PSYC 3100 Chapter five
The Contact Hypothesis: Conditions; Four conditions are deemed ideal for intergroup contact to serve as a treatment for racism.
1. Equal status. The contact should occur in circumstances that give the two groups equal status. 2. Personal interaction. The contact should involve one on one interactions among individual members of the two groups. 3. Cooperative activities. Members of the two groups should join together in an effort to achieve superordinate goals. 4. Social norms. The social norms, defined in part by relevant authorities, should favor intergroup contact.
jigsaw classroom
A cooperative learning method used to reduce racial prejudice through interaction in group efforts.
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.
subliminal presentation
A method of presenting stimuli so faintly or rapidly that people do not have any conscious awareness of having been exposed to them.
stereotype content model
A model proposing that the relative status and competition between groups influence group stereotypes along the dimensions of competence and warmth.
superordinate goal
A shared goal that can be achieved only through cooperation among individuals or groups.
system justification theory
A theory that proposes that people are motivated - at least in part, to defend and justify the existing social, political, and economic conditions.
illusory correlation
An overestimate of the association between variables that are only slightly or not at all correlated.
Combating stereotype threat effects: Researchers have reduced or eliminated the negative effects of stereotype threat in particular settings in a variety of ways. Here is a sample of these successful interventions.
Describing the task as not indicative of individuals' intellectual capabilities.; Informing individuals that their group typically does not perform worse than other groups on the task.; Giving individuals reason to attribute their anxiety while taking a test to irrelevant factors.; Getting individuals to think of intelligence as not a fixed trait but instead as something that is malleable and can be improved.; Exposing individuals to a member of their group who is said to be an expert in the domain in question.; Having individuals think about values and interests that are very important to them that are not under threat.; Highlighting other aspects of individuals identities that are associated with positive performance on the task at hand.; Excluding the presence of members of outgroups.
True/False: Children do not tend to show biases based on race; it is only after they become adolescence that they learn to respond to people differently based on race
False: Children learn about social categories quite early and use stereotypes when they are very young. Children show biases in favor of their racial ingroup on both explicit and implicit measures.
True/False: people's very quick judgments are not influenced by a stereotype unless they actually believe the stereotype to be true.
False: Even very brief exposure to a member of a stereotyped group can activate the stereotype about the group, even if they do not believe the stereotype.
True/False: Interracial interactions tend to go better and to reduce the perceptions of racism if a colorblind mentality is used, which denies or minimizes any acknowledgment of racial differences.
False: Research has shown that this approach often backfires and makes members of racial minority groups more, rather than less, uncomfortable; a multicultural approach that acknowledges and positively values racial and ethnic differences is often more effective.
True/False: Being reminded of one's own mortality makes people put things into greater perspective, thereby tending to reduce ingroup - outgroup distinctions and hostilities.
False: Research has shown that when people feel threatened by thoughts of their own mortality, they tend to seek greater affiliation with their ingroups and exhibit greater prejudice against outgroups, in part to reaffirm their sense of place and purpose in the world.
relative deprivation
Feelings of discontent aroused by the belief that one fares poorly compared with others.
Self-esteem and prejudice: Fein and Spencer
Participants 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. and 2. negative feedback participants given the opportunity to belittle the Jewish woman showed a post-experiment increase in self esteem.
Implicit racism
Racism that operate unconsciously and unintentionally.
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 in favor of ingroups over outgroups.
realistic conflict theory
The theory that hostility between groups is caused by direct competition for limited resources.
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.
True/False: An African American student is likely to perform worse on an athletic task if the task is described as one reflecting sports intelligence than if it is described as reflecting natural athletic ability.
True: Research suggests that African American students are likely to experience stereotype threat and therefore underperform if the task is described as one that is diagnostic of their sports intelligence. White students tend to show the opposite effect: Their performance is worse if the task is described as reflecting natural athletic ability.
Norten et al., 2006
When white participants played a face matching game in which they had to ask questions of a Confederate to guess which of the series of photographs the Confederate had, they were much less likely to ask about the race of the people in the photograph if they were interacting with a black Confederate than a white Confederate, even though this hurt their performance in the game
Stereotype
a belief or association that links a whole group of people with certain traits or characteristics.
Modern racism
a form of prejudice that surfaces in subtle ways when it is safe, socially acceptable, and easy to rationalize.
ambivalent sexism
a form of sexism characterized by attitudes about women that reflect both negative, resentful beliefs and feelings and affectionate and chivalrous but potentially patronizing beliefs and feelings.
We learn information relevant to stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination without even realizing it by
absorbing what we see around us in our culture, groups, and families.
A recent experiment suggests that anti prejudice messages that appeal more to internal reasons to control prejudice than external reasons are more effective. Appeals to externally driven factors, such as not wanting to get into trouble for appearing racist, can even
backfire and increase the expression of prejudice.
Discrimination
behavior directed against persons because of their membership in a particular group.
Stigmatized
being persistently stereotyped, perceived as deviant, and devalued in society because of membership in a particular social group or because of a particular characteristic.
Stereotypes are beliefs or associations that link groups of people with
certain characteristics
Schools often fail to meet the conditions for reducing prejudice, in part because
competition is too high. One program that is designed to foster intergroup cooperation and entered interdependence suggests that the right kinds of contact can improve attitudes and behaviors in a school setting.
Having friends from outgroups is associated with
decreased intergroup anxiety and prejudice. This link has been established in both correlational and experimental studies.
Realistic conflict theory maintains that
direct competition for resources gives rise to prejudice. This competition can be real or imagined.
Members of minority groups or groups that have less power in a society may prefer and benefit more from
dual identity categorizations that allow them to preserve their smaller group identity but to recognize their connection with the majority or more powerful group.
At the individual level, racism and sexism are
forms of prejudice and discrimination based on a person's racial or gender background.
Although similar in many other ways, sexism differs from other forms of prejudice and discrimination in part because
gender stereotypes are more than just descriptive: They also indicate what the majority of people in a society believe men and women should be.
Outgroups
groups with which an individual does not feel a sense of membership, belonging, or identity.
Ingroups
groups with which an individual feels a sense of membership, belonging, and identity.
Research on the extended contact effect, also known as the indirect contact effect, demonstrates that
having an ingroup friend who has a good and close relationship with a member of an outgroup can reduce one's prejudice toward the outgroup.
Stereotype activation can be influenced by a number of factors, including
how accessible various stereotypes are in perceivers minds and how prejudiced the perceivers are.
Research on the Common Ingroup Identity Model has found that
if members of different groups categorize themselves as members of a more inclusive superordinate group, intergroup attitudes and relations tend to improve.
Stereotype threat causes its effects through multiple processes. Stereotype threat can lead to
increased arousal, trigger attempts to suppress negative stereotypes, impair working memory, and cause individuals to feel dejection-related emotions or to engage in negative thinking.
A fundamental effect of stereotyping is that
it influences people's perceptions and interpretations of the behaviors of group members, causing them to perceive confirmation of their stereotype based expectancies.
Research using brain imaging and cognitive methods have found that
merely categorizing people as outgroup members can leave perceivers to process information about outgroup members less deeply.
discrimination is
negative behavior directed against persons because of their membership in a particular group.
prejudice refers to
negative feelings toward persons based on their membership in certain groups
Prejudice
negative feelings toward persons based on their membership in certain groups.
Neural activity and ingroup bias
participants saw photographs of unfamiliar white and black faces. When the faces were said to be members of their ingroup, participants show greater neural activity in particular areas of the brain, including the fusiform gyrus and the orbitofrontal cortex. Greater activation and the orbitofrontal cortex was also associated with stronger self-reported preference for ingroup faces.
At the institutional and cultural level, racism and sexism involve
practices that promote the domination of one racial group or gender over another.
Sexism
prejudice and discrimination based on a person's gender, or institutional and cultural practices that promotes the domination of one gender over another.
Racism
prejudice and discrimination based on a person's racial background, or institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one racial group over another.
Social identity theory proposes that
self esteem is influenced by the fate of social groups with which we identify.
The stereotypes that people hold about group members can lead them to behave in biased ways toward those members, sometimes causing the latter to behave consistently with the stereotypes. The stereotypes thus produce a
self fulfilling prophecy.
The stereotype content model proposes that
stereotypes about the warmth of a group are influenced by perceived competition with the group.
In the Robbers Cave study, boys divided into rival groups quickly showed intergroup prejudice. This prejudice was reduced when
the boys were brought together through tasks that required intergroup cooperation.
Social categorization
the classification of person into groups on the basis of common attributes.
According to the contact hypothesis, direct contact between members of rival groups will reduce intergroup prejudice, particularly if
the contact involves equal status between the groups, there are personal interactions between members of the different groups, the groups have a shared superordinate goal, and social norms favor intergroup contact.
Perceived differences between men and women are magnified by
the contrasting social roles they occupy.
stereotype threat
the experience of concern about being evaluated based on negative stereotypes about one's group.
The outgroup homogeneity effect Is
the tendency to assume that there is more similarity among members of outgroups than there is among the members of ingroups.
Recent research suggests several changes to how people think that can reduce stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination - such as
thinking of examples that counter stereotypes, taking the perspective of others, learning that race is more ambiguous and socially determined than simply a genetic, fixed category, and taking a multicultural rather than colorblind approach to intergroup relations.
Interracial interactions can feel threatening, can provoke anxiety, and can drain cognitive resources, particularly among people relatively high in implicit racism. Worried about appearing racist in these interactions, whites in particular may
try to avoid interracial interactions or they may go out of their way to avoid any mention of race even when it is relevant.
Some motivations make stereotype activation more likely to occur, and others make it less likely. For example,
when perceivers are highly motivated to feel better about themselves, they become more likely to activate some stereotypes and suppress others. On the other hand, people who are intrinsically motivated to not be prejudiced may be able to control stereotype activation and application more than other people.