psych outcome: Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination

cognitive interventions: prejudice requires a 3 step process.

1) The individual must decide that their prejudiced attitude and behaviour are wrong and reject prejudice and stereotype thinking. 2) They must hold onto their non-prejudice beliefs and make them an important part of their self concept (How they think and feel about themselves). 3) The individual must learn to suppress or block from conscious awareness prejudicial reactions that may occur and replace them with non-prejudiced responses.

advantages and disadvantages of stereotypes

Advantages: it enables us to respond rapidly to situations because we may have had a similar experience before. simplifies our social world since they reduce the amount of processing we have to do. Disadvantage: it makes us ignore the differences between individuals; therefore we think things about people that might not be true (ie make generalisations)

reducing prejudice

Intergroup contact (sustained contact, mutual interdependence), Superordinate goals, Equality of status, Cognitive interventions

old fashioned and modern prejudice

Old-fashioned: openly prejudice and openly reject minority group. Modern: which is more subtle and hidden

direct discrimination

When a person treats or proposes to treat someone unfavourably because of a personal characteristic protected by the law. EG: overlooked for a job because sex, age, marital status etc.......................................

indirect discrimination

When treating everybody the same way disadvantages someone because of a personal characteristic. EG: refusing someone to wear any head covering in a workplace/school because it's not part of the uniform

in-groups

a group you belong to, eg Ruyton students, family, race

out-groups

a group you don't belong to, eg MLC students, an opposing footy team.

stereotypes

a stereotype is a collection of fixed, overgeneralised beliefs that we have about the people who belong to a certain group, regardless of individual differences among members of that group. (A stereotype is "a fixed, over generalised belief about a particular group or class of people.")

prejudice

an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude towards an individual based solely on the individuals membership of a social group. It often arises from stereotyping.

superordinate goals

are shared goals which groups or individuals cannot achieve alone or without the other person or group.

cognitive interventions

learned skills and behaviours that we can use to combat prejudice, involves changing the way in which someone thinks about prejudice............ Paying closer attention to personal attributes rather than focusing on race, gender, or age may prevent stereotyping and therefore prejudice forming.

what does cognitive interventions do

make them aware of their wrong prejudice views, educate them and show examples and ways for them to get over their prejudice

stigma

negative views or perspectives that are associated with people belonging to a particular group.

Distinction between prejudice and discrimination

prejudice is an attitude and a prejudice person may not act on their attitude. therefore someone can be prejudice towards a certain group but not discriminate against them. Whereas discrimination is a behaviour arising from prejudice.

types of discrimination

racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, disability.

Intergroup contact (sustained contact, mutual interdependence, equal status between groups),

reducing prejudice through direct contact with groups of people who have prejudicial attitudes towards each other............... Effects: Makes people aware members of various groups share the same goals, ambitions, feelings and frustrations, leads to a re-evaluation of incorrect stereotypes. Sustained contact: ongoing contact over a period of time................... mutual interdependence: groups engage in cooperative activities....................equal status between groups: social interactions that occur at the sae level without differences in power or status.

discrimination

refers to the positive and negative behaviour or actions, usually negative, towards an individual or group of people, especially on the basis of sex/race/social class etc

stereotype function

the use of stereotype is a major way in which we simplify our social world; since they reduced the amount of processing we have to do......... Stereotypes lead to social categorisation, which is one of the reasons for prejudice attitudes ( eg "them" and "us" mentality) which leads to what we call, in-groups and out-groups).