PSYC3002 Lecture 5 - Part 1 PDF

A Social Identity Approach: Perceptions of Prejudice and Truth CHR I S WA NG P SYC 30 0 2 2 0 24 1 Overview of Lecture Consensus and Debate Working Definition of Prejudice What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Social Influence of Prejudice Prejudice and Truth Social Identities Determine Truth Tr...

A Social Identity Approach: Perceptions of Prejudice and Truth CHR I S WA NG P SYC 30 0 2 2 0 24 1 Overview of Lecture Consensus and Debate Working Definition of Prejudice What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Social Influence of Prejudice Prejudice and Truth Social Identities Determine Truth Truth and Prejudice are Dynamic 2 3 https://www.polleverywhere.com/free_text_polls/U3ui77upAW76ML8U2OBia 4 Consensus and Debate  Please reflect, what is “prejudice?”  What might be written in a dictionary as a definition of “prejudice?”  Have you been accused, or have accused others, of speaking/acting/being “prejudiced?”  Can you think of any examples of “prejudiced” beliefs or behaviours? 5 Consensus and Debate Key Features of Prejudice Definitions Publication Samples of how Prejudice was Defined Allport (1954) “a feeling, favourable or unfavourable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience” Stephan & Stephan (1993) “Prejudice consists of negative evaluations of social groups” Zanna (1994) “a negative (or hostile) attitude toward an outgroup” Crandall & Eshleman (2003) “a negative evaluation of a social group or a negative evaluation of an individual that is significantly based on the individual’s group membership.” Dovidio & Gaertner (2010) “Prejudice represents a negative (or a less positive) evaluative or affective response or both, to others in a given context based on their group membership” 6 Consensus and Debate Key Features of Prejudice Definitions Publication Samples of how Prejudice was Defined Allport (1954) “. Stephan & Stephan (1993) “ Zanna (1994) “ negative ( Crandall & Eshleman (2003) “ negative evaluation. Dovidio & Gaertner (2010) “ response. unfavourable ” negative evaluations hostile) attitude groups” group” group.” negative (or a less positive) evaluative or affective group ” 7 Consensus and Debate An expression or holding of negative attitudes against a group or members of a group. 8 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Ongoing project: “The Prejudice Census”. ◦ https://psychology.anu.edu.au/research/projects/prejudice-census Everyday people are directly asked: (1) What they think prejudice is (2) To give examples and explanations about their experience of prejudice 9 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? …[a] slightly older, white man…refused to acknowledge my presence…directing his questions and complaints to my male colleague….Eventually I managed to get a word in. He was so surprised I actually had something intelligent to say, he stared at me in disbelief before once again turning to my male colleague… 10 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Attitudes and evaluations can potentially be judged as prejudiced when they are seen to have negative implications for the target group. These instances of “prejudice” have been termed by researchers as “modern/symbolic”. 11 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Examples of modern/symbolic prejudice “Over the past few years, Asians have obtained more than they deserve.” “Compared to White people, Asians are motivated to obtain too much power in our society.” 12 Study 1 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? ANU students read expressions of potentially negative attitudes (“modern prejudice”) varied by target (Asian or White) x speaker (Asian name or White name). Students judged the degree of “prejudice” in each statement. 13 Study 1 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Negative correlation between judgements of “prejudice” and judgements of “truth” ◦ Prejudiced The final “prejudice” measure was calculated by the mean score of these 10 items ◦ Justified (R) ◦ Biased ◦ Offensive ◦ Correct (R) ◦ Valid (R) ◦ Legitimate (R) ◦ Just free speech (R) ◦ Acceptable (R) ◦ Fair (R) ◦ Common among lots of people ◦ Unique to this one person who said it 14 Study 1 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? ANU students judged otherwise identical expressions of modern prejudice as more prejudiced when the statement was: (1) made against Asian targets relative to White targets (2) spoken by a White relative to an Asian 15 Study 1 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Asians and Whites are psychological groups. ANU students, apparently, understood prejudice OUGHT NOT be expressed by a higher-status group, Whites, against a lower-status group, Asians. 16 Study 1 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice?  Questions ◦ Would other groups also believe prejudice is expressed by Whites against Asians? ◦ Are there groups who collectively believe expressing negative attitudes against Asians is NOT prejudiced?  These questions are important because attempts to reduce these potentially prejudiced beliefs can fail when people do not see their claim (attitude), or a claim made by others, as prejudiced. 17 Study 2 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Political liberals and conservatives often disagree about how some groups (e.g., immigrants) should be treated (e.g., welcomed, excluded). While some groups (e.g., immigrants) are seen as lower-status, not all negative attitudes expressed against these groups are judged by all people as prejudiced. 18 Study 2 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Americans who self-identified as Democrats or Republicans judged the degree of prejudice expressed in an attitude made against immigrants. Another (hypothetical) person interpreted that initial attitude as either prejudice or free speech. 19 Study 2 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? The interpretation of an initial attitude may shape what people understand as “prejudice”. When a fellow in-group member interprets an initial attitude as “prejudice,” it is a call for the original claimant to correct their behaviour. “Prejudiced” is a label for counter-normative behaviour. 20 21 Claimant/Speaker Negative attitude Interpreter Interpretation made about attitude 22 Study 2 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice? Compared to an out-group claimant, claims made by an in-group claimant were judged to be less prejudice (and more true). 23 Study 2 What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice?  Participants were NOT influenced (at least in this study) to confirm the initial claim as “prejudice”.  Participants continued to judge an in-group initial claim as more true than the exact same out-group claim.  Maybe, the in-group interpreter was not seen as qualified to speak about “prejudice?” 24 Study 3 Social Influence of Prejudice  In a different study, Americans were influenced by the interpretation voiced by someone else.  In this case, when a medical doctor described anti-fat attitudes as “prejudice,” participants agreed that the attitudes were relatively prejudiced compared to when the doctor described the anti-fat attitudes as “true”.  This influence did not occur when the “interpreter” was a Walmart employee instead of a doctor.  Once again, judgements of prejudice were consistently negatively-correlated with judgements of truth. 25 Conclusions What is Actually Judged to be Prejudice?  People do have intuitions about what is prejudice, but…  Attitudes are understood as more prejudiced when ◦ Made against a lower-status group by a higher-status group ◦ Made by an out-group member rather than an in-group member ◦ Interpreted as prejudice by an expert ◦ They are judged as relatively untrue  These features are largely absent from expert definitions of prejudice. 26 Prejudice and Truth The data on perceptions of prejudice show a strong negativecorrelation with perceptions of truth. So, studying what people perceive as truth may be a good way to study how people think about prejudice. 27 Social Identities Determine Truth  Recall, in study 2, an identical attitude about immigrants was judged as more true when expressed by an in-group member than an out-group member.  This is consistent with established work showing people align their judgements about reality with those attitudes expressed directly by in-group members.  Critically, it is less clear whether unstated, yet believed, in-group attitudes direct what people think and act. 28 Study 4 Social Identities Determine Truth A correlational study sampled Americans whose social identity as political liberals and political conservatives were made salient. Participants judged the truth of social and economic claims typical of normative beliefs held and expressed by liberals and conservatives. Claims were judged as true when they were aligned with the values people believed were held by members of their psychological in-group. 29 Study 5 Social Identities Determine Truth  People were assigned randomly to believe they were either an inductivethinker or an intuitive-thinker.  Participants judged claims about reality (“birds of a feather flock together”) attributed to either an in-group or out-group source.  Results indicated that participants aligned their truth judgements to an ingroup source. 30 Conclusions Truth and Prejudice are Dynamic  People align their judgements of truth with the norms and values associated their salient social identity.  When people’s beliefs about the contents of in-group norms and values vary, so too do their perceptions of what is or is not true.  Prejudice judgements are expected to vary when the attitudes people hold as true vary.  Many variables affecting what people understand as prejudice are largely absent in expert definitions of prejudice. 31