Reducing Prejudice Flashcards
Sherif et al.’s (1961) ‘Robber’s Cave’ study
> > Sherif was able to create hostility and prejudice - by introducing a scarce resource
Sherif et al.’s (1961) ‘Robber’s Cave’ study - reducing prejudice
Sherif asked whether having created this prejudice and discrimination - can they
reduce the hostility
» Thus ‘sheer contact’ is not enough
> They found that working together for a shared goal, somewhat diffused the hostility between the groups
> When friendship choices were measured - boys even suggested they had friends across the group divide
Sherif et al.’s (1961) ‘Robber’s Cave’ study - reducing prejudice - water supply
- The researchers informed the boys that the water supply had been sabotaged by vandals
- They had to pull a water cart with a tug of war rope - they could only pull this is both groups of boys worked together
» Created situations where the boys had to work in harmony for a shared
goal
» Boys from other groups even sat next to each other on the bus home - they still preferred people from their own group but held must less negative attitudes towards the out group
Sherif et al.’s (1961) ‘Robber’s Cave’ study - reducing prejudice - test ‘sheer contact’
- Many people in society suggest that prejudice towards other groups is largely do to ignorance and lack of understanding/lack of contact of different people
- Idea of ‘sheer contact’ is that - just putting people together should reduce ignorance and therefore a reduction in prejudice
- Therefore Sherif tested this by getting the two groups of boys to socialise together - however it was disastrous
- Arguments occurred during dinner, when they tried to watch a film together - clearly sheer contact is not enough, and if anything could escalate tensions
Introduction of Superordinate goal
> > Simply forcing the boys to interact causes fights/arguments but - creating
a shared positive goal in which both groups could benefit meant they worked together
Researchers introduced a superordinate goal
Created a positive goal relationship between the groups - where both
groups could benefit
One theory of reducing predudice is - sheer contact ✘ Stroebe et al (1988) argues against this
European work on foreign exchange students
- When people go to study abroad, they go there with stereotypes they have formed about the country they are visiting
- Measure these stereotypes before and after time in the country - you can observe whether spending time in the country influenced these stereotypes
- Stroebe et al (1988):- Looked at German students going to study in other contries e.g. the USA - stereotypes made by the foreign students become considerably more negative after spending time in the country
✘ This goes against ‘sheer contact theory’
- Furnham & Bochner (1986) - exchange students tend not to integrate
- English researchers report the same findings as Stroebe - with English students studying abroad and immediately seeking out other people similar to them
- They suggest that when we are in a new environment we have a natural tendency to seek out other people like us
Studies of school desegregation in the U.S.A.
- 1950s segregated America - different toilets, seats for different races
- Education was also segregated by race
- Eventually these segregations were abandoned - meaning children suddenly ended up being schooled with children of different ethnicities
- Did their attitudes to those children who they categorised differently change - was it -ve or +ve
Brewer & Miller (1984) - ‘re-segregation’
- report there was a lot of re-segregation
- In the playground, people would socialise with people of the same race
- unofficial re-segregation within a school setting
Schofield (1970;1986) - lack of ‘acquaintance potential’
- as re-segregation happened Schofield claimed there was a lack of acquaintance potential
- Although classrooms were mixed, as children were socialising with their same background, the children were’t able to socialise with other ethnicities and learn the background of other people
Schofield (1970;1986) - ‘banding’ leads
to re-segregation
- Banding - Schools divided classes into bands of ability e.g. for maths etc
- Therefore black children typically found themselves in the lower bands - this sparked people to draw conclusions that IQ is higher in white people
- However, these are not true, typically it was actually down to the fact that black children were coming from underfunded schools
- Coming from poorer areas
- White children had better SES so typically found themselves dominating the higher tiers of the bands - causing re-segregation
Stephan (1978) - meta-analysis
- Meta-analysis into the de-segregation
- little evidence that de-segregation was a good experience for black and latino children in America
- If anything it decreased their self-esteem
Negative impact of de-segregation
- Regardless of whether de-segregation impacted self-esteem
- It tended to make black/latino children feel worse
Aronson (1988) - minority students feel threatened in de-segregated environment
- May rebel against ‘white’ norms and values in education and develop counter-norms and values
- It’s possible that ethnic minorities turn to gangs and other ways of finding themselves value rather than school
Rupert Brown’s (1995) criticisms of de-segregation research - only during the school day
- De-segregation in school can have limitations and it appeared to be in a bubble
- Kids often bussed back to their own separate ethnic communities at the end of the day
- De-segregation only lasts from 9am-3pm during school then they are sent back to their segregated parts of town
- This is a problem if you are really trying to in still change in the way different groups of people see each other
Rupert Brown’s (1995) - Too much emphasis on short-term effects
Too much emphasis on short-term effects - expectation that simply putting children together from different backgrounds would have an instant effect
- Often if you really want to change the attitudes within people it involves long-term observations of gradual changes
Rupert Brown’s (1995) - A ‘no differences’ approach is stressed too much
- Expectation that the best approach is a no difference one - be blind to ethnicity
- People always say ‘I’m not prejudice, I’m blind to where people come from etc’
- However research shows it’s very hard to turn a blind eye to people that are different
- E.g. how we process faces - race effect
Rupert Brown’s (1995)
- Ideal contact conditions are rarely met
- The ideal conditions for contact to work are rarely met
Other examples of contact research - Northern Ireland
Trew (1986) Intergroup attitudes are no more positive in mixed schools.
Cairns (2003) – Contact hypothesis never been properly tested in N.I.
Trew (1986) Intergroup attitudes are no more positive in mixed schools.
- Northern Ireland - bitter rivalry and conflict between catholics and protestant
- Segregation
- Riots, shootings
- Reports various examples of governments of trying to build bridges between groups
- Identifying that the best way to do this
- Governments organised adventure trips involving children from both backgrounds
- When they returned to their segregated schools, they maintained the attitudes and hatred they previously had
Cairns (2003)
- Suggested that none of the schemes that the government implemented were informed by psychology
- Contact hypothesis never been properly tested in N.I.
Other examples of contact research - Israel
Ben-Ari & Amir (1986) - Arab & Jewish Israelis:-
- Various contact scenarios set up by the Israeli government to bring Muslims together with Jewish Israelis - in a setting where they could learn about each other
- They report some of the dangers of contact encounters
- Bringing two prejudice groups together can be dangerous as if it went wrong it could make things a lot worse - Ben-Ari & Amir (1986) report this:
(1) Sometimes the contact was seen as unpleasant
(2) Organisers often the most keen
(3) High expectations can be hard to meet
(4) Too many one-off contact attempts
(5) Too little preparation
(6) Language barriers
Contact Hypothesis
Proposes that increasing the exposure to members of various groups, can increase positive evaluations of the out-group and thus reduce prejudice.
- This hypothesis was especially appealing at the time it was introduced during the segregation of blacks and whites in USA.
Brophy (1949) ✓ Contact Hypothesis
- When whites and blacks were brought into contact in the work arena (after desegregation efforts began) - each group reported more positive feelings about the other