Transcript No Slide Title

Prejudice
Disliking Others
I. What is prejudice?
• A negative prejudgment of a group & its
individual members.
• Prejudice is an attitude (affect, beliefs, &
cognitions)
Is discrimination different
from prejudice?
• Yes!!! Why?
• Discrimination refers to unjustifiable
negative behaviors expressed toward
others.
• These are meant to harm, humiliate, or
degrade members towards the hated group.
What are stereotypes?
• Beliefs about the personal characteristics of a
group of individuals.
• Often these have some basis in reality--but
become over-generalized & distorted.
• Why do we stereotype?
• It may be efficient to categorize people to reduce
our mental load.
Stereotypes: Examples
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*The British are stuffy
*Americans are lazy
*The French are obnoxious & rude
*Californians are flaky
*Professors are absentminded
*Germans make great cars
What is racism?
• prejudicial attitudes & discriminatory
behavior aimed toward people of a given
race.
What is sexism?
• Prejudicial attitudes & discriminatory
behavior toward people of a given sex.
A. How pervasive is
racial prejudice?
• Good news: racial prejudice is on the
decline (since 1940s).
In 1942 fewer than 1/3rd of European
Americans supported school integration,
whereas by 1980 it was 90%.
Does this hold up to the bogus
pipeline?
• No!!!
• White students report their prejudicial
attitudes while they are hooked up to a
“supposed lie detector.”
• Its unknown if this works with African
Americans.
What is “modern” racism?
• Subtle racism that shows up in our preferences for what
is familiar, similar, & comfortable.
• May appear as:
• race sensitivity-- exaggerated reactions to minorities
overpraising their accomplishments
overcriticizing their mistakes.
• (E.g., “Some of my best friends are …..”)
Harber (1998): Modern
Racism Study
• Gave white Stanford students a poorly written
essay to evaluate.
• When students thought the writer was African
American, they rated it higher than when led to
think the author was white & rarely offered harsh
criticisms.
• The students patronized the African American
essayists with less critical remarks. This could
hinder minority student achievement.
Can we suppress prejudicial
thoughts?
• No!!!
• Devine (2000) found that people low &
high in prejudice sometimes have similar
automatic emotional reactions.
• Low-prejudiced people “consciously” act to
suppress prejudicial thoughts and feelings.
Dan Wegner & colleagues (1987)
Had Ss “actively” avoid thinking about white
bears.
Ss reported thinking about white bears
significantly more than
a control group.
We may have a “dual-attitude
system”
• We may have 2 sets of attitudes toward
target:
• Explicit (conscious)
• Implicit (unconscious)
Explicit can be changed easily via education &
the media, whereas the implicit takes longer.
Implicit prejudice!!
• Words or faces may be briefly flashed on screen to
“prime” (activate) stereotypes & prejudice.
Greenwald (2000)- 9 in 10 caucasian Ss took longer to
identify pleasant words as “good” when associated
with African American faces rather than white faces.
Interestingly Ss expressed little or no prejudice, so
responses were largely unconscious.
B. Are gender stereotypes
pervasive?
• Yes!!!
a) Strong gender stereotypes exist
b) Members of the stereotyped group
accept the stereotypes!!!
Porter, Geis, & Jennings (1983)
• Ss shown photos of “a group of grad students
working on a team project.” Ss had to guess who
contributed most to group.
• When group was all male or all female, the person
at the center of the table was chosen as the leader.
• When group was mixed, if a woman was sitting at
center of table, she was ignored & a male was
chosen.
Porter et al. study
• The stereotype of men as leaders & women as
followers was true not only of male Ss, but female
Ss also.
• Recent research shows the same leadership
behaviors men are exalted for, women are
criticized for. (Eagly & Karau, 2000).
Is gender prejudice pervasive?
• Gender attitudes have changed as rapidly as
racial attitudes.
• Most agree women are capable of doing
most jobs that men do & should be active
members in the workplace.
Is Gender bias a thing of the past?
• Obvious gender bias is, but subtler forms of
bias still operate.
• Bias is exposed with the bogus pipeline.
• Most women believe gender discrimination
occurs, but don’t believe it happens to them.
Gender Bias: Ayres (1991)
• Confederates visited over 90 Chicago-area car
dealers, with strategy to get the lowest new car
price on a car that cost the dealer $11,000.
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Who paid the most?
White males -$11,362
White females- $11,504
African American males- $11,783
African American females- $12,237
II. Social Sources of Prejudice
• Social inequalities work to keep prejudice
alive!!!!
1. Unequal status breeds
prejudice!!!
– Those of lower status tend to be the targets for
prejudice (Jews in Nazi Germany were viewed
as mentally inferior.)
People in power use stereotypes to rationalize
poor treatment of those in low status positions.
We tend to like those of lower status (“the
underdog”), but we don’t respect them.
2. Religion and prejudice
Two findings show that religion is used to support
prejudice:
1.) Church members express more racial
prejudice than nonmembers.
2.) Those professing traditional or fundamentalist
Christian beliefs express more prejudice than
those professing less traditional beliefs.
Does religion cause prejudice?
• Not likely!!!
• 1. Faithful church goers appear less prejudiced
than occasional goers.
• 2. For those whom religion is an end (in itself),
prejudice is less.
• 3. Ministers & priests gave more support to Civil
rights movement than laypeople.
3. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• If we are the targets of prejudice, will we
change our behavior to fit the stereotype?
• Yes, prejudice affects its targets!!!
Spencer, Steele, & Quinn (1999):
• Gave males & females with similar math
backgrounds a very difficult math test.
• If told there were no gender differences on the test
& no evaluation of a group stereotype, women
performed equally with men.
• Told of a gender difference, female performance
declined significantly confirming the stereotype.
If negative stereotype threats
hinder performance, can positive
ones enhance it?
• Yes!!!
• Asian American females reminded of their
Asian identity, increased their math test
performance compared to a control group.
Social Identity Theory (Turner &
Tajfel)
We categorize & label people: Scots, Jews,
Americans, bus drivers, etc.
We identify-ourselves with certain groups (our ingroups).
We compare- our groups with other groups (outgroups). We have a favorable bias toward our
own group.
Factors strengthening
in-group bias:
• Individualistic societies
• Smaller groups that are lower in status
(Jews in Polish ghettos during WWII).
How does in-group bias
influence us?
• We conform to group norms.
• We sacrifice ourselves for team, family, &
nation.
• We dislike out-groups (Stomp the Gators!!)
III. Emotional Sources of
Prejudice
• 1. Scapegoat theory: we displace our
aggression to a lower status target.
(Jews in Nazi Germany blamed for
economic problems).
If people are intentionally annoyed, they
think & act more negatively toward outgroups.
What is the source of the frustration
that leads to scapegoating?
• Competition!!
• When different groups compete for the same
scarce resources (jobs, housing, status), frustration
fuels scapegoating.
2. Personality Dynamics
A. Need for status & belonging – We feel
superior if we are above others.
B. The authoritarian personality – a punitive
style characterized by an intolerance of
others’ differences & a focus on obedience.
(e.g., Archie Bunker)
People with authoritarian
personalities:
• Were often harshly disciplined as children.
• Were led to repress their hostilities & impulses &
to “project” them onto out-groups.
• Often possess narrow-minded views
• Tend to be submissive to those with power &
punitive toward those beneath them.
IV. Cognitive sources of prejudice
• Categorization
We organize information from our environment to
simplify our “complex” world.
Knowing the characteristics of a group of people
(belief systems, social skills, etc.), allows us to
plan our interaction with these individuals with
little effort.
Stereotypes are efficient, we rely
on them when:
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pressed for time
preoccupied
tired
emotionally aroused
too young to appreciate diversity
Categorization is necessary for
prejudice
• Blascovich, Wyer, Swart, & Kibler (1997)
compared racially prejudiced people with nonprejudicial people.
• Had to look at people’s faces & categorize by race.
• Prejudiced people took longer to categorize by
race (especially when shown racially ambiguous
faces) than non-prejudiced people.
Perceived similarities &
differences
• When categorizing items we see them as
being uniform (all apples are red).
• We do this with people. “They all look
alike.”
• We pick up on differences in features when
with members of our own group (in-group).