Prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination and conflict

Question 1

Define prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes

Answer 1

Prejudice:
- A negative attitude or affective response towards a group and its individual members.
- Sometimes also includes a positive response.

Discrimination:
- Unfair treatment /behaviour towards individuals based on their group memberships.

Stereotype:
- The belief that certain attributes are characteristic of an entire group of people.

Question 2

What are stereotypes?

Answer 2

Stereotypes are beliefs that all members of a certain group (race, gender, sexual orientation, occupation) have a given trait or characteristic just because they belong to that group.
Can also be defined as general beliefs about a particular group (as with the stereotype content model) - these may or may not be true as a whole and certainly wouldn’t be true of every member of the group.

Question 3

Causes of stereotypes

Answer 3

Cognitive miser:
- This perspectice holds that people do not seek to maximise their decision making for accuracy, rather they find a ‘good enough’ solutions and base their decision on that.
- As such, shortcuts like stereotypes and ‘good enough’.

In other words:
- At any given point the brain processes a ton of information.
- It has adaptive value to be able to process this information more quickly.
- Thus, we tend to be cognitive misers.
- Stereotyping aids this process, but at a trade-off in accuracy.

Research shows that activating stereotypes creates quicker decision making.
Stereotype activation also improved performance on a separate task when participants were asked for complete dual tasks (one which involved giving descriptions of people).

People who are high in need for structure are more likely to rely on stereotypes.

People are more likely to use stereotypes when the brain is taxed. This includes:
- tiredness.
- timepressure.
- congitive load.
- morality salience (especially if high in need for structure).
They also report a greater liking for stereotypes.

Question 4

Stereotype content model (Fiske et al 2002)

Answer 4

Groups are stereotypes on two dimensions:
- Warmth (likeable, kind, polite, friendly, sincere, genuine, trustworthy).
- Competence (intelligent, able, thorough, efficient).
High warmth/low competence groups are pitied.
High warmth/high competence groups are admired.
Low warmth/high competence groups are envived.
Low warmth/low competence groups elicit comtempt (and/or disgust).

Perceived warmth predicts ‘active behaviours’:
- Groups perceived as low in warmth will tend to receive active harm.
- Groups perceived as high in warmth will receive active facilitation.

Perceived competence maps onto ‘passive behaviours’:
- if perceived as low in competence, passive harm occurs.
- Passive aid occurs if perceived as high in competence.

Passive harm: neglect, withdraw, being ignored or avoided.
Active harm: attacking, fighting, trying to damage.
Passive faciliation: helping when convenient, easy or when beneficial.
Active faciliation: helping without reservation.

E.g.
The elderly:
- Stereotyped as low competence/high warmth.
- Emotion they elicit: pity.
- Behaviours they elicit: passive harm and active faciliation (i.e. fervent attempts to help mixed with avoidance and neglect).
Successful business people:
- High competence/low warmth.
- Emotion they elicit: envy.
- Behaviours they elicit: active harm and passive faciliation (i.e. relucant helping mixed with attacks).