Prejudice & discrimination

Question 1

3 component definition

Answer 1

Cognitive- beliefs about a group
Affective- strong feelings (usually negative) about a group
Conative- intentions to behave in certain ways towards a group

Question 1

Individual discrimination

Answer 1

actions that are intended to have a harmful impact on a group of people

Question 2

Institutional discrimination

Answer 2

policies (and the behaviour of individuals that run institutions) that are intended to have a harmful impact on specific groups of people

Question 3

Structural- side effect

Answer 3

policies that appear neutral in terms of intent, but that have a negative impact on groups of people, e.g., police have to be 1.7m tall, discriminates against females

Question 4

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 4

We have a fixed amount of psychic energy to reach our goals
Achieving our goals keeps us in balanced psychological state
If we don’t reach our goals, unspent energy leaves us in a state of psychological imbalance
We rebalance through acts of aggression directed at scapegoats- less powerful social group

Question 5

Critiques

Answer 5

Frustration isn’t necessary for aggression so this approach can only explain some instances of aggression
Why do some groups experience more discirmination

Question 6

The authoritarian personality

Answer 6

Authoritarian parenting style results in children developing a specific set of beliefs
Ethnocentrism- the preference for own over other groups
Leads to increased aggression in the child, which is then ‘projected’ on to minority groups

Question 7

Realistic group conflict theory

Answer 7

Conflict and competition for limited resources leads to prejudice and discrimination
Robber’s Cave studies
Evaluated whether conflict between two groups can result in prejudice and discrimination, and be resolved through co-operation towards superordinate goals

Question 8

Social identity theory

Answer 8

Society consists of different social groups with specific power/status relationship
Self-concept= personal identity + social identity
Engaging in favourable comparisons/ behaviours that benefit the ingroup relative to the outgroup can help us maintain positive self-concept
When put in meaningless groups, participants still didn’t want the outgroup to do better than them

Question 9

types of microaggression

Answer 9

Microinvalidation- actions (often unconscious) that invalidate the experiences, thoughts or feelings of people of colour e.g. I don’t see colour
Microinsults- often unconscious actions that demean racial identity or are otherwise rude of 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 meant to cause hurt

Question 10

Glass cliff

Answer 10

Women are more likely to placed in precarious leadership roles
Companies appointing women on the board were more likely to have perfomed consistently poorly in the preceding 5 months