Intergroup Relations Short Answer - Midterm 1

Explain how Hamilton and Gifford's (1976) study demonstrates the formation of stereotypes through illusory correlation.

• Participants read 39 statements describing desirable and undesirable behaviours performed by members of Group A (majority) and Group B (minority).

• Although both groups displayed the same proportion of undesirable behaviours (31%), Group B appeared less frequently. Participants overestimated the undesirable behaviours of Group B and rated Group A more positively.

• This occurred because both the minority group and undesirable behaviours were infrequent, making their co-occurrence particularly noticeable. The study demonstrates that stereotypes can form through biased information processing, even when there are no actual differences in group behaviour.

Explain how Macrae et al. (1994) demonstrated the cognitive function of stereotypes.

• Participants completed two tasks simultaneously: forming impressions of individuals based on personality traits and listening to information about Indonesia. Half were given stereotype category labels (e.g., doctor), while the others received no labels.

• Participants with stereotype labels remembered more stereotype-consistent traits and performed better on questions about Indonesia.

• This suggests that stereotypes act as mental shortcuts, making information easier to organize and remember. By simplifying information processing, stereotypes free up cognitive resources for other tasks.

Explain how incidental emotions can influence prejudice or judgments about others, using Small and Lerner's (2008) study.

• Participants were assigned to an anger, sadness, or neutral condition by writing about experiences that produced those emotions. They then evaluated a social assistance case and recommended whether assistance should increase or decrease. -

• Participants experiencing sadness recommended greater assistance, while those experiencing anger recommended less assistance.

• This demonstrates that emotions unrelated to the person being judged can influence social judgments and decisions. Sadness encourages more careful, sympathetic processing, whereas anger can produce harsher evaluations.

Explain Integrated Threat Theory and how intergroup anxiety contributes to prejudice.

• Integrated Threat Theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000) proposes that prejudice results from four perceived intergroup threats: realistic threats, symbolic threats, intergroup anxiety, and negative stereotypes.

• Intergroup anxiety occurs when individuals feel uncomfortable interacting with outgroup members, often because of limited contact or previous negative experiences.

• This anxiety can take two forms: self-anxiety, involving fear of saying or doing something prejudiced, and other-anxiety, involving fear of negative treatment from an outgroup member. Self-anxiety is associated with freezing during interactions, while other-anxiety is associated with greater prejudice and avoidance.

• This creates a self-reinforcing cycle, where anxiety leads to outgroup avoidance, preventing positive contact and maintaining prejudice.

Explain how disgust contributes to intergroup prejudice, using Hodson et al. (2013).

• Disgust can contribute to prejudice when outgroup members are perceived as unpleasant, threatening, or socially contaminating. Intergroup disgust involves feelings of revulsion toward outgroups, alongside beliefs about stigma transfer and social superiority.

• Hodson et al. (2013) investigated this by presenting participants with descriptions of fictional ethnic groups that either engaged in disgust-inducing behaviours or did not.

• Groups associated with disgusting behaviours received more negative evaluations. This relationship was explained partly by increased perceived group threat and intergroup anxiety. The findings demonstrate how disgust can encourage negative attitudes and discrimination toward outgroups, even when the groups are unfamiliar.

Explain how Terror Management Theory accounts for prejudice toward outgroups.

• Terror Management Theory (Greenberg et al., 1997) proposes that humans experience anxiety because they have a desire for self-preservation but know death is inevitable. To manage this fear, people identify strongly with cultural beliefs and social institutions that provide meaning and a sense of lasting significance.

• When reminded of their mortality (mortality salience), individuals become more motivated to defend their cultural worldview, which can increase prejudice toward outgroups.

• Bassett and Connelly (2011) examined this by exposing participants to mortality reminders and asking them to evaluate Canadian or Mexican immigrants. Mortality salience increased prejudice toward culturally dissimilar Mexican immigrants, demonstrating how fear of death can strengthen negative attitudes toward groups perceived as threatening one's worldview.

Explain how empathy can reduce prejudice toward outgroups, using research to support your answer.

• Empathy can reduce prejudice by encouraging individuals to understand and sympathize with members of an outgroup.

• Batson et al. (2002) proposed that perspective taking produces empathic feelings, which increase the value placed on an individual and eventually their entire group. This leads to more positive attitudes toward the outgroup.

• Research has shown that inducing empathy through listening to outgroup members' experiences, imagining their perspectives, or writing about their daily lives can reduce stereotypes and ingroup favouritism.

• For example, Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000) found that imagining a day in the life of an outgroup member reduced stereotyping and ingroup favouritism. Overall, empathy promotes more positive intergroup attitudes by encouraging understanding and concern for others.

Explain symbolic prejudice, including its five central beliefs and the factors that contribute to its development.

• Symbolic prejudice is a modern form of prejudice that emerged after the Civil Rights Movement and is often justified through traditional values such as hard work, individualism, and meritocracy.

• People expressing symbolic prejudice tend to believe that discrimination no longer exists, disadvantaged groups lack motivation, and their anger about inequality is unjustified. They also believe these groups seek special treatment and receive more economic benefits than they deserve.

• Symbolic prejudice develops through factors such as negative emotions learned through socialization, strong traditional values, low outcome-based egalitarianism, group self-interest, and limited personal contact with outgroups.

• symbolic prejudice allows individuals to justify inequality without openly expressing hostility toward disadvantaged groups.

Explain aversive prejudice and how Dovidio and Gaertner (2000) demonstrated it experimentally.

• Aversive prejudice occurs when individuals hold prejudiced attitudes but believe they are not prejudiced. It develops from conflicting values, including exposure to prejudiced beliefs alongside values of fairness and equality.

• Dovidio and Gaertner (2000) examined this by asking White participants to recommend Black or White applicants for a university program in 1989 and 1999. When applicants had strong or weak qualifications, decisions did not differ by race. However, when qualifications were ambiguous, White applicants were recommended more often than Black applicants.

• Although blatant prejudice decreased between 1989 and 1999, this discriminatory pattern remained. The study demonstrates that aversive prejudice can emerge when people can justify discrimination using seemingly nonracial reasons.

Explain how benevolent sexism can reinforce gender inequality, using research to support your answer.

• Benevolent sexism involves seemingly positive attitudes toward women that reinforce traditional gender roles. According to Ambivalent Sexism Theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), it includes protective paternalism, complementary gender differentiation, and heterosexual intimacy.

• Despite appearing positive, benevolent sexism can justify gender inequality by portraying women as needing protection and being better suited for traditional, lower-status roles.

• Becker and Wright (2011) examined how exposure to benevolent versus hostile sexism influenced women's intentions to participate in collective action for gender equality. Their research showed that benevolent sexism reduced collective action intentions, whereas hostile sexism encouraged greater resistance.

Explain the difference between implicit and explicit prejudice, including how the MODE model explains their relationship to behaviour.

• Implicit prejudice involves automatic, unconscious evaluations, whereas explicit prejudice involves conscious, deliberate attitudes.

• The MODE model (Fazio, 1990) proposes that the relationship between implicit and explicit attitudes depends on motivation and opportunity to deliberate.

• When individuals have sufficient motivation and opportunity, they can control their responses, meaning their explicit attitudes may differ from their implicit attitudes. However, when either motivation or opportunity is low, automatic attitudes are more likely to influence responses.

• Dovidio et al. (2002) found that explicit racial attitudes predicted verbal friendliness, whereas implicit attitudes predicted nonverbal friendliness during interracial interactions.

Explain the original authoritarian personality theory and how Altemeyer's Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA) improved upon it.

• Adorno et al. (1950) proposed that prejudice develops from an authoritarian personality, originating from strict, punitive parenting. Children develop repressed anger toward their parents, which is displaced onto vulnerable outgroups. The theory emphasized characteristics such as submission to authority, aggression toward norm violators, and rigid conventional values. However, it was criticized.

• Altemeyer (1981) developed Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA) as a set of attitudes rather than a pathological personality type. RWA focuses on three dimensions: authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism. Higher RWA predicts greater prejudice, particularly toward groups perceived as violating traditional values or condemned by authorities.

Explain how personality traits relate to prejudice, using Sibley and Duckitt's (2008) findings.

• Sibley and Duckitt (2008) conducted a meta-analysis to examine the relationship between personality and prejudice. They found that openness to experience and agreeableness were the two most important personality predictors of generalized prejudice.

• Individuals low in openness tend to have higher Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA), which is associated with greater prejudice toward groups that challenge traditional values.

• Individuals low in agreeableness tend to have higher Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), which predicts prejudice toward groups challenging social hierarchies.

• Therefore, personality traits influence prejudice indirectly through RWA and SDO, helping explain why some individuals are more generally prejudiced than others.

Explain how disgust contributes to anti-gay prejudice, according to Morrison et al. (2019).

• Morrison et al. (2019) argued that disgust is an important and often overlooked contributor to homonegativity, meaning negative attitudes toward gay men. They suggested that prejudice may stem from disgust toward perceived gay male sexual practices, particularly anal intercourse, rather than simply fear.

• This disgust can involve pathogen disgust (concerns about contamination), sexual disgust (discomfort with sexual practices), and moral disgust (beliefs that behaviours violate moral standards).

• The authors reviewed research showing that experimentally inducing disgust can increase negative attitudes toward gay men. For example, Dasgupta et al. (2009) found that participants induced to feel disgust showed greater implicit anti-gay bias than those induced to feel anger or neutral emotions. Overall, the article argues that understanding disgust is important for explaining and potentially reducing anti-gay prejudice.

What is outcome-based egalitarianism? What is the relationship between symbolic racism and outcome-based egalitarianism? 

• Outcome-based egalitarianism is when the government steps in to change conditions such that all groups have an equal fair share of society’s resources

• Those who are higher in symbolic racism are lower in outcome-based egalitarianism/ they endorse it less than those lower in symbolic racism

According to the Brannon et al. reading on racism, what is systemic racism? What is antiracism? What is the relationship between anti-racism engagement and mental health, in 1 sentence?

• Systemic racism = racism that is embedded in the policies and processes of an institution or society as a whole resulting in a system that disadvantages BIPOC groups

• Antiracism = ideas and practices tied to addressing systemic racism

• Antiracism engagement is associated with better mental health