Prejudice Flashcards
What are the individualistic approaches?
· Psychoanalytic – influenced by Freud
· Stresses childhood and parents – fixes certain elements of your personality. Looked at the relationship between the child and a father, if it goes wrong a prejudice attitude is formed
· Frustration is displaced – onto a convenient target such as vulnerable people in society
· ‘F-scale’ – reliability and validity issues, measures submission and aggression towards authority. High scores, more likely to be prejudice
· Altemeyer & ‘Right-wing Authoritarianism’ (RWA) – don’t like people who deviate from the norm, follow authority. If you score high on this scale, you will score higher in prejudice
· Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) – Sidanius & Pratto. Believe in myths which support equality
Problems explaining collective prejudice and sudden changes.
sample F-scale items (agree vs. disagree)
· Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn (Authoritarian submission)
· Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished (Aggression towards ‘deviant’ groups)
The wild sex life of the Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country (Projection of unconscious, especially sexual, impulses)
Sample RWA scale items
· The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just “loud mouths” showing off their ignorance.
· Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married.
· Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.
· It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble- rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people’s minds
Sample items measuring SDO
· SDO-6 questions (answered agree or disagree)
· Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.
· In getting what you want, it is sometimes necessary to use force against other groups.
· It’s OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.
· To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups.
· If certain groups stayed in their place, we would have fewer problems.
It’s probably a good thing that certain groups are at the top and other groups are at the bottom.
Example: US stereotypes of the Japanese ?
· Asking white Americans what they think the Japanese are like
· 1933 (Katz, & Braly, 1933) – Intelligent
– Industrious
– Progressive
– Shrewd
– Sly
· 1951 (Gilbert, 1951; after the second world war)
– Imitative
– Sly
– Extremely nationalistic
– Treacherous
What is Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT) ?
· Campbell (1967) – people find themselves in a group, competition over scarce resources e.g. housing, work. Recipe for prejudice
· Sherif et al., (1953,’55,’61,’66)
‘Robber’s Cave’, ‘Boy’s camp’ , ‘Summer camp’ studies
What is the summer camp study?
· Competition over a scarce resource leads to group members working towards attaining the resource, and thus brings the competing groups into conflict
The Summer Camp studies
· 3 field experiments over 5 year period
· White 12 year old boys in U.S.A., ‘well-adjusted’
· Split into two groups and a competition for scarce resources introduced
· Led to prejudice, violence, in-group preference, physically dominant leaders, ‘us versus them’ mentality – due to competition occurring over a scarce source
Personality is not an adequate explanation
Evaluating RCT
· Blake & Mouton (1962): trainee managers split into small groups and given a group task, manifested in-group preference
· Gangs and inter-racial conflict in Britain
· Difficult to prove negative interdependence is the main cause of prejudice & group conflict
· Brown (1988) – group context
· Insko et al (1987); Rabbie (1989) – groups encourage conflict and competition
Julian et al (1966) – competitive environments enhance group cohesion
What is social identity theory?
Social identity is the portion of an individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group
What was Tajfel and Wilkes (1963) line experiment?
· Line-length judgments and the effect of categorisation biases
· Accentuation of intra- category similarity and inter-category difference
Adding and taking away line labels of A and B
The ‘minimal group’ studies (e.g. Tajfel et al., 1971) ?
· Assignment to groups on ‘minimal’ criteria, or toss of coin (Billig & Tajfel, 1973)
· Participants completed booklets full of point-allocation matrices
· ‘Ingroup favouritism’=mixture of maximum ingroup profit and maximum difference
· Replicated in other countries (e.g. USA, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, with adults and students)
But may not explain hostility (Mummendey et al, 1992, on allocating punishments instead of rewards)
Point allocation matrix from Tajfel’s minimum group studies?
- In group and out group members
Choosing points for your own group and an out group, would often choose maximum in group profit, and with maximum group difference
Social Identity Theory: basic assumptions?
· Interpersonal vs. intergroup behaviour
· Categorisation affects social perception, is meaningful, and unavoidable
· Social identity is a valued part of the self-concept, supplying self-esteem and reducing uncertainty (Hogg, 2000).
· Evolutionary benefits?
· We desire positive distinctiveness (e.g. Brown’s 1978 study of factory workers) and create it via stereotypes
· Prejudice and conflict can occur:
o – when people in groups strive to be positively distinct from others and perceive collective injustice
– when social identity is perceived to be threatened by outgroups; defensive reactions can spark prejudice and discrimination
Biases in social information-processing
- Stereotype biases
· – Linville (1982) complexity
· – Quattrone (1986) out-group homogeneity effect (e.g. other race effect)
More likely to be able to describe an out group than your own group
Biases in social information-processing - Memory distortions
· – Confirmatory biases (Duncan, 1976)
– Howard & Rothbart (1980) – recall fewer negative statements about the ingroup than about outgroups
