Intergroup Behaviour: Explanation for Prejudice and Discrimination PDF

EXPLANATIONS OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION 405 probably the best-known recent example of this, but a similar system of segregation was prac- tised...

EXPLANATIONS OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION 405 probably the best-known recent example of this, but a similar system of segregation was prac- tised in educational contexts in the United States until the mid-1950s. The existence of reser- vations for native peoples in ‘new world’ countries, such as Australia and the United States, may also attest to a form of segregation. Apartheid and segregation often come equipped with a formidable array of social justifications in terms of benefits for the segregated group (see the third ‘What do you think?’ question). The most extreme form of legitimised prejudice is genocide (Staub, 1989), where the tar- get group is systematically exterminated. The dehumanisation process makes it relatively easy for people to perpetrate the most appalling acts of degradation and violence on others (see Thomas Keneally’s biographical novel Schindler’s Ark (1982), or the 1984 movie The Killing Fields). For example, Stalin targeted anyone he felt was plotting against him and, until his death in 1953, exiled 40 million people to brutal labour camps in Siberia (the Gulags); 15 million people died. The most chilling and best-documented instance of highly targeted genocide is the Holocaust of the early 1940s, in which 6 million Jews were systematically exterminated by the Nazis in death camps in central Europe. At the massive Auschwitz– Birkenau complex in Poland, 2 million Jews were gassed between January 1942 and the sum- mer of 1944 (a rate of 2,220 men, women and children each day). There are more recent examples of genocide: Pol Pot’s ‘killing fields’ in Cambodia in the 1970s; Saddam Hussein’s extermination of Kurds in northern Iraq and Shi’ites in southern Iraq; the Bosnian Serbs’ 1992–5 campaign of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bosnia; the 100-day geno- cide of close-to-a-million Tutsi by the Hutu in Rwanda in 1994; and the 2003–10 systematic slaughter of hundreds of thousands of non-Arabs in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. Genocide can also be practised more indirectly, by creating conditions of massive mate- rial disadvantage where a group effectively exterminates itself through disease, and through suicide and murder based on alcoholism, drug abuse and acute despair. The plight of the Australian Aborigines, Canadian ‘Eskimos’ and Brazilian Indians falls squarely into this camp. Another form of genocide (although ‘ethnic death’ is a more appropriate term to distinguish it from the brutality of the Holocaust) is cultural assimilation, in which entire cultural groups may disappear as discrete entities through widespread intermarriage and systematic suppression of their culture and language (e.g. Taft, 1973; see Chapter 15). This may be particularly prevalent in societies that do not properly promote cultural pluralism (e.g. England’s past treatment of the Welsh and the Scottish, China’s treatment of Uyghurs and Tibetans and Japan’s treatment of Filipinos living in Japan). Another form of ethnic death occurs when a group is excluded from the official history of a nation. The journalist John Pilger (1989) notes that this was the case for Australian Aborigines. Explanations of prejudice and discrimination Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. Why are people prejudiced? Not surprisingly, theories of prejudice have focused on more extreme forms of prejudice – in particular the aggression and violence discussed earlier. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was popular to consider prejudice to be an innate and instinctive reaction to certain categories of person (e.g. certain races), much as animals would react in instinctive ways to one another (Klineberg, 1940). This sort of approach is no longer popular, as it does not stand up well to scientific scrutiny. However, there may be an innate component to prejudice. There is some evidence that higher animals, including humans, have an inherent fear of the unfamiliar and unusual (Hebb & Thompson, 1968), which might set the mould for negative attitudes towards groups that are considered different in certain ways. There is also evidence for a mere exposure effect Mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968) – people’s attitudes towards various stimuli (e.g. other people) improve Repeated exposure to an object results in greater through repeated exposure or familiarity with the stimuli, provided that initial reactions to attraction to that object. the stimuli are not negative (Perlman & Oskamp, 1971). Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 405 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  406 CHAPTER 10 PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION Another perspective is that prejudices are learned. Gordon Allport, and later Henri Tajfel (1981b), argued that hatred and suspicion of certain groups is learned early in life, before the child even knows anything about the target group, and that this provides an emotional framework that colours all subsequent information about, and experience with, that group (see Brown, 1995; Durkin, 1995; Milner, 1996). For example, Martyn Barrett and Janis Short (1992) found that 5- to 10-year-old English children had little factual knowledge of other European countries, yet they expressed clear preferences: French and Spanish were liked most, followed by Italians, and Germans were liked least. Ethnic biases are very marked among 4- to 5-year-olds because, at that age, the socio-cognitive system is reliant on obvious perceptual features that are unambiguous bases for categorisation and social comparison (Aboud, 1988). However, Adam Rutland (1999) found that national and ethnic stereotypes did not crystallise until a little later, after the age of 10. These emotional preferences provide a potent frame- work for acquisition of parental attitudes and behaviour (Goodman, 1964; Katz, 1976; see Chapter 5). The transmission of parental prejudices can occur through parental modelling (e.g. the child witnesses parental expressions of racial hatred), instrumental/operant conditioning (e.g. parental approval for racist behaviour and disapproval for non-racist behaviour) and classical conditioning (e.g. a white child receives a severe parental scolding for playing with an Asian child). In this section we discuss some major theories of prejudice – including a consideration of the role that individual differences may play (Hodson & Dhont, 2015). These approaches focus largely on prejudice as the mass expression of aggression against certain groups. In Chapter 11, we continue with the theme of prejudice, but in a different guise – one that views prejudice as a form of intergroup behaviour associated with social categorisation and identity processes. Frustration–aggression The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, particularly Germany, during the 1930s placed the explanation of prejudice high on social psychology’s agenda. In 1939, John Dollard and Frustration–aggression his colleagues published their frustration–aggression hypothesis, in which they argued that Require hypothesis ‘the occurrence of aggressive behaviour always presupposes the existence of frustration, and Theory that all frustration opposite way leads to aggression, and contrariwise, the existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression’ (Dollard, all aggression comes from Doob, Miller, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939, p. 1). The theory was grounded in the psychodynamic assumption that a fixed amount of psychic energy is available for the human mind to perform elered · frustration. Used to explain prejudice and intergroup psychological activities, and that the completion of a psychological activity is cathartic – that aggression. is, it dissipates aroused energy and returns the system to psychological equilibrium. Dollard and colleagues argued that personal goals entail arousal of psychic energy for their achievement, and that goal achievement is cathartic. However, if goal achievement is Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. impeded (i.e. frustrated), psychic energy remains activated and the system remains in a state of psychological disequilibrium that can be corrected only by aggression. In other words, frustration produces an ‘instigation to aggress’, and the only way to achieve catharsis is through aggression. The target of aggression is usually the perceived agent of frustration, but in many cases Shapeless Civil Service vague the agent of frustration is amorphous (e.g. a bureaucracy), indeterminate (the economy), Scapegoat too powerful (someone very big and strong wielding a weapon), unavailable (a specific indi- Individual or group that vidual bureaucrat) or someone you love (a parent). These, and other circumstances, prevent becomes the target for or inhibit aggression against the perceived source of frustration and cause the entire amount anger and frustration caused of frustration-induced aggression to be displaced on to an alternative target (a person or an by a different individual or group or some other set of inanimate object) that can be legitimately aggressed against without fear. In other words, a circumstances. scapegoat is found. ↳ ) like bullies Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 406 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  EXPLANATIONS OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION 407 Theoretical principles Historical events Personal goals Political and economic hegemony of Germany (early twentieth century) Psychic energy activated Each and every German in a state of to achieve goals. State of arousal (First World War, 1914–18) psychological readiness Frustration of goal achievement Defeat by Western Allies, followed by punitive conditions of Treaty of Figure 10.11 The Versailles (1919) frustration–aggression hypothesis account of the rise of anti- Frustration-induced undissipated Economic and political crisis Semitism in Germany arousal. Instigation to aggress. Source (postwar to early 1920s) in the 1920s and of frustration (allies) too powerful 1930s The sequence of principles in the frustration–aggression Location of scapegoat, catharsis Anti-Semitism of 1920s and 1930s hypothesis is mirrored in achieved by displacement of the way events unfolded aggression in Germany before and after the First World War, ultimately leading to state-sanctioned overt anti-Semitism. Although this theory has been applied extensively, and relatively successfully, to the study of interpersonal aggression (see Chapter 12), Dollard and colleagues’ principal aim was to explain intergroup aggression – specifically, the violence and aggression associated with preju- dice. If a large number of people (a group) is frustrated in its goals by another group that is too powerful or too remote to be aggressed against, the aggression is displaced on to a weaker group, which functions as a scapegoat. Figure 10.11 shows how the frustration–aggression hypothesis could be used to explain the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. An archival study by Carl Hovland and Robert Sears (1940) provides some support for this analysis. They correlated an economic index of frustrated ambitions (the price of cotton) with an index of racial aggression (number of lynchings of black people) in the southern United States over a 50-year period. The two indices were negatively correlated: as the price of cotton fell (frustration), the number of lynchings increased (displaced aggression). Research on intergroup aggression has focused on displacement , which lies at the heart of Displacement Dollard and associates’ account of scapegoating and thus prejudice and intergroup aggres- Psychodynamic concept referring to the transfer of sion. In one study (Miller & Bugelski, 1948), young men at a summer camp eagerly antici- negative feelings on to an pated a night on the town but had their goals frustrated by the camp authorities, which individual or group other announced that they would have to stay behind to perform some boring and difficult tests. than that which originally Relative to a control group that was not frustrated in this way, the young men’s stereotypi- caused the negative feelings. cal attitudes towards two minority groups deteriorated as a consequence of the frustration. Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 407 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  408 CHAPTER 10 PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION Other research is inconclusive (see Baumeister, Dale, & Sommer, 1998). For example, the frustration of doing badly on a test or experimental task has been shown to increase racial prejudice (Cowen, Landes, & Schaet, 1958), reduce prejudice (Burnstein & McRae, 1962) or leave prejudice unaffected (Stagner & Congdon, 1955), and there is no systematic evidence for an inverse correlation between international and intranational aggression (i.e. aggression dis- placed on to another nation is not available to be vented intranationally) (Tanter, 1966, 1969). In some of this research, it is difficult to know whether aggression is displaced (i.e. the entire quantity of aggression is vented on a specific scapegoat) or generalised (i.e. anger towards the agent of frustration spills over on to irrelevant other stimuli). For example, in the Miller and Bugelski (1948) study, the participants also felt angry towards the camp authori- ties. If both displacement and generalisation are operating, it becomes difficult to predict the target of aggression. To address this problem, Neal Miller (1948) suggested that displacement and generalisa- tion might work against one another. Thus, scapegoats would not be too similar to the real source of frustration (displacement is based on inhibition of aggression against the real source of frustration, and such inhibition will be stronger for targets that are more similar to the real source), but not too dissimilar, either (generalisation implies that aggression will decrease as the potential target is less and less similar to the real source). Although it is often possible with the advantage of hindsight to use this principle to account for the scapegoat, it is difficult to predict it with any certainty (e.g. Horowitz, 1973). The frustration–aggression hypothesis confronts another, major, obstacle from research showing that frustration is neither necessary nor sufficient for aggression. Aggression can occur in the absence of frustration, and frustration does not necessarily result in aggres- sion (Bandura, 1973; Berkowitz, 1962). The consequence is that the frustration–aggression hypothesis can explain only a limited subset of intergroup aggression. Other constructs are needed to explain either other forms of intergroup aggression, or prejudice and intergroup aggression as a whole. As a way of rescuing the hypothesis, Leonard Berkowitz (1962) proposed three changes. 1 The probability of frustration-induced aggression being vented in reality is increased by the presence of situational cues to aggression, including past or present associations of a specific group (scapegoat) with conflict or dislike. 2 It is not objective frustration that instigates aggression but the subjective (cognitive) feeling of being frustrated. 3 Frustration is only one of many aversive events (e.g. pain, extreme temperatures and other noxious stimuli) that can instigate aggression. This revamped frustration–aggression theory has support for the role of environmental cues and cognitive mediators in controlling the amount and direction of aggression (Berkowitz, 1974; Koneçni, 1979). Miller and his colleagues concluded that eight decades of Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. research on the frustration–aggression link show: (a) that frustration can, but need not, lead to aggression; (b) that the powerful can show frustration-induced aggression in an overt way but the powerless can also show aggression more indirectly; and (c) that a series of minor frus- trations can build up to increase the probability of aggression (Miller, Pederson, Earlywine, & Pollock, 2003). However, the main application of the revamped frustration–aggression Collective behaviour theory has been in the explanation of collective behaviour (riots) and relative deprivation The behaviour of people en (both discussed in Chapter 11). masse – such as in a crowd, protest or riot. Despite these modifications, the frustration–aggression hypothesis has other limitations as an explanation of mass intergroup aggression and prejudice. The phenomenon to be Relative deprivation explained involves the attitudes and behaviour of a large number of people being regulated A sense of having less than we feel entitled to. and directed so that there is a substantial uniformity as well as a clear logic to it. Critics have argued that the frustration–aggression hypothesis does not adequately explain this core fea- ture of prejudice, and that the reason for this is that it is a reductionist approach that arrives Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 408 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  EXPLANATIONS OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION 409 at group behaviour by aggregating individual psychological/emotional states in a communica- tion vacuum (Billig, 1976; Brown & Pehrson, 2020; Hogg & Abrams, 1988). For instance, the group members in this model do not speak to one another and are not exposed to mass communication or history. They are passive victims of individual frustration and anger, rather than active participants in a social process involving construction, internali- sation and the enacting of group norms (see Chapter 7). Aggression is only widespread and directed at the same target because a large number of people individually express aggression simultaneously, and coincidentally select the same target. The authoritarian personality In their work The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950, Theodor Adorno and Else Frenkel-Brunswik (along with Levinson and Sanford) describe a personality syndrome they believe predisposes certain people to be authoritarian. The historical context for the authori- Authoritarian personality tarian personality theory was the role of fascism (an extreme form of right-wing ideology) Personality syndrome originating in childhood in the Holocaust – Adorno and Frenkel-Brunswik, who were both Jewish, had fled Hitler’s that predisposes individuals regime in Germany and Austria respectively. to be prejudiced. The theory proposes that autocratic and punitive child-rearing practices are responsible for the emergence in adulthood of various clusters of beliefs. These include: ethnocentrism; Ethnocentrism an intolerance of Jews, African Americans and other ethnic and religious minorities; a pes- Evaluative preference for all aspects of our own group simistic and cynical view of human nature; conservative political and economic attitudes; relative to other groups. and a suspicion of democracy. (Apply these ideas to the case of Ben in the fourth ‘What do you think?’ question.) Associated with the theory is a now-legendary scale known as the Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. An authoritarian leader Robert Mugabe was the epitome of such a leader. Seen by many of his people as a demigod, he personified absolute power. His respect for authority was evident in meet-and- greet photos taken with other world leaders. He usually wore civilian clothes befitting a ‘man of his people’; but he was obsessed with rank and status – hence his military escorts displayed lots of braid and medals. Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 409 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  410 CHAPTER 10 PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION California F-scale – originally intended to measure tendencies towards fascism, it was treated as a more general measure of authoritarianism. The results of early research were encouraging, although Roger Brown (1965) raised several methodological criticisms. Among the most damning were the following. The various scales used were scored in such a way that people’s tendency to agree with items Acquiescent response set (acquiescent response set) would artificially inflate the correlation between the scales. Tendency to agree with ↳ Compliant obedient > - items in an attitude Because the interviewers knew both the hypotheses and the authoritarianism scores of the questionnaire. This interviewees, there was a danger of confirmatory bias (Rosenthal, 1966). leads to an ambiguity in interpretation if a high score The authoritarian personality has, over almost 70 years, attracted an enormous amount on an attitude questionnaire of interest (e.g. Bray & Noble, 1978; Christie & Jahoda, 1954; Titus & Hollander, 1957; for can be obtained only by an overview, see Duckitt, 2000). However, there are some limitations to a personality expla- agreeing with all or most items. nation of prejudice (Billig, 1976; Brown, 1995, Brown & Pehrson, 2020; Hogg & Abrams, 1988; Reynolds, Turner, Haslam, & Ryan, 2001), as powerful situational and sociocultural factors are underemphasised. Tom Pettigrew (1958) tested the authoritarian personality theory in a cross-cultural com- parison between South Africa and the southern and northern United States. He found that although white people from South Africa and the southern United States were significantly more racist than those from the northern United States, they did not differ in how authori- tarian their personalities were. Pettigrew concluded from this and other findings that, while personality may predispose some people to be prejudiced in some contexts, a culture of prejudice that embodies societal norms legitimising prejudice is both necessary and sufficient. This conclusion is supported by other findings. For example, Ralph Minard (1952) found that the majority (60 per cent) of white miners in a West Virginia coalmining community readily shifted from racist to non-racist attitudes and behaviour in response to situational norms encouraging or inhibiting prejudice. And Walter Stephan and David Rosenfield (1978) found that interracial contact was a more important determinant of change in racial attitudes among children than parental background. Adorno’s team believed that prejudice is developed in childhood as an enduring personal- ity style. This perspective is particularly troublesome in the light of evidence for sudden and dramatic changes in people’s attitudes and behaviour regarding social groups. For example, the extreme anti-Semitism in Germany between the wars arose in a short period of only ten years – far too short a time for a whole generation of German families to adopt new child- rearing practices giving rise to authoritarian and prejudiced children. Even more dramatic are sudden changes in attitudes and behaviour in response to single events. There are many examples: the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941; the Argen- tinian occupation of the Falkland Islands in 1982; and of course the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001. Personalities did not have time to change, yet attitudes and behaviour did. Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. In reality, prejudice is like most other forms of human behaviour – an interaction between large-scale social forces, evolution-based behavioural and cognitive parameters, and indi- vidual human beings’ unique biographies of experiences and relationships (Snyder & Cantor, 1998). Against the background of large-scale societal, intergroup and social identity deter- minants of prejudice, there will be individual differences in if, when and how prejudice is experienced and expressed, and these differences will rest largely on people’s past and current unique experiences in life (Hodson & Dhont, 2015). Opinionated Dogmatism and closed-mindedness Dogmatism Milton Rokeach (1948, 1960) proposed another approach to prejudice that is closely related Cognitive style that is rigid and intolerant and to the authoritarian personality theory. Since authoritarianism is not restricted to people predisposes people to be who are politically and economically right wing (e.g. Tetlock, 1984), Rokeach focused on prejudiced. cognitive style – specifically a generalised syndrome of intolerance called dogmatism or Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 410 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  EXPLANATIONS OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION 411 closed-mindedness (see Box 10.5). Dogmatism is characterised by isolation of contradictory belief systems from one another, resistance to belief change in the light of new informa- tion and appeals to authority to justify the correctness of existing beliefs. Scales devised by Rokeach (1960) to measure these personality styles have good reliability, correlate well with measures of authoritarianism and have been used extensively. However, dogmatism as an explanation of prejudice has the same limitations as the authoritarian personality theory: this concept reduces a group phenomenon to an aggrega- tion of individual personality predispositions and largely overlooks the wider sociocultural context of prejudice and the role of group norms (Billig, 1976; Billig & Cochrane, 1979). Right-wing authoritarianism Recently, the idea of authoritarianism has been revived but without the psychodynamic and personality aspects. Bob Altemeyer (1981, 1988, 1994, 1998; see also Duckitt, 1989; Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum, 2002) approached authoritarianism as a collection of attitudes, with three components: 1 conventionalism – adherence to societal conventions that are endorsed by established authorities; 2 authoritarian aggression – support for aggression towards social deviants; and 3 authoritarian submission – submission to society’s established authorities. A right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) scale was developed to measure this constellation of attitudinal factors. From this perspective, authoritarianism is an ideology that varies from person to person. It suggests that positions of power within a social hierarchy come from correct and moral behaviour (i.e. following social conventions). Questioning authority and tradition is a transgression that invites the wrath of legitimate authorities. Authoritarianism s current state of things thus legitimises and maintains the status quo. One question that has been raised about RWA is whether it may be less tied to individual differences and more affected by context – the same person may vary in his or her RWA in different contexts (e.g. Stenner, 2009). Social dominance theory Theory that attributes Social dominance theory prejudice to an individual’s acceptance of an ideology that legitimises ingroup- The role of ideology in prejudice is also central to work by Felicia Pratto and Jim Sidanius, serving hierarchy and who describe a sophisticated but nonetheless mainly ‘individual differences’ analysis of domination, and rejects exploitative power-based intergroup relations – called social dominance theory (e.g. egalitarian ideologies. Box 10.5 Your life Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. Close encounters with dogmatic and closed-minded authoritarians We all run into people from time to time who we feel are they are also all racist? Is this assumption justified? Also, dogmatic and closed-minded, and possibly authoritar- is it plausible to assume that because someone sticks to ian. In your experience, are they also reliably prejudiced? their guns and appears dogmatic, they are prejudiced as What about how stable these attributes are across different well? For example, climate change scientists do this, but situations – is someone who is authoritarian in one situa- are rarely prejudiced; whereas climate change deniers, who tion (e.g. work) authoritarian in another (e.g. family)? For are also dogmatic, tend to be socially conservative and, example, if a team leader in stressful circumstances, such as some research suggests, more inclined towards prejudice military conflict or an emergency on the flight deck of an (e.g. Unsworth & Fielding, 2014). What do you think? In aircraft, is autocratic, can you also assume they are also a this chapter we discuss the relationship between authori- bigot? What about the police? Can we assume that because tarianism, dogmatism and closed-mindedness on the one police are trained to give orders and thus appear autocratic, hand, and prejudice on the other. Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 411 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  412 CHAPTER 10 PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION Pratto, 1999; Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006; Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Social dominance theory explains the extent to which people accept or reject societal ide- Validates ologies or myths that legitimise hierarchy and discrimination or that legitimise equality and fairness. People who desire their own group to be dominant and superior to outgroups have equal everyone's a high social dominance orientation, which encourages them to reject egalitarian ideologies and to accept myths that legitimise hierarchy and discrimination. These kinds of people are more inclined to be prejudiced than people with a low social dominance orientation. Social dominance theory originally focused on the desire for ingroup domination over outgroups. The effect can sometimes be paradoxical. For example, high social-dominance- orientation members of dominant groups can support affirmative action, which would at first sight seem to erode hierarchy, in order to strategically appease subordinate groups and ultimately protect and enhance the hierarchy (Chow, Lowery, & Hogan, 2013). Some research has also suggested that social dominance orientation may have a wider impact. Milfont and colleagues report four studies showing that people with a high social dominance orientation have low environmental concern and are more willing to dominate and exploit the natural environment, and this is independent of other correlates such as authoritarianism and politi- cal ideology (Milfont, Richter, Sibley, & Fischer, 2013). Social dominance theory has developed to describe a more general desire for unequal rela- tions between groups, irrespective of whether one’s own group is at the top or the bottom of the status hierarchy (e.g. Duckitt, 2006; Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006). This develop- System justification theory ment makes social dominance theory look more like system justification theory (e.g. Jost & Theory that attributes social Hunyadi, 2002; Jost & Van der Toorn, 2012; see Chapter 11 for details). System justification stasis to people’s adherence to an ideology that justifies theory argues that certain social conditions cause people to resist social change and instead and protects the status quo. justify and protect the existing social system, even if it maintains one’s own group’s position of disadvantage. Social dominance theory has been criticised on the grounds that social dominance orienta- tion is actually highly responsive to situational and more enduring features of the intergroup context (e.g. Turner & Reynolds, 2003). In support of this view, Schmitt, Branscombe and Kappen (2003) report five studies showing that attitudes towards inequality are dependent on where one’s group falls in the hierarchy and how salient one’s group is relative to other groups. It is a person’s group identity that primarily drives their orientation towards inequal- ity, and their social dominance orientation plays a secondary role. Wilson and Liu (2003) take issue with social dominance theory’s evolution-based view that men endorse hierarchy more than women. They report evidence that the link between gender and social dominance orientation virtually disappears when strength of gender identification is factored in: women who identified highly with their gender had a higher social dominance orientation than men. Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. Belief congruence At the same time as he developed his personality theory of prejudice (see above), Rokeach Belief congruence theory (1960) proposed a separate belief congruence theory. Belief systems are important anchor- The theory that similar ing points for individuals, and interindividual similarity or congruence of belief systems beliefs promote liking and social harmony among confirms the validity of our own beliefs. Congruence is therefore rewarding and produces people, while dissimilar attraction and positive attitudes (Byrne, 1971; Festinger, 1954). The converse is that incongru- beliefs produce dislike and ence produces negative attitudes. For Rokeach (1960), ‘belief is more important than ethnic prejudice. or racial membership as a determinant of social discrimination’ (p. 135) – prejudice is not an attitude based on group memberships but an individual’s reaction to a perceived lack of belief congruence. Research has used a paradigm where participants report their attitudes towards others (presented photographically or as verbal descriptions) who are either of the same race or of a different race, and have either similar or different beliefs to the participant. The findings show Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 412 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  EXPLANATIONS OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION 413 Institutionalised or Interpersonal socially sanctioned NO assessment of prejudice? belief congruence YES Incongruence Congruence Negative attitude, Positive attitude, dislike attraction Figure 10.12 Belief congruence theory Prejudice In the absence of socially sanctioned Friendly relations prejudice, prejudice is a matter of interpersonal assessment of belief congruence. Source: Based on Rokeach (1960). that belief does seem to be a more important determinant of attitude than race (e.g. Byrne & Wong, 1962; Hendrick, Bixenstine, & Hawkins, 1971; Rokeach & Mezei, 1966). However, when it comes to more intimate behaviour such as friendship, race is more important than belief (e.g. Insko, Nacoste, & Moe, 1983; Triandis & Davis, 1965). There are at least two problems with belief congruence as an explanation of prejudice. The first is that Rokeach (1960) hedges his theory with an important qualification: under circumstances where prejudice is institutionalised or socially sanctioned, belief congruence plays no part – prejudice is a matter of ethnic group membership (see Figure 10.12). This is a restrictive exemption clause that excludes what we would consider to be the most obvious and distressing manifestations of prejudice; for example, ethnic prejudice in Rwanda and religious prejudice in Northern Ireland would thereby be excluded. A second problem arises with the relatively small amount of prejudice that Rokeach has left himself to explain. His explanation of how belief congruence may influence prejudice in these circumstances may actually be an explanation of how belief similarity produces inter- personal attraction (Brown & Pehrson, 2020; Brown & Turner, 1981). The research paradigm used to test belief congruence theory has people rate their attitude towards several stimulus individuals presented one after the other (a repeated measures design). Some stimuli are of the same race and others of a different race (the race variable), and they all have different beliefs Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. from one another (the belief variable). The absence of clear belief homogeneity within each group and belief discontinuity between groups may muddy intergroup boundaries and focus attention on differences between stimulus individuals rather than on their racial or ethnic group memberships. The research paradigm may inadvertently have diminished the contex- tual salience of race or ethnicity, such that participants react to the stimulus individuals as individuals, not as members of racial or ethnic groups. This interpretation has some support from experiments where group membership is clearly differentiated from belief similarity. For example, in one of Tajfel’s studies, children gave Minimal group paradigm rewards to anonymous other children, who either were defined as having similar attitudes to Experimental methodology them (on the basis of a picture-preference task) or for whom no information on similarity to investigate the effect of social categorisation alone was provided. The children were either explicitly categorised as being members of the same on behaviour. group (simply labelled X group) or were not categorised (Billig & Tajfel, 1973). This research Discrimination adopted the minimal group paradigm, which is described in Chapter 11. The focal outcome The behavioural expression measure was discrimination in favour of some target children over others. of prejudice. Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 413 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  414 CHAPTER 10 PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION Belief congruence Similar clothes, similar beliefs and similar behaviour make a potent recipe for liking and social harmony. Figure 10.13 shows that, although belief similarity increased favouritism (as would be predicted from belief congruence theory), the effect of categorisation on favouritism was much stronger, and it was only in the two categorisation conditions that the amount of dis- crimination was statistically significant (i.e. discrimination scores were significantly greater than zero). Belief congruence theory would not predict these last two effects; similar find- ings emerged from an experiment by Vernon Allen and David Wilder (1975). Perhaps most conclusively, Michael Diehl (1988) found that, although attitudinally similar individuals were liked more than dissimilar individuals (although there was little difference in discrimination), attitudinally similar outgroups were liked less than (and discriminated against more than) dissimilar outgroups. Other explanations There are two other major perspectives on the explanation of prejudice. The first concerns how people construct and use stereotypes. This is dealt with mainly in Chapter 2 as part of Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. our discussion of social cognition and social thinking, but it also surfaces in Chapter 11. The second perspective approaches prejudice and discrimination as an aspect of intergroup behaviour taken as a whole. This is dealt with in Chapter 11. Because it can be treated as an extension and continuation of this chapter, we have reserved our discussion of prejudice reduction for the end of Chapter 11. The main practical reason for studying the social psychology of prejudice is to gain sufficient understanding of the phenomenon in order to try to reduce its incidence and to alleviate conflict. Arguments about ways in which prejudice may be reduced rest on the specific perspectives on, and theories of, prejudice to which one subscribes. The intergroup perspectives and theories (dealt with in Chapter 11) suggest strategies that are different from those suggested by the person-centred explanations in this chapter. Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2021). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Limited. M10 Social Psychology 52831.indd 414 12/08/2021 07:44 Created from swansea-ebooks on 2024-10-13 10:44:51.  422 CHAPTER 11 INTERGROUP BEHAVIOUR What is intergroup behaviour? Conflicts between nations, political confrontations, revolutions, inter-ethnic relations, nego- Intergroup behaviour tiations between corporations and competitive team sports are all examples of intergroup Behaviour among behaviour. An initial definition of intergroup behaviour might therefore be ‘any behaviour individuals that is regulated by those individuals’ that involves interaction between one or more representatives of two or more separate social awareness of and groups’. This definition fairly accurately characterises much of the intergroup behaviour that - identification with different social psychologists study; however, by focusing on such face-to-face interaction, it might be social groups. a little restrictive. A broader and more accurate definition would be that intergroup behaviour is any percep- tion, cognition or behaviour that is influenced by people’s recognition that they and others are members of distinct social groups. This definition has an interesting implication: it acknowl- edges that the real or perceived relations between social groups (e.g. between ethnic groups, or between nations) can have far-reaching and pervasive effects on the behaviour of members of those groups – effects that go well beyond situations of face-to-face encounters. Very signifi- cantly it recognises that interaction within groups can be influenced by and be a manifestation of intergroup behaviour – for example, when people reside and exchange information in online internet and social media echo chambers that too can be considered intergroup behaviour. This type of definition stems from a particular perspective in social psychology: an inter- group perspective that views much social behaviour as being influenced by the social catego- ries to which we belong, and the power and status relations between those categories. A broad Metatheory perspective such as this on the appropriate type of theory to develop is called a metatheory A set of interrelated (see Chapter 1). concepts and principles concerning which theories In many ways, this chapter on intergroup behaviour brings together under one umbrella or types of theory are the preceding discussions of social influence (Chapter 7), group processes (Chapters 8 and appropriate. 9), and prejudice and discrimination (Chapter 10). Social influence and group processes are generally treated as occurring within groups, but wherever there is a group to which people belong (i.e. an ingroup), there are other groups to which those people do not belong (out- groups). There is almost always an intergroup, or ingroup–outgroup, context for whatever happens in groups. It is unlikely that processes in groups will be unaffected by relations between groups. As we saw earlier (Chapter 10), prejudice and discrimination are forms of intergroup behaviour (e.g. between different races, between different age groups, between the sexes). One of the recurring themes of this discussion (see Chapter 10) is that personality or interpersonal explanations of prejudice and discrimination (e.g. authoritarian personality, dogmatism, frustration–aggression) may have limitations because they do not adequately consider the intergroup aspect of the phenomena. The study of intergroup behaviour confronts important questions about the difference between individuals (and interpersonal behaviour) and groups (and intergroup behaviour), and how harmonious intergroup relations can be transformed into conflict, and vice versa. Copyright © 2021. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved. Social psychological theories of intergroup behaviour therefore have direct relevance to a very wide range of applied contexts – for example, employment contexts (Hartley & Stephenson, 1992) and the global impact of a pandemic such as COVID-19 (Jetten, Reicher, Haslam, & Cruwys, 2020; Krings, Steeden, Abrams, & Hogg, 2021).