Prejudice

prejudice

• A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group based solely on their membership in that group

example bases of prejudice

nationality, age, racial & ethnic identity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, appearance, disability, weight

three components of prejudice

cognitive, affective, behavioural

cognitive

Stereotype: a generalisation about a group where traits are assigned to all members, regardless of variation among the members

affective

Emotion: a complex, subjective experience that involves physiological, cognitive and behavioural components

behavioural

Discrimination: A negative action toward a member of a group solely because of their membership in that group

The law of least effort (Alport, 1954)

• We have limited capacity to process information

• Stereotyping allows us to act as 'cognitive misers' - to adopt certain rules of thumb to understand other people. may not be correct information but less effort

moon et al - religion stereotypes

• Looking at stereotypes of atheists and religious people.  People unconsciously stereotyped atheists as less trustworthy

• People stereotype atheists as more likely to be serial killers

Affective component: emotions

• Negative emotions about groups are often ingrained

• This makes these attitudes difficult to dispel

definition of discrimination

"An unjustified or harmful action toward the members of a group simply because of their membership in that group"

Insitutionalised discrimination

Discrimination within an organisation, society or institution

discrimination in hiring

• overweight individuals are hired and promoted less often

• Women and minorities often face discrimination

discrimination in polcing

• In the US, African Americans are disproportionately arrested, convicted and incarcerated

• More likely to be assumed to be dangerous by police

"Shooting" people in a video game (Correl et al., 2002) - procedure

Participants played a video game in which they were supposed to 'shoot' a man if he was holding a gun and withhold fire if he was holding a harmless object

"Shooting" people in a video game (Correl et al., 2002) - results

If they were white and unarmed the number of errors was a little over 10%. If they were black and armed participants made fewer errors so they were more prepared to shoot the black target. If they were black and unarmed they made more errors, more falsely shooting.

Social Identity Theory

• Part of our identity stems from our membership in groups

• we create groups based almost anything.

• We are sensitive to group membership - even for groups that are arbitrary and meaningless

in-group bias

Tendency to favour members of our group and give them special preference over people who belong to other groups

Tajfel, 1982 procedure

Strangers are formed into groups using the most trivial criteria. Ppt were told they were part of the Klee group or Kandinsky group.

Tajfel, 1982 result

Even when they know these groups are trivial they favour members from these groups

ethnocentrism

The belief that your own culture, nation or religion is superior to all others

realistic conflict theory

• Limited resources leads to conflict among groups

• This leads to prejudice and discrimination

when do people consider prejudice acceptable?

• Norms vary across cultures and time about which prejudices are acceptible

Crandall et al., 2002 procedure

Acceptability of different prejudices in university students in Kansas,

Crandall et al., 2002 result

• They think its very okay to feel prejudice towards rapists and child molesters

lay definition of prejudice

negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group… that isnt justified or unfair'

prejudice is typically

socially acceptable

Modern racism (Mconahay, 1986)

people hold prejudiced attitudes, but avoid experissing them directly because prejudice violates norms. Instead people express prejudice in subtle ways

Justification-supression model (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003)

people often hold prejudices, but they supress them to maintain a non-prejudiced self-image.

Justification-supression model (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003) but when people find justification

these justifications give them a good excuse to express prejudice

are justifications effective?

It seems like people who justify prejudice are viewed somewhat more positively than those who don’t

Justifications are even effective when

 the justifications were not directly relevant to the disliked group

Self-fulfilling prophecy

• Experimental evidence (Word et al., 1974)

study 1: method

white students interveiwed white and african american job candidates

Self-fulfilling prophecy

• Experimental evidence (Word et al., 1974)

study 1: results

white students displayed discomfort and lack of interest when interveiwing African American candidates, but not white candidates

Self-fulfilling prophecy

• Experimental evidence (Word et al., 1974)

study 2: method

only white people were interveiwed, the interveiwers were actors who were asked to act as the white students did in the first experiment

Self-fulfilling prophecy

• Experimental evidence (Word et al., 1974)

study 2: result

all white interviewees rated as more nervous and less effective

These stereotypes can negatively affect members of that group

• Feeling evaluated negatively because of negative stereotypes

• Feeling pressure to represent one's entire social group

Steele and Aronson (1955)

method

administered a difficult test to black and white students

• Steele and Aronson (1955)

conditions

• Student were either told the test was (a) diagnostic of verbal ability, (b) simply a laboratory problem-solving task that was not diagnostic of ability or ( c) they were asked to view the test as a challenge

• Steele and Aronson (1955)

results

black and white students performed equally well. Except when the test was described as diagnostic of ability

why do we develop prejudices brain

• We are social creature: many threates in our life might come from other individuals

  • Physical threat

  • Disease threat

  • Unfair social exchange

Threat detection: the smoke detector principle (Nesse, 2001)

• We over-perceive threat

• We cant directly perceive whether others pose a threat

• We rely on cues that someone is an outgroup member

• We make mistakes

Some prejudices are rooted in..

fear, others are rooted in disgust or anger

In attempting to detect threats, we often make

very specific inferences about the threats other people might pose

Cottrell and Neuberg (2003)

examined the emotions and perceived threats associated with different groups

how to reduce prejudice?

contact hypothesis

contact hypothesis

• Mere contact between groups is not sufficient to reduce prejudice

  • Can create opportunities for conflict that may increase it

  • Prejudice will decrease when 2 conditions are met:

    • Both groups are of equal status

    • Both groups share a common goal