Psychology of Prejudice

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Psychology of Prejudice

1. Types of Racism
2. Value Duality Regressive Racism
3. Group Conflict (Sherif)
4. Causes of Prejudice (review)
5. Interdependence Jigsaw Classroom

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DefinitionsJ. Kovel, White Racism

• Racism social institutions which disadvantage a
  group
• Prejudice a persons negative stereotypes,
  hostility, misunderstandings

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Types of PrejudiceJoel Kovel White Racism

• Dominative Racism
• Aversive Racism
• Metaracism

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Dominative Racism

• Southern Slavery
• Face-to-face domination
• Emotionally hot
• Aggression
• Sexuality

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Aversive Racism

• Northern segregation
• Separation distance
• Emotionally cold
• Pollution
• Dirt

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Metaracism

• Post-Civil Rights Movement
• Official anti-discrimination
• Institutional Racism
• Discrimination inequality preserved without
  personal prejudice
• Stereotypes operate automatically
• Value duality ambivalence
• reverse regressive racism

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Ambivalence / Value Duality Theories

• Katz Hass
• Attitudinal Ambivalence
• Value Duality
• Rogers Prentice-Dunn
• Reverse Racism
• Regressive Racism

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Ambivalence / Value Duality( Katz Hass )

• Background
• Stigma ? ambivalence ?
• quick to help, exonerate
• quick to blame, avoid, reject

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White Attitudes

• Less overt prejudice still covert prejudice
• Lip-Service?
• Positive negative side by side?
• Co-existence of anti-discrimination attitudes
  racial bias
• Duality
• Blacks seen as disadvantaged deviant

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Unintentional Harm Experiments

• Subjects who inflict unintentional harm derogate
  (view negatively) their victims
• Cognitive dissonance theory
• harm ? dissonance ? justification

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Unintentional Harm Experiments

• Whites shock confederates (black or white)
• Give more negative personal impressions of
  blacks than whites
• Prejudice scale sympathy scale
• ( Uncorrelated )
• Whites high on both -- ambivalent -- gave
  most derogatory views of black victim

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Post-Harm Helping Experiment

• White subjects shock black vs. white
• Victim departs, leaving request for help on
  research project writing sentence many times
• Subjects give black victims 3 times the help
  they give to white victims

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Value Duality

• Egalitarianism
• ? Blacks as disadvantaged
• (Egalitarianism scale)
• Competitive Individualism
• ? Blacks as deviant
• (Protestant Ethic scale)

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Attitude Ambivalence Study

• Pro-black scale
• (r .58 with scale of egalitarian values)
• Anti-black scale
• (r .49 with scale of Protestant Ethic values)
• Ambivalence pro score X anti score

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Attitude Ambivalence Study

• 100 Subjects (college students)
• Student endangered by chem lab fire
• Questionnaire with 4 versions
• White X Black main character
• Brave X Timid actions
• Higher ambivalence ? higher praise blame of
  blacks

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Conclusion
A substantial number of whites hold two
opposing and contradictory racial attitudes, one
friendly and the other hostile. This
ambivalence can cause behavior toward minority
persons to be unstable and extreme in either a
positive or a negative direction, depending on
the situation.
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Regressive Racism( Rogers Prentice-Dunn )

• New egalitarian norms
• ? reverse discrimination
• (preferential treatment)

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Behavior Modification / Biofeedback Experiment

• 96 white college S-s in groups of 4
• Monitoring confederates heart rate
• Giving shocks when heart rate drops
• Dependent Variable shock intensity
• shock duration

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2 x 2 x 2 Factorial Design
Deindividuation
Yes
No
Yes
No
Insult
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Victim
White
Black
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Results

• Main effect of deindividuation
• Deindividuation ? higher shock
• No main effect of race of victim
• Interaction effect of insult race

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Race X InsultInteractionEffect
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Regressive racism
Reverse discrimination
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Discussion

• Ambivalence Katzs ambivalence ? amplification
• Disinhibition de-indiv insult allow
  deep-seated prejudice to be expressed
• Regression de-indiv insult cause regression
  to older prejudice

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Conclusions
Americans take a Janus-faced view of
interracial encounters, one face looking forward
but the other face focusing grimly on the past.
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Implications

• In conditions of meta-racism
• many whites feel anxious ambivalent.
• They hold sincere anti-prejudicial attitudes
• but when threatened, quick to reject and slip
  into stereotyping

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What to do?to overcome ambivalence prejudices
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Boys Camp Experimenton Group Conflict

• Muzafir Sherif
• 1956

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Robbers Cave Camp

• Mapped friendship networks
• Introduced group competition
• Mapped new friendship networks
• Observed behavior
• Non-competitive social interaction
• Staged Emergency

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No groupsfriendship networks formed
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In-Group FormationNew Friendship Networks
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In-Group FormationNew friendship networks
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Robbers Cave ExperimentGroup Competition
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Group Competitions

• In-group solidarity prejudice against out-group
• Hostility scuffles raids
• Bullies become leaders heroes
• Epithets (even for former best friends)
• Ladies first! Get the dirt off!

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How to Reduce Conflict?

• Friendly social interaction
• more hostility, epithets, taunting

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Staged Emergency
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Staged Emergency

• Rattlers eagles cooperate
• Hostility, taunting drop
• New cross-group friendships form

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Robbers Cave Camp

• Opportunities for pleasant interaction
• ? continued hostility
• Interdependence (staged emergency)
• ? decreased hostility, cooperation,
• re-formed friendship patterns

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Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

• Low social status
• Scapegoating
• Authoritarian Personality
• Realistic Group Conflict
• Conformity to Social Norms

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Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

• Low socio-economic status
• ? higher prejudice

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Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

• 1. Economic political competition
• ( realistic group conflict theory )
• Sherif experiment

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Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

• 2. Scapegoat Theory
• frustration ? displaced aggression
• Jews as scapegoats in Nazi Germany
• Lynchings correlated with cotton prices
• Pogroms against Chinese in Indonesia

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Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

• 3. Prejudiced Personality
• Authoritarian Personality

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Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

• 4. Conformity to community norms
• people who move shift attitudes
• miners prejudiced above ground
• integrated below

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Stateways can change folkways

• Changing attitudes often doesnt change behavior
• Changing behavior often changes attitudes

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De-segregation

• Equal status contact
• ? succeeds
• Inequality competition
• ? increases hostility

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Successful Integration

• Equal Status Interdependence
• Sherif experiment
• Jigsaw Classroom
• http//www.jigsaw.org/

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What to do?Inter-dependence ! ! !