Attitudes: ''stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination:

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Attitudes ..stereotypes, prejudice,
discrimination
Affect
Prejudice how we feel about members of a group
Behaviors
Discrimination behavior directed at them because
of their group membership
Cognitions
Stereotypes generalized beliefs about these
groups
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Problems arising from Negative Attitudes
Stereotypes generalized beliefs about these
groups
Prejudice how we feel about members of a group
Discrimination behavior directed at them because
of their group membership
Racism
Sexism
Ageism
Negative Attitudes (prejudice) Specific negative
evaluation of an individual based upon their
group membership producing discriminatory behavior
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Material/Psychological Effects of Negative
Attitudes

• Material/Psychological Costs

• Third Grade Study

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Negative Attitudes
Stereotypes
Prejudice
Why Negative Attitudes? What are the goals?
Discrimination

• to conserve mental effort
• to gain material benefits for ones group
• to gain social approval
• to manage self-image (personal/social identities)

Racism
Sexism
Ageism
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To gain material benefits for ones group
Stereotypes
Prejudice

• perceived competition for limited economic
  resources
• ingroup bias (cross-cultural feature)
• minimal intergroup paradigm
• internal factors that influences use of
  stereotypes
• high in social dominance orientation
• more negative stereotypes vs lower status groups
• situational factors that influence the use of
  stereotypes
• intergroup competition

Discrimination
Racism
Sexism
Ageism
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To gain social approval
Stereotypes
Prejudice

• adjusting our opinions/beliefs to match those of
  others
• CONFORMITY, COMPLIANCE, ACCEPTANCE
• internal factors that influences use of
  stereotypes
• conformity seeking
• self-monitoring
• perceived social standing
• situational factors that influence the use of
  stereotypes
• time
• place

Discrimination
Racism
Sexism
Ageism
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To manage self-image
Stereotypes
Prejudice

• self image
• personal the need to feel good about oneself
• linking ourselves to successful others
• distancing ourselves from unsuccessful others
• scapegoating when we fail
• social identity
• opinions/feelings about social groups we belong
  to
• personal/social identities use social
  comparison
• downward - higher self esteem/social identity
• enhance own group/derogate other group
• internal factors that influence the use of
  stereotypes
• in-group identification
• authoritarianism
• situational factors that influence the use of
  stereotypes
• failure

Discrimination
Racism
Sexism
Ageism
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Why we Stereotype?

• Heaven is a place with an American house, Chinese
  food, British police, a German car, and French
  art. Hell is a place with a Japanese house,
  Chinese police, British food, German art, and a
  French car

• Why do we stereotype?
• Conservation of effort
• expectations
• interpretations
• explanations
• standards

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Factors influencing the use of Stereotypes?

• Personal factors
• moods/emotions
• arousal level

Motivation
Capacity
Intense Anger
Negative Stereotype
Construal Interpretation
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Factors influencing the use of Stereotypes?

• Situational factors
• situational complexity
• cognitive overload
• time pressure

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Are Stereotypes all bad?

• Useless when
• inaccurate/highly accurate
• Useful when reasonably accurate
• efficient stereotypes (social categories)
• sharpen between group differences
• soften within group differences
• termed the perceived outgroup homogeneity effect

Male
Male
Female
Female
Aggressiveness
Aggressiveness
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Reducing prejudice, stereotyping, and
discrimination

• Education and intergroup contact
• based on the ignorance hypothesis
• contact/education illustrates between-groups
  similarities
• reduce intergroup antagonisms
• increase outgroup likability
• reduce anxiety when interacting with outgroup
• both methods are ineffective for the most part
• prejudice/conflict not based on logical
  assessments of facts
• based on emotional reactions
• people ignore disconfirming evidence
• motivated to maintain stereotypes as they serve
  needs

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Reducing prejudice, stereotyping, and
discrimination

• Goal-based approach
• based on the assumptions that
• prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination serve
  important goals
• specific features of the person/situation
  influence their use

Person
Racism
Goal
Situation
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Reducing negative attitudes
Change situation
Change person
Person
Situation
Goal
Change goal
Alternate way to satisfy goal
Racism
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When does intergroup contact work?

• outgroup members have traits counter to the (-)
  stereotypes
• contact supported by norms/community
• groups of equal status (within the contact
  setting at least)
• contact should occur at the individual level
• contact should be rewarding
• superordinate goals

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Aggression
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Aggression
behavior intended to cause harm to another
Types of aggression

• Hostile aggression

• Instrumental aggression

• anger based
• goal to injure

• injuring another as a means to another goal

Means of Expression
Direct aggression
Indirect
face-to-face
behind-the-back
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Why are we aggressive?
Learning Perspective
Evolutionary Perspective
Goals of Aggression

• to injure
• to protect self/group
• to gain/maintain social status
• to gain material/social rewards
• to cope with emotions

Social-Cognitive/ Phenomenological Perspective
Socio-Cultural Perspective
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Theories of Aggression
Evolutionary Perspective

• instinct theories
• Freud thanatos
• Lorenz fighting instinct

• scientific evidence for/against?
• human behavior is multiply determined
• animal fighting instinct not as deadly/vicious
  as human aggression
• creativity and variety of human aggression
• differences in frequency across culture/within
  cultures across time

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Theories of Aggression
Perspective???

• drive theories
• Dollard frustration-aggression hypothesis

Aggression
Frustration

• Berkowitz (1989, 1993) reformulated
  frustration-aggression

Pain
Negative Emotion
Aggression
Frustration
Any unpleasant experience
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Theories of Aggression

• modern theories
• no single factor viewed as the primary cause of
  aggression
• models draw on a variety/range of factors
• example general affective aggression model
  (Anderson, 1997)

Input variables
Behavior
Internal Processes
APPRAISAL
Arousal
Emotion
Aggression Non-Agg
Cognition
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Theories of Aggression

• modern theories
• no single factor viewed as the primary cause of
  aggression
• models draw on a variety/range of factors
• example general affective aggression model
  (Anderson, 1997)

Input variables
Behavior
Internal Processes
APPRAISAL
Arousal
Emotion
Aggression Non-Agg
Cognition
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Social Input Variables

• Frustration
• Provocation

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Social Input Variables

• Frustration
• Provocation
• Media Violence

• prior to finishing elementary school, the
  average child sees 100,000 acts of violence and
  8, 000 murders
• Rates of violence
• Prime time 5 to 6 incidents per hour
• Saturday am 20 to 25 per hour
• 58 of tv programs are violent
• 73 of these no remorse, no negative
  evaluation or consequences

• Minorities
• Gender
• Sex-stereotyping
• Obesity
• School achievement

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Social Input Variables

• Frustration
• Provocation
• Media Violence
• Heightened Arousal

Negative Emotion
Previous Arousal
Aggression
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Social Input Variables

• Frustration
• Provocation
• Media Violence
• Heightened Arousal
• Sexual Arousal

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Personal Input Variables

• Personality Type
• Hostile Attributional Bias

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Personal Input Variables

• Narcissism

• Personality Type
• Hostile Attributional Bias

• Gender Differences

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Personal Input Variables

• Personality Type
• Hostile Attributional Bias
• Narcissism
• Gender Differences

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Personal Input Variables

• Personality Type
• Hostile Attributional Bias
• Narcissism
• Gender Differences

• Age
• Low Empathy
• Testosterone

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Situational Input Variables

• Temperature/pain/crowding/deprivation

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Situational Input Variables

• Temperature/pain/crowding/deprivation

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Situational Input Variables

• Temperature/pain/crowding/deprivation
• Alcohol

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Situational Input Variables

• Temperature/pain/crowding/deprivation
• Alcohol
• Aggressive Cues

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Aggression theories

• Reformulated Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
• Excitation Transfer Theory
• Cognitive Neo-association Theory
• unpleasant feelings prime a network of negative
  associations
• All similar in that behavior is reaction to
  arousal
• How well do these ideas work?
• fairly well to explain Hostile (Hot) aggression
• What about aggression toward other goal

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Social Rewards Theories

• Social learning perspective we learn to be
  aggressive by watching others
• Media effects
• but mostly correlational findings
• Violent sports
• Homicides increase after championship fights
• Glamorized military violence -- war heroes
• Cycle of violence -- children learn at home
• Abused children 4x more likely to abuse

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Culture of honor

• Cohen Nisbett (1997), Nisbett (1993)
• People are raised within a value system that
  includes aggression for transgressions
• a socio-cultural view
• Southern Western states
• may also apply to ethnic sub-cultures
• Laws that accept violence
• Culture that necessitates retaliation