Prejudice

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Prejudice - Chapter 9 Pages 306-351

Page 309 Prejudice

A preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members.

An antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization.

Prejudice is an attitude

A (affect/feelings) - dislike those different from self

B (behavior tendency/inclination to act) - behave in a discriminatory manner

C (cognition/beliefs) - believing them ignorant and dangerous

Prejudice often supported by negative beliefs - stereotypes

Stereotype

A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people. Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information.

The negative evaluations that mark prejudice

Norms are prescriptive, stereotypes are descriptive

Discrimination Page 310

Unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members.

Racism

An individual's prejudicial attitueds and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race

Institutional practices that subordinate people of a given race.

Sexism

Same as above, but for sex instead of race.

"modern racism" and "modern prejudice" "automatic prejudice" - page 312-316

Sources/Causes of prejudice: Social inequalities: (p319-320)

Unequal status breeds prejudice.

Likability vs. competence - two culturally universal dimensions of social perception

Social dominance orientation: a motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups. Status may breed prejudice, but some people more than others seek to maintain it.

Socialization (p320-323)

Authoritarian personality: a personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status.

ethnocentric: believing in the superiority of one's own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups.

Religion (p322)

No connection between religion and prejudice

Prejudice causes religion - religion acts as justification and rationalization for prejudice

Religion causes prejudice - but...very devout = less prejudice

The role of religion is paradoxical. It makes prejudice and it unmakes prejudice.

Conformity (p323)

conforming to social norms of prejudice

Institutional Supports (p323-325)

institutions reflect and perpetuate bias

media, photos, colors (nude, etc.), schools, politics

Motivational Sources of Prejudice (p325-332) Realistic Group Conflict Theory

The theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources based on premise that pain and frustration evoke hostility (such as the frustration that arises from competition)

maximum competition will exist between species with identical needs

Social Identity Theory

Social identity: The "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "who am I?" that comes from our group memberships

We categorize and label

We identify and associate with ingroups

We compare our ingroups with outgroups, with a favorable bias toward our own group. Self-serving bias and In-group bias

Ingroup bias expresses and supports a positive self concept

Ingroup bias breeds favoritism towards own group, even when group is randomly assigned

Outgroup stereotypes prosper when people feel their ingroup identity most keenly

infra-humanization: humanize pets and dehumanize outgroups

Even without a "them" can still come to love "us" so ingroup bias does not necessarily auto-cause outgroup hate

Need for status, self-regard and belonging

If our status is secure, we have less need to feel superior

Terror management theory - insecure people/those with low self-acceptance/those primed with fear/mortality threatened display higher ingroup bias and outgroup prejudice. secure people/sense of belonging/secure status display lower or no outgroup prejudice.

Internal motivation to avoid prejudice can change the knee-jerk reactions to stereotypes

Cognitive Sources of Prejudice (p332-343) 1. Categorization and classification

Stereotypes represent cognitive efficiency and serve evolutionary functions

Prejudice requires racial categorization but by itself, categorization is not prejudice

Spontaneous categorization - relied on particularly when pressed for time, tired, preoccupied, emotionally aroused, too young to appreciate diversity

Less prejudiced people are quicker to categorize people by race (as if "us" and "them" is not as big of a deal)

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect: Perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than ingroup members. They are all alike, but we are diverse and different.

Own-race bias: The tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race. (also, own-age bias)

Cognitive tendency to tend to the group first when looking at a different race face and being less attentive to details. With own race face, less cognitive attentiveness to the group, most attentiveness to details.

2. Distinctiveness

The extra attention we pay to distinctive people creates an illusion that they differ from others more than they really do.

Distinctiveness feeds self-consciousness which can lead to misinterpretation of others' feelings. Feeling distinct can make you think someone is acting prejudiced even if they are not.

Stigma consciousness: A person's expectation of being victimized by prejudice or discrimination. Stressful, lower well-being, but can buffer individual self-esteem and enhance feelings of social identity.

Vivid cases of distinction cause over-generalization of a group and over-estimation of an inherent quality of a group.

Distinctive events can cause illusory correlations. Group B with undesirable act was a less common combination so was remembered well and recalled as more common than it was. Assassinations and mental hospitalizations are both relatively rare so when paired together, creates illusory correlation.

3. Attributions

Fundamental attribution error - attributing behavior to disposition and ignoring the situational factors.

The more people assume that human traits are fixed dispositions, the stronger are their stereotypes and the greater their acceptance of racial inequities.

Group-serving bias: Explaining away outgroup members' positive behaviors. Attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions, while excusing such behavior by one's own group using situational attributions.

Linguistic intergroup bias - the way group-serving bias colors our language.

Just-world Phenomenon: The tendency of people to believe that the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Victim-blaming, Justification of own success, reduction of responsibility for others' misfortunes by feeling that they got what they deserved.

Consequences of Prejudice (p343-351) 1. Self-perpetuating Prejudgments

Prejudgments guide our attention and memories. An accepted stereotype can lead someone to misrecall events to be in line with that stereotype.

Prejudgments are self-perpetuating. An expected behavior is duly noted, an unexpected behavior is explained away as due to special circumstances.

A contrast to a stereotype can make someone seem more exceptional than they are.

Subtyping: accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as exceptions to the rule.

Subgrouping: Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group.

Subtypes are exceptions to the group; subgroups are acknowledged as a part of the overall group.

2. Discrimination: Self-fulfilling prophecy

3. Stereotype threat

Stereotype threat: A disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. Unlike self-fulfilling prophecies that hammer one's reputation into one's self-concept, stereotype threat situations have immediate effects.

Priming someone with a negative stereotype can cause stereotype threat and affect performance. (Also works with positive stereotypes and enhancing performance.)

Stress, self-monitoring, suppressing unwanted thoughts and emotions.

4. Effects on judgments of individuals

Often ignore stereotypes when evaluating individuals that are known.

Strong stereotypes matter

Stereotypes bias interpretation and color how we interpret and remember events.

Aggression: Chapter 10 (p353-391)