Stereotypes Flashcards
Define stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination
Stereotype: belief/knowledge schemas about certain attributes of a group - COGNITIVE
Prejudice: based on stereotypes; negative/positive attitudes towards a certain group - EMOTION
Discrimination: unfair treatment of members based on group - BEHAVIOUR
Define dehumanisation
- denying human characteristics to a group - objectification
Describe the stereotype content model (Fiske, Cuddy and Glicke)
- judgements of attributes based on: warmth (likeable?) and competence (intelligent?)
- mapping this out allows for the formation of stereotype
- Low competence, low warmth = white trash = contempt/fear
- Low competence, high warmth = elderly = pity
- High competence, low warmth = rich people, feminist = resentment
- High competence, high warmth = our ingroups = admiration
Describe economic causes for stereotypes
- competition with outgroups over valuable/scarce resources
- Realistic group conflict theory - Levine and Campbell:
- groups competing for territory, jobs, power limited resource
- prejudice greatest when group has a lot to lose
- e.g. after civil rights movement, more antiblack and thus white working-class conflict - jobs
- can cause scapegoating - blaming entire groups for issues - not logical
Describe the Robber’s cave (Sherif et al) study and how it applies to economic causes of stereotypes
- 22 young boys in groups and do activities to foster unity
- beginning; didn’t know about the other group
- put together in competition with reward (limited) - group becomes obstacle
- led to conflict and ingroup favouritism
- tried and failed to reverse conflict by just putting them in a non-competitive setting
- reduced conflict successfully when adding superordinate goals; working together to gain rewards (water break/lorry) - prejudices went away
- economic competition sufficient to create biases and as competition increases with ingroups, cohesion increases with outgroups
Briefly describe motivation causes for stereotypes
- identification with an ingroup, frustration or social identity
- wanting to improve our own self-esteem - idea of basking in the reflected glory
- positive ingroup evaluations and negative outgroup evaluations encourage high self esteem
What is social identity theory?
- motivational causes
- a persons concept/esteem derived from personal identity and ignoring status
- viewing ingroup favourable to enhance self-concept and self-esteem
What is the minimal group paradigm?
- group biases can be based on limited information
- showing preferences and biases for ingroup even when distinctions are meaningless and arbitrary
What is Schaundefraudre?
- pleasure from outgroups pain
- Cikara - people feel good when bad things happen to the other group (opposing sports team)
Describe a study understanding motivational causes and stereotypes (Feris and Spencer, 1997)
- ppts told they failed/aced a test - their self esteem was threatened or affirmed
- watched an interview of a jew/non jew
- ppts rated job applicant and person self-esteem
- when they were affirmed, equal rating of the candidates
- when threatened, jew rated lower - helps cope and boosts self-esteem again
Briefly describe cognitive causes for stereotypes
- fast and frugal with thinking patterns
- stereotypes/prejudices; shortcutting information and reconstruct simply (world is too complex)
Describe Duncan’s study on construal
- white ppts witnessing two men in discussion
- black either shoves white or white shoves black
- when black pusher = coded as aggressive behaviour
- white pusher= coded as playful behaviour
- based on the context of stereotypes
- cognitive perspective; assumes prejudice is a function of people trying to use less mental resources
What is the outgroup homogeneity effect?
- assumes all outgroups are all alike and members ingroup vary and have distinctive features
- Princeton and Ruger’s student study:
- ppts watching student make a decision, 1/2 though the student was from Princeton and 1/2 thought from Rugers
- asked what percent of students at the same uni as the student would make the same choice
- ppts made higher % estimates when they though the student was from other uni
- they assume that their own group would be more variable in the opinion
What is the illusory correlation?
- incorrect belief that two things are related when they aren’t
- two low frequency events would form a co-association and seem stronger
- superstitions
- distinctive events capture attention
- cognitive bias/ distinctive (low freq - minority)
- minority - low freq and low freq of negative events
- but negative behaviours from minority are dubly distinct
- creates a pairing
Study- even tho the proportions are similar, minorities are seen as more negative
Are stereotypes efficient when being a cognitive miser?
Bodenhausen - 1990
- pre-screened ppts to see circadian rhythms
- read scenarios where main character is accused of cheating on a test
- ppts at low point of circadian - more likely to use stereotypes - less mental energy
Another:
- ppts had to perform 2 tasks (form impression of person whilst listening to tape; cog load)
- 1/2 were accompanied with stereotype for traits
- end - quizzed on both tasks
- people who had stereotypes given to them remembered both as less energy required to form an impression of just traits
- did better on the distraction task as better at remembering as less cog burden
- stereotypes are useful
What are implicit and explicit attitudes?
- people report low prejudices on explicit measures but hold implicit ones
- outward/inward
- Implicit association test - common measurement to asses attitudes towards different groups
e. g.
- black and white faces; black associated with bad words and white with good words (and then swapped)
- easier for ppts to carryout the task which highlights the association (black as bad) and made more mistakes when they believed the association was weaker
- this was IMPLICIT, especially as it occurred even with black people/civil rights people
What is the affective priming technique?
- could explain why implicit attitudes may not always be a representation
- techniques where concepts are activated through exposure, affecting then cog associations and behavioural tendencies
- implicit association may be a bias or may just be awareness of the biases in society
What is auto vs controlled processing?
Dovidio et al
- white students
- measured explicit and implicit attitudes towards African Americans
- engaged in 3 minute convos with either a black or white person
- judges either saw entire video or without audio clip
- explicitly attitudes predicted differentially friendly were on whole vids and ppts rating own levels
- implicit attitudes predicted how differentially friendly they were in visual only vids and conversation ranking
- non-verbal reveals implicit attitudes
- implicit attitudes can affect automatic behaviours (revealed by ‘thin slices’) and explicit can affect controlled behaviours
Describe shooter bias (implicit bias) and evidence
Correll et al - shooting blacks
- ppts play video game with virtual movement
- unpredictable pop-outs of white people, black people either holding gun or neutral
- ppts were most likely to shoot unarmed black man
- ppts were most likely to fail shooting the armed white target
- implicit biases - stereotypes associating with blacks, hostility, the target race primes how the perceive the objects they are holding
- extensive experience with this practice may reduce the tendency
What is attributional ambiguity?
- members of a stigmatized group are uncertain if the treatment they receive is due to personality or group membership
Crocker et al
- 1/2 white, 1/2 black
- 1/2 positive, 1/2 negative
- 1/2 thought they were being watched, 1/2 did not
- self-esteem for white increased after positive and down after negative in all cases
- self-esteem for black only changed if they thought the other person couldn’t see them (and thus judging them on colour)
- discounting principle
What is the self-fulfilling prophecy?
Word et al
- interview study
- white Princeton UG’s interview black/white
- when with black, interviewers moved further back, subtly hostile
- follow up: actors watched interviewers and replicated both behaviours to all whites
- new judges rated the applicants
- raters gave more negative to those who were interviewed the way the black people were
- when treated like crap, you act like crap
- blacks performed less well when treated poorly
What are stereotype threats?
- group members typically know the stereotypes that others had
- fear we will confirm the stereotype
- performance after stereotype is poorer under the fear, we end up conforming
- gender differences - men performed better, females worse as they were aware of the stereotype and didn’t want to seem dumber
Describe methods to reduce prejudice
- contact hypothesis
- mutual interdependence
- common goals
- equal status
- informal personal contact
- multiple contacts
- social norms of equality
