Week 4-Bias and Discrimination

Question 1

Define prejudice

Answer 1

An adverse (harmful) opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge has been acquired.

Question 2

Define stereotype

Answer 2

A standardised mental picture that’s held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgement.

Question 3

How are we biased in physical appearance? (social cognition)

Answer 3

Asch 1946: our response to others is based off the primacy effect (more weight put on the first info we receive about someone i.e., appearance)
-Halo effect
Dion, Berscheid & Walster, 1972: physically attractive people seen as good in skill and morality superiority.
Knapp, 1978: Taller men receive higher starting salaries than shorter men.

Question 4

What’s a schema according to Hogg and Vaughan, 2008?

Answer 4

A set of interrelated cognitions (thoughts, beliefs, attitudes) that allows us to quickly make sense of a person, situation, event or place on the basis of limited info. Certain cues activate a schema and the schema then fills in the missing info.
■ ‘The filing cabinet of the mind’ or ‘computer desktop of the mind’
■ This is generally very useful e.g. visit to a restaurant
■ Allows us to function in a complex world e.g. chair example
■ Resistant to change

Question 5

What are the types of schema?

Answer 5

Some schemas relate to oneself:
– Scripts – e.g. how to behave in a restaurant
– Self-schemas – e.g. actual self, ideal self and ought self
Some schemas relate to other people:
– Person schemas: schematic impression of a specific person – e.g. our best friend or a famous celebrity
– Role schemas: e.g. a lecturer or a pilot – an
impression of how they should behave

Question 6

How do we use stereotypes?

Answer 6

■ If our person schema or role schema is based on widely held social assumptions about that person or role, due to their group identity, we are using a stereotype
■ Stereotypes can be true or false, but even if true they tend to be generalised and sweeping
■ At their best they allow us to function swiftly and effectively in a complex social world
■ We struggle to process information which contrasts with the stereotype we hold about a person - the intelligent boxer, the shy celebrity. Incongruous information is often ignored or forgotten (Haire & Grune, 1950)

Question 7

What are the effects of prejudice?

Answer 7

■ Social Stigma – developed with negative stereotypes
■ Devaluation of a social identity
■ Can be visible (physical size) or hidden (AIDS sufferer)
■ Increased prejudice against ‘controllable’ stigma
■ Allows for downward comparisons (perhaps for a number of groups), which may boost self esteem
■ Justifies unjust power systems
■ Defends the ‘worldview’ – important for self esteem
■ Demonstrated in Tajfel’s minimal groups studies – we seek to maximise intergroup difference

Question 8

What’s stereotype threat?

Answer 8

■ ‘Looking glass self’ (Cooley, Mead)
■ Prejudice inspires anxiety which worsens performance
■ Stone et al (1999) – golf study with black and white ps (Hypothesis is that awareness of the stereotypes=increased anxiety so do worse as a result)
– Sporting intelligence
– Natural athletic ability
■ Shih, Pittinsky & Ambady (1999) – Asian women and maths study (When Asian/women were primed they did better on the maths test)
■ Stereotype lift – Meta-analysis by Walton and Cohen (2002)
■ Some problems with recent attempts to replicate the effect

Question 9

What are some examples of self-fulfilling prophecies?

Answer 9

■ Snowball effect (e.g., + response from teacher then + response from child and so on)
■ Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968):given tests to see students’ potential (deception they didn’t do the test) + asked teacher who would flourish (who experimenters/teachers predicted did fluorish and suggested it was due to teacher’s behaviour towards those students/paid more attention and more positive towards)
■ Eden (1990) (prediction for platoons’ similar idea to study above)
■ Good evidence for gender, less good for race and poor for socio-economic status - review by Jussim & Fleming (1996)

Question 10

What’s Attributional Ambiguity?

Answer 10

■ Overt discrimination replaced by subtle discrimination – requiring implicit measures
■ Contrast between hostile and benevolent sexism
■ Attempts to redress discrimination and change institutional cultures - reverse/positive discrimination (but tokenism)
■ Aversive racism – anxiety and apathy (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008; Trawalter et al, 2009)
■ All leads to attributional ambiguity – suspicion and mistrust in relationships
■ Online discrimination is often still overt (Munger, 2017)

Question 11

What are some explanations for prejudice?

Answer 11

■ Inherent fear of the unfamiliar – as omnivores we are neophilic (like new things) and neophobic (dislike new things)
■ Mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968)
■ Evolved fear of other groups (dangerous/competitors?)
■ Learned
■ Barrett & Short (1992): 5 – 10-year-old children prefer Spaniards to Germans (duo to associations S=energetic, funny/G=sober, not as funny)
■ Parental prejudices passed on through: modelling, operant conditioning, classical conditioning

Question 12

What’s an authoritarian personality?

Answer 12

■ Adorno et al (1950)
■ Arose from consideration of the Holocaust (Shoah)
■ Proposes that harsh parenting leads to ambivalence towards parents (love/hate) leading to authoritarian personality
■ Excessive respect for authority, obsession with status, displacing anger onto weaker others, intolerance of uncertainty, difficulties with intimacy
■ Lots of research but mixed evidence

Question 13

What are some critiques of the authoritarian personality?

Answer 13

■ Pettigrew (1958) White South Africans and Northern US citizens were similar for personality but different in terms of racism
■ Numerous examples of rapid changes in attitude to outgroups: anti-semitism in Germany (1930s), Racist attitudes against Japanese Americans following Pearl Harbour, attitudes vs. Argentineans after Falklands War, attitudes against Muslims following 9/11 (Amer & Bagasra, 2013).

Question 14

What’s Right-Wing Authoritarianism?

Answer 14

■ Altemeyer (1998)
■ Attitudes rather than personality measured with RWA scale split into 3 subscales:
■ Conventionalism (how they should behave and conform), authoritarian aggression (authority legitimate in their force e.g., fines), authoritarian submission
■ May vary with context (Stenner, 2009)

Question 15

What’s Social Dominance Theory?

Answer 15

■ Social Dominance Orientation = acceptance of myths which justify unequal status quo (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999)
■ People at the top defend the status quo so as to maintain privileged status
■ System Justification theory=people from lower groups defend hierarchy (Jost & Van der Torn, 2012)
■ Defence of status quo so as to avoid uncertainly anxiety even if this results in personal marginalisation
■ Relates to internalised racism (David et al, 2019)

Question 16

What’s Social Identity Explanation?

Answer 16

■ We categorise ourselves and others
■ We seek positive differentiation so as to enhance our self esteem
■ Patterns of bias become established as defining norms
■ Hierarchies of identities are formed
■ Also escape from a low-status personal identity to a constructed ‘high status’ social identity set

Question 17

What’s the pernicious (harmful) nature of prejudice?

Answer 17

■ Necessity of categorization and schema formation for normal human functioning
■ Power of ingroup bias for raising self-esteem
through the adoption of a positive social identity
■ Makes prejudice hard to combat

Question 18

Sexism: ‘Woman’ as a social construction: What is Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex? (1949)

Answer 18

■ ‘Femininity’ is a social construction of the quintessential other – constructed by men
■ Women are the ‘second sex’ – defined in relation to men due to male power
■ Female norms include, lack of education, female passivity, dependence on men
■ Femininity was culturally defined by men so that women became a foil before which men appeared active, capable, necessary and strong
■ Women were also presented (by society) as overly emotional; expressions of women’s anger or pain was dismissed as hysteria

Question 19

What’s Optimal Distinctiveness?

Answer 19

■ We seek to be distinct from and superior to outgroups so as to enhance our self-esteem
■ Achieved by positive reflection on the norms of the in-group
■ E.g., assertions of men as strong, adventurous, capable, knowledgeable
■ Control of the outgroup allows for the norms of the outgroup to be defined by the ingroup (men) so as to enhance the ingroup further by comparison
■ E.g., assertions of women as weak, passive, needy and uneducated

Question 20

What’s Structural Misogyny?

Answer 20

■ Established norms of male empowerment and female marginalisation maintain male control over society and the norms of the female identity
■ This marginalisation becomes ’normal’ and ‘common sense’
■ Men love their wives, fathers their daughters, sons their mothers but all within a social order which through the passing centuries marginalises
women
■ Example: norm of ‘women should not be educated’

Question 21

What was Moss-Racusin et al.’s (2012) research on sex inequalities?

Answer 21

■ Participants = 127 members of science faculties (biology, chemistry & physics) from a range of Universities across the USA
■ Believed they were evaluating a real student who wished to pursue a career in science
■ Received the student’s CV; only the sex of the applicant was varied
■ Participants rated the student’s perceived competence, their own likelihood of hiring the student, an annual starting salary they would offer, how much mentoring they would provide to the student
■ Both male and female faculty members viewed the female student as being less, competent, were less likely to hire them, would start them on a lower
starting salary and would give them less mentoring

Question 22

What is Orientalism (1978) according to Edward
Said?

Answer 22

■ The ‘Orient’ is a semi-mythical construct – an abstract antithesis of the West
■ A mixture of racist and romanticised stereotypes have formed – ‘Orientals’ are presented as lazy, suspicious, gullible, mysterious, untruthful, weak,
barbaric and irrational
■ This allows for a contrasting presentation of westerners as hard working, fair, wise, open, honest, capable, civilised and rational
■ These norms were established and maintained by colonial rule, academic studies and media depictions
■ This also creates a worldview which justifies Western colonialism, imperialism and political interference

Question 23

What have recent psychology studies found in regard to racism?

Answer 23

■ Black students are more likely to be expelled from school than white students because white students are perceived as being more compliant (Okonofua et al, 2016)
■ White home-owners are perceived as cleaner and more responsible than black homeowners leading to disparities in perceived property value (Bonam et al, 2016)
■ Sanctioning of racial harassment on twitter by an in-group white interlocuter was more effective at reducing such harassment than were sanctions from an outgroup black interlocuter (Munger, 2017)

Question 24

What is structural racism?

Answer 24

■ De-humanization – e.g., 18th century language in context of the trans-Atlantic slave trade
■ Infra-humanization – a legacy of lessening the humanity of black people

Question 25

What are some healthcare statistics relating to racial bias?

Answer 25

■ Healthcare is a relatively simple context in which to examine bias. After controlling for relevant variables (e.g. obesity, age) all patients should receive the same care and treatment
■ POC in the US for 2014 had lower life expectancy and higher blood pressure than white Americans. Black children were less likely to be classified as requiring emergency care (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2015)
■ Black people aged 51 – 55 were more likely to suffer from chronic disease than white people of the same age (Quinones et al, 2019)
■ Black mothers have increased likelihood of complications and mortality during pregnancy (Howell, 2019)

Question 26

What did Hoffman, Trawalter, Axt & Oliver (2016) find in relation to racial bias in healthcare?

Answer 26

■ Black Americans are less likely to be prescribed pain medication when reporting pain to a doctor (e.g., Smedley, Stith & Nelson, 2013)
■ Study 1: 121 ps reported the amount of pain they would feel if an event occurred (e.g., caught hand in car door). Then speculated on level of pain felt by a target.
■ Ps rated black target as experiencing less pain than white target
■ This effect was enhanced by belief in false aspects of biology (e.g., Black people have thicker skin than white people). P’s endorsed 22.5% of the false beliefs
■ Study 2: 222 medical students read mock medical statements and made pain ratings for the mock patients. The medical students endorsed 11.5% of the false beliefs. P’s who endorsed false beliefs rated black targets as feeling less pain than white targets