Stereotypes, Prejudice, Discrimination Flashcards
What are stereotypes?
(cognitive) beliefs that certain attributes are characteristics of particular groups
What is prejudice?
(affective) attitudinal and affective response toward a group and its individual members
What is discrimination?
(behavioral) negative or harmful behavior directed towards members of a particular group
What does the economic perspective argue?
Root of intergroup hostility in competing interest
or
Social groups fight for limited resources
What are the 3 predictions of realistic group conflict theory?
- Prejudice and discrimination increase under conditions of economic difficulty
- Prejudice and discrimination are stronger among groups who think that they have something to lose from other groups advances
- A pronounced ethnocentrism develops: the other group is vilified, one’s group is gloried (opponents whose antics seem intolerable become likable once they becomes teammates)
What are the lessons from the Robbers Cave Experiment?
- Neither differences in background nor differences in appearance nor prior histories of conflict are necessary for intergroup hostility to develop
- Competition against outsiders often increase group cohesion
- In times of peace, hierarchy is structures around abilities and skills. In times of conflict, hierarchy is structured around aggressive personalities
- To reduces hostilities between certain groups, policymakers should think of ways to get them to work together to fulfill common goals.
What does the motivational perceptive argue?
Social groups fight because of their psychological needs
What are minimal groups?
groups based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria:
- history
- arbitrary criterion or differentiation
- no contact
What do the studies by Tajfel show?
Hostility between groups can develop even in the absence of :
- previously existing competition or hostly between groups
- competition for objective resources between groups
What are the takeaways of Tajfel’s studies?
- Group members are willing to give up resources as long as they get more than the outgroup
- Competition doesn’t need to be around material resources
What does the cognitive perspective argue?
Social groups fight because of how the process of categorization itself works; stereotyping is inevitable and a direct consequence of categorization
What are the consequences of categorizations?
- Mistaken impression and judgements
- Exaggeration of difference
- Outgroup homogeneity effect
- Illusory correlation
- Subtyping
What is the outgroup homogeneity effect?
Tendency to assume that an outgroup’s within-group similarity is much stronger than that of our in-group
What are illusory correlations?
People sometime see correlations between events, characteristics, or categories that are not actually related
Why are illusory correlations a problem for minority groups?
As distinct events capture our attention and memory, these processes have important implications for the kind of stereotypes that are commonly associated with minority group. (By definition, minority groups are distinctive to most members of the majority, so minority group members stand out.) In addition, negative behaviors are much less common than positive behaviors.
! Negative behavior on the part of minority group members is therefore doubly distinctive and double memorable
