CH 9 Prejudice

How to reduce prejudice • The contact hypothesis

Interpersonal contact; The premise of Allport's theory states that under appropriate conditions interpersonal contact is one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members. If one has the opportunity to communicate with others, they are able to understand and appreciate different points of views involving their way of life.

o Stereotypes Own-race bias

The tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race. (cross-race effect or other-race effect)

Causes of Prejudice o In-Group Bias Out-Group Homogeneity

*In group bias*: The especially positive feelings and special treatment we reserve for people we have defined as being part of our in-group and the negative feelings and unfair treatment we reserve for others simply because we have defined them as being in the out-group *Out-group homogenity* The belief that everyone in the out group is exactly the same? Major underlying motive: self-esteem

Effects of prejudice on self-esteem and motivation •Prejudice with "positive" characteristics

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o Stereotypes turning into social norms

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• Attributional biases o Defensive attributions

4. BLAMING THE VICTIM When empathy is absent, it can be hard to avoid blaming the victim for his or her plight. •Ironically, this tendency to blame victims for their victimization is typically motivated by a desire to see the world as a fair and just place, one where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. -Example — rape victims •Must have "deserved it" -Behaved inappropriately -Dressed provocatively •Blaming the victim serves a self-protective function -Can't happen to me, I would not behave that way

• Attributional biases o Self-fulfilling prophecy

5. SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES On a societal level, the insidiousness of the self-fulfilling prophecy goes far. -Suppose that there is a general belief that a particular group is irredeemably stupid, uneducable, and fit only for menial jobs. -Why waste educational resources on them? Hence they are given inadequate schooling. -Thirty years later, what do you find? An entire group that with few exceptions is fit only for menial

• Realistic Conflict Theory o Scapegoating

6. THE ROLE OF THE SCAPEGOAT Scapegoating: The tendency for individuals, when frustrated or unhappy, to displace aggression onto groups that are disliked, visible, and relatively powerless, may occur when people are frustrated (for example, by scarcity of resources) but there is no clear target to blame the frustration on. •The form the aggression takes depends on what is allowed or approved by the in-group in question.

o Automatic vs. controlled processing to reduce misinformation

AUTOMATIC AND CONTROLLED PROCESSING OF STEREOTYPES Stereotypes are automatically triggered under certain conditions—they just pop into one's mind. -Since the process is automatic, you cannot control it or stop it from occurring. •For people who are not deeply prejudiced, their control processes can often suppress or override these stereotypes. Easier to reduce misinformation with controlled processing

Stereotype threat

Anxiety that they might confirm a negative stereotype "girls are bad at math!" due to nerves, she might due bad on her math test.

Effects of prejudice on self-esteem and motivation o Benevolent sexists

Benevolent sexism, though sounding positive ("women deserve protection"), may still impede gender equity. ("Women have a superior moral sensibility")

How to reduce prejudice •Empathy

Empathy is the experience of understanding another person's thoughts, feelings, and condition from his or her point of view, rather than from one's own. When empathy is absent, it can be hard to avoid blaming the victim for his or her plight.

Causes of Prejudice o Affective attitudes and the failure of logic

Failure of logic it is almost impossible to get a person holding a deep-seated prejudice to change his or her mind It is primarily the emotional aspect of attitudes (affective) that make a prejudiced person hard to argue with Logic is not effective in countering emotions- people will ignore or distort any challenge to their belief. People with strong prejudices have a firmly established schema for the target group(s); this will lead them to pay attention to, and recall more often, info that is consistent with their beliefs than those that are inconsistent.

Janes Brown eyes blue eyes study

Group prejudice -Exercise to change the way students saw racism. Blue eyes were favored more first then vice versa. Said melanin higher intelligence.

o Stereotypes Illusory Correlation

Illusory Correlation: When we see the occurrence of two things at once, two things that have no relation, we fool ourselves into believing that they are actually related.

• Attributional biases o Stereotype threat

In stereotype threat, a person experiences anxiety in a situation where they might confirm a negative stereotype about their group

Effects of prejudice on self-esteem and motivation • Self-fulfilling prophecy and gender differences

In stereotypes about race and weapons studies show that cries tend to get more news coverage when the suspect is black We tend to remember things that go along with our beliefs, so we are more likely to recall the news story about a Black suspect. ---------- The daughters of women with strong gender stereotypes believes that they had poor math ability. mothers who did not hold gender had daughters without this self-defeating mind-set (self-fulfilling prophecy at work)

Effects of prejudice on self-esteem and motivation • Clark & Clark doll study

Prejudice and Self-Esteem In the study, African American Children were offered a choice between playing with a white doll and playing with a black doll. Results shows that children as young as 3 already thought it was not particularly desirable to be black, choosing to play with white rather than black dolls *seeds of low self-esteem are sown early*

Causes of Prejudice • Biology

Prejudice and discrimination can come into play even when the characteristics of the outgroup are biologically unimportant Is is clear that prejudice occurs between biologically similar people who hold different beliefs.

Causes of Prejudice • Social Learning o Jane Elliot's Eye of the Storm (find Jane Elliot thing in book)

Prejudices are easy to learn, although childhood prejudices are not necessarily maintained. Value transmission in families -The greatest similarity of beliefs was between parents and their children with egalitarian values. Jane Elliott is a teacher and one of the first diversity trainers. Her 1960s blue eyes/brown eyes exercise helped her white students understand what it felt like to face racism and opened the door to additional work in the field of social psychology, including stereotype threat and applied social psychology.

o Stereotypes Can stereotypes be changed?

Stereotypes are automatically triggered under certain conditions- they just pop up But for those who are not deeply prejudiced, their control processes can often suppress or override these stereotypes

Causes of Prejudice • Social Cognition approach o Social Categorization

The social cognition approach suggests that prejudice comes from *the way we think* One explanation for prejudice is that it is the inevitable byproduct of categorization, schemas, heuristics, and faulty memory processes in processing information. Social categorization: The first step in prejudice is the creation of groups, putting some people in one group based on certain characteristics and others into another group based on their different characteristics This kind of categorization is the underlying theme of human social cognition

o Stereotypes Stereotype formation

Think of stereotypes like a generalization, positive or negative Stereotyping: The process by which we draw inferences about others based on knowledge of the categories to which they belong. An automatic organization of people Stereotypes are not necessarily emotionally laden and do not necessarily lead to discrimination Once a stereotype becomes a negative assessment of a group of people, it then becomes a prejudice.

• Attributional biases o Ultimate Attribution Error

Ultimate Attribution Error: Our tendency to make dispositional attributions about an individual's negative behavior to an entire group of people.

o Stereotypes Allport's Law of Least Effort

We generally seek a method that uses the least amount of energy, this is how stereotypes form, we don't really wanna think too much on it.

Effects of prejudice on self-esteem and motivation o Hostile sexists

hostile sexism ("Once a man commits, she puts him on a tight leash"). hostile sexists beliefs ("On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do") predicted increased future gender inequality (Brandt, 2011). Hostile sexism is overtly negative. Benevolent sexism, though sounding positive ("women deserve protection"), may still impede gender equity.

• Attributional biases o Confirmation Bias

the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. (think this in terms of stereotypes)

ABCs of Prejudice

• Affective (Prejudice) • Behavioral (Discrimination) • Cognitive (Stereotype)