Prejudice: Foundations, Causes, Effects

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Chapter 7

• Prejudice Foundations, Causes, Effects
  Remedies

2
Prejudice Unavoidable Factors

• Group Formation
• Ethnocentrism
• Stereotyping

3
Group Formation

• Fosters survival, social identity
• we part of the self-concept
• Social Identity theory We like our own groups
  better to lift our own self-esteem.
• Taijfel (1971) over- and underestimators
• In-group bias give own group most rewards
• Bias stronger when in minority and strongly
  identify with group.

4
Group Formation

• Outgroup bias
• Downgrading others not in your group
• Also applies to norms and customs, see behavior
  or ways of other groups as strange or even wrong
• People with diverse group memberships exhibit
  less outgroup bias.

5
Ethnocentrism

• By-product of social/cultural upbringing
• Rules define culture expected behavior
• Need to honor them in order to successfully adapt
  and to preserve culture
• Contributes to the successful function of a
  society

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Inflexible Ethnocentrism

• Judging others as wrong, simply because they are
  different
• Flexible ethnocentrism is less judgmental.

7
Becoming More Flexibly Ethnocentric

• Key lies in the awareness of our own
  ethnocentrism.
• 1. Become consciously aware of own rules how
  they affect perceptions judgments of others.
• 2. Recognize that other cultures have their own
  norms.
• 3. Try to understand other cultures norms.
• 4. Use all this to develop empathy.

8
Stereotypes

• A generalization about a group of people that
  assumes members share common characteristics.
• Mental shortcuts that prepare us to interact
• Often based on a grain of truth
• Often exaggerated caricatures
• May become self-fulfilling prophicies

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Social Contributors to Stereotypes

• Confirmation bias
• Fundamental attribution error
• Outgroup homogeneity effect

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The Tendency to Stereotype

• Personal variables
• Need for structure predictability
• Powerful position
• Cognitive efficiency?
• Less to lose?
• Situational variables
• Good mood
• Emotionally aroused
• Mentally distracted

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Prejudice Discrimination

• Prejudice is pre-judgment
• It may be positive or negative
• It is usually considered to be negative
• It is often based on stereotypes
• Factors it is often based on include
• Age, sex, race, ethnic identity, weight,
  religion, disability, sexual orientation

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Prejudice

• It often becomes more pronounced when the
  dominant group begins to feel threatened by an
  influx of immigrants.
• Public racial prejudice has declined in the
  United States.
• Has prejudice gone underground?

13
Prejudice

• Realistic group conflict theory.
• People become prejudiced against those with whom
  they must compete for scarce resources such as
  jobs.

14
Prejudice

• Robbers Cave Experiment (Sherif, 1966)
• 22 white, middle-class, 11-year old boys
• 2-week summer camp
• Eagles vs. Rattlers
• Mutual competition, vandalism, food fights,
  name-calling, etc.
• Sherif brought the group together through a
  common goal

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Factors in Developing Prejudice

• Social learning from family friends
• Relative deprivation perceiving that others are
  better off than we are
• Emotions (threat)
• Discrimination (unfair treatment)

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Effects of Prejudice Discrimination

• Lowered self-esteem
• Crocker et al. (1991)
• Targets of discrimination feel less personal
  control
• Stereotype threat (Steele, 1997)
• Anxiety from the threat inteferes with
  performance
• May begin to avoid situation(s)

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Overcoming Prejudice

• Superordinate Goal
• Robbers Cave
• Jigsaw Classroom (Aronson, 1978-2000)
• Mindfulness