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 - processes that
  occur outside of our awareness, without conscious
  control
• explicit (controlled) processes - processes
  that occur with conscious direction and
  deliberate thought

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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) meaures
  unconscious stereotypes and prejudices toward
  particular groups (Banaji Greenwald, 1995)
• b. Priming and Implicit Prejudice
• Priming - procedure used to increase the
  accessibility of a concept or schema (for
  example, a stereotype)

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Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes and Prejudice

• If I an E are different, which one is the true
  attitude?
• Better question under which conditions each type
  of attitude predicts behaviour?
• Implicit attitudes predict discrimination esp.
  when cognitive resources are taxed, ex, fatigue,
  time pressure
• Explicit attitudes predict discrimination better
  otherwise

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On misperceiving a weapon (Payne, 2001)
Decision Weapon or tool? .5 second
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The Cognitive Perspective

• Some cognitive biases make stereotypes resistent
  to discomfirmation
• Outgroup homogeneity effect - tendency to assume
  that within-group similarity is much stronger for
  outgroups than for ingroups
• Illusory correlations biased perception and
  memory for connection between unusual (negative)
  acts and minority groups
• Counter-stereotypic examples are subtyped

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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 Through
  Superordinate Goals
• superordinate goals - goals that transcend the
  interests of one individual group, and that can
  be achieved more readily by two or more groups
  working together
• 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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Belief systems to rationalize inequality
discrimination

• System justification (Jost et al, 2004)
• Similar to just world beliefs, applied to groups
  different groups deserve what they get
• 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 (men, EuroCanadians, high caste Hindus,
  Ashkenazi Israelis, Maronite Lebanese,
  Mainlainder Taiwanese)
• 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. Attributional Ambiguity
• 2. 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