Lecture 13 Stereotypes and Prejudice

Implicit Prejudice (implicit bias)

Negative attitudes toward a group of people below the level of conscious awareness, which operates in an automatic way.

The activation of stereotypes and prejudice can be automatic process

• And can be triggered even if we don’t want them to be.

3 components of intergroup bias

1. Cognitive: Stereotypes, A belief that a particular attribute is characteristic of the group as a whole, regardless of actual variation among the group members.

2. Affective: Prejudice, A negative attitude toward members of a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership in the group.

3. Behavioral: Discrimination, Unfair treatment of a group or a member of a group, based on their group membership

Intergroup bias: cognitive/stereotypes

These are cognitively efficient (heuristics-system 1 dual process theory)

Natural categorization : Adaptive to notice “us” vs. “them”

• Outgroup homogeneity effect: The tendency to view outgroup members as more similar to each other than they really are.

  • Own-race bias: Difficulty distinguishing faces of other races.

Different forms of racism/sexism (consequences of intergroup bias)

Modern Racism: Prejudice directed at racial groups that exists alongside the rejection of explicitly racist beliefs.

• Its more subtle

  • E.g., would never join the KKK but might be more cautious around a black individual

Benevolent Sexism: Chivalrous ideology

• Ex: Affection/ protectiveness towards women who embrace conventional roles (housewife, mother etc.,)

Hostile Sexism: Dislike of a group

• Ex: Dislike of nontraditional women

Economic Perspective

Identifies the roots of intergroup hostility in competing interests that can set groups apart from one another. COMPETITION FOR MATERIAL SOURCES = PREJUDICE

What happens when you have limited resources? Tension!

• Ex: Mexico and U.S. “They’re taking our jobs”

Realistic Group Conflict Theory: Group conflict, prejudice, and discrimination are likely to arise over competition between groups for limited resources.

• Ethnocentrism: Glorifying one’s own group while vilifying other groups.

  • People in the outgroup - More likely to be stereotyped

  • Loyalty to ingroup increases

Motivational Perspective

prejudice arises from basic psychological needs, especially the need to maintain a positive self-image and group identity.

❖ Self-Image Concerns – Fein & Spencer (1997)

• Study Summary: Participants were given negative feedback about their own abilities (damaging their self-esteem). Then, they were asked to evaluate a job candidate—either Jewish or non-Jewish.

• Findings: Those who had their self-esteem threatened were more likely to negatively evaluate the Jewish candidate. Importantly, doing so restored their self-esteem.

• Conclusion: This study shows that derogating an outgroup can be a way to repair or maintain a positive self-image—highlighting a motivational basis for prejudice.

Motivational Perspective: Minimal Group Paradigm

• Developed by Henri Tajfel, this paradigm demonstrates that people show ingroup favoritism even when group distinctions are meaningless or arbitrary.

• Participants are randomly assigned to groups based on trivial criteria (e.g., flipping a coin, preference for paintings).

• Despite the lack of real conflict or history, participants still favor their own group when allocating resources, points, or rewards.

• Implication: People have a motivational drive to belong to a group and see their group positively, leading to prejudice even when group divisions are meaningless.

Motivational Perspective: Social Identity Theory

Ingroup favoritism isn’t just about “us vs. them” thinking — it’s driven by psychological needs.

❖ Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979)

• Our self-esteem comes from both:

  • Personal identity

  • Social identity (group memberships)

• We are motivated to:

  • Boost our group’s status

  • Favor the ingroup to feel better about ourselves

❖ Why We Favor the Ingroup

• Helping the ingroup = helping ourselves

• Positive group image enhances our self-worth

• Prejudice can result when we try to elevate our group above others

Basking in Reflected glory: shows how how people seek positive group associations to feel better about themselves.

Cognitive Perspective: minimal groups

• show that even meaningless groupings trigger ingroup bias.

• This supports the cognitive perspective: our brains automatically categorize to simplify the world.

• These categories activate stereotypes and biases, especially when we rely on mental shortcuts like the representativeness heuristic.

• Shows that stereotyping can be automatic, even without real conflict or meaning.

Cognitive Perspective: Outgroup homogeneity effect

minimal groups→outgroup homogeneity effect

• The tendency to see members of other groups as more similar to each other than members of your own group.

ex: Princeton vs Rutgers

• Students from Princeton and Rutgers estimated how likely a student from either school would make a certain choice.

• They saw more variability in their own school’s students and viewed the other school’s students as more alike.

• Shows how group division alone leads to perceiving the outgroup as uniform.

Cognitive Perspective: Paired Distinctiveness

When do people generalize behaviors and traits?

• When two distinctive events occur together (e.g., a minority group member and a negative behavior), people notice and remember them more.

• This leads to overgeneralizing the behavior as typical of the group, even if it's rare.

Subtyping

• When someone doesn’t fit a stereotype, instead of changing the stereotype, people often create a subgroup (a subtype) to explain the exception.

• Example: “She’s not like most of them—she’s different.”

Consequences of Stereotypes

Attributional Ambiguity

• Members of stigmatized groups can’t tell if feedback is genuine or due to prejudice.

• This uncertainty makes it hard to interpret outcomes.

• Crocker & Major (1989): Found that attributing negative feedback to discrimination can help protect self-esteem.

• ex: Imagine a Black student receives a poor grade on a paper. They might think:

  • “Was the grade based on my writing?”

  • “Or was the professor biased against me because of my race?”

Stereotype Threat

• Fear of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group.

• Can lead to reduced performance, even among highly capable individuals.

• Study: Spencer & Steele (1995) – Women underperformed on math tests when gender differences were emphasized.

Reducing prejudice:

a. Contact Hypothesis

• Positive contact between groups can reduce prejudice, but only under certain conditions:

  • Equal status: Both groups must perceive each other as equals.

  • Friendship potential: Personal interactions help build empathy.

  • Cooperation: Working together fosters positive feelings.

    • Superordinate goals: Goals that can only be achieved if both groups cooperate.

  • Supportive social norms: Environments that encourage inclusion (e.g., diverse housing policies).

i. Sherif’s Robbers Cave Study (1961)

• Study setup: 22 boys randomly assigned to two groups at a summer camp.

• Groups developed strong in-group identities and became hostile competitors.

• Simple contact (e.g., eating together) didn’t reduce conflict.

• Only when the groups had to cooperate on superordinate goals (e.g., fixing a broken water truck) did tensions ease.

• Key finding: Prejudice is best reduced through shared challenges and collaboration, not mere interaction.