WEEK 7 - Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

Question 1

What are stereotypes

Answer 1

cognitive beliefs or associations linking a whole group of people with certain traits or characteristics
* can distort our perceptions and often resistant to change
* resolve ambiguity (contributes to stereotype persistence)

Question 2

What are self-fulfilling prophecies

Answer 2

expectations influence interaction and therefore
produces changes in behaviour in line with assumptions

Question 3

What is stigma

Answer 3

feeling negatively evaluated due to group membership

Question 4

What is prejudice

Answer 4

negative feelings towards certain people based on
their group membership

Question 5

What is discrimination

Answer 5

behaviour directed against people based on
their group membership

Question 6

What is sexism

Answer 6

prejudice and discrimination based on a person’s gender or institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one gender over another

Question 7

What is ambivalent sexism

Answer 7

• hostile sexism: negative, resentful feelings about women
• benevolent sexism: chivalrous feelings that can be patronising

Question 8

What is racism

Answer 8

prejudice and discrimination based on a person’s racial background or institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one racial group over another

Question 9

experiments designed to detect well-concealed racism

Answer 9

• Duncan’s (1976) study coding of ‘lightly shoving’ act by either White/Black male: if Black male, more
  likely coded as ‘shove’ vs. if White male, coded as ‘playful’
• use of methods like Implicit Association Test (IAT) to reveal unconscious bias
• reaction times for positive/negative adjectives (see graph)

Question 10

WHat is aversive racism

Answer 10

mixed feelings between being fair and unconscious prejudices

Question 11

What are microaggressions:

Answer 11

everyday, typically subtle forms of discrimination

Question 12

What is ageism

Answer 12

prejudice and discrimination based on a person’s age

Question 13

What is abelism

Answer 13

prejudice and discrimination towards people with a disability

Question 14

Aspects of sexual idenity

Answer 14

• recent changes: historical roller-coaster - less/more levels of acceptance
• context-specific: sectors of community (especially rural)
• 1980s..link with HIV (‘GRID’: gay related immune deficiency) enabled prejudice and discrimination
• Inclusivity and diversity: legislation, safe spaces

Question 15

Effects of prejudice and discrimination

Answer 15

• reluctance to help minorities improve their position in society
• tokenism (publicly making small concessions)
• reverse discrimination (publicly being prejudiced in favour of a minority group)
• social stigma, self-fulfilling prophesies
• reduced self-esteem
• disadvantage (access to resources
• dehumanisation (stripping people of their dignity and humanity)
• violence + genocide, including cultural (exterminating a whole social group

Question 16

Why are people prejudice and discriminatiory

Answer 16

• innate reaction: human’s inherent fear of the unfamiliar
• learned reactions: role of parental attitudes
• frustration aggression – leads to scapegoating as outlet
• authoritarian personality: harsh parental treatment so respect for authority and displaced anger leads to prejudice… or dogmatism: rigid cognitive style
• relative deprivation theory
• realistic conflict theory

Question 17

What is relative deprivation

Answer 17

The belief that a person will feel deprived or entitled to something based on the comparison to someone else. People feel like they are missing out on what the other person has.

Question 18

WHat is realistic conflict theory

Answer 18

hostility between groups caused by direct competition for
limited resources

Question 19

What is the main findings in Sherif’s (1949) ‘summer camp’/’Robbers cave’ study (in relation to conflict)

Answer 19

boys in separate cohesive groups at summer camp caused cooperation and conflict

Question 20

What are superordinate goals

Answer 20

shared goal only achieved by cooperation between groups

Question 21

Social identity theory (Tajfel & colleagues)

Answer 21

Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s)
* theory of group membership and intergroup relations
* social vs. personal identity

Social identity theory aims to specify and predict the circumstances under which individuals think of themselves as individuals or as group members.

Question 22

What are the outcomes of social identity/identification:

Answer 22

• ethnocentrism/ingroup favouritism
• conformity to group norms
• stereotyping of own (‘ingroup’) and other (‘outgroup’) group members

Question 23

Self-categorization theory (Turner & colleagues)

Answer 23

Self-categorization theory seeks to understand and explain how people form cognitive representations of themselves and others in relation to different social groups. The underlying premise behind this theory is that people place themselves and others into social categories on the basis of the underlying attributes that are particularly salient

• categories based on cognitive representations of groups
• use of prototypes to:
• MINIMISE differences within groups
• MAXIMISE differences between groups

Question 24

referent informational influence

Answer 24

kind of like the process when conformity occurs
process to discover ingroup norms, cognitively
represent them, assign ingroup norms to self, then adhere to ingroup normative behaviour (conformity)

Question 25

What is outgroup homogeneity effect

Answer 25

assume greater similarity among members of outgroups
than ingroups

e.g. “they are alike; we are diverse”.

Question 26

Strategies to create harmony between 2 groups

Answer 26

• propaganda and education: messages to create norms denouncing prejudice
• superordinate goals (Sherif’s summer camp)
• communication and conciliation
• Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis: contact leads to intergroup harmony

Question 27

Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis: contact leads to intergroup harmony.. but you need….

Answer 27

• prolonged, co-operative activity
• officially sanctioned
• equal social status
• similarities emphasised (as long as real)
• outgroup members seen as typical
• superordinate goals (Sherif’s summer camp)
• communication and conciliation