Stereotyping and Prejudice

Question 1

stereotypes

Answer 1

• schemas applied to groups
• • can be race, gender, other groups (ie. Cat lovers)
• Generalizations of how members think or act
• Content can be positive or negative

Question 2

explicit bias

Answer 2

• Attitudes and beliefs that people endorse
• Measured with self-report scales
• includes positive stereotypes (ex. Asians are good at math -> can still be problematic)
• includes sexism in media (used to be more overt, but still exists today)
• includes hostile and benevolent sexism
• strong social norms against explicit prejudice (especially in its hostile/extreme forms)

Question 3

hostile vs. benevolent sexism

Answer 3

• hostile: negative (ex. “women seek to gain power by controlling men”)
• benevolent: seemingly-positive (ex. “women should be cherished and protected by men”)

Question 4

implicit bias

Answer 4

• Automatic, nonconscious
• Often associated with reaction time measures
• When 2 things are more closely associated, it’s easier to group them, and therefore people respond faster (ex. Chocolate/strawberries vs. Chocolate/cars)
• Can exist even in people who don’t endorse stereotypes and prejudice explicitly

Question 5

measures of implicit bias

Answer 5

• IAT (most widely used measure)

- Shoot/Don’t Shoot task

Question 6

IAT

Answer 6

Computer association task (Black/White Bad/Good) measuring implicit prejudice
Implicit prejudice = Black/Bad speed minus Black/good speed

Question 7

critiques of IAT (and responses)

Answer 7

• Order effects? (not really -> counterbalancing used)
• Just shared cultural knowledge/awareness? (no -> predicts individual behaviour -> Ex. People with higher implicit bias (as measured by IAT) less likely to say they would vote for Obama)

Question 8

Shoot/Don’t Shoot Task

Answer 8

• Photos of young black and white men holding gun or non-threatening objects (ie. Wallet, phone), have to decide whether to shoot or not shoot them
• Most errors: shooting unarmed black men

Question 9

implicit bias in the workplace

Answer 9

Recruiters who score higher on Anti-Arab implicit bias are less likely to invite a Muslim-Arab person for an interview (explicit bias didn’t predict this)

Question 10

why is implicit prejudice so persistent?

Answer 10

• Forming associations and creating categories is natural and largely outside our control
• A basic characteristic of human cognition
• We are surrounded by stereotypes

Question 11

is bias inevitable?

Answer 11

• Dependent on social situation
• College students’ ratings of profs:
• • Equal for male/female profs if good grade given
• • Female profs harshly criticized if bad grade given, male profs only slightly so…
• • KEY POINT: People shift whatever stereotypes they’re using to fit the situation

Question 12

Parental differential treatment of members of stigmatized groups

Answer 12

• Overweight women less likely to receive support from parents for college education (even when controlling for income, ethnicity, family size, # of kids, etc.)
• But no effect for male students

Question 13

differential treatment and stereotypes

Answer 13

• Differential treatment can make stereotypes come true (self-fufilling prophecy)
• Because you’re treated in line with a stereotype, you end up fufilling the stereotype
• Others’ expectation about you -> influences their behaviour toward you -> influences your behaviour (you act consistently with their expectations)
• Ex. Parents think fat people are stupid -> don’t help her go to college and get better education -> confirms initial bias

Question 14

differential treatment study: ugly vs. beautiful girl

Answer 14

• male participants shown fake picture of girl they’ll be talking to (either beautiful or ugly), then talk to her though a headset (don’t actually ever see her)
• Men who saw beautiful picture believed that the “hot” women would have more social skills
• Other students asked to listen to tape of woman speaking (without knowing about the picture stuff) to rate her social skills
• Women who were believed to be “hot” actually were the more socially skilled, because the men who interacted with them treated them in a way that elicited socially skilled behaviour

Question 15

reducing stereotypes and prejudice

Answer 15

• awareness and genuine desire to change
• harness power of peer pressure
• intergroup contact

Question 16

awareness and genuine desire to change

Answer 16

• Has to be genuine (internally motivated)
• • Being told to suppress stereotypes can backfire
• • Little evidence for effectiveness of corporate diversity education
• Can help to focus on feelings
• • Ex. Study showed focusing on feelings (vs. Thoughts) while watching a video about discrimination against black people increased desire to interact with black people

Question 17

power of peer pressure

Answer 17

• Poluck’s field experiment: picked high school students to serve as peer trainers for fellow high school students (influential students from all different ‘cliques’; got intensive training in prejudice & prejudice reduction)
• At end of training, students completed an “unrelated survey” and are invited to sign a petition for gay rights
• Results: peer trainers changed their attitudes in a positive way, friends & peers of peer trainers didn’t change their attitudes, but did change their actions (were more likely to sign the petition)

Question 18

intergroup contact

Answer 18

• Simple hypothesis: create contact between members of different groups -> reduce prejudice
• Reality: contact between groups only reduces prejudice when it occurs under optimal circumstances:
• • Equal status between groups
• • Intimate & varied contact so people really get to know each other
• • Cooperation to achieve a shared goal
• • Institutional support: contact approved by culture/authorities
• • Ex. Jigsaw Classroom

Question 19

Plant et al: IAT and Obama studies

Answer 19

Plant et. Al did IAT studies and saw implicit prejudice against black people decrease when Obama ran for president -> instead of associating black with bad, they now associated it with someone good (ie. Obama)

Question 20

Nosek and Greenwald math stereotype study: how did they come up with study?

Answer 20

In an earlier IAT studying something else, a negative bias was found towards numbers, whereas a positive one was found towards letters by female participants -> led to this study

Question 21

Nosek and Greenwald math stereotype study: what did they find?

Answer 21

• Female college students demonstrated implicit negative attitudes towards math and science (which is not demonstrated in explicit self-report measures)
• Even females in math-intensive majors still held more negative attitudes than male counterparts

Question 22

Nosek and Greenwald math stereotype study: why did they find what they did

Answer 22

• Implicit attitudes are related to group membership (being female), group identity (self = female), and gender stereotypes (math = male)
• • Membership in the category “female” strongly related to negative attitudes
• • Stronger your identification with “female”, stronger your negative attitudes
• • Stereotype of math = male is strong