Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination Flashcards
what is a schema?
mental concept,
- Highly organised cognitive representation of thoughts and ideas which provides a framework for future understanding
what is a stereotype?
A widely shared generalisation about members of a population
- save cognitive energy and maintain self esteem
what are the cognitive functions of a stereotype?
- saves energy: simplifies how we think about social world
- makes predictions: use category to make dispositional inferences about others
what are the motivational functions of a stereotype?
- maintain a positive self-esteem: For social identity & self concept. Through comparison with less competent others
what is illusory correlation as an explanation of stereotype formation?
- A relationship when none exists or exaggeration of relationship.
- Associative meaning – based on schemas e.g. what summer looks like
- Minority groups and negative attributes.
- Paired distinctiveness.
- Minority groups (less of them) and negative events (occur less).
what is the primacy-recency effect for stereotype formation?
- remember initial traits as being core traits as don’t know the person
- attention greatest when making initial impressions
- Early information affects ‘meaning’ of later information
what is Asch’s (1964) configural model?
based on central and peripheral traits
- focus on central traits and tend to ignore peripheral ones
what is the algebraic model of stereotype formation?
average information received and added on to existing stereotype
what is the configurational model as model of stereotype formation?
certain elements dominate and can influence interpretations of others
- cognitive dissonance allows for the editing of schemas and therefore stereotypes
- more likely to ignore information that goes against our stereotypes and add to our stereotype if they agree with our schema
when do we acquire stereotypes?
- at an early age
- used to readily categorise people, particularly when ambiguities, social tensions, or conflict exist
- change is slow and gradual
- no necessarily inaccurate or wrong and help to make sense of particular intergroup associations
What is the Princeton Trilogy? (Katz & Braly, 1933)
- Assign traits to members of ethnic and national groups, 84 Adjective traits checklist: e.g., lazy, fastidious, conscientious
- High consensus in stereotype attribution: even if groups generally familiar
- Favourable evaluation of own group - makes you feel good about yourself (consistent with Ethnocentrism and Social Identity Theory)
what happened when The Princeton Trilogy was replicated on the 50s and 60s?
- used same procedure and adjectives
- participants were reluctant to participate
- stereotypes communicated much less negative
why did attitudes in the Princeton Trilogy change?
- stereotypes have changed overtime
- increase in consensus
- could be due to structural and societal changes
what is the Stereotype Content model?
- identifies universal principles regarding aspects of content
- defines two fundamental dimensions of social perception → warmth and competence underlie emotional and behavioural responses
-Combinations of warmth and competence generate distinct emotions of admiration, contempt, envy, and pity - Perceived Status -> Competence.
- Competition -> Warmth
what does project implicit do?
aims to measure peoples implicit attitudes (subconscious attitudes)
what is implicit bias?
- a universal feature of social cognition, which varies by individual and group
- show preference of for in-group
- amongst minority group members, implicit preferences exist towards majority group members
- Implicit associations are automatic, unconscious, and rapidly activated
What was project implicit? (Nosek et al., 2007)
- 68% participants implicit preference for white race
- generally stronger effect sizes than self report measures
what is the Implicit Associations test driven by?
- own race preference
- European American preference also found in Asians, Hispanics and mixed race participants
- African American participants often do not demonstrate implicit preference for own race
what is a real world example of implicit in-group preferences?
CV studies
- have the exact same CV but change the nationality, gender etc and see what who gets what call back
- e.g. if have Irish name in Ireland more likely to get a call back
how can interventions to reduce implicit bias increase inequality?
- implies a loss of ‘merit’
- signalling the uneven culture within the organisation
- generating resentment amongst the in-group members through the perception of favouritism
study 1: knowledge of balck cultural stereotypes (Devine, 1989)
No difference between high and low prejudice participants
study 2: Subconscious priming of Black stereotype to lesser or greater degree (Devine, 1989)
Interpretation of ambiguous hostile behaviour – ‘Donald paragraph’.
- E.g., Donald demands his money back from a store clerk immediately after a purchase; would go somewhere else if mechanic could not fix his car the same day
- Evaluative judgements about Donald
- Both low and high prejudice participants rated Donald more hostile after greater stereotype priming
study 3: List thoughts about Black people under anonymous conditions (Devine, 1989)
- High prejudice – reported primarily negative traits.
- Low prejudice – reported beliefs that contradicted cultural stereotypes and emphasized equality.
- Low prejudice – motivated to inhibit automatic stereotype and replace them with equality relevant thoughts
Is category activation avoidable?
- Schema activation is dependent on processing goals and general attitude towards the category.
- Bigots and humanitarians categorical representations differ in automatic associations.
- Automatic stereotype that is consciously endorsed, or consciously adjusted
