sociocultural approach - stereotypes
As posited by Tajfel and Turner in their social identity theory (SIT), we have both a personal and a social identity. Two basic predictions arose from SIT
1. Threats to one's self-esteem heighten the need for ingroup favouritism. 2. Expressions of ingroup favouritism enhances one's self-esteem. Research from Fein and Spencer (1997) seems to support this.
stereotypes
A stereotype is a belief or association that links a whole group of people with certain traits or characteristics. Stereotypes can be either positive or negative.
social categorization
At the root of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination is the fact that we divide our social world into groups. As perceivers, we routinely sort each other into groups on the basis of gender, race, age, and other common attributes in a process called social categorization. In some ways, social categorization is natural and adaptive. It allows us to form impressions quickly and use experience to guide new interactions. With so many things to pay attention to in our social worlds, we can save time and effort by using peoples group memberships to make inferences about them. The time and energy saved through social categorization does come at a cost, however. Categorizing people leads us to overestimate the difference between groups.
Steele and Aronson (1995): Method
Experiment
ingroups vs. outgroups
Groups that we identify with - our race, our age demographic, our religion - are our ingroups, whereas groups other than our outgroups.
Hamilton and Gilford (1976): aim
Investigate illusory correlation based on co-occurence of infrequent events
Hamilton and Gilford (1976): method/ sample
Lab experiment, 104 undergraduates,
Prejudice vs. Discrimination
Prejudice can be described as negative feelings toward persons based on their membership in certain groups. Discrimination is behaviour directed against persons because of their membership to a particular group.
stereotype threat
Stereotype Threat is when worry about conforming to a negative stereotype leads to underperformance on a test or other task by a member of the stereotyped group.
formation of stereotypes
Tajfel argues that this is a natural cognitive process of social categorization, this does not explain how the stereotype is actually formed. Schneider (2004) argues that there are two ways that stereotypes develop: indirectly, as a product of our culture or society or directly, as a result of own experience with other people. Campbell (1967) maintains that there are two key sources of stereotypes: personal experience with individuals and groups, and gatekeepers - the media, parents, and other members of our culture. He goes on to argue that stereotypes thus have a basis in some reality. His grain of truth hypothesis argues that an experience with an individual from a group will then be generalized to the group. Hamilton and Gifford (1976) argue, instead, that stereotypes are the result of an illusory correlation - that is, people see a relationship between two variables even when there is none
Steele and Aronson (1995): Conclusion
The negative stereotype around black students and intelligence levels turned on a spotlight anxiety which caused the clack students to underperform in the stereotype threat condition.
Steele and Aronson (1995): Results
The results of the study showed that black participants performed worse in the stereotype condition than white participants. White participants scored worse than the black participants in the non-stereotype threat condition and challenge condition, indicating that the scores in the first test must be due to another factor other than intelligence.
Steele and Aronson (1995): Procedure
There were two sets of participants, black students and white students. They were asked to sit a test. The test was the same for all participants but was framed differently depending on the condition. There were three testing conditions: 1.Condition 1—the stereotype threat condition: in this condition the test was described as being a measure of intellectual ability. This would cause the negative racial stereotype to become relevant to the black participants and establish stereotype threat. Condition 2—the non-stereotype threat condition: the test was merely described as a problem-solving task that was unrelated to intellectual ability. This should have not established any stereotype threat. Condition 3—the challenge condition: this was a second non-diagnostic condition. It described the difficult test as posing a challenge in the hope of raising motivation for the task.
Steele and Aronson (1995): Aim
To determine if stereotype threat would negatively affect the performance of African Americans on tests of intelligence.
consequences to ingroup outgroup phenomenon
We see people in a fundamentally different way if we consider them to be part of our ingroup or as part of an outgroup. There are two major consequences of this phenomenon, firstly, we exaggerate the differences between our ingroup and other outgroups, and this exaggeration of differences helps us to form and reinforce stereotypes. The second consequence is the phenomenon known as the outgroup homogeneity effect, whereby perceivers assume that there is a greater similarity among members of the outgroup than among members of one's own group. In other words, we will see many and subtle differences among "us" but we see "them" as all alike...
Hamilton and Gilford (1976): results
over-estimation in no. of members performing negative behaviour in the minority group
Hamilton and Gilford (1976): procedure
participants read sentences describing desirable and undesirable behaviour performed by members of group A and B (abstract groups to avoid previous association) participants asked to estimate no. of group members performing behaviour
Hamilton and Gilford (1976): conclusion
perceived association/correlation between undesirable behaviour and group membership. Illusory correlation caused by event distinctiveness (less people in minority group, less people performing undesirable behaviour) - co-occurrence of distinct events
