UNit 6 Flashcards
Stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination
What is Stereotyping?
The cognitive component of attitudes toward a social group
-> beliefs about what a particular group is like
What are Gender Stereotypes
Beliefs concerning the characteristics of women and men
-> Consists of both positive and negative traits
What is the Glass ceiling?
Presence of a final barrier that prevents women from reaching top positions in the workplace
What is the Glass cliff effect?
In times of crisis women are most likely to gain access to high-status positions
What is Tokenism?
Only a few members of a previously excluded group are admitted
-> e.g.: a few women break the ceiling glass
What can be some effects of tokenism?
complaining can draw attention to problem but can also be rejected by group (e.g.: attempt to escape personal responsibility)
What do stereotypes often work as?
as schemas
-> they act as theories that guide what we attend to and exert strong effects on how we process social information
what do stereotypes lead us to do?
to pay more attention to specific types of information and usually information consistent with our stereotypes
what may we do instead of modifying the automatically activated form of information processing?
we may create subtypes
-> consisting of people who do not confirm the schema/stereotype
(basically, it is an exception when it doesn’t confirm with my stereotypes)
What is Prejudice?
The affective component of stereotypes
(emotional)
what does Prejudice reflect?
a negative response to another person based solely on that persons membership in a particular group
Is Prejudice personal?
no, it is an affective reaction toward the category
What does the expression of prejudice in discrimination or not depend on?
Perceived norms
Acceptability of doing so
what do some theories claim about prejudice?
that there is a distinction between prejudices that are associated with specific intergroup emotions
-> e.g.: disgust towards gay people, pity for native Americans and so on
What does Prejudice alter?
how we process information
-> we give more attention to information related to our prejudices
what belief is prejudice based on?
that groups have underlying essences
-> feelings about groups are legitimized, which results in discrimination
what needs to be tackled in order to reduce prejudice?
the emotion of the intergroup
-> base of the prejudice
What are Incidental feelings in Prejudice and what can they generate??
feelings caused by factors other than the outgroup per se
-> can generate implicit associations
what are implicit associations?
automatic prejudice towards members o groups to which we do not belong
What can implicit associations be triggered in?
in a seemingly automatic manner as a result of categorization (in-group vs. outgroup)
What are the 3 origins of Prejudice?
- Threat to self-esteem
- Competition for resources as a source of prejudice
- Cognitive effects of social categorization
How can Prejudice be linked to self-esteem?
When an event threatens people’s perception of their group’s value they may retaliate
-> threat doesn’t need to involve possible death, threat to identity is enough
What is Recategorization?
reminding people who value their ingroup identity that they share a more inclusive identity to lower perceived threat and prejudice
What are Zero-sum outcomes?
in the occasion that things people want most are in short supply
→if one group gets them the other group cannot
How do members of involved groups view each other in increasingly negative terms when competition escalates?
draw boundaries → enemies → dehumanization
What do we seek according to the social identity theory?
to feel positively about the groups we belong to, and part of our self-esteem is derived from our social group membership
What do we tend to express, leading to prejudice?
favouritism toward their own group + a corresponding bias against outgroups
What is the extent to which a person sees the self and their group as overlapping known as?
identity fusion
What are cognitive effects of social categorization (identity fusion)?
Emotional responses and extreme behaviour can be influenced by people’s relationships to their group and how they categorize those at risk
What is Discrimination?
The behavioral component
-> differential actions taken toward members of specific social groups
What has helped to decrease discrimination?
laws, social pressure, fear of retaliation etc.
-> despite that still finds a way of manifesting itself in more subtle forms of behavior
What is an example of disguised discrimination?
modern racism
What is modern racism?
can involve concealing prejudice from others in public settings but expressing bigoted attitudes when it’s safe to do so
What is the bona fide pipeline?
measuring implicit racial attitudes
How can we detect modern racism?
through measuring implicit racial attitudes
-> priming racial stereotypes by briefly showing the face of people of different ethnicities
What do prejudiced people maintain?
an “unprejudiced” self-image by social comparison with an extreme prototype of bigotry
What may confronting what a group has done to another group cause?
collective guilt, which evokes a defensive response when exposed to how one’s group has acted in a prejudiced fashion
What is collective guilt defined as?
an emotional response that people can experience when they perceive their group as responsible for illegitimate wrongdoings
What does morally disengage mean?
dehumanizing the victims to justify their actions as having served to a “righteous purpose”
-> happens when group no longer sees sanctioning as necessary for perpetrating harm
What role does Social learning play in countering prejudice?
Children acquire attitudes toward social groups by hearing such views being
expressed by their significant others.
−> When repeating and adopting those views they get rewarded
What role plays the contact hypothesis in countering prejudice?
Increased contact between people from different groups can lead to a growing
recognition of similarities, which can change the categorizations employed
-> group is not an enemy or a threat
What role plays recategorization in countering prejudice?
when “them” becomes “us”
-> When successfully induced, recategorization is useful in reducing prejudice toward the (previously seen as) outgroup members
What role plays collective guilt in countering prejudice?
“guilt by association” when members of the in-group behave in a prejudiced fashion
What role plays training in “saying no” in countering prejudice?
repeatedly saying no to reduce prejudice can reduce reliance on stereotypes
-> learned associations between certain characteristics with groups leads to automatic associations
-> formed automatic associations can serve as “primes” for said stereotypes
What role plays social influence in countering prejudice?
if I am “out of line” with the views of most other people I may change my views to a less prejudiced one
-> stereotypes that we believe to be widely shared play a critical role in the expression of prejudice
