stereotypes

stereotypes

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

• schemas

• can be useful because they decrease the time/effort needed to deal with the environment (more likely to rely on stereotypes when you have low cognitive resources)

• becomes harmful when automatic judgments dictate how you respond to a person

prejudice

attitude or affective response (positive or negative) toward a group and its members

discrimination

favorable or unfavorable treatment of individuals based on their group membership

• behavioral

traditional racism

prejudice against a racial group that is explicitly acknowledge and expressed by the individual

modern racism

prejudice directed at racial groups that exist simultaneously with the rejection of explicitly racist beliefs

“benevolent” racism and sexism

stereotypes must not always be negative to be harmful

• benevolent and hostile sexism often coexist (women are kind and warm to others, so their place should be raising children, not working)

• benevolent sexism undermines gender equality (women who deviate from typical gender norms are treated with hostility)

implicit association test (IAT)

a technique for revealing unconscious prejudices toward certain groups

priming

mental activation of associated concepts

• if given the word butter, you’ll be quicker to recognize the word bread compared to car

affect misattribution procedure (AMP)

measures how people evaluate a stimulus after a prime

economic perspective: realistic group conflict theory

when groups compete for limited resources (territory, jobs, power), these groups experience conflict, prejudice, and discrimination

• prejudice and discrimination should be strongest among groups that stand to lost the most if another group succeeds

• predicts that groups become ethnocentric

ethnocentrism

glorifying one’s group while vilifying other groups

motivational perspective: minimal group paradigm

found that people tended to prefer their ingroup, even when these group distinctions were meaningless

• flipping a coin, shoelace color, and other silly things

motivational perspective: social identity theory

a person’s self-concept and self-esteem are derived from both

• personal identity and own accomplishments

• status and accomplishments of groups that they belong to

people are motivated to view their ingroup favorably because this enhances self-concept and self-esteem

ingroup bias

because identity-related self-esteem is based in part on group membership, we are motivated to boost the status of our ingroups

outgroup derogation

we are motivated to diminish the status of outgroups

basking in reflected glory

taking pride in the accomplishments of those we feel associated with in some way

• wearing school t-shirts more after the football team wins a game

• self-esteem can be enhanced by positive ingroup evaluations

• when ingroups succeed, we have higher self-esteem

construal processes & biased assessment

occurs when people rely on stereotypes in an exclusive, rigid, or automatic way, leading to negative intergroup interactions

• leads to expectations and biased info processing

outgroup homogeneity effect

tendency to assume that members of outgroups are “all alike”, whereas members of ingroups have differences

• if you rarely encounter members of a particular outgroup, the only info you have about them may be stereotypes

dual-process theory (Devine)

both prejudiced and unprejudiced people often have racist/sexist associations, the difference is whether they try to ignore them/correct them

criticisms for cognitive perspective

• emphasis on reaction times

• documented effects are short-lived (disappears once they leave the lab)

• lose sight of the causes of truly disturbing manifestations of prejudice

attributional ambiguity

members of stigmatized groups may be uncertain if the treatment they receive is due to personal factors or due to their group memberships

feedback and ambiguity

• white participants: self-esteem increased after positive feedback, decreased after negative feedback

• black participants: self-esteem increased after positive feedback, only when they felt they were not being observed

stereotype threat

fear of confirming a stereotype that others have about a group to which they belong

how does stereotype threat undermine performance?

• increased arousal —> poorer performance on complex tasks

• distraction —> impairs concentration on the task

• elicits negative thinking —> undermine performance, focus on avoiding failure

cost of concealment

disclosing one’s sexuality or gender identity has meaningful physical and psychological effects

• can have cognitive toll