Prejudice and Stereotyping Exam 1 - Definitions + Experiments

Looting Vs. Finding Experiment

A black teenager was said to be "looting" a grocery store for food during a hurricane, while a two white residents were said to have "found" the food.

Sexism in a Commercial

A girl was shown to be a ballerina when she grows up and a guy was shown to be a mathematician when he grows up. (Sexism). Or the two books, with the girl shown as gorgeous and the guy shown as clever.

Race

A social construct, not a fixed biological category.

Children and Race

Experiment: When given examples of other children who liked a toy, either the an opposite race or sex and vice versa, children showed no bias towards race but bias towards their own gender. Also more likely to choose someone of their own age.

Prejudice

An attitude directed toward people because they are members of a specific social group. (Affect)

Discrimination

Treating people differently based on group membership. (Behavior)

Stereotypes

Associations and attributions of specific characteristics to a group.Typical picture that comes to mind when thinking of a group. (Cognitive schema)

A,B,C

• Affect: Prejudice

• Behavior: Discrimination

• Cognition: Stereotypes

Main Core Concepts from Day 1

• Prejudiced attitudes do not always lead to discrimination

• Stereotypes are not always consciously detected

• Discrimination can occur without intention

Types of Discrimination

Interpersonal: unfair treatment displayed towards indivisuals based on their social groups.

Institutional: through policies, pracitices, and systems which can result in unequal outcomes.

Cultural: Unfair or unequal treatment based on individuals cultural background.

Implicit Bias

The idea that people harbor mental associations based on race, gender, ect. that may lead to discrimination without intent or awareness.

Parafoveal Priming Expirament

Primed in a not consciously perceptible way, half of the participants were primed with the social category "black". Participants then read an ambiguous description of an encounter with a race-unspecified man, "Donald". They then made judgements about him, and the people who were primed with "black" rated the man as more hostile.

Explicit Bias

Attitudes, behaviors, or thoughts that people are aware of and control.

Antiracism

Working to acknowledge and address racism

• moving walkway analogy (you have to actively push back against racism)

Benevolent Sexism

A chivalrous attitude toward women that feels favorable but is actually sexist because it casts women as weak creatures in need of men's protection.

Hostile Sexism

The condemnation of women with negative instead of positive stereotypes and the use of threats and violence to enforce women's subservience to men

Privelege

Unearned favored state conferred simply because of one's identity

• privilege for one group usually entails loss for another

Formulating Hypotheses

Draw from theories and the world, make observations about these in a natural setting.

Theory

A broad way of organizing knowledge, where we propose links between different variables.

Hypothesis

Stated relationship between variable that can be tested and researched.

Theoretical Postulate

More specific than theory but not a hypothesis.

Operational Definitions

A definitions for variables of "important words" so that you hypothesis is replicable.

Reliability

Consistency: do you get the same results over time/ when you test multiple times?

Validity

Accuracy: making sure we are only measuring the 1 variable that we want to measure.

Self Reported Measures

Asking people directly about their opinions, attitudes, and behaviors.

Pros: efficient, easy to administer, broad, direct

Cons: east to conceal true beliefs

Ex. Bogardus's Social Distance Scale: how far would you want to be from this person?

Assessing Stereotypes: Checklists

Does this group have this attribute?

ex. are black people violent?

Assessing Stereotypes: Probability Ratings

How likely is this group to have this attribute?

ex. on a scale of 1-5 how likely are white people to be nice

Assessing Prejudice: Attitude questionnaires

Questions used to measure people's opinions, feelings, and beliefs about specific topics, such as a product, service, or work environment

Assessing Prejudice: Subtle measures

Bypass conscious awareness to reveal less obvious psychological processes, such as implicit biases, personality traits, or emotional states, by analyzing indirect indicators like reaction times, behavioral patterns, or physiological responses.

Unobtrusive Measures

Behavioral measures that appear to have nothing to do with prejudice and discrimination.

Physiological Measure

Changes in body response to a stimulus.

• Good because participants can't consciously conceal their biases

-Bad because hard to determine between emotions

Implicit Cognition Measures

Assess associations between concepts in our minds.

• If the strength of an association between a concept and anegative idea is stronger than the strength of a concept and apositive idea, this indicates prejudice

• Advantages: Low social desirability

• Disadvantages:

• Not very reliable over time

• Do not always predict behavior

• Do not indicate direction of bias (i.e., do prejudiced people really like one concept or really dislike the other)

IAT

a computer-based psychological test that measures the strength of automatic associations or implicit biases that people may hold toward social groups or other concepts. By requiring participants to rapidly categorize words or images into categories, it reveals unconscious associations by measuring reaction times, where faster sorting indicates a stronger implicit link between two concepts.

Shoot/don't shoot

Participants are asked to shoot people holding a gun, but the object and race of the person changes every time. Show racism if more likely to shoot black person.

Affect Misattribution Procedure

measures implicit attitudes by having participants evaluate an ambiguous target (like a Chinese character or abstract painting) after being briefly shown a "prime" (a person, object, or political candidate) they are instructed to ignore. The underlying premise is that the positive or negative feelings from the prime will "misattribute" to and influence the evaluation of the ambiguous target, revealing the participant's subconscious attitudes toward the prime.

Correlational Studies

Measure 2+ variables, look for relationships

• Correlation coefficient: -1 ≤ r ≤ 1

• Often surveys

• Probability samples

• Convenience samples

• Cannot determine causality

Logic of Experimentation

Experiments involve random assignment to two (or more) conditions (or levels). When experimental groups are randomly assigned, then they should be equivalent at baseline. Thus, differences in DVs can be attributed to IVs.

Random…. what?

Random assignment: causality

Random Selection: generalizability

Laboratory Experiments

Experiments conducted in a lab, a highly controlled environment; advantage of being easily controlled; disadvantage of being not generalizable because it's not natural enough

Field Experiments

Experiments conducted in natural settings rather than in the laboratory. Can't control all variables, but generalizable

Ethnographic Studies

Qualitative research studies in which the researcher observes a culture firsthand and then reports findings in a descriptive manner. Emphasizes depth and individual experiences over generalizability.

Content Analysis

Evaluations of existing products

Social Identity Theory

Part of the self-concept that derives from membership in groups important to a person.

• Leads to feelings of positivity towards the in-group

• Biases emerge even for minimal groups - groupsthat have no real social meaning

Why dopeople formthese in-groupbiases?

Categorization-competition hypothesis

• Sense of competition

• Outgroup homogeneity (everyone in outgropu is the same)

• "Us" vs. "them"

Self-esteem hypothesis

• When a group with which we identify does well, we feel good

• Low self-esteem → more bias

Minimal Group Paradim

Min. difference that causes ingroup biases aganist another person/group.

Social Identity Factors

• Self-categorization

• Self-stereotyping

• Optimal distinctiveness

• Threat

• Essentialism

Relative Deprivation Theory

Prejudice results from resentment when another group is believed to have more resources that one's own group.

Procedural Justice

You get what you deserve

Realistic Conflict Theory

People are motivated to maximize the resources theyreceive in life. Outgroups are seen as competing with theingroup for resources. Zero-sum competition.

• Robbers Cave Study: boys were randomly assigned to groups at a camp, and then they were put to compete against each other, ended in the looting of other's dorms. But when groups were put back together to work to "superordinate" goals they got along again.

Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)

People who are really focused and like social power structures.

Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)

A personality style marked by submission to authority, strict adherence to social conventions, and hostility toward those who defy established norms.

When groups are equal…

there is a hostility to become better than outgroup

When groups are unequal:

• Dominant group sees other group as inferior; derogates outgroup

• Subordinated group can:• Submit to avoid conflict → stable oppression

• Reject lower status → unstable oppression

• Dominant group's response to challenge dependson perceived legitimacy of the challenge

Intergroup Threat Theory

Prejudice derives from: perceptions of realistic threats and perceptions of symbolic threats.