Lecture 11 - Prejudice

Prejudice

A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership in that group, without reasoned basis

Stereotypes (Cognitive Component)

Generalisations about a group, where traits are assigned to all members regardless of variation among individuals

Emotion (Affective Component)

A complex, subjective experience involving physiological, cognitive and behavioural components, often ingrained and difficult to dispel

Discrimination (Behavioural Component)

Negative behaviour toward a member of a group, solely because of their group membership

Allport (1954) - Law of Least Effort

Proposed that because we have limited capacity to process information, stereotypes (though negative) are helpful as they provide a quick, easy framework for understanding individuals

Correll et al. (2002)

Pps played a video game where they shot armed targets and withheld fire on unarmed ones; unarmed Black targets were more likely to be shot in error (false positives) and armed Black targets were less likely to be missed (false negatives), indicating a stereotype of Black individuals as more violent/armed

Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979)

Suggests people derive part of their self-esteem and identity from the social groups they belong to, via social categorisation (sorting into ingroup/outgroup), social identification (adopting the group's values/behaviours), and social comparison (favouring one's own group to boost self-esteem)

In-Group Bias

The tendency to favour members of one's own group over those in other groups, based on arbitrary or demographic criteria

Tajfel & Turner (1979) - Minimal Group Studies

Found people readily assumed a group identity based on minimal or arbitrary criteria, even when randomly allocated, and subsequently showed in-group favouritism

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one's own culture, nation, or religion is superior to all others

Realistic Conflict Theory

Suggests limited resources lead to conflict among groups, which produces prejudice and discrimination, worsened by resource scarcity and the value/tangibility of the resource

Sherif et al. (1954) - Robbers Cave Study

Observed ingroup bias among boys at a summer camp; friendships formed mainly within camper groups, negative language was used to describe the outgroup, and competition over limited resources (trophies, medals, knives) led to violence between groups

Page (1999)

Suggested prejudice results from the belief that it is acceptable within one's own group or subgroup, with acceptability varying across cultures (less acceptable in individualistic cultures)

Crandall et al. (2002)

Found differences in what 2000s university students considered acceptable targets of prejudice (e.g. acceptable toward "bad" people like Nazi party members, but not toward disadvantaged groups like blind people), suggesting cultural context shapes perceived acceptability

Billig (1988)

Studied a fascist group (The National Front) that justified openly racist views as "not prejudicial" by claiming to consider "relative facts," suggesting people self-justify their views as not being prejudice rather than denying prejudice is wrong

McConahay (1986)

Found people hold prejudiced attitudes but avoid expressing them directly because doing so violates social norms, leading to more subtle forms of expression instead

Justification-Suppression Model (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003)

Proposes people hold but suppress prejudices to maintain a non-prejudiced self-image, but express them when they find a justification (e.g. a stereotype) that provides an excuse

Moon et al. (2006)

Found conservatives were more willing to like individuals who expressed prejudice toward certain subgroups; providing justification increased liking for both conservatives and liberals, with human-rights justifications being more effective for liberals, and explicitly bigoted justifications reducing liking

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Prejudice)

A belief about a group affects how its members are treated, which changes how those members behave, which then reinforces the original belief (e.g. assuming a group is lazy leads to fewer opportunities, more unemployment, and reinforcement of the stereotype)

Word et al. (1974)

White students interviewing Black and White job candidates showed less warmth toward Black candidates (sitting farther away, ending interviews sooner); when actors later replicated these interview styles, those receiving the "White" treatment style performed better, showing how differential treatment produces worse outcomes

Stereotype Threat

Awareness of negative stereotypes about one's own group, which can create pressure to represent the whole group and lead to feeling evaluated through the stereotype rather than as an individual

Steele and Aronson (1995)

Found Black and White students performed identically on a test until told it was diagnostic of ability, after which Black students' performance dropped, attributed to stereotype threat-induced anxiety

Neese (2001)

Suggested humans over-perceive threats to avoid false negatives, relying on outgroup cues such as language, appearance, accent, rituals, norms, customs, and dialect; evolutionarily, false positives were more beneficial to survival than false negatives

Ryan et al. (2012)

Found facial disfigurement is treated by perceivers like an infectious disease and over-perceived as a threat despite not actually being infectious

Cottrell and Neuberg (2003)

Found similar overall levels of prejudice toward different groups (e.g. gay men, activist feminists, fundamentalist Christians), but the specific emotions evoked differed significantly (e.g. more disgust toward gay men, more fear toward fundamentalists)

Contact Hypothesis (Sherif et al., 1954)

Suggests contact alone is not sufficient to reduce prejudice and may even increase it through opportunities for conflict; prejudice reduction requires equal-status groups, a shared common goal, and interdependence to achieve that goal

Taylor et al. - "Who Said What?" Study

Found pps made more "within-category" errors (e.g. confusing two people of the same gender) than "between-category" errors when matching speakers to statements, showing race and sex are dimensions people spontaneously categorise others by

Kurzban et al.

Found that when an alternate coalition cue (e.g. shirt colour) was specified, pps stopped categorising by race; concluded that under 4 minutes of exposure to an alternate social grouping was enough to reduce race-based categorisation despite lifelong reliance on race as a social cue