stereotypes

Prejudice (affective):

an attitude structure (positive
or negative), but more specifically the emotional component

Discrimination (behavioral):

differential treatment due to group membership

Stereotyping (cognitive):

generalization that is seen as descriptive of all members of that group

Blatant / Overt/ Old-Fashioned racism

• Beliefs about minorities that are clearly bigoted and
  readily admitted
  - Open expression of bigoted views is now rare in the
  United States

Modern (symbolic) racism:

○ Prejudice directed at other racial groups that exists
alongside rejection of explicitly racist beliefs
○ E.g., Opposing racial segregation and discrimination
but resenting African Americans’ complaints about
discrimination and mistreatment

Benevolent Prejudice

Race and gender stereotypes often contain a mix of both positive
and negative sentiments

Hostile prejudice/sexism/racism

■ Feminists make unreasonable demands
■ Women cause problems when they complain about
discrimination
■ Women don’t have more obstacles to overcome than
men to be professionally successful

Benevolent prejudice/sexism/racism

■ Women are morally superior
■ Men have an obligation to provide financially toward
women
■ Women have a special purity compared to men

These ambivalent sexist attitudes are resistant to change

■ Allows holder to deny prejudice
■ People to who hold benevolent sexist beliefs
tend to act positively to only those who fulfill the idealized image

Economic perspective

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

Cognitive perspective

○ Argues that stereotypes result from biases in social cognition due to schemas
about differences between ingroup and outgroup members
○ These stereotypes may be the foundation for prejudice and subsequently
discrimination

Motivational perspective

Argues that prejudice and negative stereotypes results from motivations to view
one’s ingroup more favorably than outgroups

Realistic group conflict theory

○ Competition for limited resources will increase conflict among groups,
resulting in prejudice and discrimination.
○ Resources may be physical, economic, or conceptual
○ For example, competition over territory, jobs, religious identity, and so on..

These beliefs are stereotypes

beliefs that certain attributes are characteristic of members of particular groups (i.e., a group schema)

Stereotyping involves thinking about a person not as an individual

but as a member of a group, and bringing to bear what (you think) you know about the
group onto your expectations about the individual.

Stereotypes as mental shortcuts

○ Stereotyping can sometimes be useful because it
can decrease the time and effort needed to deal with our social environment.
○ Stereotypes help us process social information efficiently
○ Less effort is required when you know what to expect

Evidence that Stereotypes may be a heuristic process

○ More likely to use stereotypes when we are mentally drained
○ Stereotypes can conserve mental energy
○ Use of stereotypes can free up mental energy that can then be applied to other
things
○ Study found that participants who used a stereotype to remember information
about a person then performed better on a cognitive task

Four types of biased construals

● Outgroup homogeneity effect
● Biased information processing
● Self-fulfilling prophecy
● Illusory Correlation

Outgroup homogeneity effect

○ Members of outgroup viewed as similar
○ “They’re all the same.”
○ People tend to have an more impaired ability
to view outgroup members as distinct
individuals

Biased information processing

○ Stereotypes guide attention, perception, and memory
○ We may pay attention to and remember
things that are consistent with our
stereotypes and fail to notice or remember
things that are inconsistent

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Stereotypes may give us expectations about
certain groups that lead to us to treat those
groups in ways that encourage them to confirm our original expectation

Paired Distinctiveness:

False beliefs about groups may
be maintained because we more easily remember the pairing of two distinct events

Automatic processing

Automatic, involuntary, and unconscious
■ Often based on simple, learned, associations (e.g., what first
comes to mind, what is your mental prototype, etc.)

Controlled processing

■ Conscious, systematic, and deliberate
■ Controlled processing can override automatic responses
■ Based on declarative rules

Implicit attitudes

the automatic associations between a
target concept and positive concepts in one’s mind

Attitude

positive/negative evaluation of target

Implicit

not consciously known/controlled

Shooter bias

Implication of Implicit Bias on Behavior

Minimal Groups Paradigm:

creating groups based
on meaningless criteria and then examining how the members behave towards one another

Social identity theory

Theory that a person’s self-concept and self-esteem come from the status and
accomplishments of the various groups to which the person belongs

Basking in reflected glory

○ Tendency to take pride in the accomplishment of those we feel
associated with in some way
○ Example: local sports teams, success of friends or family

Derogating outgroups to boost self-esteem

Self-esteem can be increased by negative evaluation of outgroups

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

Aggressive acts are caused by feelings of frustration

Causes of Frustration

○ Amount of satisfaction a person anticipates before a goal is blocked.
○ Prevention from achieving a goal.
○ Being blocked from achieving the goal.

Frustrations coming from unrelated sources may be displaced onto low-power individuals
or social groups

○ Frustrations at poor economic conditions may increase hostility toward immigrant
and minority groups
○ Between 1882 and 1930 found that lynchings increased when cotton prices were low
(and thus Southern farmers had less income)

Attributional ambiguity

○ Members of stigmatized groups may be uncertain if the treatment they receive is due to them personally
or is a result their group membership
○ For instance, wondering if you didn’t get a job because you weren’t qualified or whether it was because of your race, gender, handicap, or similar attribute

Example Of Attributional Ambiguity: white students

White students’ self-esteem went up when flattered and down when
receiving negative feedback regardless of whether the person giving the
feedback knew what they looked like

Example Of Attributional Ambiguity: black students

Black students were only affected by feedback if the person didn’t know
what they looked like: they only believed the feedback if the person providing it didn’t know their race

Superordinate Goals reduced conflict

a goal that a team of teams all share; a
common objective amongst different groups