Reducing prejudice and discrimination

Question 1

Direct intergroup contact

Answer 1

Under certain conditions interaction between groups will reduce prejudice
It depends on 4 factors
Group members are of similar status
Same goal
intergroup cooperation
institutional support

Reduces prejudice by
- reducing intergroup anxiety
- increasing empathy and perspective taking
- Increases knowledge about the outgroup

Question 2

Indirect contact- vicarious contact

Answer 2

Observation of contact between ingroup and outgroup members
Children exposed to racially diverse TV shows showed more positive outgroup attitudes than children not exposed to these shows.

Question 3

Extended contact

Answer 3

Knowing that ingroup members have contact with outgroup members
White, Asian and African American undergraduate students who reported knowing more ingroup members with at least one outgroup friend reported less prejudice towards outgroups.

These work by
Creating cognitive ‘overlap’ between the self and outgroup members (inclusion of other in the self): Close ingroup members are considered part of the self, so this then extends to outgroup friends of close ingroup members.

Question 4

Imagined contact

Answer 4

mental simulation of a social interaction with a member of an outgroup category
Imagined contact: “I would like you to take a minute to imagine yourself meeting a British Muslim stranger for the first time. During the conversation imagine you find out some interesting and unexpected things about the stranger.”
West et al. (2011): Participants who imagined a positive interaction with an individual with schizophrenia, reported more positive attitudes than participants who imagined a positive interaction with an individual who didn’t have schizophrenia

Increases knowledge about the outgroup

Question 5

Colourblind ideologies

Answer 5

Colourblind ideology: We shouldn’t see people in terms of the colour of their skin- we should see people as individuals and look beyond group differences
“An approach to managing diversity in which intergroup distinctions and considerations are deemphasized”
If we ignore intergroup distinctions, we ignore actual intergroup disparities and differences in experiences (microinvalidation)
…and we may be less likely to recognise intergroup disparities and discrimination

Question 6

Study

Answer 6

Children were told one of two ap-roaches, either colourblind (race doesn’t matter) or value diversity approach.
Children who received the colourblind approach were less likely to acknowledge prejudice when given scenarios- even when it was explicit

Question 7

Education

Answer 7

White American primary school-aged children elementary-aged children were exposed to history lessons that included either:
Racism condition: Explicit information about racism experienced by well-known African Americans
Control condition: Identical lessons that omitted the information about racism
Participants completed the Black/White Evaluative Trait Scale
Participants who racism condition associated negative traits with black people less than the control group

Question 8

Prejudice Confrontation

Answer 8

Action taken by a person to confront prejudice or discriminatory behaviour in others
Confrontation can be enacted by the target of prejudice (or someone from the same group) or by an ally (i.e. someone who isn’t from the target group)

Confrontation of prejudice by a non-target individual is also known as bystander anti-prejudice

Question 9

Study

Answer 9

White participants completed a task with a White confederate which required them to take turns making inferences about sentences paired with photos of White and Black people.
After the task they received feedback
Confrontation- “your answers were offensive”
Other confrontation control- i thought some of your answers seemed a little goofy. a traveller spends time in airports? a librarian has a lot of books? couldn’t you think of anything better than that?”

Participants confronted about use of stereotypes reported a greater reduction in prejudiced attitudes

Question 10

Does this extend to a reduction of prejudice for other groups

Answer 10

Same task was completed
A week later they did a similar task
Found that participants who received confrontational feedback showed less discrimination towards black and Latino people than white people who weren’t confronted