Prejudice and Discrimination PDF

Prejudice a negative attitude toward a distinguishable group of people, based solely on their membership in that group Prejudice and Discrimination are important topics to study, with many important social consequences. Much of the early work in the field of social psychology and pre...

Prejudice a negative attitude toward a distinguishable group of people, based solely on their membership in that group Prejudice and Discrimination are important topics to study, with many important social consequences. Much of the early work in the field of social psychology and prejudice was influenced by Gordan Allport’s (1954) book, The Nature of Prejudice [ https://archive.org/details/TheNatureOfPrejudice/mode/2up]. Prejudice and discrimination are areas that I focus on in my own research; vital for understanding intergroup relations.  National Attitudes toward Interracial Marriage (Gallup) Why do we study prejudice and discrimination? Prejudice and discrimination still exist. The graph on the left shows national attitudes towards interracial marriage. In 1958/1959, 4% of Americans approved of marriage between black and whites—this approval increased to 87% in 2013. It’s important to remember that how people construe this 87% depends on their focus: People who focus on the upwards trajectory of the line, will likely think to themselves: “wow, look how far we’ve come! From only 4% approval https://news.gallup.com/poll/163 to 87% approval.” 697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh Whereas those who focus on the end point of the scale (the ideal of 100%) and see that 87% may ites.aspx be thinking to themselves, “wow, look how far we have to go! Why isn’t this approval rating 100% What are those other 13% thinking?”  National Attitudes toward Interracial Marriage (Gallup) Why is this not 100%? In 2021: 96% of non-white adults approve of interracial marriage 93% of white adults approve of interracial marriage  The construal of the data… depends on one’s social position Take-Home Message: Why did white Americans tend to perceive greater progress towards racial equality than ethnic minorities? In part because of a perception/construal gap. Whites tended to anchor on comparisons with the past (e.g., “Look how far we’ve come”), whereas ethnic minorities anchored on ideal standards (e.g., “Look how far we have to go”). National Attitudes towards Female Boss Here is a graph showing Americans’ attitudes towards having a female boss. While 41% said that it makes no difference; 35% of those polled preferred a “male” over “female” boss. https://news.gallup.com/poll/5980/americans-m e-accepting-female-bosses-than-ever.aspx 41% had no preference in 2013 What’s the ideal here? 55% had no preference in 2017 23% of Americans have a preference for a male boss 21% of Americans have a preference for a female boss Those are only a few examples I could have shown…for example, attitudes towards same-sex marriage and newcomers also show bias and prejudice. What do researchers mean by the term prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes? These are distinct concepts with differences: Later we will Prejudice: a negative attitude toward a discuss how distinguishable group of people, based researchers solely on their membership in that group measure prejudice, sometimes Often leads to Discrimination: distinguishing between “old unjustifiable negative behaviour towards fashioned” and a group and its individual members more subtle, or modern forms Often involves applying Stereotypes: of it. Beliefs about the personal attributes of a group of people (usually overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to change)  What causes prejudice? (1) The way that we think: Social Categorization – People tend to classify others into groups, as “Us” versus “Them” – Leads to In-group Bias That is, our tendency to favour our in-group and denigrate the out-group occurs even when people are randomly assigned to groups (Tajfel’s research). – However, the tendency to discriminate the outgroup is even stronger when individuals choose their groups.  What causes prejudice? Why do people show in-group bias? – (1) Belongingness: Gives us identity to belong to a group – (2) Self-esteem Benefits: gives people a self- esteem boost if they believe their group is superior Out-group homogeneity: – Perception that those in the out-group are more similar to each other than they really are, and more similar than those in the in-group. E.g., “They are all alike!” but “We are all different”  What causes prejudice? (2) Stereotypes – Complex link between stereotyping and prejudice – Doesn’t take much to activate a stereotype Recall the shooter bias studies that we discussed as part of the social cognition chapter.  Automatic Prejudice Most people know the content of stereotypes They automatically activate them when they see a target (Devine) Some then make an effort to override this automatic response to behave in a non-prejudiced manner Motivation to Avoid Prejudice Over time, people have become much less willing to admit to disliking any particular social group Some because they genuinely feel positively towards stigmatized and minority groups: that is, they have an internal motivation to avoid prejudice. But others do it because they have an external motivation for avoiding prejudice.  On the next slide are some of the scale items that are used to assess people internal and external motivation to avoid prejudice. These items specifically reference “black” but are relevant for other groups too.  Need to feel good and stereotype activation Sinclair and Kunda proposed that people will sometimes push stereotypes out of mind in service of self-enhancement – To test their hypotheses, they had White male students answer Q’s assessing their interpersonal skills – These participants then received feedback from either a black OR white manager – Half received positive feedback; Half received negative feedback  Need to feel good and stereotype activation What happened after the participants received their feedback? Did they activate a stereotype? – As one of the main dependent measures, the researchers assessed Stereotype Activation by using a word completion task. With word completion tasks, participants are asked to complete a number of words that can be completed with either a race related or unrelated term. For example, the word stem: ___ ___ ACK could be completed with either: – SNACK – BLACK – **If the stereotype is activated then people are more likely to complete the stem as BLACK than SNACK.  The results showed that… – There was no stereotype activation when people received the positive feedback. – The black stereotype was activated when people received negative feedback from a black manager. Take-home message: The link between stereotyping and prejudice is complex. Often people will automatically activate a stereotype but they will suppress it in the service of self-enhancement and motivations (both internal and external) to control prejudice.  Where do stereotypes come from? The stereotype content model (SCM) defines two fundamental dimensions of social perception, warmth and competence, predicted respectively by perceived competition and status. First, actors need to anticipate others’ intentions toward them; the warmth dimension—comprising such traits as morality, trustworthiness, sincerity, kindness, and friendliness—assesses the other’s perceived intent in the social context. Friend or Foe? Second, actors need to know others’ capability to pursue their intentions; the competence dimension—comprising such traits as efficacy, skill, creativity, confidence, and intelligence—relates to perceived capability to enact intent. Can they carry it out? Motivationally, warmth represents an accommodating orientation that profits others more than the self Whereas competence represents self-profitable traits related to the ability to bring about desired events. In the stereotype content studies, participants rated the warmth and competence of a number of different groups. These can then be plotted. Stereotypes: Fundamental Dimensions  Help Convenient Neglect Cooperation Harassment Active harm: (i.e., acting against) explicitly intends to hurt a target and its interests. Individual insults, bullying, and attack are individual active harms. Using group epithets, sexual harassment, and hate crimes all constitute group-based active harm. Institutionally, active harm can range from discriminatory policies to legalized segregation to mass internment (e.g., Japanese Americans during World War II) to genocide. Passive harm: Interpersonal passive harm includes avoiding eye contact, being dismissive, and ignoring another person. Institutionally, passive harm involves disregarding the needs of some groups (e.g., by denying assistance) or limiting access to necessary resources such as education, housing, and healthcare. Passive harm acts without the group, denying its existence, harming its members by omission of normal human recognition. Active facilitation: Helping/ Prosocial Behavior Passive facilitation: (i.e., acting with) accepts obligatory association or convenient cooperation with a target. Such behavior is passive because contact is not desired, but only tolerated in the service of other goals; facilitation of the other is a mere by-product. Intergroup examples include hiring the services of outgroup members (e.g., as domestics) or choosing to work with members of a group assumed to be smart (e.g., Asian Americans) on a team project.  What causes prejudice? (3) The way we feel: Research suggests an association between mood and degree of prejudice. Example: the more negative emotions people expect to feel while interacting with a group, the greater their prejudice towards that group (4) The way we assign meaning: Attribution – Remember the fundamental attribution error? There’s a similar attribution error that is applied to groups (instead of individuals), and it’s called the Ultimate Attribution Error: which is the tendency to make dispositional attributions about an entire group of people. For out-groups, poor outcomes are attributed to dispositional causes, whereas successful outcomes are often attributed to situational causes.  What causes prejudice? (5) The way we conform: Normative rules – Conformity to the rules and standards in society can lead to prejudice. – Crandall Asked p’s to rate a large number of social groups in terms of how acceptable it is to have negative feelings towards each group. Acceptability was strongly correlated with how personally positive or negative they felt. In other words, the more socially acceptable it is to display prejudice towards a group, the more likely one is to hold negative personal attitudes towards the group.  What causes prejudice? (6) Realistic Conflict Theory – Limited resources lead to conflict between groups and results in increased prejudice and discrimination Some people are more likely than others to view the world in a zero-sum way. That is, to perceive resources as limited (as opposed to regenerating or unlimited), and to feel that one group’s gain inevitably means a loss for their own group.  We have reviewed 6 causes of prejudice Now let’s turn our attention how some researchers operationalize (measure) prejudice…  Differentiating between “Old-Fashioned” and “Modern” Racism Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter (1991) proposed that people less willing to endorse the “old-fashioned” racism items, but that doesn’t mean that racism has disappeared. Here are two examples of the Old-Fashioned Racism Items Black people are generally not as smart as whites I favour laws that permit black persons to rent or purchase housing even when the person offering the property does not wish to rent or sell it to blacks. Strongl Disagre Neutral Agree Strongl y e y Agree Disagre e  Old-Fashioned and Modern Racism Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter (1991) People less willing to endorse the “old- fashioned” items, so they developed newer items for the modern racism scale. Modern Racism is comprised of: – Denial that Blacks are discriminated against – Antagonism towards Blacks’ demands – Resentment of special favours Examples of Modern Racism Items Discrimination against blacks is no longer a problem in North America Blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights Over the past few years, the government and news media have shown more respect to blacks than they deserve. Strongl Disagre Neutral Agree Strongl y e y Agree Disagre e  Individual Differences in Prejudice Research shows that people who are high in the following dimensions are more likely to hold negative attitudes towards out-groups than are others: – Right-wing authoritarianism – Religious fundamentalism – Social dominance orientation  Individual Differences in Prejudice The 30-item Right-  Right-wing Wing Authoritarianism authoritarianism: Scale (RWAS) is – People who are high in RWA: widely used to measure Show a high degree of authoritarianism (Alte submission to authority meyer, 1998). Here’s a figures. Aggression towards groups link to an online scale if that are seen as legitimate you’d like to see the targets by authority figures. items or complete it to And a high degree of see where you sit! conformity to rules established by authority figures. https:// openpsychometrics.org/ tests/RWAS/  Individual Differences in Prejudice Religious fundamentalism: – People high in religious fundamentalism: Believe in the absolute and literal truth of one’s religious beliefs. Believe that their religion is right and that forces of evil are threatening to undermine the truth. Is not to be confused with being religious.  Individual Differences in Prejudice  Social dominance orientation: https://s3.us-east-2.amazo – People high in Social naws.com/wcasa/old-webs ite-resources/SDO7%2BS Dominance Orientation cale%2B16%2Bitems%2B (SDO): %25281%2529.pdf believe that groups of people are inherently unequal. Believe it is acceptable for some groups to benefit more than others, and for some groups to receive poorer treatment than others.  Aversive Racism Gartner & Dovidio (1986) coined the term aversive racism to refer to the racial attitudes of people who endorse egalitarian values, regard themselves as nonprejudiced, but who discriminate in subtle, rationalizable ways – Against people of other ethnicities – Against women  Example of Aversive Racism Dovidio & Gaertner (2000) Percent recommending hiring for each candidate In this study, they 100 investigated whether aversive 90 racism existed in people’s hiring recommendations. 80 When participants were 70 randomly assigned to read 60 applications that were clearly 50 White ap strong or weak in 40 Black ap qualifications, no bias in 30 hiring emerged. However, 20 when it wasn’t clear that the 10 person was a great or poor job candidate (i.e., when it 0 Strong Ambig Weak was ambiguous) then people showed preferences for the white over black applicant— Qualifications and they rationalized this decision. Now let’s turn our attention to one important but often overlooked consequence of prejudice…it’s called “Attributional Ambiguity”  Attributional Ambiguity Example Suppose you look around the classroom and see that you’re the only woman in the room And you’ve just finished presenting to the class on a research topic and the professor says to you: “Great work! That’s the best I’ve seen this term. Congrats on your A+.” How would you respond to this feedback? According to some researchers, if you are a member of a group that experiences prejudice, you may not take the compliment at face-value and you may wonder whether the prof only complemented you because you’re the only woman in the room.  Attributional Ambiguity in the Lab For example, Crocker and colleagues (1991) brought Black and White students to come to the lab for study on friendship. The students were placed in room next to their supposed partner…the rooms had a glass window between with blinds and the blinds were either up or down. In the room, the students completed a self- esteem scale and a form assessing their likes and dislikes/and personal traits and qualities to be given to the person in the other room.  Attributional Ambiguity After completing those measures, the students received either positive or negative feedback from the other person (supposedly). After receiving the accepting (positive) or rejecting (negative) feedback, the students filled out another self-esteem measure  Attributional Ambiguity in Results: the Lab – White students had lower Self-esteem after negative feedback and higher Self-esteem after positive feedback [recall the sociometer theory; where people’s state self- esteem went up after acceptance and down after rejection] – Black students did too if the blinds were down (i.e., the other person couldn’t see them) When the blinds were up, neither positive nor negative feedback affected their self-esteem; why? Because they weren’t sure whether to attribute the feedback to their forms (true performance) or whether the feedback was due to the other person’s judgement of them based on the color of their skin.  Attributional Ambiguity Implications: – Members of stigmatized groups tend to have higher self-esteem – Could cause confusion and could prevent people from learning from feedback We have discussed Racism… what about Sexism? Examples of “Old Fashioned” Sexism Women are just as capable of thinking logically as men (Reverse Coded) I would be equally comfortable having a woman as a boss as a man (Reverse Coded) Strongl Disagre Neutral Agree Strongl y e y Agree Disagre e 1 2 3 4 5 Examples of “Modern Sexism” Items Women often miss out on good jobs due to sexual discrimination (Reverse Coded) It is easy to understand why women’s groups are still concerned about societal limitations of women’s opportunities (Reverse Coded) Over the past few years, the government and news media have been showing more concern about the treatment of women than is warranted by women’s actual experiences Strongl Disagre Neutral Agree Strongl y e y Agree Disagre e  Old Fashioned and Modern Sexism Old Fashioned Sexism: Endorsement of traditional gender roles, differential treatment of men and women, stereotypes about lesser female competence Modern Sexism: Denial of discrimination, antagonism towards women’s demands, lack of support for policies designed to help women  Old Fashioned and Modern Sexism Similar in quality to attitudes towards blacks / immigrants But, one difference in sexism! There is much more “Interdependence” between men and women than there typically is with other groups. So, some researchers have argued that this interdependence gives rise to “Ambivalent Sexism” comprised of Hostile and Benevolent attitudes…  Examples of “Benevolent” Sexism items In a disaster, women ought to be rescued first Women, compared to men, have a superior moral sensibility Every man ought to have a woman whom he adores Strongl Disagre Neutral Agree Strongl y e y Agree Disagre e 1 2 3 4 5  Benevolent Sexism A subjectively positive attitude toward women that comprises of: – Protective paternalism – Complementary gender differentiation – Heterosexual intimacy Problem? – Treats women like children – Keeps them in traditional roles  Examples of “Hostile” Sexism Items Many women are actually seeking special favours, such as hiring policies that favour them over men, under the guise of asking for “equality” Women are too easily offended Women seek to gain power by getting control over men Strongl Disagre Neutral Agree Strongl y e y Agree Disagre e  Hostile Sexism Together, Hostile and Benevolent sexism are: – Ambivalent Sexism Benevolent Sexism may be more socially harmful because it tends to “fly under the radar” (i.e., people don’t perceive it as sexist); whereas hostile sexism is easier to detect.  Self- Affirmatio ns Ending this section on prejudice with a class activity. The following is a list of different values, characteristics, and qualities, some of which may be important to you and some of which may not. Start by ranking them in order of their importance to you, from 1 to 11: artistic skills/aesthetic appreciation sense of humor relations with friends/family spontaneity/living life in the moment social skills athletics musical ability/appreciation physical attractiveness creativity business/managerial skills romantic values Then, write a brief account (one paragraph) of why your #1 value or quality is important to you, including a time when it played an important role in your life.