistic Group Conflict Theory
- Social Identity Theory
- Intergroup Threats
What is the Authoritarian personality and Right-Wing Authoritarianism explanation?
Historian context = WW2, racism, right-wing ideologies
Psychoanalytical approach = Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al., 1950) created by domineering + strict parenting. Generated lots of research for 50 years.
Characterised by:
- Ethnocentrism
– Neg. attitudes = Jews, African Americans + ethnic minorities generally
– Neg. attitudes toward democracy
– Cynical + pessimistic view of human nature
– Conservative economic + political attitudes
How do you measure authoritarian personality?
Adorno et al. (1950) = developed the F-scale to measure tendencies e.g racism
What were the findings of authoritarian personality?
Adorno et al. (1950):
- Prejudiced against one ethnic minority is toward others also (e.g. Blacks, Jews, Catholics)
- Authoritarians = conservative political-economic views + exhibit high levels of generalised ethnocentrism.
Methodology = confirmation bias
What were the problems of Adorno et al. (1950)?
- Confirmation bias = interviewers knew hypotheses + authoritarian scores of Ps
- Agreement bias = items are designed without taking into
account some respondents’ tendency to agree with items
on a questionnaire regardless of content - Situational + sociocultural factors = signi. effect on ethnocentrism - white US Northerners are less racist than white US southerners, they have similar authoritarian scores. Culture of prejudice = sufficient for discrimination to happen.
- ethnocentrism = happen quicker than child-rearing practises stopping the effects e.g extreme anti-semitism increased in Germany WW1 + 2
What is right wing authoritarianism?
(RWA) = ideological orientation that varies from individual to individual. For those high in RWA:
– Social conventions = moral
– Acquiring power + authority = from following social conventions
– Q power + authority = immoral
Who researched RWA?
Bob Altemeyer (1988 = RWA scale to overcome previous
methodological limitations. RWA measures three
dimensions:
1. Authoritarian submission = submission to society’s
established authorities
- Conventionalism = adherence to social conventions adopted by existing authorities
- Punitiveness against deviants: support for aggression
toward deviants
What did research find about RWA?
It correlates w/ prejudice against gay people, immigrants, foreigners, Blacks + Jews.
Politically conservative = score more highly on RWA.
What is social dominance orientation?
All human societies organise themselves socially along group-based hierarchies
– Dom. groups = disproportionate power + special privileges (e.g. housing, health, good employment)
– Subordinate groups = little political power/ ease in their way of life (e.g. poor housing, poor health)
Who is on top + bottom = may change (e.g. through revolutions, coup d’etats etc), group-based hierarchies re-emerge.
Prejudice, discrimination + intergroup conflict = human societies’ organised in social group-based hierarchies
