prejudice and discrimination

Question 1

prejudice and discrimination in Britain - 2018 (3 stats)

Answer 1

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%

Question 2

9 protected characteristics

Answer 2

from the equality act

• age
• disability
• race
• sex
• religion/belief
• sexual orientation
• pregnancy/maternity
• marriage/civil partnership
• gender reassignment

Question 3

prejudice definition (2)

Answer 3

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)

Question 4

discrimination

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Pincus (1996) 3 forms of discrimination

Answer 5

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

Question 6

example of individual discrimination

Answer 6

hateful graffiti

Question 7

example of institutional vs structural discrimination

Answer 7

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

Question 8

the 6 “isms”

Answer 8

terminology used to describe prejudice and/or discrimination against specific groups

sexism
ableism
racism
ageism
heterosexism
anti-semetism

Question 9

intergroup bias ( 2 definitions )

Answer 9

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

Question 10

why does prejudice, discrimination, intergroup bias exist (4 theories, 2 umbrella ideas)

Answer 10

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

Question 11

context for first approaches to prejudice

Answer 11

1930/40s need to explain hitlers regime - group explanation

psychologists noted differences in attitudes tended to be positively correlated - suggested individual explanation

Question 12

explanation for prejudice and discrimination - personality and individual differences - frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 12

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

Question 13

explanation for prejudice and discrimination - personality and individual differences - limitations of frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 13

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

Question 14

explanation for prejudice and discrimination - personality and individual differences:
authoritarian personality

Answer 14

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

Question 15

explanation for prejudice and discrimination - personality and individual differences:
limitations of authoritarian personality

Answer 15

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

Question 16

explanation for prejudice and discrimination - intergroup context:
realistic group conflict theory + limitations

Answer 16

conflict and competition for limited resources leads to prejudice and discrimination

limitation:

is conflict and competition actually necessary for prejudice and discrimination

Question 17

explanation for prejudice and discrimination - intergroup context:
realistic group conflict theory - robbers cave study + evaluation

Answer 17

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

Question 18

explanation for prejudice and discrimination - intergroup context:
social identity theory

Answer 18

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”

Question 19

explanation for prejudice and discrimination - intergroup context:
social identity theory - minimal group studies

Answer 19

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

Question 20

traditional vs modern forms of bias

Answer 20

traditional = overt, blatant, obvious (aren’t confined to history)

modern = covert, subtle, ambiguous

Question 21

traditional prejudice and discrimination

Answer 21

• ethnophaulisms (ethnic slurs, racial epithests)
• overt discrimination e.g. segregation
• persecution e.g. violence and genocide

e.g. segregation on buses

Question 22

modern prejudice (6)

Answer 22

• resentment about ‘positive discrimination’
• denial of continuing discrimination
• antagonism about perceived group demands
• defence of traditional values
• denial of positive emotions
• exaggerated cultural differences

Question 23

modern prejudice - denial of continuing discrimination example

Answer 23

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

Question 24

modern prejudice - denial of positive emotions example

Answer 24

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

Question 25

2 ways to measure prejudice

Answer 25

it is an attitude so use:

explicit and implicit measures

Question 26

explicit measures of prejudice (2)

Answer 26

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

Question 27

implicit measures of prejudice (2)

Answer 27

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

Question 28

microaggressions

Answer 28

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

Question 29

3 forms of microaggressions (Sue et al., 2007)

Answer 29

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

Question 30

microaggression: microinsults example

Answer 30

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…

Question 31

tokenism

Answer 31

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”

Question 32

tokenism - the glass cliff

Answer 32

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