Prejudice, Intergroup relations and conflict

Question 1

What is prejudice?

Answer 1

A preconceived neg judgement of a group and its individual members relating to the group memberships e.g. being vegan relating to veganism and generalising neg feelings

Question 2

What is discrimination?

Answer 2

The behavioural concept of prejudice- an expression of this inc an unjustified bhvr towards someone, most common examples racism and sexism

Question 3

What are three major explanations of prejudice?

Answer 3

Prejudiced Personality (Adorno)
Social Dominance Theory (Pratto et al)
Stereotypes

Question 4

What is the prejudiced personality theory (Adorno et al)? Give a limitation of this theory

Answer 4

Hostility towards one group often coexists with hostility towards other minorities e.g. in authoritarianism; disposed to favour obedience and intolerance to outgroups and those of lower status/ weakness, submissive respect for ingroup authorities
BUT prejudice should be more about being this type of person inc hierarchial explanations as many people with higher social dominance orientation are found to be related to prejudice etc

Question 5

How can stereotypes explain prejudice? What is a limitation of this explanation?

Answer 5

Stereotypes are a simplified representation of a social group and have a strong link to prejudice
Social identification can lead to internalising group norms and consequent stereotypes about others.
However, group identification does not necessarily lead to group derogation and can occur when intergroup comparison threatens distinctiveness

Question 6

How does discursive psychology explain prejudice as a language?

Answer 6

Categorisation of social groups and their meaning is made in discourse instead of inner cognitive motives

Question 7

How can the ideology of prejudice explain explicit vs explicit forms of prejudice in the context of racism?

Answer 7

‘Taboo’ of prejudice e.g. symbolic racism- old style but still express indirectly, ambivalent racism- experience an emotional conflict between pos and neg feelings towards stigmatised racial groups, modern- see racism as wrong but view radical minorities as making unfair demands, aversive racism- believe in egalitarian principles e.g. racial inequality but have personal aversion

Question 8

How can implicit and explicit attitudes be tested?

Answer 8

IAT- implicit association tests

Question 9

What is the difference between benevolent and traditional sexism?

Answer 9

Benevolent- seen to stay as the same level and even higher in some societies- believing women are inferior and need helping

Question 10

How does intergroup conflict arise and develop?

Answer 10

Intergroup behaviour is based on the perception that individuals belong to distinct social groups; conflict is perceived as an incompatibility of actions, goals and values between two parties, conflict itself is not the problem but the means and weapons used to resolve this conflict are

Question 11

What is the Realistic Conflict Theory (Sherif, 1958)?

Answer 11

States that competition for scarce resources leads to intergroup conflict- example of Robbers cave experiment; when competition between groups began, hostility arose

Question 12

What is the minimal group paradigm experiments?

Answer 12

Methodology that proposes the minimal condition for group biases e.g. favouritism towards your own group and prejudice towards other group is simply being a member of a group

Question 13

What did LeBon propose about anonymity in crowd behaviour?

Answer 13

De individuation leads to anonymity leading to social contagion (transmission of unconscious primitive behaviours)

Question 14

What are some issues of LeBon’s theory?

Answer 14

Crowd is removed from the circumstances under which it arose
Assumes crowds have a fixed set of behaviours that are released but there is surely diversity within crowds as well as between crowds
Gives no indication of who will be affected- by using the concepts of de-individuation and contagion, surely everyone would join?
Assumes crowd members are anonymous and irrational; they may be anonymous to those outside of the crowd but often known to others within the crowd, so what may be seen as irrational to an outsider may not be regarded as irrational by insiders

Question 15

What is Festinger’s definition of de-individuation?

Answer 15

Loss of self awareness and evaluation apprehension- occurs in group situations where responsiveness to pos or group norms is fostered when anonymity is decreased

Question 16

What is the emergent norm theory?

Answer 16

States that crowds are just an extreme form of groups- the only distinctions are that groups have established norms and history

Question 17

How do individuals behave in a crowd that is consistent with their social identity?

Answer 17

Crowd members behave in a way that is consistent with their social identity; a sense of collective empowerment is key to understanding crowd behaviours

Question 18

Under what conditions did Allport state intergroup harmony should be promoted as a way to reduce intergroup conflict?

Answer 18

1. Contact must be frequent and prolonged
2. Contact must be with stereotypical members of the group
3. Contact must be made with a genuine aspiration to improve relations
4. Contact must occur between individuals of equal status
5. Contact must be free from competition
6. Contact must be supported by formal structures e.g. education
7. Contact must be organised around the achievement of superordinate goals

Question 19

What are some additional strategies that may be used to reduce intergroup conflict?

Answer 19

Desegregation, cross group friendships (prolonged version of contact by forming friendships with outgroup members), superordinate goals (shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort may override diff agendas and conflict), common group identity model- when members of diff social groups recategorise themselves into one broader group, neg attitudes may decrease