Prejudice

self-perpetuating prejudgments

prejudgments guide our attention and memories

prejudice

negative ATTITUDE

ingroup bias

the tendency to favor one's own group

social identity

the "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships

ingroup bias expresses and supports a positive self-concept

humans quest for a positive self concept; "we won" rather than "they lost"

motivation to avoid prejudice

if people are motivated to avoid prejudice, they can break the prejudice habit; the extent to which individuals seek to control the expression of prejudice; prejudice suppression; strategic presentation: effort to shape the impressions of others in particular ways to gain power, influence, sympathy

realistic group conflict theory

the theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources

social inequalities: unequal status and prejudice

unequal status breeds prejudice

discrimination

unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members

outgroup

"them"- a group that people perceive as distinctively different from or apart from their ingroup

ingroup

"us" - a group of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity

racism

(1) An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given race.

sexism

(1) an individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given sex.

religion and prejudice

- Church members express more racial prejudice than nonmembers - Those professing traditional or fundamentalist Christian beliefs express more prejudice than those professing more progressive beliefs

terror management

According to "terror management theory," people's self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality.

automatic prejudice

All people regardless of their intention to be fair-minded are aware of the stereotypes. By internalizing these beliefs, we adopt negative emotional responses to those groups. These learned attitudes operate automatically upon encountering a member of disliked group. People view a White or Black face, immediately followed by a gun or hand tool, which is then followed by a mask; Participants are more likely to misperceive a tool as a gun when it was preceded by a Black face than by a White face.

conformity

Prejudiced attitudes held in order to conform to the expectations of an important social group.

discrimination's impact: self-fulfilling prophecy

Social beliefs can be self-confirming. Prejudice affects its targets.

own-race bias

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

stereotype

a belief about the personal attributes of a group of people; sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information (and sometimes accurate)

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 self-concept, stereotype threat situations have immediate effects

social dominance orientation

a motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups

stigma consciousness

a person's expectation of being victimized by prejudice or discrimination

authoritarian personality

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

prejudice

a preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members

subgrouping

accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group

subtyping

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

gender discrimination

any practice, policy, or procedure that denies equality of treatment to an individual or to a group because of gender

ethnocentric

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

dual attitude system

different implicit (automatic) and explicit (conscious) attitudes towards the same thing

group-serving bias

explaining away outgroup members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one's own group)

socialization

families, peers, and cultures pass on information such as how to find mates, divide household labors, and whom to trust and dislike

self-esteem

fed by personal identity and social identity

discrimination

negative BEHAVIOR

outgroup homogeneity effect

perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup members. thus "they are alike; we are diverse"

subtle forms of prejudice

prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behavior hidden behind some motive. Can be harmful by overpraising accomplishments and over criticizing mistakes. Also causes patronization.

social identity theory: feeling superior to others

social identification causes us to conform to our group norms; the more important social identity is the more strongly attached we feel to a group, the more we react prejudicially to threats from another group

spontaneous categorization

social identity theory implies that those who feel their social identity keenly will concern selves with correctly categorizing ppl as us or them; we find it especially easy and efficient to rely on stereotypes when we are: pressed for time, preoccupied, tired, emotionally aroused, too young to appreciate diversity.

institutional supports

social institutions bolster prejudice through overt policies such as segregation or by passively reinforcing the status quo; schools most prone to reinforce dominant cultural attitudes -often unintended and unnoticed prejudice

just-world phenomenon

the tendency of people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get

scapegoat theory

this theory says that having suffered negative experiences, an individual might blame an innocent person or group for the experience and subsequently mistreat the person or group; the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

ingroup bias

those in a group think their members have more positive qualities and fewer negative than members in another group even if qualities are the same; basis for prejudice

ingroup bias feeds favoritism

we are so group conscious that given any excuse to think of ourselves as a group, we will do so; we are more prone to ingroup bias when our group is small and lower in status relative to the outgroup

gender stereotypes

widely held beliefs about male and female abilities, personality traits and some social behavior