PSY220 - 5. Stereotyping & Prejudice Flashcards
AUTOMATICITY
Automatic processes:
- occur outside of awareness
- without intention (given an intention to begin, carry on without intention)
- are efficient (cognitive resources) – able to do under high/low cognitive load
Bargh (1990)
Many activities start out controlled, but become automatized with practice.
Drive, or learning how to type
Unconscious as something boring
Freud says unconscious is filled with repressed ideas
Can see through dreams + Freudian slips
Bargh (1990)
Contemporary psychologists sees the unconscious as filled with automatized processes that are well practiced which don’t take up a lot of memory
Behavioural measures: reaction times – longer the reaction time, more difficult it is to perform
Fast reaction time – less cognitive resources needed + easier to perform
Implicit Association Test
measures automatic associations
dv: reaction time
pair 4 categories up in 2 diff ways
logic: if 1 of those pairings matches the way categories are paired up in one’s head, the person should be quicker to respond to that pairing
Implicit Association Test
1 of the conditions: object as positive or negative
longer reaction time to categorize something as black + positive
association between black + negative – produces a slight hesitation
Told to shoot ppl with weapons: greater tendency to shoot black ppl without weapons
Can also tell us about any other unconscious preference: political views, coke vs pepsi
Fazio et al.: Sequential priming
Prime (Black or White face)→target word (positive or negative)→was the target word positive or negative?
when there’s a mismatch take longer to respond – black face + positive target word
Kawakami et al (2000)
Just as practice causes stereotypes to be learned, practice can cause them to be unlearned.
Used classical conditioning to “unlearn” stereotypic associations.
1. presented with photographs of Blacks and Whites with stereotypic or nonstereotypic trait words presented underneath.
Kawakami et al (2000)
- For Black-stereotypic and White-stereotypic combinations, Ps told to say “NO!” outloud. For Black-counterstereotypic and White-counterstereotypic combinations, told to say “YES!” outloud. (480 trials, approx. 45 min.)
- Control condition: opposite instructions.
DV: Stereotype Stroop task. (rationale: If you are processing stereotypic content very easily, it will be harder for you to inhibit that and name the color of the ink.)
Kawakami et al (2000)
effects lasted up to 24 hours. Reduced anti-black bias compared to control conditions BUT: Consider other, less intensive, less “brute force” methods: (superordinate recategorization, cooperative interdependence) Incremental Theory (Levy, Stroessner, & Dweck, 1998)
Devine (1989)
If stereotyping is automatic…is it inevitable? Is discrimination legally acceptable?
Stereotyping has two components.
1.Automatic activation
2.Controlled application
Activation is largely automatic, application is largely controllable.
Devine (1989)
Study 1: Earlier in semester, subjects filled out Modern Racism Scale. In experimental session, subjects (white only) asked to (anonymously and confidentially) write down all the components of the stereotype of African-Americans they could think of.
Results: everyone knew what the stereotypes were regardless if they were racist or not
Devine (1989)
- stared at computer screen. Asked to report when flash appeared in corner.
- For ½ of subjects, the flash actually a subliminal prime (80 ms) of words stereotypically having to do with African-Americans (e.g., “athletic,” “jazz,” “Harlem”). Important: none of the words had to do with aggression.
Devine (1989)
- Subjects read passage about Donald (race unspecificed). Donald engaged in series of behaviors that prior subjects rated as slightly hostile/aggressive (“Donald demanded his money back from a store clerk immediately after a purchase.”
- Rated Donald on several trait scales.
Devine (1989)
Results: primed with black stereotypes rated Donald as more aggressive, but priming some stereotypic words activated the whole concept of African American which activated the concept of aggression. Effect was true for everyone regardless of degree of prejudice.
Stereotyping inevitable…outside of awareness?
Devine (1989): Study 3
1.write an essay simply describing their honest thoughts about Af-Ams. Extensive measures taken to ensure anonymity.
2.Essays content-analyzed for stereotypic content by blind coders.
Results: high in prejudice used more anti-black stereotypes than those low in prejudice. The difference was in their application of stereotype.
Devine (1989): Important distinctions between
- knowledge vs. belief
2. automatic vs. controlled
What are high and low-prejudice people doing differently?
Question of willingness to apply stereotypes to stimuli. Low in prejudice unwilling to apply stereotypes. Motivation.
Lepore and Brown’s 1997 critique
Devine didn’t just prime the category label “black”. She also used negative aspects of the stereotype such as “poor” and “lazy” as primes. So of course the negative stereotype was accessed given that it was primed directly.
They repeated using Devine primes [e.g. Lazy] in one condition and a more general category prime [Black] in a second condition.
Lepore and Brown’s 1997
Type of Prime:
General Category Stereotypic traits
Hi–prej more aggressive attribution more aggressive attrib
Lo–prej no signif. diff more aggressive attrib
