DD307 Prejudice

What is the aversive racism theory?

Addressis the issue of implicit prejudice. Dovidio and Gaertner 1998 Aversive racist is one that has doesn't consider himself a racist, but still discriminates in subtle, rationalised ways. Avert racism is when a person has negative feelings toward a particular race and uses a non-racist reason to "justify" their negative thoughts, opinions or actions of them.

What is the paradox of contact?

Allport - our interation with others will either increase or decrease our prejudice towards them. Situational conditions are important !

What is the contact theory/hypothesis?

Allport claimed that unders the right circumstances/conditions, contact between groups will lead to the decrease of prejudice.

What was the early research on prejudice and conflict?

Any research always reflect the political/historical situation of the time. WWII had a huge impact on anything related to social psychology, group processes, obedience, attitudes, crowds. Before the war the resarch was mainly about the causes of ethnic and racial tensions among ordinary people, after the war the focus changed to the role of prejudice in shaping collective reactions. Psychologists wanted to find out how irrational antipathies contributed to racial hartred, violence or genocide and where they even came from, these antipathies. First kind of research focused on prejudice as the outcome of abnormal development, later research focused on faulty cognition explanation of prejudice.

What is an implicit prejudice?

Because stereotypes and categories are internal and applied in automatic manner, people are sometimes not even aware of being prejudiced. Lately it has become politically incorrect to be prejudiced/racist, so it might look like the levels of prejudice decreased, but that doesn't mean people are less prejudiced, they are just not outspoken about it. Implicit prejudice lives on. REsearch: Fazio et al 1995 - white/black faces, words with eitherpositive/negative meaning. REsults showed that the colour of face had effect on the judgement of the word.

What is the Pluralist model of Contact?

Criticises decategorisation model for being unrealistic to expect members of different groups to simply forget their collective identities, since sense of our group distinctiveness is what makes us who we are, it is central to our identity (according to SIT). Argues that contact will be succesful if we don't see each other as individuals but as members of each other's group, we celebrate our differences as something positive. Eg mulitcultural policies at UK schools Danger: if we stress the differences too much ,it might tip back to prejudice.

What is DPs response to this criticism?

Edwards and Potter said that DP enriches and re-specifies psychology, it doesn't ignore it. Psychological processes are seen as public practices (not just something that happens in the head) and we use them to give meaning to contexts. It expands our understanding, e.g. when talking about categorization (used to be thought that categorization was a cognitive process needed to be efficient, DP shows how flexible and varied it actually is). They also managed to show how we classify (categorise) others in order to serve our collective needs (freedom fighter vs terrorist, asylum seeker vs immigrant).

What is the cognitive miser theory?

Fiske and Taylor 1991 Best known example of theory of stereotyping. Since the world is a complicated place, we need to put ourselves and others into categories (gender, race, religion, etc) and attribute certain shared characteristics to those categories. This way it becomes easier and faster to explain the world behind us and it saves some cognitive space/mental resources. However, this is why we sometimes make errors in judgement. In this way, errors/biases are just part of normal cognition (not an abnormal development).

What is the discursive take on conflict reduction?

Hopkins and Kahani-Hopkins 2006 run a study on British Muslims and Islamophobia. They found that 'contact' and 'integration' must be situated within the context of social change, sometimes muslims view intergration as a way to fight islamphobia (show them I am normal), other times/muslims see it as a fight against Islam (trying to change what I am). Central idea is that although the contact hypothesis is nice, communities may have their own contradictor theoris of contact, that are culturally-embedded. If contact is seen as threatening, it wont't work, it will only make things worse. So it's important to understand the meaning of contact for each group.

What themes are relevant in this chapter?

Individual-social --> big time! Agency - structure --> big time! - to what extent is prejudice determined by personality (Adorno, Rokeach) or cognitive processing (Fiske and Taylor), or by structural features (Sherif, Tajfel) Power --> discursive practices that allow conflict in the name of justice. E.g. political correctness. Situated knowledge - always relevant where DP is concerned

What do the group-based approaches say about prejudice?

Individualist theories cannot explain the collective dynamics between groups. Study of Northern Ireland sectarian violence showed FAE, e.g. they blamed the violence on individuals. It cannot be possible that every individual has the same personalities (abberationalist theories), nor is it possible to explain how cognitive processes could explain why the exact pattern arose. It's important to recognize the broader organization/ideology of intergroup relations and to understand that they are NOT the spontaneous product of individual psychology.

What different approaches to prejudice are there?

Individualistic theories: Abberationalist theories (authoritarian, dogmatic, cognitive rigidity) Socio-cognitive theories (cognitive miser, implicit prejudice, avert racism) Group theories: Group-based theories (realistic group theory, social identity theory)

What is the decategorisation model of contact?

It basically says that contact will work if we meet in context where group differences are de-emphesised and we get the chance to meet and get to know each other as individuals. E.g. mothers at playground.

What is prejudice?

It is an unjustified negative attitude towards an individual or a group. Prejudice can lead to discrimination, violence, so it's study has important implications on human injustice, suffering, fulfilment. It can inform social policies and promote social change (e.g. via contact hypothesis). To understand prejudice one needs to understand the history, geography, antropology, economics, politics, etc.

What is the Recategorisation model of prejudice?

It is hard to break down the divisions between groups, so we need to focus on a common identity, overarching the sub-identities. So instead of reducing the importance of group identification or emphasising the differences between groups, we must shift the category boundaries and create a group that will include all the subgroups. E.g. muslims+christians+atheists=English+Welsh+Scottis=British, etc.

What is the criticism of DP approach to prejudice/conflict reduction?

It neglect the inner world of cognition and emotion or even embodiment, it fully focuses on talk. It keeps focusing on what people say and how they say it, but they care about what they feel when they are saying it.

What is the laundry list of contact? Pettigrew

It's a list of factors/recommendations that should be met if contact should reduce prejudice. Eg. contact should be regular, frequent, ocur between individuals of same status,have genuine acquaintance potential, organized,.. However, it doesn't say anything about WHY this could work.

Conclusion

Majority of mainstream research has focused on the individual. Discursive argues we need to look at it as a collective practice used by communities to define and treat others. The challenge is to transform the discursive frameworks that lead dominant groups to devend their privileges in the name of 'justice', 'rights' or even 'peace'. Conflict is not always bad, it can help to disrup injust social orders, it can transform society and promote more fair distribution of resources. Conflict is not just regressive, it is progressive too. It can provide fire for social change.

Conflict reduction - Reicher

Reicher warned against thinking of conflict as something universal and inavitable. Just because it has been so common (and a norm for many places), it doesn't mean it is a feature of society. It is not an outcome of human cognition (prejudice), nor it is necessary to exploit one's resources.

What are the abberationist accounts of prejudice?

Rotten apple theories. Adorno et al 1950 - prejudiced person is who has a repressed resentments towards anything related to authority. Unconsious anger ends up being displaced onto scapegoats and is expressed as hartred against anything/anyone different. This is seen as a pervasion from normal development, which leads to maladjusted view of social world/others. Rokeach 1960 - dogmatic personality - prejudice is related to cognitive rigidity, e.g. inflexibility of thought/attitude and inability to tolerate ambiguities, loose ends, uncertainties. These theories are conforting as it allows us to say that prejudiced people are not one of us, we can distance ourselves from them.

Realistic conflict theory

Sherif argued that trying to explain every behaviour by looking at the individual is wrong (a levels of explanation error). He said that personal prejudice usually reflects deeper structural conditions of relationship between groups. If you change these structural conditions, you will change the psychology of individuals. He also said that the majority of conflict between groups is due to the fight over resoursces - power, wealth, land (survival of the fittest, maybe?) If there is a negative goal interdependnce between groups (one will only win at the account of the other), there will be rivality, prejudice, discrimination. But if the goal is positive (both groups work towards the same goal), these negative perception were changed. Sherif said that we need to consider the posibility that attributions (e.g. prejudice) are a response in living in a society with collective interests. Most of social psychology sees prejudice as irrational form of bias, however, Sherif argued that it has a role in furthering the objective goals of the groups. However, not all conflict was over resources (what about religion?).

What are the limits of contact hypothesis?

So the hypothesis says that if we experience contact under the right conditions, we will fight prejudice. This hypothesis has been very successful and long-lived, it informs social policies. But it has also been criticised for: 1/ being too idealistic - a lot of research was done in optimal conditions that don't reflect the real world conditions. The reality of everyday interactions is much starker and the hypothesis cannot explain how to establish these optimal conditions for the contact hypothesis to work. 2/ can interpersonal contact change integroup relations and perceptions? - the theory is very theoretical. But does contact actually shape intergroup perception? A lot of research was done and it seems that contact leads people to thinking of the other as the 'exception', but they perception as a whole does not really change. Also, what if the processes that underlie interaction between groups are completely independed from interactions between individuals? Blumer 1985 said that individuals collectively construct their sense of group positioning in regards to other groups, and this positioning relies on their shared historical/political meaning, which is not easy the change (or even impossible).

What study did Kerr do?

Studied the conflict in Northern Ireland. Showed how members of each group, the protestant and the catholic, used opposing arguments when talking about how the conflict started and who was at fault. Each member selectively emphasises points that suit them, creating a subjective reality of the conflict. This discourses used help to legitimise the violence of the members of ingroup and deligitimise the violence from the other group. They also maintan the context which makes it possible for the conflict to continue.

SIT - social identity theory

Tajfel argued that Sherif's theory didn't explain either the historical patterning or conflict or conflict over other than resources (religion). Fight over resources is one of the resaon, but not the only reason of conflict in a society. He said that groups are important for individual's identity, people define themselves by shared characteristics of a group, they take on board the group's stereotypes in order to make sense of who we are. Social identities carry implications of self-worth, eg. the groups we belong to effect how we feel about ourselves. When acting in terms of our social identities, we tend to become depersonalised. It is when the members of the 'lower' status group feel like they are eing treated unjustly, when conflict becomes likely. So the existence of groups doesn't necessarily lead to conflict, it is the belief of social hierarchy, vulnerability of groups, e.g. the whole IDEOLOGICAL BELIEF SYSTEM of the region that can contribute to the emergence of conflict.

What are the theories of contact?

The classis contact theory has limitations so a number of reformations has been developed (all grounded in SIT). Decategorisation Model of Contact (Brewer and Miller, 1984) Pluralist model of contact (Hewstone and Brown 1986) Recategorisation model of contact (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2000) They also reflect how the understanding of prejudice increased over years. All been grounded in SIT.

Tajfel's Ideological/collective belief system idea

The idea that ideological/collective belief systems shape intergroup relations is extremely important and it means we need to find out how exactly groups create their own belief systems, that are often opposing versions of the meaning of each group.

What do the socio-cognitive perspectives say about prejudice?

They are based on the idea that human being is an information processr, and blame this (and other bias) on stereotypes. We need to stereotype to save some cognitive power, yet these shortcuts lead to biases/errors in judgement.

What do discursive psychologists say about prejudice?

They say that language is the precondition of most of social psychology (P&W). Our lives are shaped by discourses available in our culture, this is how we make sense of social reality. This shaping of social reality is only possible since we all share a common language and we able to construct the meaning of our social relations and identities together. Our language is never REFLEXIVE , it doesn't just state (reflex upon) reality, it CREATES reality.

What is cognitive rigidity?

Unability to tolerate ambiguities/differences, inflexibility of thought/attitude. Fisher 1951 - truncated pyramid research