Chapter 11: Prejudice

+ Lecture content from March 25th & 28th

What country has the highest and lowers gender pay gap?

Highest = South Korea → 36.7%

Lowest = Greece → 4.5%

(Canada = 18.2%)

What fraction of men think that they could take a point off Serena Williams “if there were playing there best tennis” ?

1/8 men think they could

(only 3/87 women think they could)

How do the 3 components of attitude relate to prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes?

Affect → prejudice

Behaviour → discrimination

Cognition → stereotypes

Stereotypes

Believing that certain attributes are characteristic of members of a particular group

Harmful generalizations

Content of stereotype can be positive or not

Can have a “kernel of truth” or not

Where do stereotypes come from?

Culture

Media

Social groups

What we learn at home

“Old-fashioned racism”

Outright, explicit prejudice and discrimination

“Modern racism”

Denial that there is continuing discrimination

Resentment about the demands that disadvantaged groups make for equal treatment

Resentment about concessions made to disadvantaged groups

Modern racism x shoving study

When a white person shoves black person

• 13% of rates said it was aggressive

*When a black person shoves white person

• 73% of rated said it was aggressive

RESULTS = raters were more likely to say shoving was aggressive when it was a black person who was doing the shoving

Aversive racism

Individuals will state that they have egalitarian views → they will not be overtly discriminatory

• BUT they still feel discomfort around members of racial minorities

Behavioural consequences = avoidance of outgroup members, anxiety and overcorrection, subtle discrimination

Institutional/systemic racism

The differential access to goods, services, and social opportunities based on group status

Hides as other factors (e.g., neighbourhood, income, education) → BUT it spreads and those becomes extremely difficult to rectify (correct)

Detroit-Warren-Dearborn Michigan x institutional/systemic racism

Low SES neighbourhoods = more likely to be populated by Black residents

• Less money for schools → lower quality education

High SES neighbourhoods = more likely to be populated by white residents

• More money for schools → higher quality education

*Demonstrates systemic barriers to education

Ambivalent sexism → hostile sexist items

“Most women fail to appreciate all that men do for them”

“women seek to gain power by getting control over men”

“Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist”

Ambivalent sexism → benevolent sexist items

“Women should be cherished and protected by men”

“Many women have a quality of purity that few men possess”

“A good woman ought to be set on a pedestal by her man”

“Women deserve protection”

Although it sounds positive, it is negative….

Ambivalent sexism

Hostile + benevolent sexism (positive correlation)

Both men and women who score high on benevolent sexism do not necessarily recognize that they hold stereotypes toward women…

How does hostile sexism predict discrimination? (ambivalent sexism)

Sexual harrasemnt

Intimate partner violence

How does hostile benevolent predict discrimination? (ambivalent sexism)

Decreases women confidence & workplace performance

Encourages subordination

What are 3 different perspectives on the causes of stereotypes and prejudice?

1. Economic perspectives

   • Realistic conflict theory

2. Motivation perspectives

   • Social identity theory

3. Cognitive perspectives

   • Cognitive misets

   • Illusory correlations

Realistic conflict theory (economic perspectives)

Hostility between groups is caused by direct competition for limited resources

E.g., economic, natural, political, and social resources

Robber’s Cave experiment

22 middle class 5th boys were split into 2 groups → “Eagles” vs. “Rattlers”

Task = boys played games in exchange for prizes → this competition for resources created stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination between groups (CONFLICT)

Inter-group conflict was reduced by adding superordinate goals

Social identity theory (motivational perspectives)

People favour in-groups over outgoups → enhances their own self-esteem

• In-group bias = tendency to favour one’s group

Self-esteem bolstered by belonging to favourable group

Minimal groups paradigm (social identity theory; motivational perspective)

Option 1 = $3 to in group, $4 to out-group

Option 2 = $2 to in group, $1 to out-group

• RESULTS = participants more likely to choose option 2 → they were willing to lose money in order to make sure that those who diagreed with them (out-group) got less money

In-group/out-group candidate self-esteem study

(1) Participants given positive or negative feedback about their own intelligence → self-esteem assessed

(2) Participants they watched a videotape of a job applicant who was subtly described as being an out-group member (or not) → participants asked to rate candidate & own self-esteem assessed

RESULTS = if participants were given positive feedback → more likely to rate the in-group and out-group members equally

• BUT if participants were given negative feedback → more likely to rate out-group members more negatively (***negatively rating out-group members also caused their own self-esteem to increase)

  • FINDINGS = low self-esteem fuels discrimination

Illusory correlations

When you think there is a relationship between 2 events (but there really isn't )

Why do illusory correlations happen?

Distinctive events capture attention

• More likely to be remembered

• May become over-represented in memory

Events become distinctive when….

• they are infrequent

• they are counter-normative (unusual)

Illusory correlations x racism

Distinctive events (minority status + rare behaviour) stand out

Prejudice

Preconceived negative attitudes

Can be subtle (unconscious) AND overt (conscious)

Discrimination

Unjustified negative behaviour

Group-serving bias

Assigning out-group members’ negative behaviour to their natural character

WHILST explaining away their positive behaviours

Stereotype threat

Apprehension when faced with negative stereotypes → worries that others will evaluate them based on this stereotype

Self-confirming apprehension

T pr F: Unequal status breeds prejudice

TRUE

Social dominance orientation

Motivation to have your own group be dominant over other social groups

in-group > out-group

Ethnocentric

Believing your own ethnic and cultural group is superior

*Corresponding disdain for all other groups

Authoritarian personality

Personality that favours obedience to authority

Also intolerance of outgroups & those lower in status

Social identity

The “we” aspect of our self-concept

The part of our answer to “Who am I?” that comes from our group memberships

In-groups

“Us”

Groups of people who share a sense of belonging → a feeling of common identity

Out-groups

“Them”

Groups that people perceive as distinctively different from their in-group.

In-group bias

The tendency to favour your own group

Terror management

The self-protective emotional and cognitive responses that arise when confronted with reminders of death

We shield ourselves from the threat of our own death by derogating those whose further arouse our anxiety

Out-group homogeneity effect

Perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members

“They are alike; we are diverse”

The greater our familiarity with a social group = the more we see its diversity

Own-race bias

The tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race

How self-enhancing social identities support stereotypes

Just-world phenomenon

The belief that the world is just

THUS people get what they deserve & deserve what they get

Subtyping

Putting people who deviate from ones stereotype into a different, special class of people

“Atypical exceptions”

Subgrouping

Putting people who deviate from ones stereotype into a a NEW stereotypical group