Prejudice

Question 1

What is prejudice?

Answer 1

Prejudice -> unfavourable attitudes towards a social group and its members -> From “prejudgment” Prejudice has traditionally been viewed as consisting of three components: Cognitive: beliefs and stereotypes about a social group -> Affective: strong, usually negative feelings about a social group and the qualities it is believed to possess -> Conative: intentions to behave in a certain way towards the social group – not behaviour itself.
Discrimination is not included, because prejudice is not always believed to translate into discriminatory actions (e.g. laws can prevent discrimination) -> But not all researchers adopt this tripartite view of prejudice -> Other models of prejudice include the behavioural component (discriminatory actions toward a social group) as part of prejudice.
Others view stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination -> not interchangeable. Stereotypes -> the cognitive component of attitudes towards a social group, beliefs about what a particular group is like. Prejudice is affective (feeling) -> discrimination is behavioural (action) component of an attitude.
Prejudice as an unfavourable and devaluing orientation toward members of a group because of their belonging to the group -> Prejudice seen as core to intergroup inequalities, intergroup conflict and intergroup violence, exploitation, e.g. dehumanization and genocide.

Question 2

Targets of prejudice

Answer 2

Social stratification -> class -> race -> ethnicity -> gender -> religion -> sexual orientation. Any social category

Question 3

Types of prejudice

Answer 3

Explicit attitudes: attitudes that are controllable, overt, reflective and monitorable. Measured e.g. through self-report measures of attitudes toward a social group. Limitation: social desirability concerns can lead people to conceal their real attitudes. -> Behavioural manifestations: Hate crimes, Hate speech, Discriminatory policies and laws, Racial profiling, Police brutality
Implicit attitudes -> attitudes that are reflexive, outside conscious awareness, uncontrollable and subtle. They are inferred based on behavioural task performance -> Behavioural manifestations: Implicit hiring discrimination, Implicit glass ceiling at work, Implicit housing discrimination.

Question 4

Implicit measures

Answer 4

Implicit Association Tests (IAT): Example: participants rapidly categorize a series of African American vs European American faces paired with either positive words (e.g. good) or negative words (e.g. bad). If the African American + bad task is completed faster and with fewer errors than the African American + good task, this indicates more negative implicit attitudes toward African Americans.
Racism is measured using both explicit and implicit measures -> Prejudice can be held at an implicit but not explicit level -> Aversive racists do not hold racist beliefs at the explicit level but hold racist beliefs at the implicit level -> Aversive racists support principles of racial equality, sympathize with victims of racism, and view themselves as non-prejudiced. But they also hold negative feelings and beliefs about Blacks often at an unconscious level, acquired through socialization and socio-cultural influences.

Question 5

Explanations of prejudice

Answer 5

Individual differences -> authoritarian personality, and right-wing. Authoritarianism. Social dominance orientation.
Intergroup theories -> Realistic Group Conflict Theory, Intergroup Threats, Social Identity Theory

Question 6

Authoritarian Personality

Answer 6

Historical context: fascism and right-wing ideologies in World War II (Holocaust): how can we explain prejudice and discrimination? -> Psychoanalytic approach: The Authoritarian Personality (1950): Theodor Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson & Sanford
Autocratic and punitive parenting practices lead to the development of an authoritarian personality, a syndrome characterized by: – Ethnocentrism – Negative attitudes toward Jewish and African American people and ethnic minorities generally – Negative attitudes toward democracy – Cynical and pessimistic view of human nature – Conservative economic and political attitudes.
Findings -> People who are prejudiced against one ethnic minority tend to be prejudiced toward other minorities (e.g. Blacks, Jews, Catholics) – Authoritarians hold conservative political economic views and exhibit high levels of generalized ethnocentrism.
Limitations -> Situational and sociocultural factors have a powerful effect on ethnocentrism -> Pettigrew (1958): although White US Northerners are less racist than White US Southerners and White South Africans, they have similar authoritarianism scores. A culture of prejudice is therefore sufficient for discrimination to occur. Ethnocentrism can arise quicker than child rearing practices have time to change e.g. extreme antisemitism arose quickly in Germany between the two wars.

Question 7

Right-wing authoritarianism

Answer 7

Research on authoritarianism was revived by bob Altemeyer (1988) -> he devised the right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) -> scale to overcome previous methodological limitations. RWA measures three dimensions: 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.
Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) is an ideological orientation that varies from individual to individual. For those high in RWA: – Social conventions are deemed moral – Acquiring power and authority results from following social conventions – Questioning power and authority is therefore immoral. It is measured by the RWA scale.
RWA correlates with prejudice against gay people, immigrants, foreigners, blacks and jews -> those who are politically conservative tend to score more highly on RWA.

Question 8

Social Dominance Orienation

Answer 8

Prejudice at the level of societal institutions. All human societies organize themselves socially along group-based hierarchies – Dominant groups: they have disproportionate power and special privileges (e.g. housing, health, good employment) – Subordinate groups: they have little political power or ease in their way of life (e.g. poor housing, poor health, unemployment etc) -> All human societies organize themselves socially along group-based hierarchies Although who is on top and who is at the bottom may change (e.g. through revolutions, coup d’etats etc), group-based hierarchies re-emerge.
Prejudice, discrimination and intergroup conflict result from human societies’ tendency to be organized along social group-based hierarchies -> How do dominant groups maintain their power over subordinate groups? – System-wide level processes – Person level processes – Intergroup level processes.

Question 9

System-wide level processes

Answer 9

– Hierarchy attenuating (HA): allocate resources to the advantage of subordinate groups and to the disadvantage of dominant groups but with a view to restore equality (human rights and civil rights groups and organizations)

Question 10

Legitimising myths

Answer 10

widely shared ideologies that organize and justify hierarchies (stereotypes, discourses, shared social representations etc). – Hierarchy enhancing (HE): e.g. ideas or discourse that help justify racism, sexism, sectarianism, classism – Hierarchy attenuating (HA): e.g. charter of universal human rights, feminist, socialist ideas.

Question 11

Person-level processes

Answer 11

Aggregated individual acts of discrimination help maintain group-based hierarchies – Values, personality variables, political ideologies, temperaments, empathy, influence how discriminatory people are. SDT focuses on a particular individual difference variable: Social dominance orientation.

Question 12

Social dominance orientation (SDO)

Answer 12

Aggregated individual acts of discrimination help maintain group-based hierarchies – Values, personality variables, political ideologies, temperaments, empathy, influence how discriminatory people are. SDT focuses on a particular individual difference variable: Social dominance orientation.

Question 13

High SDO

Answer 13

High SDOs should be more supportive of hierarchy enhancing legitimising myths and policies -> low SDOs should be more supportive of hierarchy-attenuating legitimising myths and policies. High SDO is associated with across many nations with higher forms of prejudice toward outgroups (sexism, heterosexism, racism, nationalism) and hierarchy-enhancing policies -> Low SDO is associated with greater tolerance, egalitarianism, and support for hierarchy attenuating policies such as respect for human rights (e.g. Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006).

Question 14

Group status

Answer 14

Group Status -> across various samples and nations -> members of salient dominant groups were found to have greater SDO than members of subordinate groups. Study -> Study with UCLA students (USA) (Sidanius et al., 2003) -> they filled the traits of hierarchy enhancing and hierarchy attenuating. Serves: hierarchy enhancing -> The socially powerful/wealthy -> Hierarchy attenuating: Subordinate social groups (e.g. women, ethnic minorities. Majors -> hierarchy enhancing business management, marketing, accounting, business economics -> hierarchy attenuating -> anthropology, Latin American studies, public health, sociology, special education, women’s studies. Results: HE majors were found to have higher anti-egalitarian beliefs (SDO and racism) than HA majors.

Question 15

Hierarchy enhancing roles and hierarchy attenuating

Answer 15

Assortment of people into HE and HA social institutions and roles: members of dominant groups are disproportionately found in Hierarchy Enhancing roles: – Hierarchy-Enhancing organizations (e.g. police forces) tend to be staffed by those high on antiegalitarian beliefs whereas – Hierarchy Attenuating organizations (e.g. civil liberties organizations) tend to be staffed by those with relatively democratic beliefs. Assortment of people into HE and HA social institutions and roles: members of dominant groups are disproportionately found in Hierarchy Enhancing roles: – Students pursuing degrees typically leading to Hierarchy Enhancing careers (e.g. business or law) hold relatively more anti-egalitarian views compared to those pursuing Hierarchy Attenuating careers (e.g. humanities and social sciences). Why? -> Self-selection – Institutional discrimination in hiring – Ideological socialization on the job – Differential feedback and attrition.
Ideological socialization on the job -> Gatto et al. (2009) found that a sample of police officers with one year training hold more antiegalitarian attitudes than newly recruited police officers. Differential feedback and attrition -> – Leitner and Sedlacek (1976) found that campus police officers who are more racist tend to receive more positive performance evaluations from their supervisors.

Question 16

Intergroup level processes

Answer 16

Intergroup level processes -> behavioural asymmetry -> members of subordinate groups behave in ways that are less beneficial to self and ingroup compared to the behaviour of dominant groups in stable group-based hierarchies -> Subordinates sometimes favour dominants over their own ingroups (outgroup favouritism) -> study showed African American children, showed them four dolls either black or white, asked which one they would like to play with, tragically they chose the white doll, and thought the white doll was nicer even though they knew the black dog was more similar. Self-debilitation: subordinates show higher levels of self-destructive behaviours than dominants do (e.g. internalization of negative ingroup stereotypes-low expectations of ingroup members, self-fulfilling prophecies). Implication: group-based hierarchies are maintained not only by powerful groups but also by the behaviour of the subordinate groups (although their agency is constrained).

Question 17

Social dominance theory conclusion

Answer 17

SDT emphasizes the role of institutions in perpetuating prejudice (prejudice is institutionalized) -> Institutional racism: the manipulation or tolerance of institutional practices, policies, and laws that unfairly restrict the opportunities of particular groups of people based on race, e.g. limiting immigration to certain groups of people, limiting another group’s voting power.

Question 18

Difference between RWA and SDO

Answer 18

RWA and SDO are empirically distinct, and both are related to prejudice independently of one another (e.g. Henry et al., 2005) -> One way to think of them is as ideological orientations (Duckitt, 2006) -> RWA taps more into submission to authority within one’s ingroup whereas SDO taps into preferences for hierarchies between groups.

Question 19

Realistic (group) conflict theory

Answer 19

Intergroup conflicts are characterized by ethnocentrism: evaluative preference for all aspects of our own group (ingroup) relative to other groups (outgroups) -> Prior to the 1960s many perspectives on prejudice, discrimination and intergroup behaviour emphasized individual or interpersonal processes in the origins of ethnocentrism (e.g. authoritarian personality).
Muzafer Sherif, a social psychologist: the origins of ethnocentrism lie in the nature of intergroup relations and not the properties of individuals -> Ideas tested in a series of field experiments in 1949, 1953, 1954 at summer camps for young American boys -> Most famous study is the 1954 Robbers Cave Experiment.

Question 20

Robber cave experiment

Answer 20

Robber Cave Experiment -> Muzafer Sherif and colleagues carefully selected 22 twelve-year old boys to participate in a summer camp. The boys were similar in many ways, did not know each other and thus had no history of conflict -> Participants were randomly divided into two groups and brought separately into a state park known as Robbers Cave in Oklahoma -> Phase 1: For various days the two groups were unaware of each other’s presence. Meanwhile they bonded through typical summer camp activities (making meals, canoeing, swimming etc). Both groups adopted different names: The Rattlers and the Eagles -> After a week or so, the groups discovered the presence of one another. At this point some competitive and hostile emotions erupted between the two groups (embryonic ethnocentrism). Phase 2: Organized competition between the two groups took place. They were fighting over tournament prizes that would be given only to the winning team (a mutually exclusive goal) -> During this phase, intergroup hostility grew even outside the competitions, e.g.: – Name-calling (insults) – Tearing down each other’s flags – Secretly amassing weapons. Phase 3: the experimenters created superordinate goals for participants without them knowing: goals desired by both groups, but which can only be achieved if the groups cooperate, e.g. collecting money together to get a movie they all wanted to watch, unblocking a faucet to secure water for the camp -> Result: the cooperative activities led to gradual improvement of intergroup relations. Importance -> The boys did not have authoritarian or dogmatic personalities. The origins of intergroup conflict lie elsewhere.

Question 21

Intergroup conflict theory

Answer 21

Developed by Sherif (1961): intergroup conflict results from fighting over desirable resources that are scarce and can only be obtained by one group (zero-sum) or they are perceived as such. Goals which are mutually exclusive (e.g. acquiring a scarce resource) lead to realistic intergroup conflict and ethnocentrism (negative interdependence) -> Goals which require interdependence (cooperation) for their achievement encourage intergroup harmony and reduce conflict (positive interdependence) -> Prejudice is the result of conflicts of interests between groups.

Question 22

Intergroup threats

Answer 22

Threat perceptions -> play an important role in explaining prejudice towards outgroups -> various types of threats -> intergroup threat theory -> threat can arise because members perceive themselves to be competing with the outgroup over scarce material resources or when they feel that their physical safety or power is endangered -> realistic threats. Intergroup Threat Theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000): Group members can also feel threatened if they perceive the outgroup to be a threat to their cultural values, religion, belief system, ideology, philosophy, morality or world: symbolic threat. Meta-analytic findings: (Riek et al., 2006): realistic and symbolic threats are associated with negative outgroup attitudes.

Threat perceptions -> Dovidio and Esses (2001): immigrants can be seen as a threat regardless of their success in the host country: – If unsuccessful, they are perceived as a threat to the country’s economic standing. – If successful, they are viewed as competing with the host society with jobs and other resources.
Threats need not to be real, but need to be perceived as such, Politicians sometimes blame immigrants for any negative socioeconomic development, e.g. unemployment, deficits in the health system, problems in education: scapegoating of immigrants. This leads to increased prejudice toward immigrants. Threat perceptions -> Media can have a big influence on perceptions of threat and immigrant attitudes. – Brosius and Esser (1995) found a significant relationship between media presentations of immigrants in Germany in the 1990s and hate crimes one week later (see also Koopmans & Olzack, 2004)