Stereotypes & Prejudice

ABC Model

stereotype = thought, prejudice = feeling, discriminating = action

blaming the victim (Carli 1989, 1999)

people blame the victims for bad outcomes (“she got robbed because she wasn’t careful”)

blantant/Old-Fashioned racism

openly racist beliefs or actions (saying one race is inferior)

benevolent sexism & other isms

positive-sounding stereotypes that still limit a group (“women need protection”)

cognitive explanations of stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination

bias comes from how the brain organizes information (using shortcuts → assuming everyone in a group is alike)

contact hypothesis

positive contact between groups reduces prejudice (diverse schools promoting interaction)

denigration

speaking negatively about an outgroup (calling another group “lazy”)

dissociation model of prejudice

you can have unconscious beliefs even if you reject them consciously

hallway aggressor picture study

people judged black men as more aggressive holding the same objects (racial stereotypes bias perception of threat)

hostile racism & other isms

openly angry or hostile toward a group (open hatred of immigrants)

ingroup favoritism

preferring your own group (liking people from your school more)

jigsaw classroom

a teaching method where students must work together, reducing prejudice (each student holds a “piece” of the lesson

just world hypothesis

believing people get what they deserve (thinking victims must have done something wrong)

masculinity norms study

men act aggressive to “prove” their masculinity (men choosing toughness when masculinity feels threatened)

minimal group paradigm

arbitrary (meaningless) group assignment is enough to cause in-group bias (team blue vs team red lead to bias even if teams are random)

modern racism

subtle, indirect racism that looks “polite” (supporting policies that disadvantage minorities while denying prejudice)

outgroup homogeneity

believing other groups are the same (thinking all members of another ethnicity look alike)

outgroup bias

judging the other group more harshly (teachers disciplining outgrip children more)

problems with positive stereotypes

positive stereotypes mask prejudice and create expectations (“asians are good at math” → creates anxiety and erases individuality

racial positioning model

different racial groups face different types of bias based on societal rankings (asians seen as competent but foreign; blacks seen as low-status)

realistic group conflict theory

intergroup conflict arises when competing for resources (competing for jobs increases hostility)

robber’s cave study

boys split into groups become hostile; cooperation reduced conflict (rattlers vs eagles competing → then bonding over shared goals)

scapegoat

blaming an innocent group for your own problems (blaming minorities for economic issues)

self-fulfilling prophecy (Word, Zanna, Cooper 1974)

expectations cause people to behave in ways that confirm those expectations (interviewers treating black applicants poorly → applicants perform worse)

social identity theory

we got our identity from our groups (feeling proud of your school’s victories)

social dominance orientation (SDO)

liking when some groups dominate others (supporting policies that keep certain groups “in their place”)

superordinate goals

goals that can only be achieved through intergroup collaboration

subtyping

creating a subgroup to protect your stereotype (“she’s not like other women” when an woman contradicts the stereotype)

stereotype threat

the fear of confirming a negative stereotype harms your performance (women doing worse on math tests when reminded of gender stereotypes)

shooter bias (Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink 2002)

people are quicker to “shoot” black targets in simulations (mistaking harmless objects for weapons more often for black individuals)

ultimate attribution error

we explain outgroup failures as personal flaws but in-group failures as situational (they messed up because they’re lazy, we messed up because it was hard)