social categorisation, stereotypes and prejudice Flashcards
What are the 2 types of identity?
-Personal identity = personality characteristics
-Social identity = groups you are a member of
-Social identity is what can create stereotypes
Category
Collection of instances that have family resemblance around prototypes
Prototypes
Cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category
What did Crisp and Turner (2014) suggest?
-Categorise due to 3 things;
-Saving cognitive energy
-Refining perception
-Positive self esteem
Saving cognitive energy means…
-Saving time and cognitive processing
-Simplifies our view of the world
Refining perception means…
-Reduces uncertainty
-Allows us to predict social world
-See all members of one group possessing the same traits when a category is activated
Positive self esteem means…
-Acts as a motivational function for social identity and self concept
What is illusory correlation?
-Negative stereotypes occur due to pairing of minority groups with negative behaviours
-Due to these both being distinct things
What study supports the illusory correlation?
-Hamilton and Sherman (1996)
-Asked white americans to estimate arrest rate of various types of american
-African americans were estimated to have highest, and they did
-African american (minority) + being arrested (negative) = illusion that they are correlated
What are the 3 effects of stereotyping?
-Behavioural assimilation = stereotypes influence our perceptions of others and own behaviour
-Stereotype threat = threat of negative evaluations cause poor performance
-Prejudice and discrimination
What did Bargh et al., (1996) find?
-Looked into behavioural assimilation
-Ppts primed with elderly words ended up acting in a way that fit the ‘elderly’ stereotype e.g. took more time to leave a room due to walking slowly, even though ‘slow’ wasn’t one of the primed words
-Seems to be lack of replication as effects aren’t universal
What did Papies (2015) find?
-People who want to become thinner tend to make more healthy food choices if they are primed with words on menu such as ‘diet’
-Only work if having a healthy diet is your main goal
What did Steele and Aronson (1995) find in regards to stereotype threat?
-If negative stereotypes define our groups then we tend to change our behaviour to fit them
-Women and maths = Spencer, Steele and Quinn (1999)
-Men and social sensitivity = Koenig and Eagly (2005)
-Elderly people and memory = Levy (1996)
What did Tan and Barber (2020) find?
-Whether age based stereotypes have an impact on older Chinese adults
-Looked at memory recall under stereotype threat condition and a control condition
-Results found poor memory recall in stereotype threat condition
-Ppts were immigrants in US
What is prejudice and discrimination?
-Strong negative attitude dominated by cognitive bias and negative stereotypes that we hold
-Based on unjust treatment of groups in regards to reluctance, tokenism and reverse discrimination
Reluctance
-Gaetner and Dovidio (1977)
Ppts more reluctant to help minority member compared to their own group when faced with emergency, but prejudice only occurred when others were present
Tokenism
-Favouring a member of minority group in isolated episode
-Monin and Miller (2001)
Ppts who were give opportunity to hire well-qualified minority individual were discriminative against other minorities in future hiring, as they had already proven that they were not prejudice
Reverse discrimination
-Dutton and Lake (1973)
-Opening displays pro-minority behaviour but as a way to deflect accusations of prejudice e.g. giving more money to minority member when feeling threatened
What did Dovidio et al., (1996) find to do with racism?
-Decline of racist attitudes over 60 years
What did Quilian and Lee (2022) find to do with racism?
-Hiring discrimination among 170,000 apps for minority groups hasn’t dropped
What do these studies show?
-Stereotypes change however the negativity stays the same
What are the 3 theories of prejudice?
-Modern and symbolic racism (Kinder and Sears, 1981)
-Ambivalent racism (Katz and Hass, 1988)
-Ambivalent sexism (Glick and Fiske, 1996)
Describe the Modern and symbolic racism (Kinder and Sears, 1981) theory
-Blame victim
-Support policies that happen to disadvantage ethnic minorities
Describe the Ambivalent racism (Katz and Hass, 1988) theory
-High scores on pro-black attitudes show pity
-High scores on anti-black attitudes show hostility
Describe the Ambivalent sexism (Glick and Fiske, 1996) theory
-Hostile sexism paints women in bad light
-Benevolent sexism can be seen as slightly positive
What are the 2 types of things to cause prejudice?
-Historical/Economical = frustration of aggression
-Psychological = individual differences
Describe the frustration aggression hypothesis (Dollard et al., 1939)
-States that frustration causes aggression
-Psychic energy builds up and needs outlet
-Need someone to aim negativity to (scapegoat) so we aim this to minority
-Links to Freuds idea of displacement
What did Hovland and Sears (1940) find to do with the historical and economical factors affecting prejudice?
-Study around cotton workers
-Over 50 years they took note of the price of cotton and the number of lynchings of black workers
-Frustration increased (cotton price fell) = lynchings increased (displacement)
-Can’t determine cause and effect, just a correlation
What is an Authoritarian personality?
-Psychological factors
-Extreme reactions to authority figures
-Obsessed over rank and status
-Displaced anger
-Due to harsh parenting styles during childhood
What did Adorno et al. (1950) find in regards to the authoritarian personality?
-Retrospective interviews around childhood
-Questionnaires looked at; anti-semitism, ethnocentrism, political and economic conservatism and potential for fascism
-Correlation found between harsh parenting and prejudice levels
What are the negatives of authoritarian personality?
-Can’t determine cause and effect
-Poor methodology = self report data, and relies solely on memory of upbringing
-Ignores the social context
How can social learning impact prejudice?
-Modelling can occur (child witness racist comments) as well as conditioning (parents approve of racist behaviour)
-Tajfel (1981) = hatred towards certain groups were learnt mainly in childhood
What is conformity?
-Conforming to group norms
What did Minard (1952) find in relation to conformity?
-Looked at attitudes of white miners
-Found that 60% would switch between racism and non racism depending on whether situational norms encouraged or discouraged prejudice
What is Social Identity Theory?
-In group v out groups causes biases to occur
-Difference between personal self and social self
-Important for self-esteem and social bonding
Describe Jane Elliot (1968) study
-Blue eyed people and brown eyed people
-One day blue eyed people were ‘inferior’ which causes brown eyed people to derogate the individuals who had blue eyes
Describe Akrami et al., (2011) study
-Looked at whether personality e.g. right wing authoritarianism or social-psychological processes e.g. being a group member can predict sexism
-Results found sexism was explained by combination of both
-Integrate approaches to explain prejudice
