Prejudice, Discrimination & Stereotyping

Question 1

What is modern prejudice?

Answer 1

Actively opposing racism/discrimination of minority group, but treating outgoing members differently, either intentionally or unconsciously - often with devastating consequences

Question 2

What is traditional prejudice?

Answer 2

The extreme prejudice/discrimination that we see in which people are happy to publicly denounce and discriminate against others

Question 3

How did Beattie, Cohen and Maguire (2013) use CVs to explore modern prejudice?

Answer 3

• used fake CVs
• some with Anglo-Saxon (British) sounding names & others with ethnic minority names
• these were shown to White and Black recruiters in a simulated shortlisting task
• unconscious bias was measured using the IAT
• in general, white recruiters were more likely to choose white applicants and black recruiters were more likely to choose black applicants
• because the CVs were matched in quality, this was related to IMPLICIT bias

Question 4

What are racial microaggressions? (Sue et. al, 2007)

Answer 4

Brief daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental insults, whether intentional or unintentional that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights towards people of colour

Question 5

What are some examples of microaggressions?

Answer 5

• white employees asking co-workers of colour how they got the job, implying they got it through a positive discrimination/quota system
• asking a British born Asian whether they ‘miss home’ or ‘where are they from originally’ - implying they are perpetually foreign
• ‘You’re gay?! I have a gay friend, you’d be perfect together!’

Question 6

What happened in the 1947 Clark & Clark study with the dolls and what does this tell us?

Answer 6

This highlighted internalised racism in black children.

Majority of black children:

• wanted to play with the white doll
• chose the white doll as the ‘nice doll’
• chose the black doll as the ‘bad doll’
• chose the white doll when asked which doll is the ‘nice colour.

Question 7

What is the definition of prejudice and what kind of component is this?

Answer 7

Typically negative FEELING towards a member of a group because of their group membership. (AFFECTIVE COMPONENT)

Question 8

What is the definition of stereotype and what kind of component is this?

Answer 8

A fixed, over generalised belief about a particular group or class of people. (COGNITIVE COMPONENT)
- rigid generalised beliefs

Question 9

What is the definition of discrimination and what kind of component is this?

Answer 9

Actual violence or action with a negative impact on a minority group. (BEHAVIOURAL COMPONENT)

Question 10

What are the three different perspectives that attempt to explain origins of prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes?

Answer 10

1) Motivational perspective
2) Socio-cognitive perspective
3) Economic perspective

Question 11

What is the motivational approach?

Answer 11

Being prejudiced and discriminating against an out-group fulfils a major psychological function: it makes us feel more positive about ourselves and the groups to which we belong.
- it raises OUR self-esteem

Question 12

Describe the Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1979)

Answer 12

1) Our sense of self is made up of our personal identity but also our SOCIAL identity.
2) Social identity is derived from our group membership Examples: your religion, your race, whether you’re a student, your nationality, your political ideology, member of LGBTQ+ etc.

3) We gain self-esteem from group membership.
Therefore, we feel a sense of anger or upset, low self-esteem if our group membership is criticised.

Question 13

How does the Social Identity Theory link to the motivational approach?

Answer 13

This approach argues that when our group membership is criticised - our self-esteem will drop.
To restore this threatened self-esteem we will:

> focus on the positive aspects of the group to which they do belong

> focus on the negative aspects of the groups to which they do not belong and treat out-group(s) badly (makes us feel better about our group)

It is this out-group hostility that LEADS to prejudice

Question 14

How did Fein and Spencer (1997) test the idea that a drop in self-esteem is related to an increase in prejudice/denigration of an out-group?

How does the study provide evidence for the Social Identity Theory being linked to prejudice?

Answer 14

• participants were given a really hard IQ test
• half told they had done well (high self-esteem)
• half told they had failed (low self-esteem)
• participants were then shown a woman being interviewed for a job.
• for half the participants she was Jewish and for the other half she wasn’t.
• participants were asked how warmly they felt towards woman in the video (measure of discrimination)
• high self esteem participants tended to rate both women equally
• low self esteem participants were more likely to give the Jewish woman lower personality ratings than the non-Jewish woman (frustrations taken out on Jewish woman)

PROVIDES EVIDENCE FOR THE SIT.

Question 15

What is the economic perspective? Who is most likely to discriminate?

Answer 15

When groups compete for limited resources the groups experience conflict, prejudice, and discrimination.

• Prejudice and discrimination should be strongest among groups that stand to lose the most if another group succeeds.

Question 16

Why was there a lot of anti-black prejudice after the Civil Rights Movement became successful (think economic perspective) and who did this prejudice come from and ‘why’?

Answer 16

Working class jobs became a threatened commodity for white Americans once millions of black Americans were allowed to apply.

Therefore prejudice was strongest amongst the white working class because according to the economic perspective they stood to lose the most.

Increased competition > more prejudice and discrimination

Question 17

What is the socio-cognitive approach?

Answer 17

We are cognitively lazy - we want to preserve our mental energy.

We rely on heuristics/mental short cuts to navigate through the complexity of the world around us.
- one of these short cuts is categorisation

Question 18

What are the consequences of cognitive classification and what 3 processes specifically?

Answer 18

Ascribing group membership to an individual results in people starting to perceive differences between those groups (even when absolutely no groups exist).

Can result in:
> Out-group homogeneity effect
> Confirmation bias
> Illusory correlations

Question 19

What is the out-group homogeneity effect?

Answer 19

Tendency to see in-group as highly diverse/heterogenous (i.e., different beliefs, personalities, ages, occupations) but the out-group/minority group members as ‘all alike’.

Question 20

What is the confirmation bias?

Answer 20

A process where people pay attention to and remember information that tends to support their underlying stereotype or beliefs.

• people seek out information that confirms it
• people discount information that contradicts it

Question 21

Give an example of confirmation bias.

Answer 21

A common stereotype of young black men is that they are more physically threatening, muscular, less innocent and more aggressive than young white men.

Based on US Health Data, this is not true. There is practically no difference between the height and weight of the two groups.

Wilson, Hugenberg & Rule (2017) found that people tended to perceive young black men as taller, heavier and more muscular than white men (from photos) and therefore, via the confirmation bias, more physically threatening

Question 22

What is illusory correlation?

Answer 22

An incorrect belief that two events are related when they are actually not.