Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination

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Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination
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Lecture Outline

• Components of intergroup bias
• Theories of prejudice and discrimination
• cognitive, realistic conflict, motivational,
  cultural, evolutionary
• Consequences Stereotype threat
• Strategies of overcoming prejudice and
  discrimination

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The ABC of Intergroup Bias

• Stereotypes (Cognition) beliefs about attributes
  that are thought to be characteristic of members
  of particular groups
• Prejudice (Affect) a negative attitude or
  affective response toward a certain group and its
  individual members
• Discrimination (Behaviour) negative behaviour
  towards members of a particular group based on
  their membership in that group

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The Cognitive Perspective

• Emphasizes the cognitive processes that produce
  and maintain stereotypes, and how stereotypes in
  turn affect prejudice and discrimination

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The Cognitive Perspective

• implicit (automatic) processes
• explicit (controlled) processes -

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Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes and Prejudice

• 1) Explicit Attitudes what people consciously
  endorse or believe
• 2) Implicit Attitudes associations that are
  outside of conscious awareness
• a. Implicit Association Test (IAT)
• b. Priming and Implicit Prejudice

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Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes and Prejudice

• If I an E are different, which one is the true
  attitude?
• Better question
• Implicit attitudes
• Explicit attitudes

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On misperceiving a weapon (Payne, 2001)
Decision Weapon or tool? .5 second
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Realistic Group Conflict Theory

• group conflict, prejudice, and discrimination
  are likely to arise over competition between
  groups for limited desired resources

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Correlation between cotton prices and of
lynchings of Blacks in US South
Cotton Prices
of Lynchings
Similar pattern for unemployment rate and
opposition to immigration in Canada
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Realistic Conflict Theory

• The Robbers Cave Experiment (Sherif et al. 1961)
  
• a. Competition and Intergroup Conflict
• b. Reducing Intergroup Conflict via
  Superordinate Goals
• superordinate goals
• Example Earthquake diplomacy
• Evaluating RCT

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Minimal Group Experiments

• Participants are assigned to groups on
  meaningless criteria
• Then they are given the opportunity to distribute
  resources (e.g., money)
• Participants show ingroup favoritism!
• Cannot be explained by RCT
• We need a motivational perspective

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The Motivational Perspective

• Prejudice and discrimination can be a tool to
  boost our self-esteem and repair perceived
  threats to our self-esteem

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The Motivational Perspective

• Social Identity Theory
• a persons self-concept and self-esteem not only
  derive from personal identity and
  accomplishments, but from the status and
  accomplishments of the various groups to which
  the person belongs

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After negative personal feedback, ppts derogate
outgroups (A), which restores their self-esteem
(B) (Fein Spencer, 1997)
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Just World BeliefsThe dilemma of the innocent
victim

• JWB
• Injustice in the world is a perceived threat
• Outcomes reflect personal traits more FAE
• One pernicious consequence blaming victims

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Just World Beliefs(Lerner Miller, 1978)

• Just-world beliefs-
• By and large, people deserve what they get in
  life
• Basically, the world is a just place
• People who do their job will rise to the top
• People who meet with misfortune have often
  brought it on themselves

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Just World Beliefs

• Blaming the victimexperiments by Lerner
  colleagues

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Just World Beliefs

• Victim blaming is less likely
• Who believes in a just world?

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Just World Beliefs Summary Clarifications

• When one believes in just world
• AND the victim cannot be helped MORE victim
  blaming
• Not about self helping victim (empathy)
• Not about perceived competence of the victim (VB
  even when victim is randomly assigned to be a
  victim)

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Belief systems to rationalize inequality
discrimination

• System justification (Jost et al, 2004)
• Social Dominance Orientation (Sidanius Pratto)
• Belief that their own groups are destined to
  dominate other less worthy, groups
• Members of more privileged groups endorse SDO
  more
• High SDO scores predict overt prejudice and more
  stereotyping towards lower-status groups

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Distal Explanations of prejudice and
discrimination

• Evolutionary account 1
• Innate tendency for us vs. them thinking or
  coalitional psychology
• Intergoup psychology evolved (in ancestral
  times) small cohesive, mutually hostile bands
• But what counts as ingroup vs. outgroup is
  flexible, socially constructed
• Explains why bases of discrimination is radically
  different across time and place, but us-them
  mentality is so resilient

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Distal Explanations of prejudice and
discrimination

• Evolutionary account 2
• Intergoup psychology is misapplication of our
  innate understanding of species with essences
• We tend to think of different social groups as if
  they are different biological species
• Explains why many social categories are
  essentialized
• And why the more essentialized, the easier to
  stereotype

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Distal Explanations of prejudice and
discrimination

• Cultural account
• Cultural dissimilarity breeds dislike
• Brewer Campbell (1976) study of intercultural
  attitudes
• 30 East African societies in in Uganda, Kenya,
  and Tanzania
• Measures of cultural similarity, familiarity,
  liking, and personality traits
• People felt the most positive towards groups
  that
• (1) Were geographically nearer (2) Culturally
  most similar to themselves

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Being a Member of a Stigmatized Group

• 1. Stereotype Threat
• - fear that one will confirm the stereotypes
  that others have regarding some salient group of
  which on is a member

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Stereotype Threat in Intellectual Abilities
ST can occur for any social group for which there
is a negative stereotype on a skill
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Stereotype Threat in Intellectual Abilities

• African Americans and intellectual abilities
• Women and math
• White men and athletic abilities
• Etc.

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Stereotype Threat
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Stereotype Threat
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Stereotype threat vs. boost (Shih, Pittinski
Ambady, 1999
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Reducing Stereotype Threat in Educational Settings

• Developing awareness
• Communicating (and having) high expectations
• Social support
• Positive role models

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Reducing prejudice and conflict

• Superordinate goals
• Superordinate identity
• Equal status contact
• Perceived similarity between groups
• Multiculturalism