Social Psychology Chapter 5: Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

Self-esteem has what two components?

-A personal identity -Various social identities that are based on the groups to which we belong

What factors may reduce cognitive resources needed for successful self-control against stereotypes or prejudiced actions

-Age -Low blood sugar (more research needed) -Being intoxicated -Being physically tired or sleepy -Being affected by strong emotion or arousal

Bias and discrimination may also be based on other factors

-Age -Physical disabilities or disfigurements -Mental health -Political ideology -Economic class -Marital status -Religion

Development of social roles

-Division of labor between the sexes emerged as a result of biological and social factors -People behave in ways that fit the roles they play, so men have more physical, social, and economic power -Behavioral differences promote perception of men as dominant and women as domestic "by nature"

Pettigrew and Tropp meta-analysis found benefits of intergroup contact reducing prejudice by: When was it most effective?

-Enhancing knowledge about the outgroup -Reducing anxiety about intergroup contact -Increasing empathy and perspective taking When at least some of the four conditions for intergroup contact were met

Friendships across groups has what effect on intergroup contact

-Equal status -Meaningful one-on-one interactions that extend across time and settings -Cooperation toward shared goals

What are two examples of interventions against stereotype threat?

-Establish a sense of trust and safety in the situation -Reduce feelings of uncertainty about belonging More on pg. 200

What are the consequences of ingroups vs outgroups?

-Exaggerates differences between ingroups and other outgroups -Helps to form and reinforce stereotypes -Outgroup homogeneity effect

Attributions and subtyping (Stereotypes distort perceptions and resist change)

-Explanations about the causes of other people's behaviors -Creates a special category that is an exception to the rules that define the stereotype

What is associated with higher warmth? Higher competence?

-Higher relative status is associated with higher competence -Greater perceived competition is associated with lower warmth

Which factors make automatic stereotype activation more or less likely?

-Prevalence in the culture -How prejudiced the perceiver is -Motivation to protect self-esteem -Intrinsic motivation to avoid applying stereotypes

What is socialization?

-Process by which people learn the norms, rules, and information of a culture or group -Includes stereotypes, how valued or devalued various groups are, and which prejudices are acceptable -Learned from parents, peers, popular media, and one's culture

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

-Racially separate schools were inherently unequal and violated the U.S. Constitution -Contact between black and white students did not have the intended effect on intergroup attitudes -Four conditions of contact hypothesis were not met

Confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecies (Stereotypes distort perceptions and resist change)

-Tendency to interpret, seek, and create information that seems to confirm expectations -False expectations can cause a person to behave in ways that confirm the expectations

Collectivists have what traits

-Value connectedness and interdependence with people and groups around them -Ties personal identity closely to social identity -Show some biases favoring their ingroups, but less likely to enhance their ingroup to boost their own self-esteem -May draw sharper distinctions between ingroup and outgroup members than individualists do -Tend to have a narrower circle of people they trust

What is a jigsaw classroom?

A classroom setting designed to reduce prejudice and raise the self-esteem of children by placing them in small, multi-ethnic groups and making each child dependent on the other children in the group to learn the course material pg. 199

What are metastereotypes?

A worry people can have about being consistent with an outgroup's stereotypes about them. Avoiding a racial group for fear of appearing racist or being treated in a racist way. Makes things worse.

Facial Features and Prison Sentences

According to a study by Jill Viglione and others (2011) of more than 12,000 adult black women imprisoned in North Carolina, the chances are good that if the two women depicted here were each found guilty of a crime, the woman on the left (whose face would be considered more "stereotypically black") would receive a longer prison sentence than the woman on the right.

Social Identity Theory v2

According to social identity theory people strive to enhance self-esteem, which has two components: a personal identity and various social identities that derive from the groups to which we belong. Thus, people may boost their self-esteem by viewing their ingroups more favorably than outgroups.

Discrimination

Behavior directed against persons because of their membership in a particular group -Behavior

Stigmatized

Being persistantly stereotyped, perceived as deviant, and devalued in society due to membership with a social group or because of a particular characteristic

Stereotypes

Beliefs that associate a whole group of people with certain traits or characteristics -Cognitive

Stereotype Threat and Academic Performance

Black students did worse on a difficult verbal test than white students (even after the students' scores were adjusted based on their performance on standardized college entrance verbal examinations) if they had been told the test was of intellectual ability (left). In contrast, there was no difference in adjusted scores between black and white students on the same test if they had been told the test was unrelated to ability (right). Source: Based on Steele & Aronson, 1995. pg. 173

What kind of affects can stereotype threat have?

Can affect intellectual performance and identity -Increasing anxiety, trigger distracting thoughts -Disidentifying from a domain as not relevant to self-esteem and identity --A person does not have to believe in the stereotype to be affected by it

Social Categorization can lead to what in terms of groups?

Can lead to overestimation of differences between groups and underestimation of differences within groups

Productive and Counterproductive Antiprejudice Messages

Compared to students who did not receive any brochure, those who read an antiprejudice brochure that emphasized internally driven motivations to not be prejudiced (such as why one would benefit by promoting diversity) later exhibited significantly less prejudice toward black people. In contrast, students who received the brochure that appealed to external factors (such as how one could get in trouble if caught doing or saying something racist) exhibited significantly more Prejudice. From Legault et al., 2012

What is Realistic Conflict Theory?

Direct competition for valuable but limited resources breeds hostility between groups (land, jobs, power) Realistic competition for resources may be imagined

Allport's Contact Hypothesis (1954)

Direct contact between hostile groups will reduce intergroup prejudice under certain conditions

Racism

Discrimination based on a person's racial background, or institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one group over another

Individualists and ingroups

Emphasize positive aspects of ingroup much more exclusively than collectivists

Four Conditions of the Contact Hypothesis

Equal Status: The contact should occur in circumstances that give the two groups equal status Personal Interaction: The contact should involve one-on-one interactions among individual members of the two groups Cooperative activities: Members of the two groups should join together in an effort to achieve superordinate goals Social Norms: The social norms, defined in part by relevant authorities, should favor intergroup contact

What are the two motivations for controlling prejudice?

Externally driven, not wanting to appear prejudiced Internally driven, not wanting to be prejudiced •More likely to be successful at controlling stereotyping and prejudice •Still vulnerable to automatic stereotyping and implicit biases •More likely to be influenced by antiprejudice messages that appeal to internal motivations than external motivations

What is relative deprivation?

Feelings of discontent aroused by the belief that one fares poorly compared to others

Safety in Numbers

Female engineers worked on engineering problems in small groups that were either mostly (75%) female, equally male and female, or mostly (75%) male. Women in the male-majority groups felt significantly more worried about working on the group task than did the women in the other groups (left). Women in the female-majority groups actively participated on the task much more than did women in the other two groups (right). From Dasgupta et al., 2015

Outgroup

Groups other than our own.

Ingroup

Groups we identify with Example: Country, religion, political party, hometown sports team

The Neuroscience of Ingroups and Outgroups

Highlighted in color in these anatomical images of the brain are some key brain regions associated with making ingroup/outgroup distinctions and related intergroup relations. "OFC" is the orbitofrontal cortex, and mPFC is the medial prefrontal cortex. Greater activity in the OFC, for example, has been associated with stronger preference for ingroup Faces. Based on Cikara & Van Bavel, 2014

Common Ingroup Identity Model Gaeretner and Dovidio

If members of different groups recategorize themselves as members of a more inclusive superordinate group, intergroup attitudes and relations can improve -Recognizing shared categorization allows creation of a common ingroup identity •Individuals from minority groups or groups that have less power in society may feel overwhelmed and experience a sense of lost identity; may benefit more from dual-identity categorizations

What does research indicate about racial prejudice and discrimination in the United States?

It has been decreasing over the past 70 years

Where did the fundamental motive to protect one's ingroup and be suspicious of outgroups come from?

It likely evolved -Serves basic motive of self-protection -More prone to exhibit prejudice toward outgroups

shooter bias study

Joshua Correll video game and eye tracking showed police pulling trigger by skin color and not by perceived threat. Scientific Frontiers video Subsequent research indicated: -Stereotypes can alter perceptions about the presence of weapons and the decision to shoot -Racial bias in the decision to shoot is not related to participants' levels of racial prejudice pg. 194

Why are outgroups seen as homogeneous?

Lack of familiarity and lack of diversity of expriences with outgroup members -Once a stranger has been categorized as ingroup or outgroup, we immediately process information about them differently.

Stereotype content model

Many group stereotypes vary along two dimensions: warmth and competence. Example: The elderly may be rated high on warmth and low on competence

Implicit Association Test Anthony Greenwald

Measures the extent to which two concepts are associated. Example: It compares how quickly participants associate African American cues (black face) with negative or positive concepts comopared to how quickly they associate European American cues with these same concepts. If someone is slower in identifying something good after seeing a black face vs white face, indicate degree of implicit racism

Prejudice

Negative feelings toward others because of their membership in certain groups -Feeling/Affect

Changes in Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage

Opinion polls from 2005 to 2015 have shown that responses to the question, "Do you think marriages between same-sex couples should or should not be recognized by law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages?" have become much more favorable in recent years, showing a complete reversal in percentages

Self-esteem and prejudice

Participants in a study by Fein and Spencer received positive or negative feedback and then evaluated a female job applicant who was believed to be either Jewish or not Jewish. This study had two key results: (1) Participants whose self-esteem had been lowered by negative feedback evaluated the woman more negatively if they thought she was Jewish than if they thought she was not (left); and (2) negative-feedback participants given the opportunity to belittle the Jewish woman showed a post-experiment increase in self-esteem (right). Fein and Spencer pp40

System justification theory

People are motivated to defend and justify the existing social, political, and economic conditions -Protect status quo

Terror Management Theory

People exhibit self-protective emotional and cognitive responses when confronted with reminders of their mortality -Maintain cultural worldview: obtain immortality

Sexism

Prejudice and discrimination based on a person's gender, or institutional or cultural practices that promote the domination of one gender over another

Modern Racism

Prejudice that surfaces in subtle ways when it is safe, socially acceptable, and easy to rationalize

Aversive Racism (Microaggression)

Racism that concerns the ambivalence between fair-minded attitudes and beliefs, and unrecognized prejudicial feelings and beliefs on the other hand

Implicit Racism

Racism that operates unconsciously and unintentionally

Two Strikes: Race and Teachers' Reactions to Children's Misbehavior

Teachers read about an instance in which a middle-school child misbehaved in class. The teachers reported being no more troubled by, nor did they suggest more severe discipline, in response to the misbehavior if they were led to believe the child was black than white. However, after the child misbehaved a second time, a significant racial bias emerged, with teachers being more troubled and recommending more severe discipline if the child was black than white.

Social Categorization

The classification of persons into groups on the basis of common attributes -Natural and adaptive

Stereotype threat

The experience of concern about being evaluated based on negative stereotypes about one's group many studies and examples on pg. 174-175

Shadenfreude

The experience of pleasure at other people's misfortunes, especially those we don't like. People who identify strongly with their social groups target outgroups for this (lack of empathy)

What is the flip side of the fundamental motive?

The positive feeling we have towards being part of an ingroup -Enhanced sense of control and meaning -Identity fusion -Terror management theory

Identity fusion

The sense of "oneness" people may have within a group. Can motivate helpful behavior towards the group, even at the risk of personal sacrifice.

What is the Outgroup Homogeneity effect?

The tendency to assume that there is greater similarity among members of outgroups than among members of ingroups

Ingroup favoritism

The tendency to discriminate infavor of ingroups over outgroups

Social Identity Theory

The theory that people favor ingroups over outgroups in order to enhance their self-esteem

Social Role Theory

The theory that small gender differences are magnified in perception by the contrasting social roles occupied by men and women pg. 189

Shoot or not?

These are examples of scenes from the video game that Joshua Correll and his colleagues created to investigate whether perceivers, playing the role of police officers, would be biased by the target's race when trying to determine very quickly whether they should shoot him because he is holding a weapon or refrain from shooting because he is holding a harmless object. Correll et al., 2002.

Which two forms of bias appear to be considered more acceptable by many people?

Weight Sexuality

Colorblind?

When white participants played a face-matching game in which they had to ask questions of a confederate to guess which of a series of photographs the confederate had, they were much less likely to ask about the race of the people in the photographs if they were interacting with a black confederate than a white confederate, even though this hurt their performance in the game.

Social Dominance Orientation

a desire to see one's ingroup as dominant over other groups and a willingness to adopt cultural values that facilitate oppression over other groups -Promotes self-interest

How are stereotypes activated? How do they exert influence?

implicitly and automatically -Influence subsequent thoughts, feelings, and behaviors even in perceivers who are relatively low in prejudice

Superordinate goals

shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation

Threats to self-esteem heighten what?

the need for ingroup favoritism •Expressions of ingroup favoritism enhance self-esteem

Robbers Cave Experiment Muzafer Sherif (1961)

•Competition with rewards produced hostility and conflict -Not resolved by positive information about competitors or noncompetitive events •Superordinate goals resulted in peace and friendship -Mutual goals that can be achieved only through cooperation

Friendships are associated with what in terms of intergroup contact?

•Friendships are associated with more positive attitudes and behaviors toward outgroup members

How are outgroups dehumanized?

•Perceivers may process outgroup faces superficially and sometimes more like objects and lower-order animals than like fellow humans •Dehumanization has played a role in atrocities throughout history

Media effects

•Pervasive media images have the potential to perpetuate stereotypes and discrimination •Media depictions can influence viewers, often without the viewers realizing it •Media influences have been implicated in many current health and behavioral concerns

What can change cognitions, cultures, and motivations for stereotypes and prejudice?

•Social-cognitive methods can help reduce stereotyping and prejudice •Exposure to images and individuals that reflect diversity can weaken stereotypes •Motivations, norms, and values change over time, often as a result of changes in popular culture •Peer influence can change sense of norms •Legislation can change behaviors pg. 204

What list of effects can stereotype threat have?

•Triggers physiological arousal and stress •Drains cognitive resources •Causes loss of focus because of attempts to suppress thoughts about relevant stereotype •Impairs working memory •Activates negative thoughts, worry, feeling dejected, and concerns about avoiding failure •Elicits neural activity biased toward negative, self-confirming feedback