Stereotypes, Bias and Prejudice

• Stereotypes are beliefs about the characteristics of most members of a group and overall, these beliefs tend to be more positive.
• Prejudice is a negative attitude or feeling toward a group and its members, operating automatically and unconsciously.
• Schemas are applied to groups, and their content can be positive or negative.

Bias

• Bias is more specific than stereotypes or prejudice.
• Implicit bias is assessed via reaction time measures and signifies an unconscious and automatic association.
• Reaction time is faster when two things are closely related because they are easier to group.

Explicit Bias

• Explicit bias is measured by self-report skills, beliefs, and attitudes that people endorse.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

• The IAT is most widely used and measures implicit bias by reaction time.
• Condition 1 involves pairing a bad word with a White face and a good word with a Black face.
• Condition 2 involves pairing a bad word with a Black face and a good word with a White face.
• Subjects tap using their left or right leg.
• Most people tap faster when pairing a Black face with bad words.

Criticism of IAT

• Order of representation impacts implicit bias, specifically which word is represented first, order does not matter.
• It is questioned whether bias represents an individual’s attitudes or cultural knowledge/awareness and remains controversial.
• An individual’s level of implicit bias predicts their behavior.

Impact of Implicit Bias

• Implicit bias impacts an individual’s decision-making.
• Implicit and explicit bias independently influenced voting decisions.
• People who rated faster for Black and bad words were less likely to vote for Obama.
• Females had an implicit bias against being in STEM programs.

Changing Implicit Bias

• Implicit bias can be reduced.
• A study on a Black individual being a good person and a firefighter to children changed IAT results, but had no lasting effect.

Social Psychology Theme

• Situation matters in social psychology and bias.
• The Sinclair & Kunda study evaluated rating professors when students earned a high course grade versus a low grade.
• Students with a high overall grade rated male and female professors equally.
• Students with a low overall grade rated female professors lower than male professors.
• Bias can be reduced by changing the situation.

Contact Between Groups

• Contact between groups reduces prejudice only under optimal conditions, needing to meet all four.
• The conditions needed are:
  • Equal status between groups
  • Intimate and varied contact, in order for people to get to know each other
  • Cooperation to achieve a shared goal
  • Institutional support, contact approved by culture and authority
• Reduction of prejudice requires sophisticated designing.
• Reducing prejudice is not easy, must be skeptical of tiny changes because they are not typically effective, but it is possible.