Chapter 5: Prejudice and Discrimination

prejudice

an *attitude*, usually negative, toward the members of some group based solely on their membership in that group.

-Negative emotional responses [or *affect*] based on group membership.

Contemptuous prejudice

relatively low social status and perceived to be in competition with mainstream.

example: the poor, gays, immigrants, welfare recipients

Envious Prejudice

High status group has competitive relationship with mainstream.

example: The rich, Jews, Asians, black Professionals, President Obama

Paternalistic

Low status group that is cooperative or non competitive with mainstream.

example: the elderly, the disabled, women, adolescents

Discrimination

refers to *behaviors* that are based on prejudices.

-Differential (usually negative) behaviors directed towards members of a different social group.

Stereotype

A *cognition* or belief that all members of a group share certain traits or characteristics including behaviors.

-Each specific prejudice is made up of one or more such stereotype.

Illusory Correlations

Belief that two things are related when they are not. A pattern that does not really exist.

-They can support stereotyped thinking

Formed when:

-Perceiver already assumes the relationship exists

-Selective attention and recall, Priming

ABC Model of Attitudes

-A (Affect): Prejudice

-B (Behavior): Discrimination

-C (Cognition): Stereotype

Racism

Belief that observable differences among races are genetic. (The Nature-Nurture issue)

-the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

-Prejudice/discrimination based on racial background (more general/typical)

-"Old fashioned," overt racism has declined in American society.

-Afrocentric appearance evokes implicit racial stereotypes in many societies.

Aversive Racism

-form of ambivalent prejudice; contradictory

→ egalitarian beliefs + internalized negative stereotypes about racial minorities

→ the negative component may be outside conscious awareness

→ the possibility of holding negative attitudes threatens self-concept as a fair-minded person

-can result in response amplification: exaggerated positive and negative responses to minority group members.

sexism

belief that observable differences between sexes are genetic. (Nature-Nurture again)

examples: Ageism, speciesism any other isms, Ethnocentricism, antisemitism, anthropomorphism

Bigotry and Politics

-Republicans frequently use (exploit) racism, sexism and ethnocentricism to get their people out to the polls. (dog whistles?)

-Democrats frequently call out their rivals for these transgressions to get their people out to the polls.

Demagogue

A person, usually an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.

-[Not by reason or facts, setting a good example, providing inspiration or real solutions to real problems]. Emotion laden, peripheral route to persuasion.

Obvious forms of discrimination

-(mild) simple avoidance

-(stronger) exclusion from jobs, educational opportunities, clubs, neighborhoods

-(extreme) overt physical aggression

Subtle forms of discrimination

-Tokenism. small benefit/large cost

-Reverse Discrimination

-Implicit racism also known as

"Modern racism"

In America, racism HAD gone underground (become unconscious).

-The "Glass Ceiling" and "Glass Cliff"

reverse discrimination

discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group.

A Brief history of Race

Originally Europeans felt they were superior to the "primitive" peoples of the world → Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond 1997

Carolus Linnaeus in 1758 cataloged the 4 human races

1. Africans

2. Asians

3. Europeans

4. Americans

In 1775 Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Changed the geometry by adding Malaysians

1. Americans

2. Africans

3. Caucasians

4. Asians

5. Malaysians

This New geometry led to a hierarchy

-The more advanced races were seen as genetically superior. *NATURE*

-The people who came up with the scheme (Caucasians) put themselves at the top, but not without evidence.

-Jared Diamond argues that all of the supposed "evidence" was due to *third variables*.

A few of Diamond's third variables

1. Availability of metals like *iron*

2. Availability of *large animals* to be domesticated Sheep, cows, horses, oxen, some for food, some for work and transportation.

3. Availability of suitable wild plants for cultivation especially *grains*.

4. *Immunity to diseases* that came from their animals, diseases that would kill other people.

-The parts of the world that had all of these developed first.

-Not because of intellectual superiority.

Anthropologists like Franz Boas and Margaret Mead early 20th cen.

Began to carefully study other cultures and concluded that most observable differences among races were caused by the environment, culture, learning, NURTURE and not genetics.

-books by Mead: coming of age in Samoa

Today

-Most experts agree that observable differences in performance and ability are largely due to Environment and not Genetics.

-Some Biologists even question the validity of the concept of race all together. It was an *artifact of traveling* by ship (and today by plane).

-But others still cling to genetics and racism. The Bell Curve, 1994 Trump and many of his advisors (e.g. Stephen Miller) believe in their own superior genes and fail to notice all of the advantages they have been given.

II. What causes Prejudice?

1. Direct intergroup competition

2.Social Learning like other attitudes

3. Social Categorization (us vs. them)

4. Threats to self-esteem

5. Authoritarian Personality Type

Direct intergroup conflict

-Direct competition for scarce resources -*Realistic Conflict Theory*, (Bobo, 1983) p.199. As competition escalates, groups will have increasingly negative views of each other.

Competition leads to Prejudice

-Hovland & Sears, tested this in 1940. Lynchings and the price of cotton in the U.S. south.

- lots of contemporary evidence that economics affect level of hate crimes against gays, Jews, Asians etc.

- Robbers Cave Study (Sherif et al., 1961)

Robber's Cave Study

-Phase 1: creating ingroups

-Phase2: instilling intergroup competition

-Phase 3: encouraging intergroup cooperation with *superordinate goals*

Social Learning of prejudice

-Like any attitudes, prejudices have been learned.

1) Child hears views of parents, friends, teachers etc.

2) Mass media project images like the helpless female doing nothing, or doing the wrong thing and then falling as she runs away.

Social Categorization "Us" vs. "Them"

-Also Ingroup vs. Outgroup

-Favorability differs

-Variability differs → They are all alike (outgroup homogeneity)

→ We are all different (ingroup heterogeneity)

-The Ultimate Attributional Error

-Illusory Correlation (based on selective attention)

-Probably has genetic component: the tendency to favor people who are similar to us might advance our genes.

Illusion of out-group homogeneity

-If out-group is seen as all the same, we can treat them as a group rather than as individuals. We feel we know and understand them without taking the same time we would to know someone in our own group. (In-group heterogeneity)

-"They all look alike" or do they?

Threats to Self-Esteem

Holding prejudicial views of an out-group allows in-group members to bolster their own group's image, particularly when it has been threatened. (Prejudice can make you feel superior to others.)

Authoritarianism as the source of Prejudice

Authoritarian personalities are:

-Submissive to authority figures

-Intolerant of those weak or different

-Prone to contemptuous prejudice

-Rigid in their moral codes

-More likely to act on hostile feelings

Transmitted by social learning.

-A personality type characterized by submissiveness to authority, rigid adherence to conventional values and prejudice to outgroups.

-Caused by harsh child-rearing practices?

-Or caused by social learning from parents?

-Or Dual-Process. Two tracks that lead to prejudiced personalities.

A Dual-Process Model of Personality- Influenced Prejudice

Step 1: socialization influence: strict and punitive parenting

Step 2: Personality trait: social conformity

Step 3: social-world belief: dangerous worldview

Step 4: social attitude: authoritarian personality

Step 5: resulting prejudice: prejudice toward threatening outgroups (primarily envious prejudice and contemptuous prejudice).

Step 1: socialization influence: cold and unaffectionate

Step 2: personality trait: tough mindedness

Step 3: social-world belief: competitive worldview

Step 4: social attitude: social dominance orientation

Step 5: prejudice toward low-status outgroups (primarily paternalistic prejudice and contemptuous prejudice).

Other thoughts on Prejudice

1. *Implicit prejudice* (Modern Racism)

2. *Bogus Pipeline studies* Sigall & Page, 1971

3. *The Bona Fide Pipeline study*

Modern Racism from the book

-"More subtle than blatant feelings of superiority. It consists primarily of thinking minorities are seeking and receiving more benefits than they deserve and a *denial* [that discrimination affects their outcomes.]"

-{denial that prejudice affects their own thinking.}

Unconscious

The "Bogus Pipeline" 1971

-in this procedure, individuals are told that the equipment shown can, by measuring physiological reactions, reveal their true attitudes. if the persons whose attitudes are being measured believe this description, they have no reason to try to conceal their true views.

-Participants were far more likely to admit that they held negative, possibly racist, views when they were hooked up to this alleged mind reading machine.

-The machine did not really read minds, hence "bogus".

BONA FIDE PIPELINE technique to study implicit stereotypes (1996, 2001) p.205

-STEP 1 Rate adjectives as good or bad by button push

-STEP 2 View photos of people of various ethnic/racial groups

-STEP 3 View photos again, indicate if previously seen.

-STEP 4 Rate each adjectives again after brief *Priming* with photo.

-DV is response latency while rating. Push button faster if valence of word is congruent with valence of photo.

Brain scan of Implicit Prejudice

-White participants with high implicit, but low explicit prejudice scores.

-Shown photos of familiar and unfamiliar

Black and white faces

-Show activation in arousal, emotion and threat centers for the black faces.

Can we reduce Prejudice?

-Breaking the cycle. → Parents and Children

-Direct intergroup contact.

-Recategorization → Muslims or extremists; An individual will change the way they view the out-group through a social categorization process called recategorization where former out-group members become incorporated into individual's representations of the in-group.

-Cognitive interventions

→ Collective Guilt

→ Just saying no to stereotypes with attributional training (external attributions)

-Social Influence

→ What others think about "them" affects what we think about "them".