prejudice and discrimination Flashcards
prejudice and discrimination in Britain - 2018 (3 stats)
Abrams et al (2018)
large scale national survey by equality and human rights commission - measured prejudice and discrimination experienced by those with protected characteristics
black ethnic background = 64% experienced prejudice
muslims = 70%
mental health conditions = 61%
9 protected characteristics
from the equality act
- age
- disability
- race
- sex
- religion/belief
- sexual orientation
- pregnancy/maternity
- marriage/civil partnership
- gender reassignment
prejudice definition (2)
prejudice is an attitude, not a behaviour
single-component definition:
negative evaluation of social group or individual that is significantly based on the individuals group membership
traditional three-component definition
with tripartite model of attitudes:
- cognitive = beliefs about group
- affective = strong (negative) feelings about group
- conative = intentions to behave in certain ways towards group
(conative not behaviour when using ABC model talking about prejudice - its about attitudes and intentions, not behaviour)
discrimination
inappropriate and potentially unfair treatment of individuals due to group membership
e.g. not being picked/being picked last for a team
discrimination is negative behaviour towards outgroup and also “less positive” behaviour towards an outgroup relative to ingroup
Pincus (1996) 3 forms of discrimination
individual:
- actions intended to have differential/harmful impact on specific groups of people
institutional:
- institutional policies (and behaviour of individuals running institutions) that are intended to have differential/harmful impact on specific groups of people
structural:
- policies that appear neutral in intent, but have differential/harmful impact on specific groups of people
- think of as a side effect of policies
often institutional and structural are used interchangeably
example of individual discrimination
hateful graffiti
example of institutional vs structural discrimination
institutional = banning religious clothing/symbols from work places
structural = height based laws - bars women from being as able to become police officers in greece as they had to be >1.7m
the 6 “isms”
terminology used to describe prejudice and/or discrimination against specific groups
sexism
ableism
racism
ageism
heterosexism
anti-semetism
intergroup bias ( 2 definitions )
systematic tendency to evaluate one’s own membership group (the in-group) or its members more favourably than a non-membership group (the out-group) or its members
ABC model - Mackie and Smith (1998) definition:
attitude = prejudice
behaviour = discrimination
cognition = stereotyping
why does prejudice, discrimination, intergroup bias exist (4 theories, 2 umbrella ideas)
personality and individual differences:
- frustration aggression hypothesis
- authoritarian personality
intergroup context:
- realistic group conflict theory
- social identity theory
personality ones were early ideas, but these neglect social conflict so intergroup theories were formed
context for first approaches to prejudice
1930/40s need to explain hitlers regime - group explanation
psychologists noted differences in attitudes tended to be positively correlated - suggested individual explanation
explanation for prejudice and discrimination - personality and individual differences - frustration-aggression hypothesis
psychic energy to enact goals
achieving goals = balanced psychological state
goal stopped = frustration = unspent energy leaves state of psychological unbalance
rebalance with acts of aggression - can be against less powerful social group
explanation for prejudice and discrimination - personality and individual differences - limitations of frustration-aggression hypothesis
frustration doesn’t always lead to aggression
aggression doesn’t always begin with frustration
ignores social context - takes individual approach - can’t account for differences in prejudice towards particular social groups
explanation for prejudice and discrimination - personality and individual differences:
authoritarian personality
adorno et al (1950)
punitive (authoritarian) parenting style = children develop set of beliefs:
- ethnocentrism = preference for own over other groups
- intolerance of minorities
parenting style leads to increased aggression in the child - often then projected onto minority groups
explanation for prejudice and discrimination - personality and individual differences:
limitations of authoritarian personality
acquiescence bias (agreement bias) of the f-scale - methodology - no reversed answers on the scale so tendency to say yes inflates correlations
uses psychoanalytic (freudian) constructs - hard to test empirically
ignores situational effects on prejudice - e.g. increased prejudice against muslims following 911, increased prejudice against east asians during COVID
explanation for prejudice and discrimination - intergroup context:
realistic group conflict theory + limitations
conflict and competition for limited resources leads to prejudice and discrimination
limitation:
is conflict and competition actually necessary for prejudice and discrimination
explanation for prejudice and discrimination - intergroup context:
realistic group conflict theory - robbers cave study + evaluation
Sheriff (1966)
field experiment with 12 year old boys at a summer camp
split into 2 groups
manipulated conflict between the two groups - e.g. trashed one groups rooms and said it was the other group - caused increased conflict
evaluated whether conflict between two groups can result in prejudice and discrimination
then studied whether it can be resolved through co-operation towards superordinate goals - food supply for everyone was stuck and they all had to work together to achieve these goals
ethical issues:
- infamous study due to ethical issues
- conflict being made by counsellors and then didn’t intervene when conflict arouse and got more violent
- boys who were in the study spoke about it years later - angry, not right, immoral
explanation for prejudice and discrimination - intergroup context:
social identity theory
turner and tajfel (1986)
society consists of different social groups with power/status relations
self-concept = personal identity + social identity (membership and identification with specific group)
engaging in favourable behaviours that benefit ingroup relative to outgroup (ingroup favouritism) helps to maintain positive self-concept
“if we look good, I look good”
explanation for prejudice and discrimination - intergroup context:
social identity theory - minimal group studies
tajfel et al (1971) - minimal group studies
participants split into groups based on meaningless distinction (e.g. preference for paintings) - told the groups were just for convenience
groups tasked with allocating points/money to a member of ingroup and a member of the outgroup, on various matrices
matrices = two rows of numbers - in pairs - one row for ingroup and one for out group, had to circle one of the pairs to choose how much either group got
results = favoured ingroup in a way to maximise ingroup profit whilst also maximising difference between groups in favour of ingroup
e.g. range from 11 to 23 - but if you choose 23 for ingroup, outgroup gets 29 - - therefore maximising profit doesn’t maximise difference between groups
therefore often chose 15 in and 13 out as it was the highest profit whilst still getting more than outgroup
traditional vs modern forms of bias
traditional = overt, blatant, obvious (aren’t confined to history)
modern = covert, subtle, ambiguous
traditional prejudice and discrimination
- ethnophaulisms (ethnic slurs, racial epithests)
- overt discrimination e.g. segregation
- persecution e.g. violence and genocide
e.g. segregation on buses
modern prejudice (6)
- resentment about ‘positive discrimination’
- denial of continuing discrimination
- antagonism about perceived group demands
- defence of traditional values
- denial of positive emotions
- exaggerated cultural differences
modern prejudice - denial of continuing discrimination example
saying discrimination no longer is an issue in modern world
BBC question time in 2020 - Dr Rachel Boyle suggested that treatment of Megan Markle by the press is racism
Laurence Fox denies this
modern prejudice - denial of positive emotions example
gendered language in teacher reviews
male teachers were referred to as “smart” in teacher reviews more than female teachers
skewed by subject too - sciences used “smart” to describe any teacher more than arts and languages
2 ways to measure prejudice
it is an attitude so use:
explicit and implicit measures
explicit measures of prejudice (2)
semantic differentials:
- participants rate target group according to pairs of opposing evaluative words e.g. from good to bad, or pleasant to unpleasant
likert scales - can measure traditional and modern forms of prejudice:
- blatant prejudice scale
- subtle prejudice scale
- traditional sexism scale
- modern sexism scale
implicit measures of prejudice (2)
these are covert
behavioural measures = based on observation, e.g. seating distance, eye contact, body posture, approach and avoidance measures
affective measures:
e.g. implicit association test (IAT) -> faster to classify things related in memory than unrelated
e.g. sexism seen when people react faster when men and science are linked
microaggressions
modern discrimination as manifestation of subtle behaviours
example of individual discrimination
sue et al (2007):
- brief and common
- daily verbal, behavioural or environmental
- intentional or not
- hostile, derogatory, negative insults
- perpetrators are often unaware they do it
3 forms of microaggressions (Sue et al., 2007)
microinvalidation:
actions (often unconscious) that invalidate the experiences, thoughts or feelings of people of colour (e.g. “I don’t see colour” )
microinsults:
actions (often unconscious) that demean racial identity or are otherwise rude or insensitive (e.g, asking a person of colour how they got their job; following a person of colour around a shop)
microassualts:
racially-motivated actions (often conscious) meant to cause hurt (e.g. name calling, use of racial epithets, purposeful discriminatory behaviour)
- debate over this one as it isn’t subtle - it is overt
microaggression: microinsults example
COVID-19
anecdotal increase in negative actions towards people from east asia
e.g. UC Berkley in Jan 2020 said that xenophobia and feeling guilty about these is a common reacting to COVID…
tokenism
example of institutional discrimination
publicly making small concessions to a minority group in order to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination
“intergroup context in which very few members of a disadvantaged group are accepted into positions usually reserved for members of the advantaged group, while access is systematically denied for the vast majority of qualified disadvantaged group members”
tokenism - the glass cliff
women are more likely to be placed in precarious leadership roles (high risk of failure)
Ryan and Haslam (2005)
- FTSE 100 companies before and after appointment of male or female board member
- companies appointing women were more likely to have been performing poorly in the previous 5 months, relative to companies appointing men
similar things seen in politics with hard to win seats - think Liz Truss
