Social Psych Ch. 10 "Prejudice"

Implicit Association Test

(IAT) - researchers use this test to measure people's implicit prejudices about race, gender, political preferences, drug and alcohol use, and more topices. This test is known to effectively predict people's behaviors and attitudes, and is a better measure than self-reports for sensitive topics such as race.

Reduce prejudice though positive contact

1. Equal status between groups 2. Pursuit of common goals 3. Perception of a common humanity (so people get to know each other as people) 4. Institutional support (such as laws, customs, or an environment that supports the contact)

What can we do about prejudice?

1. reduce it through empathy 2. reduce it through positive contact

inclusive fitness model

A model for social behaviors that promote evolutionary success; importantly, evolutionary success is predicted not just by an individual's offspring but also by its relatives or others that may share its genes (such as siblings and cousins).

implicit prejudice

A negative attitude toward a group of people that someone holds with little or no conscious awareness.

prejudice - emotional component

A negative attitude toward a group of people which involves cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components.

meta-analysis

A study that statistically analyzes the results of many similar experiments in order to identify patterns, disagreements, or other insights.

Four types of discrimination

According to Terror Management Theory: 1. Derogation 2. Assimilation 3. Accommodation 4. Annihilation

social categories

Categories, usually of people, based on social information.

self-report methods

Data collection that involves the participant answering questions about his or her thoughts and behaviors.

Jigsaw Method

Elliot Aronson(2012) and colleagues developed this method of teaching to alleviate racial tensions and competitiveness in a school district. Students are divided into groups and have to collaborate with others.

Henri Tajfel

Experimenter given credit for the popularity of the terms in-group and out-group in a study he and his colleagues did on social categorization.

out-groups

Individuals outside our group those with whom we do not identify and whom we see as different.

in-groups

Individuals similar to us, those with whom we identify; people in our group.

Seminal study: Steele and Aronson (1995)

Introduced the conept of steroetype threat. They hypothesized that whenever black students perform an intellectual task, they confront the threat of being judged by the negative sterotype about their group's intellectual abilities.

heuristics

Methods that help you solve problems or make judgments faster than if you went through all the steps that would otherwise be involved; rules of thumb.

nonsignificant results

Results that do no reach statisticla significance; any trend or pattern that appears in the data is likely due to chance, not to actual relationships or true differences.

Robbers Cave Study

Study done by Muzafer Sherif and colleagues: Summer camp with 22 5th grade boys, the "Eagles" and the "Rattlers". They had prejudices form until they had to work together in noncompetitive situations.

illusory correlation

The assumption that a relationship exists between two variables, even though there is no statistical evidence to support that relationship.

discrimination - behavioral component

The behavioral component of prejudice, the biased treatment of a group.

Assimilation

The belief that if an individual's worldview is different than ours, we must help him or her change his or her worldview to ours.

Annihilation

The belief that one's worldview will and should prevail.

Derogation

The belief that we should dismiss others' worldviews that are different from ours.

demand characteristics

The experimenter's expectations about participants' performance in an experiment influence their actual performance; participants may or may not be aware that they are inferring these expectations.

stereotypes - cognitive component

The generalizations that people make about others based on incorrect or incomplete information: the cognitive component of prejudice. These can be about people's characteristics, motives, or behavior.

ultimate attribution error

The tendency to give in-group, but not out-group, members the benefit of the doubt when they do something negative.

out-group homogeneity bias

The tendency to see members of out-groups as very similar to one another.

Terror Management Theory

The theory that believes in order for human to manage anxiety about their own mortality they create culture and worldviews and cling to these beliefs when their survival is threatened.

cognitive component of prejudice

This involves a set of beliefs about a person or group of people, generalizations that are based on incomplete or inaccurate information.

behavioral component of prejudice

This is a predisposition to act in negative ways toward a group.

emotional component of prejudice

This is often expressed as dislike of a group, or feeling hostility toward it.

stereotype threat

When a person is at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about his or her group; the person may or may not feel the "threat", but their performance reflects the threat because it is lower than it would otherwise be.

Accommodation

When an individual only accepts appealing aspects of the out-groups worldview and only if it benefits them.