social categorisation Flashcards
what is personal identity
personality characteristics
what is social identity
groups you are a member of
what is a category
collections of instances that have a family resemblance organised around a prototype.
what are prototypes
cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category.
- standards against which family resemblance is assessed and category membership decided
what did Rosch say about categories
they are not rigid but fuzzy
why do we categorise
- save cognitive energy
- clarifies and refines perception of the world
- maintain a positive self esteem
what are some common group distinctions
- sexual orientation
- profession
- age
- race
- class
- employment status
- nationality
- immigrant status
what is illusory correlation in terms of stereotypes
- negative stereotypes may occur when people inaccurately pair minority groups with negative events/behaviours because they are both distinct
what did Hamilton and Sherman find about illusory correlation stereotyping
- asked white american pps to estimate the arrest rate of various types of americans
- african americans were estimated to have higher arrest rates than they did
what are the effects of stereotyping
- behaviour assimilation-stereotypes don’t just influence our perceptions of others, they can influence our own behaviour
- stereotype threat - can lead to poor performance
- prejudice and discrimination
what task was used by Bargh et al to investigate behaviour assimilation
the scrambled sentence task - making sentences out of randomly ordered words
- 2 conditions - words associated with elderly and neutral words unrelated to age
- measured how long it took them to leave the room after
what were the results of the scrambled word task
- pps primed with elderly words behaved in a way related to an elderly stereotype - moved more slow to leave the room
what is the issue with bargh’s scrambled word task
- often don’t replicate
- people need to care about whats being primed
- papies - people who want to be thinner make healthier food choices after being primed with associated words e.g. diet but only works for people who want a healthy diet
what did tan and barber find about stereotype threat
- examined whether age based stereotypes impact older chinese adults
- tested older chinese pps memory under a stereotype threat condition
- found poorer memory recall in stereotype threat condition
what is prejudice
- strong, highly accessible negative attitude
- dominated by cognitive bias and negative stereotypes
what is discrimination
behaviour based on unjust treatment of certain groups
- reluctance to help
- tokenism
- reverse discrimination
what did Gaetner and Dovidio find about reluctance to help in discrimination
- pps were more reluctant to help a minority member than their own group when faced with an emergency but only when others were present
what is tokenism in terms of discrimination and what did Monin and miller find about it
- process of favouring a member of a minority group in isolated episodes
- found that pps who were given the opportunity to hire a well-qualified minority candidate were willing to discriminate against other minorities in future hiring, as they had already proved that they were not prejudices
what is reverse discrimination
opening displays pro-minority behaviour but as a way to deflect accusations of prejudice e.g. giving more money to a minority when feeling threatened
what did Dovidio et al 1996 find about racism
decline of racist attitudes over 60 years
what did Quillian and Lee find about discrimination 2022
found that hiring discrimination amongst among 170k apps for minority groups has not fallen over the past decades
- specific stereotypes changed, but negativity remains
what is new/modern racism
conflict between evaluation towards out-group and values of equality and egalitarian attitudes
- a bit more implicit
what are the three theories of subtle prejudice
- modern or symbolic racism
- ambivalent racism
- ambivalent sexism
what is modern or symbolic racism
- blaming the victim
- support of policies that all happen to disadvantage racial minorities
what is ambivalent racism
- high scores on pro-black attitudes
- high scores on anti-black attitudes
what is ambivalent sexism
- hostile sexism paints women in a negative light
- benevolent sexism could be seen as apparently positive
what causes prejudice
- historical/economical - linked to the psychological notion of frustration of aggression
- psychological - individual differences in personality, group processes
what is the frustration-aggression hypothesis
dollard et al
- frustration causes aggression
- psychic energy built up by frustration needs an outlet - scapegoat
- linked to displacement
what are the stages in frustration aggression
- identification of personal goals
- psychic energy activated
- frustration of goal achievement
- source of frustration too powerful
- scapegoat found; catharsis achieved by displacing aggression
what evidence did hovland and sears find
- study about cotton workers
- over a fifty period measures; the price of cotton, number of lynchings of black workers
- as frustration increased lynching’s increased
what are authoritarian personality traits
- extreme reactions to authority figures
- obsession with rank and status
- tendency to displace anger
- related to upbringing - harsh parental discipline
what evidence did adorno et al find for authoritarian personality
- interviews about childhood
- questions monitoring anti-semitism, ethnocentrism, political and economic conservatism, potential for fascism
- correlation between the harshness of upbringing and measures of prejudice
what are criticisms of the authoritarian personality explanation
- can’t determine cause and effect
- poor methodology - memory
- ignores social context
what did tajfel argue about social learning
rather than personality, hatred and suspicion of certain groups are learnt in early life
what evidence did barret and short find about social learning
english children aged 4-5 years old
- french and spanish were liked, followed by italians, germans were liked the least
- due to parental prejudices - modelling and conditioning
what evidence did minard find about conformity
- investigated attutudes of white miners
- 60% would readily switch between racism and non racism depending on whether situational norms encouraged or discouraged prejudice
what is the social identity theory
- we have a social identity as well as a personal one. made up of how we categorise ourselves in terms of social groups
- intergroup differentiation - in group vs outgroup
- depersonalisation
- in group bias
what did hogg and vaughan find about prejudice
- school teacher jane elliot
- tried to highlight effects of prejudice to school children - blue eyed were children were inferior and had to wear a collar and lost privileges
- brown eyed children were very quick to derogate those blue eyes
what did akrami et al find
- explored whether personality or social psychology or a combination of both predicted sexism
- sexism was best explained by considering the combined influence of both personality and social psychology conflicts
- necessary to integrate various approaches to explain prejudice
