Stereotyping, Prejudice

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Stereotyping, PrejudiceDiscrimination

• June 27th

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Defining our terms

• Stereotypes Beliefs about members of a group
• Book says its about traits I respectfully
  disagree
  
• This is the cognitive part of an attitude towards
  a group its members
  
• Prejudice negative attitude/affective response
  toward a group and those perceived as members of
  that group
  
• This is the affective part of a negative attitude
  towards a group its members
  
• Discrimination unfair treatment of members of a
  group based on their perceived membership in that
  group.
  
• This is the behavioral part of a negative
  attitude towards a group its members.

These are BAD!
These are BAD!!
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Do stereotypes have to be bad?

• Any thoughts on this?
• I have some very useful stereotypes!
• Jehovahs Witnesses Christian Scientists do not
  want blood transfusions
  
• Muslims Jews dont eat pork
• Scandinavians are easily sunburned
• Americans only speak English
• None of these are necessarily negative

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Do stereotypes have to be inaccurate?

• Lee Jussim (and a few others) argues that while
  individuating information is most important,
  stereotypes tend to have some accuracy
  
• Individuating information is information specific
  to the individual, not group membership.
  
• Any accurate stereotypes?
• South Asians study medicine
• Students are bad drivers
• Italians eat a lot of pasta
• Stereotypes are not necessarily accurate

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American History

• S, P, D research has focused on majority S, P,
  D regarding minorities
  
• Racism
• Because S.P. is mostly American, most of this
  work is how White European-Americans regard Black
  African-Americans
  
• Much applies well to other majority-minority or
  inter-group situations
  
• Inter - between
• Intra - within

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A Change in Racism

• After civil rights movement (heyday) overt racism
  was no longer sanctioned.
  
• Does that mean no one is racist anymore?
• Modern Racism
• prejudice directed at other racial groups that
  exists alongside a rejection of explicitly racist
  beliefs
  
• modern racists are most likely to discriminate
  when the action isnt easily attributable to
  racism

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Benevolent Sexism Racism

• Sometimes peoples stereotypes have benevolent
  aspects
  
• This can get a little murky when is a man who
  thinks he should pay for dinner a sexist?
  
• Positive attitude toward beliefs about members
  of a group
  
• This has been most often studied with men who
  love women
  
• Chivalrous behavior and attitudes often coincide
  with negative attitude toward individuals who
  dont play traditional role

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Measuring Implicit Attitudes

• As mentioned previously, we sometimes will not or
  can not report our attitudes
  
• RT measures allow us to measure sensitive
  attitudes
  
• Implicit association task
• Saw in class
• Priming task

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Where it all comes from

• There are 3 approaches to understanding the basis
  of inter-group phenomena, all of which are valid
  
  
• Economic stereotyping, prejudice, and
  discrimination arise out of competition for
  limited resources
  
• Motivational people are motivated by something
  (such as a drive for positive self-esteem) to
  boost their own group relative to others
  
• Cognitive Stereotyping arises through
  unemotional cognitive mechanisms to compensate
  for lack of cognitive resources to deal with a
  complex world

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Economic Perspective

• Realistic Group Conflict Theory
• group conflict, prejudice, and discrimination are
  likely to arise over competition between groups
  for limited desired resources
  
• Example Arab-Israeli conflict is over land
• Allentown, PA skinheads
• During conflict there is heightened
  ethnocentrism
  
• Belief in the superiority of ones own (ethnic)
  group
  

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Robbers Cave Study

• Muzafer Sherif (the autokinetic effect guy)
  colleagues took 22 boys to a camp to study
  inter-group processes
  
• None of them knew each other before
• There were no particular differences between the
  boys
  
• Divided into 2 groups of 11, bussed in
  separately
  

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Multi-stage process

• Phase 1 intragroup activities
• Did things as a group to foster cohesiveness,
  unaware of other groups presence
  
• Phase 2 intergroup competition
• Tournament members of winning team would get
  medals and pocketknives, losers nothing
  
• Competition led to conflict
• Insults, raids, food fights, etc.
• In-group favoritism
• Boys guessed their fellows found more beans

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Multi-stage process

• Stage 3 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
  
• When groups work on something they need each
  other to achieve, S, P, D are reduced
  
• Mere intergroup contact is not enough