Stereotyping, Prejudice & Discrimination Flashcards
Stereotypes
Stereotyping can occur without prejudice but stereotypes can lead to prejudices and as a result impact behavior.
— generalized beliefs about social groups in terms of the traits or characteristics that they are believed to share.
- They are cognitive components of attitudes about social groups. The affective and
behavioural components are prejudice and discrimination respectively. - Can be positive or negative, accurate or inaccurate, can be agreed with or rejected by group
members. - They influence processing of information.
Cognitive Component
One’s perception of others can be distorted based on the stereotypes we hold.
Discrimination
Discrimination are differential (often negative) behaviors directed towards members of different social groups (out-group). Discrimination is the link between attitude and behavior.
These are overt or observable behavior depending on the perceived norms and acceptability of doing so.
Confronting a groups behavior can reduce discrimination and prejudice.
Behavioural Component
Prejudice
Negative attitudes (emotional responses) that affect the affective component based on group membership.
Can be implicit (unconscious) or explicit (conscious).
Can be influenced by incidental feelings (not generated y or influenced by having direct contact with the social group).
○ If anger is associated with the perception of a social group every time you’re angry you will have automatic prejudicial responses towards a particular out-group.
Affective Component
Why do people form and use stereotypes?
- We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we
would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. In the absence of the “total
picture,” stereotypes in many cases allow us to “fill in the blanks”. - Stereotypes often act as schemas. Stereotypes save cognitive effort and serve motivational
purposes. - Out-group homogeneity - members of an out-group appear to be “all alike” or more similar
to each other than are members of the in-group. - In-group differentiation - members of own group are more heterogeneous.
- Devine (1989) states that we become highly aware of the contents of many stereotypes
through socio-cultural mechanisms
Stereotype Activation and its influences
Stereotypes are activated via:
- Automatic Processing: occurs without conscious effort triggered by stimuli
2. Motivated Processing: a more deliberate use of stereotypes to help fulfill goals of the perceiver ○ People may use stereotypes to justify cognitive beliefs
Stereotype activation depends on:
- Amount of exposure to stereotypes (exposure to stereotypical jokes etc)
- Type and amount of info perceived (internalized info impacts beliefs)
- Perceiver’s motivational goals (maintain self esteem) and cognitive load (automatic processing)
How do Stereotypes Operate?
- Info consistent with our stereotypical beliefs are more noticeable and memorable
- Inconsistent info is usually refuted or changed (differing from the stereotypical beliefs we hold)
A way to hold onto our stereotype we create a sub-group to put the abnormality/anomaly into (helps to prevent cognitive dissonance)
Stereotype Persistance
Selective memory and attention
- Selective memory: information relevant to an activated stereotype is often processed more quickly and remembered better that unrelated information.
- Illusory correlations: perceiving a relationship between variables when no such relationship exists. i.e., the perception of a stronger association between two variables than actually exists. Example: White Americans overestimating crime rates of minority groups. One
explanation is that infrequent events stand out and are easily noticed, especially when they confirm existing stereotypes
Attributions
- Attribution biases can perpetuate stereotypes.
- Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional cues on others’ behaviour
Subtyping and contrast effects
- Subtyping: protects the stereotype by placing inconsistent information into a separate group.
- Contrast effect: judgment of a person’s characteristics or behaviors is influenced by
comparisons with other individuals. Perceived difference are exaggerated as a result.
Confirmation biases
- Stereotypes are often maintained and strengthened through confirmation biases.
- The stereotype creates a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Example: “White men can’t jump” (Stone
et al., 1997). Subjects listened to a basketball game and were led to believe a player was
either black or white. Then they were asked how athletic and how “court smart” the player
was. Results showed that “black” players were thought to have more ability but be less
“court smart” in comparison to “white” players.
Gender Stereotypes
Overgeneralization of the traits possessed by females and males, which distinguish the two genders
from each other.
- Contain both positive and negative traits and convey status. Women are seen as kind,
nurturing, and considerate (positive) as well as dependent, weak, and overly emotional
(negative). Thus, women are warm (nice), but they are not competent. Men are seen as
decisive, assertive, and accomplished (positive) and aggressive, insensitive, and arrogant
(negative). These traits are thought to show that men are a higher-status group than
women.
Changing Stereotypes
- Change may result when the relationships between groups change and in-group favouritism
becomes socially unacceptable. - Change may result when social values and group memberships change.
Stereotypes and the self
Stereotype threat: belief that one may be judged based on a negative stereotype of their group. If stereotype threat occurs, a person’s performance in the stereotype domain may suffer.Fear of confirming the negative stereotype/prophecy (self-fulfilling)
Eg. The stereotype that STEM fields are for men will lead to women having anxiety when entering this field in fear of confirming the stereotype.
Types of discrimination
- Racism - discrimination directed at a specific racial group.
- Sexism - discrimination directed at a specific gender.
- Ageism - discrimination directed at various age groups.
- Heterosexism - discrimination against LGBTQ+ community (sexual orientation).
- Systemic discrimination stems from assumptions and stereotypes about women and men, as
well as about class, age, race, sexuality, ethnicity, and ability. - Learned through the socialization process that starts at birth when baby girls are dressed in
pink and boys in blue, and when boys are encouraged to be noisy and boisterous and play,
while girls are expected to be gentle and quiet. - Whether prejudice will be expressed in overt discrimination depends on the perceived
norms or acceptability of doing so.
Why do prejudices persist?
- Boosts self-esteem (individual/ group).
- Saves cognitive effort (relies on quick, heuristic processing).
- Prejudice may occur beyond one’s awareness.
Types of Prejudice
Implicit prejudice can be automatically activated and can affect overt behaviour even though people
are unaware that they hold such views.
Explicit prejudice operates at the conscious level and are the attitudes you are aware of towards a
specific event, situation, person, or group.
Origins of Prejudice
- Threat of self esteem: a defense mechanism that increases group self esteem every time you feel your group interest being threatened so you have prejudicial attitudes. Building up your group through pulling down another.
○ The role of existential threat (the fear of death and dying will lead to prejudices towards atheism). [1:23]- Competition of resources: the things we want are in short supply so as competition for these scarce resources arise so will prejudice.
○ Realistic conflict theory (zero sum income) states that prejudice stems from direct competition between various social groups over scarce and valued resources. Using social identity to capture and claim scarce resources. - Social Categorization: Once people are categorized into groups we have in-group loyalty and out-group discrimination. “Us vs Them” attitude. Also known as the self serving attribution bias at the group level.
○ Ultimate attribution error: tendency of having more favorable and flattering attributions about members of one’s own group than members of another group (out-group). - Social identity theory: concerned with the consequences of perceiving the self as a member of the social group and identifying with the group.
○ Higher self esteem will result from social identity
○ Believing your group is better than any other group (undermining another group through downward social comparison).
- Competition of resources: the things we want are in short supply so as competition for these scarce resources arise so will prejudice.
Counteracting Prejudice
- Learning not to hate
○ Social learning process: starts in the household as parental prejudices are taught vicariously to children
○ Direct learning- Contact hypothesis: increasing contacts of members of varying groups as this can allow for the minimization of prejudice through familiarity (must be non-competitive, no perception of superiority, communication must be fostered; reduces anxiety)
- Recategorization: positive contact with common achievements; 1 group opposed to multiple also known as common in-group identity model)
- “Just say no” to stereotyping and biased attributions
- Social influence
○ Persons prejudicial attitudes result from social influences
○ Being apart of a group that doesn’t accept prejudicial attitudes - Collective guilt
○ Where a social group feels grievance about being perceived as holding prejudicial or immoral acts.
