Chapter 9 - Prejudice: Disliking Others PDF

Chapter 9 - Prejudice: Disliking Others 1. What is the nature and power of prejudice? (Understand the nature of prejudice and the differences between prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination) 1. Defining Prejudice o Prejudice  A p...

Chapter 9 - Prejudice: Disliking Others 1. What is the nature and power of prejudice? (Understand the nature of prejudice and the differences between prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination) 1. Defining Prejudice o Prejudice  A preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members. o Stereotype  A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people  Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information (and sometimes accurate).  Examples  Ms. seen as more assertive and ambitious, then later people who keep their own surnames  Europeans seeing other Europeans with definite stereotypes  Southerners as more emotional and less efficient than northerners  More or less true  May be positive/negative, accurate/inaccurate  Problem is with overgeneralization o Discrimination  Unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members  Prejudice is negative attitude, discrimination is negative behavior  Emails about vacant apartments, more encouraging words for English names than Arabic names o Racism  An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race  Institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given race o Sexism  An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex  Institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given sex 2. Prejudice: Implicit and Explicit o Dual attitude system  Explicit and implicit  Implicit association tests 3. Racial Prejudice o Is Racial Prejudice Disappearing?  Change in explicit prejudice  Less explicit prejudice for African-Americans in the US  Blacks having anti-black attitudes  Doll experiment  Shared ideals can reduce attitudes 10 0   Less tribalism in Western democracies  Racial equality  Whites tend to compare past to present  Blacks tend to compare present to the ideal o Subtle Forms of Prejudice  Behavior  White behave well in front unless remote  Prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behavior surface when they can hide behind the screen of some other motives  Resumes, white vs black/male vs female  Patronization  Overpraising minorities  Whites rating blacks higher  Whites concerned about appearing biased o Automatic Prejudice  Implicit bias  White people find it harder to associate good with Black  Can leak into behavior  Critics say it may only denote cultural assumptions  Arab-Muslim not being interviewed  Nurses with implicit bias against drug users, may want to change jobs  Black/Whites with guns, more people shoot blacks  Exposure to weapons can also lead to profiling African- Americans  Involves primitive regions like fear in the amygdala  May even include social scientists studying bias 4. Gender Prejudice o Gender Stereotypes  Strong gender stereotypes  Some things are quite true  Some differences in men and women for social connectedness  Some exaggerate, some are reasonable  Persisting across time and culture  See women as agreeable, see men as outgoing  Stereotypes are not prejudices o Sexism: Benevolent and Hostile  Willingness to vote for female president changed overtime  Sometimes good for women  Seeing women as more understanding, kind, and helpful  Mix of benevolent and hostile sexism o Gender Discrimination  Men have it hard sometimes, like suicides, autism, and battlefield deaths  Women discrimination  Lower ratings for women, even by women  However, less so in the modern day  Western countries may show less overt discrimination 10 0   Also happens prenatally  Many people want boys, girls put in orphanages or aborted 1. What are the social sources of prejudice? (Understand and examine the influences that give rise to and maintain prejudice)  Social Inequalities: Unequal Status and Prejudice o Unequal status breeds prejudice  Used to justify the economic and social superiority  Masters seeing slavery as lazy  Men may give female praise, but fewer resources o Competent and likable, but not both  Respect other cultures, but not like them o Social dominance orientation  A motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups  People high in social dominance prefer policies that maintain hierarchies; avoid social work  Status may breed prejudice, but some people more than others seek to maintain status  Socialization o The Authoritarian Personality  Ethnocentric  Believing in the superiority of one's own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups.  Intolerance for weakness, a punitive attitude, an a submissive respect for their group's authority  Authoritarian personality  A personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status  Militant extremism; dehumanizing the enemy  Insecurity of leaders lead to concern of power and inflexible right/wrong  Right-wing authoritarianism  Authoritarian submission  Certain people should shut up and know their place  Authoritarian aggression  Strong, determined leader  Conventionalism  Get rid of rotten apples  Double High  Both high in social dominance orientation and authoritarian personality  Most prejudiced people o Religion and Prejudice  Leaders invoke religion to keep the order  White church members express more prejudice  Correlation between religion and prejudice  No connection - less educated people  Prejudice causes religion - religious ideas to support prejudice 10 0   Religion causes prejudice - believe impoverished people deserve to be  Actual findings  Faithful attendees were less prejudiced than the occasional  Less prejudice for people who see religion as the end  More protestant ministers and priests supported civil rights movement  Relationship  Church membership/agree to superficiality = more prejudiced  Religious commitment = less prejudiced o Conformity  May be prejudiced if others are prejudiced  More conforming to social norms are more prejudiced  Some maybe secretly integrative, but social norms prevent them  Gender prejudice  Women stereotypes exposure  Different exposure can change view  Institutional Supports o Institutions can promote prejudice  Government, schools, media  Schools are most prone  Not always intentional o Contemporary examples  Male pictures mostly show face, female pictures mostly show body  Pictures showing face shows ambition  Film and Television reinforcing prejudice  What are the motivational sources of prejudice? (Identify and examine the motivation sources of prejudice)  Frustration and Aggression: The Scapegoat Theory o Displaced aggression  Redirecting our hostility towards other people  Black lynching, Jews in WWII  Anger fuels prejudice o Realistic group conflict theory  The theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources  People struggling with finances or employment likely to be prejudiced against minorities and immigrants  Social Identity Theory: Feeling Superior to Others o Social identity  The "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships o Social identity theory (Tajfel)  We categorize  Labelling people is an easy way to say something about others  We identify 10 0   Associate ourselves with certain groups and gain self esteem  Ingroup  "Us" - a group of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity  We compare  Contrast our groups with other groups, favorable bias towards our own group  Outgroup  "Them" - a group that people perceive as distinctively different from or apart from their ingroup  We-ness feels good, more pride and respect  Lack positive personal identity = seek self-esteem with group  Social identification makes us conform to group norms  Attached to group, prejudice towards others  Process  (Individual achievement + self-serving bias) -> personal identity and pride -> self-esteem  (Group achievement + In-group bias) -> social identity and pride -> self-esteem o Ingroup Bias  The tendency to favor one's own group  Being formed into groups can create bias  For adults, closer to home = better  Ingroup Bias Expresses and Supports a Positive Self-Concept  Positive self-image projected to group  Ingroup bias also supports self concept  Home team won vs lost  We won vs they lost  Friend's achievement  Happy, as long as it doesn't outperform you  Ingroup Bias Feeds Favoritism  Award and favor own group  Even when group is randomly assigned  More prone to bias if own group is smaller than larger group  Think less if our group is the majority  Must Ingroup Liking Foster Outgroup Disliking?  Experiments support liking for ingroup and disliking for outgroup  Human emotions to ingroup, less to outgroup  Infrahumanization: deny outgroup human attributes  Used in slavery or view of immigrants as parasites  Ingroup bias also result from seeing ingroup as good, not just outgroup being bad  Love "us", even when there is no them  Positive feelings not always mirrored by equally strong negative feelings o Need for Status, Self-Regard, and Belonging  Status is relative 10 0   Depends on other people, need to feel superior if status is insecure  Terror management  According to "terror management theory", people's self- protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality  Thinking about death can lead to people becoming more prejudiced to bolster threatened belief system  Can also heighten feelings like ingroup identification, togetherness, and altruism  Can affect public policies  Self-esteem  Threaten self-esteem = view outgroup with more negatively  Despising outgroups can strengthen ingroup  Nazism and the "Jewish menace"  Need to belong met, can become more accepting of outgroups  Prime Israelis with words fostering belonging (love), less bias against Arabs  Motivation to Avoid Prejudice o Breaking prejudice habit is hard  Knee-jerk response to minorities  Even people with accepting attitudes may find it difficult  Facial muscles in whites when seeing blacks o Not inevitable  Self-conscious people try to control prejudicial response  Automatic notions can subside if motivation to avoid prejudice is internal (e.g. prejudice is wrong) o Can train self to reduce implicit biases as well  What are the cognitive sources of prejudice? (Describe the different cognitive sources of prejudice)  Categorization: Classifying People into Groups o Organize the world into groups  Stereotypes are cognitive efficiency  May have been evolutionary functions o Spontaneous Categorization  Easy to rely on stereotypes when  Pressed for time  Preoccupied  Tired  Emotionally aroused  Too young to appreciate diversity  Ethnicity and sex are powerful ways to categorize people  Easier to remember race of other person  Not prejudice, but a foundation for it o Perceived Similarities and Differences  Exaggerating similarities within groups and differences between them 10 0   Outgroup homogeneity effect  Perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup members.  Thus, "they are alike; we are diverse."  Mere group decision can lead to outside observers mistake group homogeniety  E.g. close elections  Greater familiarity with social group, the more we see diversity  Less familiarity = more stereotype  Other people look alike  Own-race bias  The tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race. (Also called the cross-race effect or other-race effect)  Whites seeing Asian as looking like each other  Own-age bias?  Tendency to notice people of the same age as us  Distinctiveness: Perceiving People Who Stand Out o Distinctive People  Difference from others made you more noticeable  Even if average, can be positioned to look at, making you distinctive  Defined by most distinctive trait  People who violate expectations (e.g. Black intellectual)  If primed to think as different, then notice different behaviors  Distinctiveness Feeds Self-Consciousness  Surrounded by people who are different, notice people noticing you are different  Scar experiment  Very self-conscious, misinterpreted other's mannerisms  Self-consciousness even for well-intentioned majority/minority members  Majority groups have "meta-stereotypes"  Believing in how minorities stereotype them  Stigma Consciousness  A person's expectations of being victimized by prejudice or discrimination  Downside  Stress of stereotype and antagonism, lower well-being  Upside  Buffer self-esteem  Enhance social identity, prepare to join in collective social action o Vivid Cases  Limited experience with outgroup, recall some examples and generalize them  Can lead to misrepresentation  Overestimating population of minorities  Muslims in US 10 0   Experiment with tall people  More taller = overestimate population o Distinctive Events Foster Illusory Correlations  Stereotypes assume a correlation between group membership and individuals' presumed characteristics  Some accurate, some not  Can lead to illusory correlations  Experiment  Group A and Group B did equally right and wrong things  More members in Group A  Judge Group B more harshly  Mass media  Homosexual vs heterosexual commit crime  Homosexual identity mentioned more  Illusion between homosexuality and violence  We have pre-existing biases  Timid accountant experiment  Others are timid too, but perceived this as more  Attribution: Is It a Just World? o Attribute others' behavior to personal disposition  Slavery and gender roles o Group-Serving Bias  Explain away outgroup members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one's own group).  Grant members of group benefit of a doubt  Explain ingroup members' misdeeds  Dismiss positive behavior of outgroup member  Seen as special case or special advantage  Disadvantage groups or modest cultures express less group serving bias  Positive behaviors of ingroup as general disposition, of outgroup as isolated acts  Linguistic intergroup bias  Shove vs aggressive  Victim-blaming  Show that blamer is superior o The Just-World Phenomenon  The tendency of people to believe that the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.  Taught to believe that good deeds are rewarded and vice versa  Affects rape victims a lot  People are indifferent to social injustice because they see no injustice  Believe world is just, rape victim's fault  Leads to reassurance of self that they deserve what they have  Gambling  Loathe losers and reassure skill of winner, even though all was due to chance 10 0   Can even derail talented people  What are the consequences of prejudice? (Identify and understand the consequences of prejudice)  Self-Perpetuating Prejudgments o Prejudgments guide our attention and memories  Face blending o Prejudgements are self-perpetuating  Expectation  Behave same, note down. Behave different, explain away  Told someone was unfriendly  Behave friendly, but mistrust later o Subtyping  Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as "exceptions to the rule."  E.g. nicer police officers o Subgrouping  Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group  E.g. Middle-class blacks  Discrimination's Impact: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy o Attitudes may coincide with the social hierarchy not only as a rationalization for it but also because discrimination affects its victims  Blame self vs blame other causes o Interviewer experiment  1st experiment, White interview felt nervous with black interviewee  2nd experiment, interviewer acted like first interviewer  Black interviewees felt more nervous  Stereotype Threat o A disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype o Unlike self-fulfilling prophecies that hammer one's reputation into one's reputation into one's self-concept, stereotype threat situations have immediate effects o Women and math  Told no gender differences, women do as well as men  Told there is a difference, women perform worse o Racial stereotype and athletic performance  Sports intelligence - blacks perform worse  Natural ability - whites perform worse  Should only challenge students to believe in their potential o How does stereotype threat undermine performance?  Stress - impairing ability  Self-monitoring - disrupts focus  Suppressing unwanted thoughts and emotions - regulate one's thinking and disrupts working memory o Positive stereotypes can help performance  Do Stereotypes Bias Judgments of Individuals? 10 0 o Strong Stereotypes Matters o Stereotypes Bias Interpretation 10 0