Transcript Prejudice
Prejudice
What is prejudice?
Why are people prejudiced?
Individual view
Intergroup view
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Can prejudice be reduced?
Prejudice
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“An attitude (usually negative) toward the
members of some group, based purely on
their membership in that group” (Baron &
Byrne, 1991)
Prejudice
A type of attitude:
Cognitive component - thinking
Affective component - feeling
Behavioural component - doing
Stereotype
Discrimination
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Related terms:
Individual Theories
Suggest that prejudice is due to the
psychological make-up of the individual
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Authoritarian personality
Frustration-aggression (scapegoating)
Norm theory
Authoritarian Personality
Adorno et al (1950)
Suggestion that people who are prejudiced
Hostile to inferiors
Servile to superiors
Rigid & inflexible
Conventional in outlook
Intolerant of ambiguity
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have a particular personality type:
Harsh & Punitive
upbringing
Outward respect
towards authority
Little affection
from parents
High opinion of
parents
Repressed hostility
and anger
Needs an outlet
somewhere
Anger displaced
onto ‘inferior’
groups…
Prejudice
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Authoritarian Personality
Authoritarian Personality
between authoritarianism & e.g. antiSemitism
Many methodological problems
Doesn’t explain uniformity of prejudices
across society e.g.
Nazi Germany – anti-Semitism
US in WWII – anti-Japanese
South Africa during apartheid
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Some evidence that shows correlation
Other Individual Theories
Scapegoating
Displacement of aggression onto ‘outgroups’
during times of hardship
We acquire prejudices through social learning
in the same way as other attitudes
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Social norms
Realistic Conflict Theory
groups compete for scarce resources
Prejudice leads to hostility which is a
strategy for denying resources to the
outgroup whilst securing them for the
ingroup
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Idea that prejudice arises when social
Realistic Conflict Theory
The Robber’s Cave study (Sherif et al,
Group isolation
Competition
In-group
favouritism
Prejudice
against
out-group
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1961)
Creating prejudice between two groups of
boys at a US summer camp
Social Identity Theory
groups is not necessary for prejudice;
simply having different social groups is
enough
Our sense of self is bound up in the
groups we belong to – feel better about
ourselves by making favourable
comparisons with other groups
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Based on idea that competition between
Social Identity Theory
Jane Eliot’s ‘Blue Eyes – Brown Eyes’
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experiment
Tajfel & colleagues (1970s) – the minimal
groups experiments
Reducing Prejudice
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Equal-status contact with outgroups
Pursuit of common goals
Education