PSYCH 312: Chapter 9
Describe the ABCs of prejudicial attitudes.
*A = affect:* Feelings *B = behavior:* Inclination to act Discrimination: Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members *C = cognition:* Belief Stereotype: Belief about the personal attributes of a group
Blatant racism vs. Subtle/modern racism.
*Blatant racism:* Blatant prejudice has largely disappeared. "Do you support school integration?" - 1942 = 33% of European Americans said yes - 1980 = 90% of European Americans said yes *Modern Racism:* Perception has changed and there are new forms. Greatest prejudice in the most intimate social realms. We prefer what is familiar, similar, and comfortable.
Correll et al. (2002): Shooter Biased
*Method:* Video game presents participants with photo of man holding object *Independent variables:* Manipulate ethnicity of man and object being held *Dependent variable:* "Shoot" or "Don't shoot" *Results:* - Error of shooting un-armed targets per 20 trials: • African American target = 3.29 • European American target = 2.40 - Thus, more likely to shoot African American when target was actually un-armed. - Error of not shooting armed targets per 20 trials: • African American target = 1.48 • European American target = 2.46 - Thus, more likely to not shoot European American target when target was actually armed.
What are examples of subtle/modern racism depicted in the "True Colors" video watched in class?
*Study:* In this startling expose, ABC News Prime Time Live anchor, Diane Sawyer explores skin color prejudice in America with the help of two friends virtually identical in all respects but one-- John is white, Glen is black. Together they take part in a series of hidden camera experiments exploring people's reactions to each in a variety of situations. Acting within the scenario of moving to a new town, they follow John and Glen separately as they each try to rent an apartment, respond to job listings, purchase a car, and conduct everyday activities such as shopping. The responses in both the white and racially mixed communities are shocking and consistent. In every instance, John is welcomed into the community while Glen is discouraged by high prices, long waits, and unfriendly salespeople.
What happens when we are in an ambiguous situation AND a negative stereotype is primed?
A negative outcome insues
What is prejudice?
An attitude; Negative prejudgment of a group of people and its individual members
Describe how African American-sounding names versus European American- sounding names affected callback rates for "applicants" in the Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004) study discussed in class.
Are Emily and Greg more Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? *Method:* Resumes sent to employers in Boston and Chicago • 2 x 2 factorial. • Resume strength: high versus low • Sounding name: African American vs. European American • Dependent variable: Does employer call applicant? *Results:* Significant discrimination against African-American names: White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. We also find that race affects the benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher quality resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living in better neighborhoods receive more callbacks but, interestingly, this effect does not differ by race.
What is a stereotype?
Belief about the personal attributes of a group. Are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate and resistant to new information
What is racism?
Discrimination directed toward a particular racial group or one of its members
Describe the dual attitude system.
Implicit vs. Explicit attitudes: *Explicit* - controlled attitudes toward the same target; the kind of attitude that you deliberately think about and report. Example: you could tell someone whether or not you like math. *Implicit* - automatic attitudes toward the same target; positive and negative evaluations that are much less accessible to our conscious awareness and/or control. Example: Even if you say that you like math (your explicit attitude), it is possible that you associate math with negativity without being actively aware of it. In this case, we would say that your implicit attitude toward math is negative.
Describe the different ways we can classify discrimination.
Interpersonal Institutional: (social inst.) many people engaging over time for a specific purpose; behavior (i.e. Marte's old department) Obvious Invisible Examples? *Obvious/Interpersonal:* Hate crime, assult or racial slur *Obvious/Institutional:* Country clubs (i.e. Augusta National until 2012) *Invisible/Interpersonal:* Being followed at a story, not being picked up by a cab *Invisible/Institutional:* Being turned down for a loan b/c of your name (i.e. lawyer and loan)
Describe how the Implicit Association Test is used to measure implicit attitudes.
The IAT measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., black people, white people) and evaluations (e.g., bad, good) or stereotypes (e.g., athletic, clumsy). The more associated, the more rapidly you should be able to respond. The IAT is one method for measuring implicit or automatic attitudes. How does the test make use of response times and errors?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5Q5FQfXZag http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18122831/ns/dateline_nbc/t/testing-hidden-racial-bias/#.WQpK5fnyuUk https://nbclearn.com/files/higheredsa/site/pdf/4575.pdf
The IAT measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., black people, gay people) and evaluations (e.g., good, bad) or stereotypes (e.g., athletic, clumsy). The main idea is that making a response is easier when closely related items share the same response key. When doing an IAT you are asked to quickly sort words into categories that are on the left and right hand side of the computer screen by pressing the "e" key if the word belongs to the category on the left and the "i" key if the word belongs to the category on the right. The IAT has five main parts. In the first part of the IAT you sort words relating to the concepts (e.g., fat people, thin people) into categories. So if the category "Fat People" was on the left, and a picture of a heavy person appeared on the screen, you would press the "e" key. In the second part of the IAT you sort words relating to the evaluation (e.g., good, bad). So if the category "good" was on the left, and a pleasant word appeared on the screen, you would press the "e" key. In the third part of the IAT the categories are combined and you are asked to sort both concept and evaluation words. So the categories on the left hand side would be Fat People/Good and the categories on the right hand side would be Thin People/Bad. It is important to note that the order in which the blocks are presented varies across participants, so some people will do the Fat People/Good, Thin People/Bad part first and other people will do the Fat People/Bad, Thin People/Good part first. In the fourth part of the IAT the placement of the concepts switches. If the category "Fat People" was previously on the left, now it would be on the right. Importantly, the number of trials in this part of the IAT is increased in order to minimize the effects of practice. In the final part of the IAT the categories are combined in a way that is opposite what they were before. If the category on the left was previously Fat People/Good, it would now be Fat People/Bad. The IAT score is based on how long it takes a person, on average, to sort the words in the third part of the IAT versus the fifth part of the IAT. We would say that one has an implicit preference for thin people relative to fat people if they are faster to categorize words when Thin People and Good share a response key and Fat People and Bad share a response key, relative to the reverse.
What is discrimination?
Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members
Under what conditions do implicit attitudes affect behavior?
What types of behavior are most likely affected by implicit attitudes? Examples discussed in class?
What subtle forms of racial prejudice were discussed in the video with children illustrating modern examples of the Duncan (1976) studies (shoving v. helping)?
When cartoon was depicted as white, they were helping the person up When cartoon was depicted as black, they were shoving the person down
Describe shooter bias and how it is related to implicit attitudes.
When people have full control of their behavior , they respond as intended (explicit attitudes). When control is impaired, automatic impulse (implicit attitudes) drives responses. Snap judgments allowed those stereotypes to spill out into overt behavioral errors. Exception to in-group biases in African-Americans.
After watching the video, what percentage of European Americans show an automatic preference for their own race? What percentage of African Americans show an automatic preference for their own race? How can we make sense of this difference?
Whites show a 79/80% preference for their own race and 17% for Blacks. Blacks show a 48% preference for their won race and a 42% for Whites.
