Psych Chapter 11: Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination

Details of the implicit association test

- A series of words/pictures presented, respondent presses one key if the picture/word conforms to one rule and another key if it conforms to another rule. - Respondents are faster to press one key for members of a particular group and words stereotypically associated with that group than to press the same key for members of that group and words that contradict the stereotype associated with that group. - For assessing implicit prejudice, a non-conscious prejudice is captured by the difference between the average time it takes to respond between positive and negative associations

Construal processes that lead to biased assessments

- Accentuation of Ingroup Similarity and Outgroup Difference - The Outgroup Homogeneity Effect - Illusory correlations and distinctiveness - Biased information processing - Self fulfilling prophecies

The ABC's of prejudice

- Affective: prejudice refers to the general attitude structure but more specifically the emotional component - Behavioral: discrimination is differential treatment due to group membership - Cognitive: stereotype is a generalization about a group that is seen as descriptive of all members of that group

Implicit measure of prejudice from priming

- An implicit measure of prejudice can be derived by comparing a person's average reaction time to real and made-up words preceded by faces of members of the target category - There's no reason to assume that people are lying when they deny such prejudices: they simply may not have conscious access to many of their attitudes and beliefs.

Doing our part to reduce prejudice

- As individuals, awareness of the automatic influence of stereotypes can foster more controlled and unbiased behaviors and judgments - When interacting with people as individuals, the cognitive and motivational effects of social categorization are diminished

Four cognitive burdens that come with being a part of a stigmatized group

- Attributional ambiguity - Stereotype threat - Psychological costs of concealing one's identity - Self-fulfilling prophecy

In-group bias

- Because self-esteem is based in part on our group memberships, we're motivated to boost the status of the in-group - In-group members evaluated more favorably - Desire to give advantages to ingroup over outgroup - People strongly identified with their in-group may react to criticism of the group as personal criticism

Examples of the stereotype threat

- Black students perform worse on aptitude tests when asked to indicate their race beforehand - Female students perform better on math tests when told the test doesn't show a gender difference - White male students do worse on math tests when told the test measures why Asians out-perform whites - Black students do worse on a golf task when it's described as a test of "sports intelligence"; white students do worse on a golf task when it's described as a test of "natural athletic ability"

Three key results of social identity theory

- Boosting the status of the ingroup/in-group bias - Basking in reflected glory - Denigrating outgroups to bolster self esteem

Evaluating the cognitive perspective

- Critique: Reaction-time assessments of prejudices can seem rather removed from the heart of the matter. - Stereotypes can alter perception of and behavior toward different social groups (conserve mental energy but can lead to unintentionally biased judgments) - Activation of a stereotype may be automatic and involuntary - Stereotypes may influence behaviors and judgments in ways that are outside conscious awareness - Influence of automatically activated stereotypes can be corrected for if people are motivated and aware of potential biases

Study on the minimal group paradigm

- Divided into two groups randomly and learn only what group they are in, never knowing who else is in their group or who is in the other group (what it means to be part of a "group" is boiled down to the bare minimum) - Asked to assign $ to fellow participants, about whom they know only group membership - A majority of participants are interested more in maximizing relative gain for members of their ingroup than in maximizing the absolute gain for their ingroup. - Prefer the in-group to get $7 and the out-group to get $3 than both groups to get $10

Second stage/week of the Robber's Cave Experiment

- Eagles & Rattlers brought together for a tournament with a prize for the winner (competitive nature to encourage groups to see the other as an impediment to the fulfillment of its own goals) - From the very first competitive encounter, and with steadily increasing frequency throughout the tournament, the two groups insulted each other and acted with hostility towards each other - The internal dynamics of the two groups changed: boys advocating aggression gained in popularity

Three general perspectives on stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination

- Economic - Motivational - Cognitive

Illusory correlations and distinctiveness

- False beliefs about groups may be maintained because we easily remember the pairing of two distinct events - People "see" correlations between events/categories that are not actually related (this is illusory correlation) - Distinctive events capture our attention because we attend more closely to them and remember them better, so they become overrepresented in our memory - Minority groups distinctive to the majority, so minority group members stand out. - Negative behaviors much less common, so distinctive - Because negative behavior by the majority or positive behavior by the minority is not as memorable, negative actions by the minority seem common

Conditions for prejudice reduction

- Groups need to feel equal status - Groups need to have a shared, super-ordinate goal - Surrounding social norms need to encourage inter-group interactions - Interactions need to be based at an individual level (one-to-one interactions)

Final stage of the Robber's Cave Experiment

- Hostile feelings between groups were reduced after researchers allowed the groups to work cooperatively - A bus carrying supplies "broke down" forcing the groups to work together to get the truck started - The hostility produced by competition was erased by the joint pursuit of superordinate goals

First stage/week of the Robber's Cave Experiment

- In the first phase of the experiment, the two groups independently engaged in activities designed to foster group unity - Cohesion and a consistent hierarchical structure developed within each group - The two groups of boys were totally isolated from one another and named themselves the Eagles and Rattlers

Mere contact and reducing prejudice

- Increased daily interactions among members of different groups has slightly reduced prejudice, as when people interact frequently, it is easier to see people as individuals, rather than representatives of particular groups - Simple contact between broad cross-sections of different groups is not enough to stop prejudice, but can help (can also hurt under bad conditions)

Background information on the Robber's Cave Experiment

- Meant to explore the ethnocentrism that results from intergroup competition - 22 5th-grade boys were taken to Robbers Cave State Park who were unexceptional in every way - The boys, none of whom knew each other beforehand, were divided into two groups of 11 and taken to separate areas of the park.

Psychological costs of concealing one's identity

- Members of stigmatized groups often feel compelled to hide their true identity - Psychologically, being out of the closet is associated with a variety of indicators of better mental health, including reduced depression, less anger, and higher self-esteem, and can have negative physical health effects as well - In a study, those asked to conceal identity did less well on tests of self-control and physical stamina. - Concealing an important part of oneself is demanding, and meeting those demands can have unfortunate consequences later on.

Accentuation of Ingroup Similarity and Outgroup Difference

- Merely dividing a continuous distribution into two groups leads people to see less variability within groups and more variability btwn groups - People assume similarity even when groups made at random, pure act of categorization distorts judgment - Assume members of in-group to be more similar to us and members of out-groups to be more dissimilar to us than they may actually be - Even if groups are based on minimal distinctions

Stereotypes and energy levels

- More likely to use stereotypes when mentally drained (overloaded, tired, or mentally taxed in some way) - More likely to invoke stereotypes when tested at the low point of their circadian rhythm - Thus, people are more likely to fall back on stereotypes when they lack mental energy. - If the use of stereotypes conserves intellectual energy, then encoding information using stereotypes should furnish extra cognitive resources that can be applied to other mental tasks

Evaluating the motivational perspective

- Motivational perspectives highlight the idea that prejudice may result from motivations to feel good about oneself - Both motivational and economic perspectives can explain why people are more willing to help members of their own group but to be hostile to outside - Builds on two elements of the human condition: - First, people readily draw the "us versus them" distinction, and 2nd, people's identities are intimately connected to groups to which they belong, so they tend to favor their own groups at the expense of outgroups.

Lessons from the Robber's Cave Experiment

- Neither differences in background nor differences in appearance nor prior histories of conflict are necessary for intergroup hostility to develop. - All that's required is that two groups enter into competition for goals that only one can achieve. - Competition against outsiders increases group cohesion - To reduce the hostility between groups, policy makers should get them to work to fulfill common goals

Negative stereotype study on denigrating out-groups to boost self-esteem

- Non-black participants were either praised or criticized by a white or black doctor - Flashed words and nonwords and had participants indicate if they saw a real word - Some of the words were medical, and some were common stereotypes of blacks - Participants fast at recognizing words associated with stereotypes when they'd been criticized by the black doctor, slow to recognize those words when praised by the black doctor - Participants fast to recognize medical words when black doctor praised them, and slow when criticized by the black doctor.

Study on stereotypes and mental energy

- Participants performed two tasks: one formed simultaneously an impression of a person described by a number of trait terms, and the other involved monitoring a tape-recorded lecture on Indonesia. - For some trait terms were accompanied by an applicable stereotype, and for the other half the trait terms were presented alone. - Key question: would the stereotype facilitate recall of trait terms, and would it release extra cognitive resources for the lecture - Those given a stereotype remembered relevant trait info better and performed better on test on Indonesia

Thought process behind subtyping

- People treat evidence that supports a stereotype differently from evidence that refutes it. - People tend to accept supportive evidence at face value, whereas they often critically analyze and discount contradictory evidence - Attributing behavior consistent with a stereotype to the dispositions of the people involved and attributing inconsistent behavior to external causes is common

Study on female math test and the stereotype threat

- Researchers examined the effect on women's math test scores of making salient the stereotype that women don't perform well in mathematics - Men and women performed equivalently when they thought there was no gender difference on the test, but women performed worse than men when they thought there was a gender difference.

Measuring attitudes about groups

- Researchers have developed various attitude scales to assess how people feel about various groups - Surveys of people's attitudes toward certain groups can't always be trusted because respondents may not think it's acceptable to express what they really feel, or because what people report verbally is only a part of their stance toward members of other groups

Definition of resources in realistic group conflict theory

- Resources may be physical, economic, or conceptual - Ex: competition over territory, jobs, religious identity

Automatic vs. controlled processes

- Some of the cognitive processes that give rise to stereotyping and prejudice are deliberate, elaborate, and mindful - Subtyping is conscious but distinctiveness/illusory correlations & outgroup homogeneity effect automatic - Our reactions are guided by quick/automatic mental processes that we can override but not eliminate - What separates prejudiced and nonprejudiced people is not their knowledge of derogatory stereotypes, but whether they resist the stereotypes

Purpose of stereotyping in the cognitive perspective

- Stereotypes are a form of categorization, and simplifies the task of taking in and processing the incredible volume of stimuli surrounding us - Stereotypes are a natural result of the way our brains are wired to store and process information.

Stereotypes as mental shortcuts

- Stereotypes are schemas that influence attention, perception, and memory - Stereotypes help us process social information efficiently - Less effort is required when you know what to expect

Self-fulfilling prophecies

- Stereotypes can also endure because they "benefit" from self-fulfilling prophecies - People act toward members of certain groups in ways that encourage the very behavior they expect.

Biased information processing

- Stereotypes guide attention, perception, and memory, and we pay attention to/remember things consistent with stereotypes and fail to notice/remember things that are inconsistent - In this way stereotypes are self-reinforcing and influence interpretations of events - Influence of stereotypes even greater when episode is presented to people secondhand and is therefore more open to being construed in different ways

Accuracy of stereotypes

- Stereotypes may be efficient, but may frequently be inaccurate - Whenever the direct evidence about a person or object is unclear or ambiguous, background knowledge in the form of a schema or stereotype can increase the accuracy of judgments only to the extent that the stereotype has some genuine basis in reality. - Biased information processing is especially pernicious when the stereotypes on which it's based are completely lacking in validity.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

- Stereotypes may give us expectations about certain groups that lead us to treat those groups in ways that encourage them to confirm our original expectation - For instance, expectations that certain types of students lack capabilities may lead teachers to avoid engaging with those students. - As a result, the disengaged students may not perform well and thus "confirm" the expectation that they lack ability

Relationship between stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination

- Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination refer to the belief, attitudinal, and behavioral components, respectively, of negative intergroup relationships. - Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination often go together but do not have to

Study on concrete vs. abstract construals

- Study took place during a horse race - Showed fans of two different teams a number of sketches depicting a member of their own team or of the rival team engaged in a desirable or undesirable action - Participants maintained positive views of their own group by describing negative actions at a low level of abstraction, and maintained their less favorable views of the other group by describing negative actions at a high level of abstraction.

Cognitive strategies to explain away exceptions to stereotypes

- Subtyping - Concrete vs. abstract construal

Stereotype

- The belief that certain attributes are characteristic of members of a particular group. - A stereotype can be positive or negative, true or false, and is a way of categorizing people

Evaluation of the economic perspective

- The economic perspective fits many familiar and historic examples of conflict between groups (ex: conflicts over racial and ethnic integration, anti-immigrant prejudice) - Suggest that prejudice can be reduced when groups think they need to work together to achieve a goal - May explain why racial integration may be more successful in the military than in other domains - Military success requires cooperative action, but success in work and educational domains often require more competition

Stereotype threat

- The fear of confirming the stereotypes others have about one's group. - Threat of confirming the stereotype may impair performance

Reasoning behind social identity theory

- The in-group favoritism observed in the minimal group situation can't be the product of cognition alone. - For that we need a motivational theory—a theory to explain why, once the us/them distinction is made, we are treated better than they. - The most widely recognized theory that attempts to explain the ubiquity of ingroup favoritism, even when the ingroups and outgroups do not differ in any significant way, is social identity theory

The Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

- The tendency for people to assume that within-group similarity is much stronger for outgroups than for ingroups. - Impaired ability to view out-group members as distinct individuals ("they're all the same")

Implications of the realistic group conflict theory

- The theory predicts that prejudice and discrimination should increase under conditions of economic difficulty, such as recessions and periods of high unemployment - The theory also predicts that prejudice and discrimination should be strongest among groups that stand to lose the most from another group's economic advance -Realistic group conflict theory also specifies some of the ways group conflict plays out.

Relationship between these three perspectives

- They're not competing accounts, but complementary elements of a more complete analysis, and the three elements influence one another - The distinctions are useful for the purpose of organizing and thinking clearly about the varied causes of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination

Job study on denigrating out-groups to boost self-esteem

- Threatened self-esteem of participants by saying they had performed poorly on an intelligence test - Participants watched a videotaped interview of a job applicant, making clear to some participants (none of whom was Jewish) that the candidate was Jewish - Participants whose self-esteem had been threatened rated the candidate negatively if they thought she was Jewish; participants whose self-esteem was not threatened did not

Attributional ambiguity

- To function effectively, people need to understand the causes of events happening around them. - This understanding threatened for members of stigmatized groups bc they can't always tell if their experiences have the same causes as those of everyone else, or whether they're the result of prejudice - Members of stigmatized groups may be uncertain if the treatment they receive is due to them personally or is a result of their group membership - Ex: wondering if you didn't get a job bc you're not qualified or or bc of your race, gender, handicap, etc.

Third stage/week of the Robber's Cave Experiment

- To reconcile them, the two groups were simply brought together in various noncompetitive settings, but hostility did not dissipate

Why the outgroup homogeneity effect occurs

- Typically have more contact with ingroup members than outgroup members, so we have more opportunity to encounter divergent opinions/habits among ingroup - The nature of the interactions we have with ingroup and outgroup members is likely to be different as well. - Because we share the same group membership, we don't treat ingroup members as fully representative - It's the person's idiosyncratic likes, dislikes, talents, and shortcomings that are front and center.

Study on illusory colrrelations

- Viewed slides describing positive or negative action initiated by a member of "group A" or "group B." - Group A is the majority group, and most actions attributed to each group were positive (no correlation between group membership and likelihood of positive or negative behavior) - Then saw behaviors they saw earlier, with no names/groups attached, indicated group membership of the person who had performed each one - Overestimated negative behavior performed by group B, rated majority members more favorably

Concrete vs. abstract construals

- We differentially process supportive and contradictory information by varying how concretely or abstractly we encode the actions of people from different groups - Different levels of abstraction carry different connotations, and the more concrete the description, the less it says about the person involved.

Study on attributional ambiguity

-African-American and white students received flattering or unflattering feedback from a white student - Some led to believe the white student could see them and some thought they couldn't be seen - Whether or not they could be seen had no effect on how white students reacted to feedback, but when black students thought the other person couldn't see them (and didn't know their race) their self-esteem went down from the unflattering feedback and was boosted by the positive feedback. - When they thought the other person could see them, their self-esteem was not injured by bad news or enhanced by good news (only believed the feedback if the person providing it didn't know their race)

Superordinate goals

A goal that transcends the interests of any one group and can be achieved more readily by two or more groups working together.

Implicit association test (IAT)

A technique for revealing non-conscious attitudes toward different stimuli, including particular groups.

Realistic group conflict theory

A theory that group conflict, prejudice, and discrimination are likely to arise over competition between groups for limited resources.

Motivational perspective

Argues that prejudice results from motivations to view one's in-group more favorably than out-groups

Overview of the cognitive perspective

Consistent with the cognitive perspective, stereotypes help us make sense of the world and process information efficiently, freeing us to use cognitive resources for other work. But they can also cause us to make many errors, such as seeing outgroup members as more homogeneous than they actually are. Our expectations of what a group of people is like can lead us to process information in ways that make stereotypes resistant to disconfirmation, as we explain away information that violates a stereotype and subtype those who don't fit the stereotype. Stereotypes can result from both automatic and controlled processing. Even people who don't express prejudicial views may reflexively respond to individuals on the basis of their unconscious stereotypes and prejudices.

Overview of the economic perspective

Consistent with the economic perspective, prejudice can arise from realistic conflict between groups over limited resources. The Robbers Cave experiment serves as an instructive model of this sort of conflict, showing how otherwise friendly boys could turn into enemies when placed in groups competing for limited resources. The hostility between the groups evaporated when they had to cooperate to achieve superordinate goals of value to both groups. This result has considerable implications for managing potentially trouble- some intergroup relationships worldwide.

Overview of the motivational perspective

Consistent with the motivational perspective on stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, people are inclined to favor ingroups over outgroups, even when the basis of group membership is trivial. Part of the reason is that people identify with their groups and feel good about themselves when they feel good about their groups. Threats to self-esteem also result in the denigration of outgroup members.

Overview of reducing stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination

Contact between members of different groups can go a long way toward reducing group stereotypes and intergroup hostility. Intergroup contact is especially beneficial when members of different groups interact as equals, work together to try to accomplish common goals, and come together on a one-on-one basis, as well as when these interactions are supported by broader societal norms.

Subtyping

Explaining away exceptions to a given stereotype by creating a subcategory of the stereotyped group that can be expected to differ from the group as a whole.

Overview of characterizing intergroup bias

In much of today's Western world, prejudice and discrimination are frowned upon. This trend has led to an explicit rejection of prejudiced attitudes that nonetheless is sometimes accompanied by subtle and often nonconscious discriminatory behavior. The schism between what people consciously maintain and how they sometimes feel or act has led to the development of various indirect measures of attitudes toward different groups. These include the implicit association test and priming procedures, which measure the degree to which different groups trigger positive or negative associations.

Basking in reflected glory

Taking pride in the accomplishments of other people in one's group, such as when sports fans identify with a winning team.

Social identity theory

The idea that a person's self-concept and self-esteem derive not only from personal identity and accomplishments but also from the status and accomplishments of the various groups to which the person belongs.

Paired distinctiveness

The pairing of two distinctive events that stand out even more because they occur together.

Priming

The presentation of information designed to activate a concept (such as a stereotype) and hence make it accessible. A prime is the stimulus presented to activate the concept in question.

Overview of being a member of a stigmatized group

Victims of stereotyping can suffer attributional ambiguity, not knowing whether performance feedback is genuine or based on their group membership. They can suffer from stereotype threat, performing worse because they are afraid of confirming a stereotype that exists about their group. Members of some minority groups feel compelled to try to cover up their minority status, an effort that can exact a physical and psychological toll.

Prejudice

- A negative attitude or affective response toward a certain group and its individual members. - Negative attitudes generally get the most attention, but it's also possible to be positively prejudiced toward a particular group. - Prejudice involves prejudging others because they belong to a specific category

The minimal group paradigm

An experimental paradigm in which researchers create groups based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria and then examine how the members of these "minimal groups" are inclined to behave toward one another.

Cognitive perspective

Argues that prejudice results from biases in social cognition due to schemas about differences between in-group and out-group members

Economic perspective

Argues that prejudice results from different social groups competing over scarce resources

Ethnocentrism

Glorifying one's own group while vilifying other groups.

Modern racism

Prejudice directed at other racial groups that exists alongside the rejection of explicitly racist beliefs.

Discrimination

Unfair treatment of individuals based on their membership in a particular group.