Prejudice

Question 1

What is a stereotype?

Answer 1

A belief that typical members of the outgroup possess certain characteristics or traits.

Question 2

What is prejudice? (according to Allport)

Answer 2

An antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization… directed toward a group as a whole, or toward an individual because he is a member of that group. Allport

Question 3

What is discrimination?

Answer 3

Any negative behaviour directed toward an individual based on his/her membership in a group.

Question 4

Once stereotypes are activated by a person’s _____ or _______ to belong or _______ another person/group, prejudice and discrimination can result. (Fiske)

Answer 4

Once stereotypes are activated by a person’s intent or motivation to belong or evaluate another person/group, prejudice and discrimination can result. (Fiske)

Question 5

What is Devine’s (1989) Disassociation Model of stereotypes?

Answer 5

Although a person may have knowledge of a stereotype, his or her personal beliefs may or may not be congruent with the stereotype.

Question 6

At what age does a person begin to critically evaluate their stereotypes –i.e. exert control over them?

Answer 6

Around 7-8 years.

Question 7

How do Lepore and Brown (1997) contradict Devine (1989)?

Answer 7

Lepore and Brown (1997) have shown that under some circumstances, high and low prejudiced people do differ at the automatic stereotype level, with high-prejudice people showing more automatic negative stereotypes than low-prejudice people.

Question 8

How do stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination correlate?

Answer 8

According to Dovidio et al. 1996 metaanalysis of 26 studies…
Prejudice and stereotypes – .25
Prejudice and discrimination – .32
Stereotypes and discrimination – .16

Question 9

What kind of personality is associated with blatant prejudice?

Answer 9

The authoritarian personality.

Question 10

McConahay’s (1986) Modern Racism theory theory proposes that as a result of a change in society’s norms (due to the civil rights movement of the 1960s)…

Answer 10

… politically conservative white majorities are no longer comfortable in expressing racism directly, instead they would advocate laws and policy that disadvantaged racial minorities.


Question 11

What is aversive racism?

Answer 11

Aversive racism -biases of those who are politically liberal and consciously endorse broad-minded views, but unconsciously racist.

Question 12

How have forms of subtle and blatant racism changed from 1988 to 1999 in hiring staff?

Answer 12

Blatant racism towards superior black candidates has dropped.

Subtle racism towards ambiguous blacks remains unchanged, at medium level, from 1988 to 1999.

Question 13

Do both blatant and subtle racism result in psycho-emotional stress for the victim?

Answer 13

Yes. And both correlate negatively with African-American adolescent’s psychological health.

Question 14

What is the problem with scales such as McConahay’s Old-Fashioned Racism Scale (OFRS) and Modern Racism Scale (MRS)?

Answer 14

Face validity is high. So they are useless when people are conscious of social desirability.

Question 15

What are 3 criticisms of the Modern Racism Scale?

Answer 15

1) the scale contains a confound between prejudice and political conservatism;
2) the scale items appear blatant rather than subtle; and
3) the scale items may have become outdated.

Question 16

What did Gaertner and McLaughlin find about the link between negative and positive words and race? And what was their method?

Answer 16

On computer screen, when positive words were paired with the word “Whites” (e.g., ambitious / whites) people responded faster than when positive words were paired with the word “Blacks” or “Negroes” (e.g., ambitious / blacks). No difference in pairing of negative words.

Question 17

What is the typical finding on shooter bias studies?

Answer 17

The vast majority of American participants (black or white) are faster to shoot armed targets when they are Black than when they are White, and to not shoot unarmed targets when they are White than when they are Black.

Question 18

How did Unkelbach, Forgas, and Denson (2008) generalise

the shooter bias effect?

Answer 18

They used faces with either a Muslim turban or no turban as the target stimuli. Here Islamic appearance was found to increase automatic bias.

Question 19

How does the Implicit Association Test work?

Answer 19

Words must be categorised into either:

Black or bad
White or good

Then counterbalanced. If pps are faster to pair positive words with white and negative with black, evidence of an implicit prejudice.

Question 20

How is the IAT calculated

Answer 20

Compatible mapping: White/pleasant Black/unpleasant

Incompatible mapping: Black/pleasant White/unpleasant

IAT difference score (ms) = mean latency for incompatible – mean latency for compatible!

The higher the positive difference score the greater the preference for Whites.


Question 21

Four criticisms of the IAT?

Answer 21

1. Implicitly measured attitudes should not be assumed to be nonconscious, as people are generally aware of their automatically activated racial attitudes (Fazio and Olson, 2003)
2. The IAT is also susceptible to deliberate faking and strategic processing (Fiedler, Messner and Bluemke, 2006)
   
3. Blanton and Jaccard (2008) are critical of the the less than acceptable behavioural predictability and test-retest reliability of the IAT, as well as the lack of justification for the threshold values chosen for IAT scores.
4. The categories ‘black’ and ‘unpleasant’ are less familiar than ‘white’ and ‘pleasant’ for white participants, this asymmetry impacts on their IAT scores. (Rothermund and Wentura, 2004)

Question 22

What is Olson and Fazio’s MODE model of prejudice?

Answer 22

The Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants model is a dual process model that proposes that motivation and opportunity to control prejudice moderate the attitude-behaviour and implicit-explicit measure relationship.


Question 23

Why might there be a dissociation between implicit and explicit measures of prejudice?

Answer 23

Responding to an explicit measure (i.e., questionnaire) involves conscious judgements that can be affected by motivation and opportunity to control prejudice.

Responding to an implicit measure (IAT, shooter bias etc) is less affected by motivation and opportunity to control prejudice.


Question 24

When either _______ or __________ to control prejudice is ________, responses on explicit measures should correlate with implicit measures, and prejudice attitudes are likely to predict discriminatory behaviour – this is rare.

When both motivation and opportunity to control prejudice are ______ (politically correct societies), responses on _________ measures are less likely to correlate with implicit measures and prejudice attitudes are unlikely to predict _________behaviour – this is more common.

Answer 24

When either motivation or opportunity to control prejudice is low, responses on explicit measures should correlate with implicit measures, and prejudice attitudes are likely to predict discriminatory behaviour– this is rare.

When both motivation and opportunity to control prejudice are high (politically correct societies), responses on explicit measures are less likely to correlate with implicit measures and prejudice attitudes are unlikely to predict discriminatory behaviour– this is more common.

Question 25

What parts of the brain are implicated in automatic race identification and evaluation?

Answer 25

The fusiform face area detects race.

Amygdala involved in evaluation.

Question 26

Which areas of the brain are involved in conflict between implicit race attitudes and conscious intentions to be non-biased?

Answer 26

The anterior cingulate cortex is thought to detect conflict between implicit race attitudes and conscious intentions to be nonbiased. The ACC monitors for racial bias. When such conflicts are detected, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex may regulate negative evaluations.

Question 27

How do high- and low-prejudice people differ in their endorsement of Aboriginal stereotypes? Augoustinos, Ahrens and Innes (1994)

Answer 27

High-prejudiced individuals were more likely to endorse negative components of an Indigenous-Australian stereotype and low-prejudiced individuals were more likely to endorse the positive components of the Indigenous-Australian stereotype.

Question 28

Are modern racist or traditional racist attitudes towards aborigines more prevalent? (Pedersen and Walker, 1997)

Answer 28

Modern racist.

Question 29

What percentage of Asians internationals studying in Australia report having suffered prejudice and discrimination? (1995)

Answer 29

73%

Question 30

Who are rated more negatively, Indigenous or Asian Australians? (1994)

Answer 30

Asians.

Question 31

What attitudes towards Aborigines, Asians and Arabs were found among university students? (Islam and Jahjah, 2001) What were the limitations of this study?

Answer 31

Slightly positive, with Aborigines most positive of all.

But only explicit measure – social desirability and liberal cohort.

Question 32

What are two evolutionary accounts of prejudice?

Answer 32

1. Living in groups helped humans survive. To protect ourselves we learn who belongs to group and who doesn’t. This process becomes hardwired.
2. Preference for ingroup maximises the percentage of genes passed on to future generations.

Question 33

What is social identity theory (SIT)?

Answer 33

The groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belong to are an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.

In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. For example, England is the best country in the world! We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and holding prejudice views against the outgroup (the group we don’t belong to).

Question 34

What’s the difference in stereotype-congruence of the beliefs of 5-6 year olds vs 8-9 year olds?

Answer 34

In 5-6 year olds, knowledge of negative stereotypes was highly congruent with negative personal beliefs.

8-9 year olds were more likely to report positive personal beliefs that diverged from the negative stereotype.

Question 35

What are three limitations of social identity theory?

Answer 35

1. Favouring an outgroup does not mean we must also dislike outgroups.
2. Outgroup discrimination occurs the more homogenous the outgroup, and when an outgroup member has done something bad.
3. Cognitive recategorisation alone has limited explanatory power for prejudice formation.

Question 36

Two social ways children can learn prejudice?

Answer 36

1. From authoritarian parents (Allport)

2. From observational learning and vicarious reinforcement of those attitudes from parents and peers. (Bandura)

Question 37

How is the relationship between prejudice of parents and that of children moderated? And how is this finding explained?

Answer 37

Subtle racial prejudice of mothers correlates with that of adolescents, EXCEPT in families high on family cohesion, adaptability and communication.

Mothers who give children independence (low cohesion) and structured rules (low adaptability) engender the respect of their kids. Pshaw!

Question 38

What was Adorno’s (1950) personality theory of prejudice?

Answer 38

A person’s fear and hatred of authoritarian parents is displaced onto outgroups.

Question 39

Three robust correlates of high prejudice?

Answer 39

1. Closed-mindedness/dogmatism
2. Social Dominance Orientation
3. Political Conservatism

Question 40

What are the 5 causal factors of prejudice in Fiona’s model?

Answer 40

1. Cognition (social categorisation)
2. Personality (Authoritarianism)
3. Social learning (family, peers, media)
4. Intergroup contact (cooperation)
5. Evolution (gene maximisation)

Question 41

How did Dasgupta and Greenwald attempt to reduce implicit bias against blacks? And what were the effects and limitations?

Answer 41

They exposed pps to examples of liked blacks (Denzel) and disliked whites (Dahmer) over 40 trials then completed race IAT. Control condition - flowers and insects.

Effect lasted only 24 hours. No change in explicit prejudice. Only male exemplars used.

Question 42

How did Plante, Peruche and Butz (2005) attempt to reduce implicit (shooter) bias against blacks? What effects and limitations? And how was it replicated for Aborigines?

Answer 42

Exposed pps to stimuli where blacks and whites were equally likely to have gun. Thus race bias would be unhelpful in responding accurately - attending to race would impair performance.

Race bias was eliminated by end of second set of 80 trials. But lasted for only 24 hours.

Failed to reduce shooter bias with Aborigines, but did reduce alcohol stereotype (DV - would you let into football match).

Question 43

How did Devine et al. (2012) achieve a lasting reduction in implicit prejudice against blacks?

Answer 43

53 students were exposed to a 45-min interactive slide show on:

1. stereotype replacement – replacing stereotypes with non-sterotypes; coming up with alternative to stereotype response in future interaction
2. counter-stereotype imaging – thinking of members of outgroup in a non stereotypical way.
3. Individuation –asking personal info rather than group-based.
4. perspective-taking – asking what it would be like to be stereotype group.
5. oportunities for contact – encouraging Pps to engage in interactions with outgroup members

Reduction at week 4 maintained at week 8 on IAT. But no EXPLICIT reduction effect.

Question 44

What are the four criteria for prejudice reduction in Allport’s contact hypothesis?

Answer 44

Putting two racial groups together is sufficient for the reduction of prejudice if four criteria are met:
1) equal status among group members
2) common goals to orient the contact
3) contact via cooperation rather than competition
4) support from authorities to establish norms of acceptance.


Question 45

What’s the correlation between contact and prejudice (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006 metaanalysis)?

Answer 45

-.21 - rising to -.29 if all four of Allports conditions are met

Question 46

Does knowing ingroup members who have outgroup friends (extended contact) result in lower levels of prejudice?

Answer 46

Yes. Simply learning about the positive contact experiences of others is enough. Reading books had the same effect for British kids towards Indians.

Question 47

What is imagined contact (Crisp and Turner, 2010) and what effect does it have?

Answer 47

Imagining meeting someone from an outgroup and listing the unexpected things you find out about them.

Decreases anxiety towards outgroups and increases the likelihood of future contact situations.

BUT no long-term data.

Question 48

What is the common ingroup identity strategy? (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000) And what is the problem with it?

Answer 48

The Common Ingroup Identity strategy (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000) creates a single more inclusive group, showing that stronger perceptions of a common/one-group identity, predicts positive intergroup attitudes.

Problem: individual seem to have to relinquish who they are.

Question 49

How can the dual identity framework complement contact?

Answer 49

A shared identity with previous outgroup members helps achieve the superordinate or common goal – the main driver behind prejudice reduction.

Question 50

What was the DIEC Harmony Program (White and Abu-Rayya, 2012) and what were its 3 outcomes?

Answer 50

A nine-week classroom intervention for Christian and Muslim high-school students. 8 structured internet sessions in 4-person groups with a superordinate goal of saving Australian environment.

1. decreased outgroup anxiety and outgroup bias in the short-term (at two weeks post-test) for Muslim and Christian students;
2. increased outgroup knowledge in the short-term (at two weeks post-test) for Christian students;
3. decreased outgroup bias in the long-term (at 6 and 12 months post-test) for Muslim students