Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination

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Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination

• Why do we treat others differently?

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Self-esteem of the Oppressed

• Kenneth and Mamie Clark (1947).
• Demonstrated that black children, as young as 3,
  rejected black dolls. Felt that white dolls were
  prettier and generally superior
• Key point in 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education
  desegregation decision
• Goldberg found similar results for gender
• Women rated articles as superior if written by
  a man (John vs. Joan McKay)
• Swim and others have shown that these tendencies
  have diminished over the years

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Definitions

• Prejudice
• A hostile or negative attitude toward a
  distinguishable group based on generalizations
  derived from faulty or incomplete information
• Jussim (1996) counters this to some extent with
  his kernel of truth theory
• Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Trying to educate a
  bigot is like shining a light into the pupil of
  an eye it constricts.
• Very difficult to change prejudice through
  information

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Definitions

• Stereotype
• Assigning identical characteristics to any person
  in a group, regardless of the actual variation
  among members of that group
• Not necessarily intended to be abusive, may even
  be a positive stereotype
• They are mental shortcuts like the representative
  heuristic
• But, if they rob us of our individuality that may
  be problematic
• Remember the dangers of deindividuation

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Stereotype Threat

• Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson
• Tried to explain gap in test scores between
  whites and blacks
• Argued that blacks in test situations may feel
  apprehension about confirming existing negative
  stereotypes of intellectual inferiority
• They labeled this Stereotype Threat
• Demonstrated that black students did as well as
  whites on the GRE verbal when led to believe that
  the test itself, and not the student, was being
  tested

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Stereotypes and Attributions

• Ultimate attribution error in ambiguous
  situations we make attributions consistent with
  our beliefs and prejudices
• Formation of these attributions then strengthen
  the original prejudice because they provide
  supportive evidence

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Gender and Attributions of Success

• Male success is attributed to ability, female
  success is attributed to luck or effort
• True for male and female perceivers
• Women frequently do this to themselves,
  particularly in male domains (Stipek
  Galinski)
• Mindset may be learned from parents
• Daughters of women who hold strong gender
  stereotypes tend to believe they dont have much
  math ability

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Gender and Attributions of Success

• Tennis and attributions for failure
• Women were more likely to lose a tennis match in
  straight sets (even at the professional level)
• Nicholls argues that women may give up because
  they attribute the loss in the first set to a
  lack of ability
• Ignores the fact that men have more chance to
  come back since they play 3 sets vs. 2 for women

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Gender and Attributions of Success

• How might Affirmative Action measures impact
  attributions of success?
• Turner and Pratkanis found that women who
  believed that they received a job because of
  their gender (not merit) downplayed their own
  abilities and engaged in self-handicapping
  behaviors

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Blaming the Victim

• There is a tendency to assume that those who are
  worse off deserve it in some way
• e.g., the homeless should try harder to find a
  job
• e.g., the often implicit assumption that a women
  who was raped brought it on herself somehow
• This tendency is even higher in those who have a
  strong belief in a Just World
• Frightening to think that bad things happen
  randomly

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Prejudice and Science

• Best source for this type of information is
  Stephen J. Goulds The Mismeasure of Man
• Follows the history of people like Louis Agassiz,
  Samuel George Morton, and Paul Broca, and the
  history of IQ debates
• Each of these individuals wanted to prove the
  superiority of their group and allowed their
  biases to taint their science
• For example, Broca based male intellectual
  superiority on skull size, yet he only used 6
  female skulls. Each of these skulls came from a
  women who died of infectious disease
• Foresaw the quotes from The Bell Curve

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Prejudice and Self-fulfilling Prophecies

• Word, Zanna, and Cooper
• Study One, white interviewers interact with black
  and white subjects
• Find that interviewers are less immediate with
  black subjects
• Study Two, trained interviewers to treat white
  subjects the same way that blacks had been
  treated.
• Independent judges rate the quality of these
  interviewers as less effective than those treated
  like white subjects
• Belief creates reality

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Automaticity of Stereotypes

• Patricia Devine (1989)
• Low prejudice individuals exert conscious
  vigilance that reduces stereotyping and prejudice
• But, when conscious control is is minimized even
  those who are relatively unprejudiced slip into
  automatic prejudice
• Banaji and Greenwald have recently done a huge
  amount of research that supports this assertion

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Gender Role Socialization

• Traditionally
• Males are described by instrumental traits
• Females are described by expressive traits
• These traits lead to behavioral expectations
• Porter and Geis, in all male group person at the
  head of the table is viewed as the leader
• But, when group is mixed males are viewed as
  leader no matter where the women sit
• This interpretation is the same even when
  subjects self-rate as feminists!!!!

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Gender Role Socialization

• Sandra Bem argues for androgyny
• Should use both sets of traits in the appropriate
  situation
• Further research shows that androgynous
  individuals are perceived as more likable and
  better adjusted
• However, must combine the traits. Acting solely
  in a cross-gendered manner is evaluated very
  poorly (e.g., highly effeminate male)

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Time to Blame the Media Again

• Visibility of minorities is low on prime-time
  television. One study shows that the presence of
  African-Americans has fluctuated between 6-16
  over the last 15 years.
• When present, African-Americans tend to be
  concentrated in virtually all Black situation
  comedies.

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Minority Presence

• Even worse for other minorities in the 1990s
• Slightly more than 1 of primetime characters
  were Latino
• Slightly less than 1 were Asian or Native
  American
• Presence of gays and lesbians almost
  non-existent. When present they are often
  presented as caricatures
• Women outnumbered by men 2 to 1, and are more
  frequently portrayed as victims of crime

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Causes of Prejudice

• Are we biologically wired to hate those who are
  not like us?
• Possible, but even if so, the specifics of
  prejudice must be learned
• Four causes have been researched extensively
• Economic and political competition, displaced
  aggression, personality needs, conformity to
  existing social norms

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Economic and Political Competition

• Prejudice increases during economic difficulties
• In the west in the late 1800s attitudes toward
  the Chinese varied greatly depending upon the
  amount of employment opportunities. After Civil
  War the Chinese were hated due to competition for
  jobs
• Research shows that the most anti-black prejudice
  is found in groups that are one rung higher on
  the SES ladder
• This variable is confounded w/ educational level

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Economic and Political Competition

• All of this data is correlational and
  descriptive, what about experimental data?
• Muzafer Sherif Boy Scout Research
• Created competition between the Eagles and the
  Rattlers and conflict over scarce resources
• Even after competition ended animosity remained
  and even continued to escalate

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Misplaced Aggression

• More commonly known as Scapegoating
• Blaming a relatively powerless innocent person
  for something that is not his or her fault
• Similar to Freuds concept of displacement
• Term is based on ancient Hebrew practice
• Long history Holocaust, southern Blacks
• Between 1882-1930 the number of lynchings in the
  south in any give year could be predicted by the
  price of cotton

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Scapegoating

• Laboratory experiments reveal that we scapegoat
  the following
• Groups that are generally disliked
• Groups that are visible
• Groups that are relatively powerless

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The Prejudiced Personality

• Are there individual differences in the tendency
  to hate?
• Adorno and his research on the Authoritarian
  Personality suggests yes
• Authoritarian Personality has these
  characteristics
• Adherence to conventional values (e.g.,
  government, church, parents, middle-class)
• Contempt toward outgroups
• Superstition

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Authoritarian Personality

• Further characteristics
• Resistance to change
• Belief in censorship and strict laws (people need
  to be controlled)
• Intolerant of weakness
• Highly punitive
• Extremely respectful of authority
• Appears to stem from harsh and
• threatening parental discipline

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Prejudice through Conformity

• Pettigrew suggests that discrimination arrives
  predominately from social conformity
• Prejudiced individuals, particularly Southerners,
  who enter the army tend to become less prejudiced
  
• More non-prejudicial norms to follow
• Laws and customs may provide the notion that one
  group is inferior to another
• Segregation laws
• Affirmative Action?

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Can Government Policies Reduce Discrimination and
Prejudice?

• Desegregation?
• Key doesnt seem to be mere contact, but equal
  status contact. Does desegregation insure this?
• Dissonance research shows that knowing I will
  have to have contact with you reduces my dislike
  of you (all other things being equal)
• Things are not equal if desegregation leads to
  economic conflict

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Possible Solution?

• Interdependence
• Sherif finally reduced the conflict between his
  groups of boy scouts by leading them into a
  cooperative task where everyone was important
• Jigsaw classrooms
• Aronson and his work in cooperative classroom
  environments. Everyone contributes and
  competition is counterproductive in the learning
  environment

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A Successful Solution

• Integration of Jackie Robinson into Major League
  Baseball
• Branch Rickey used a number of Psychological
  principles to increase the chances of Robinsons
  success, including
• Psychology of inevitable change (traded players
  who refused)
• Establish equal status contact

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Jackie Robinson

• Creation of a norm of acceptance (Pee Wee Reese)
• Non-violent resistance
• Individuate the new group member
• Undo perception of preferential selection
• Remove institutional barriers (built Dodgertown)