More Stereotyping, Prejudice

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More Stereotyping, PrejudiceDiscrimination

• June 28th

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The Motivational Perspective

• Competition is not necessary for intergroup
  conflict
• Economic perspective is not the whole story
• People will favor members of the ingroup even
  when the grouping is silly
• Minimal group paradigm- Experiments where group
  membership is knowingly assigned through a
  meaningless or arbitrary process

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Results of those studies

• Participants favor their own group
• Despite that they never met never will
• This favoritism is often strong enough to
  motivate focusing on relative vs. absolute gain
• Economists (and Jeff) would call this irrational
• Take-home message small or arbitrary differences
  can cause discrimination

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Another theory to remember

• Why do we treat us better than them?
• Social Identity Theory (SIT)
• Identity self-esteem draw not only from aspects
  accomplishments of the self, but also from
  those of groups to which one belongs.
• RU!

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Predictions of SIT

• Because our esteem is dependent on status of
  ingroup, we boost group status via in-group
  favoritism
• Remember that many judgments are relative, so
  putting another group down is also effective
• Discrimination in the MGP results in higher
  self-esteem
• People associate more strongly with group when
  group is doing well
• Basking in reflected glory

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Frustration-Aggression Theory

• Frustration leads to aggression
• Aggression can not always be expressed at source
  of frustration, so it is displaced to a target
  with low status
• Boss frustrates John
• John yells at son Jimmy
• Jimmy kicks the dog
• Lynchings and the price of cotton1883-1930

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Outgroup Derogation Self-Esteem

• Fein Spencer (1997)
• State self-esteem measure
• IQ Test Participants either tested poorly or
  tested well (bogus feedback)
• Inspect application packet watch videotape of
  interview
• Julie Goldberg or Marie DAgostino
• Rate applicants personality
• State self-esteem measure

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Esteem Threat Recovery
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The Cognitive Perspective

• People are cognitive misers
• They will avoid expending mental energy unless
  they really need to
• Also, conscious, deliberate thought is a limited
  resource (people have limited self-regulatory
  resources)
• According to this perspective, stereotypes are
  useful cognitive categories that allow us to
  process information efficiently
• So does using stereotypes help us conserve our
  mental energy?

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Improved accuracy on both tasks
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Construal Bias

• Greater perceived similarity among members of a
  group
• Outgroup homogeneity effect similarity is
  greater among members of a given outgroup than
  ones own ingroup
• We notice remember stereotype-consistent events
  behaviors, and generally forget inconsistent
  behaviors
• Schema/stereotype helps us fill in the gaps
• Stereotypes influence our construal of ambiguous
  behavior was it play or aggression?
• Self-fulfilling prophesies our expectations lead
  us to act in ways for those expectations to be
  confirmed
• Uncomfortable interviewers make for poor
  interviewee performance
• illusory correlations unusual acts by unusual
  people suggest a correlation between the two more
  easily than when the type of person or action is
  more common
• Professors driving Prius

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Inaccurate Stereotypes

• How do stereotypes persist in the face of
  disconfirming evidence?
• Dismissal as exceptions
• Subtyping
• Attitude-maintaining attentional biases
• Biased attributions

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Automatic Controlled Processes

• Behavior that is consciously controlled tends to
  be in line with conscious, explicit attitudes
• Behavior that is less under conscious control
  tends to be in line with implicit attitudes
• Dovidio et al. (2002)
• Explicit Implicit attitudes assessed,
  conversations with a white black student
  videotaped
• Videotapes scored once with sound on, once with
  sound off
• Difference in friendliness w/ sound predicted by
  explicit attitude, difference in friendliness w/o
  sound predicted by implicit attitude
• Stereotypes are more likely to be acted upon when
  cognitively busy or rushed

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Stereotype Videogame
Shot when they shouldnt have
Failed to shoot when they should have
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Being a member of a stigmatized group

• Attributional ambiguity
• Is this persons behavior because I am
  black/gay/etc. or not?
• (Crocker et. al, 1991) study
• Stereotype threat
• The fear that you will confirm the stereotype
  that others have about a salient group to to
  which you belong
• Performance tends to be worse under conditions
  of stereotype threat