Stereotyping and Prejudice Notes PDF

Stereotyping and Prejudice Bias vs. Prejudice Bias = a conscious or unconscious preference or leaning toward or away from something; being predisposed for or against something Stereotypes [cognition] ○ Mental representations about groups of people ○ Stereot...

Stereotyping and Prejudice Bias vs. Prejudice Bias = a conscious or unconscious preference or leaning toward or away from something; being predisposed for or against something Stereotypes [cognition] ○ Mental representations about groups of people ○ Stereotyping = applying beliefs about a group to an individual Prejudice [affect/emotion] ○ A negative attitude toward a group or members of a group Discrimination [behavior] ○ Differential treatment of groups (or its members) simply as a function of their group membership Jane Elliott Brown Eyes v. Blue Eyes “experiment” 3rd graders taught about how blue-eyed kids were “better” than brown-eyed kids Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination all developed quickly Devine (1989) Stereotype activation is automatic ○ Only requires knowledge of the cultural stereotype BUT… Whether or not someone acts on that stereotype in a prejudiced/discriminatory way is not automatic ○ People high vs. low in motivation to control prejudice Why Do We Stereotype Others? Stereotypes are: ○ Socially learned and reinforced Children develop attitudes early ○ Cognitive (e.g., less effort) ○ Motivational (e.g., need to maintain self-esteem, need to dominate other groups) How Do We Measure Stereotypes and Prejudice? Explicit (e.g., self-report) Implicit (e.g., reaction time) Implicit Biases Explicitly reported beliefs often don’t match reality Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald et al., 1998) Consistent support for a significant race effect—and not just with white participants IAT also used to study attitudes toward: age, sex, weight, sexuality, disability, religion, and more Such results don’t mean a person is prejudiced or will discriminate, but implicit attitudes can subtly affect behavior. ○ Measures implicit bias (associations), not racism/prejudice Tapping into shared cultural stereotypes? White Americans more quickly identify anger in a Black face than in a white face In casual conversations, implicit bias + the desire to not appear racist (white participants talking with a Black student) lead to a sort of “leaking out” of the implicit bias  ○ Less friendly nonverbal behavior (e.g., making less eye contact) ○ Black students felt less positive about the conversation/less accepted Stereotype Threat An individual’s expectation that negative stereotypes about their social group will adversely influence others’ judgments about their performance, and that a poor performance will reflect badly on the group ○ That expectation, and the anxiety that stems from it, hurts the individual’s performance ○ Occurs when people (1) have knowledge of the stereotype (2) their social identity is primed ahead of time Dealing with Stigma Examples of stereotype threat: ○ Black students perform worse on aptitude tests when asked to indicate their race beforehand ○ Female students perform better on math tests when told the test doesn’t tend to show a gender difference ○ White men do worse on math tests when told the test measures why Asian people outperform white people ○ Black students do worse on a golf task when it’s described as a “sports intelligence” test; white students do worse on the same task when it’s described as a test of “natural athletic ability” Reducing Prejudice & Discrimination Cooperation instead of competition ○ Jigsaw classroom (Aronson & Gonzales, 1988) Superordinate goals Increase contact Pay attention to similarities