#7 Relationship between attitudes, prejudice and discrimination

*7.1 Distinguish Between Prejudice and Discrimination

Prejudice

• the feelings people have about stereotyped/outgroups

Discrimination

• unjustified, differing treatment of individuals who belong to different groups based on their membership

*7.2 Direct Discrimination

• When someone is treated unfairly because of a characteristic they have or are assumed to have

• intentional

e.g., renting out a property in favour to someone without a dog

*7.2 Indirect Discrimination

• When someone who has a particular characteristic are unfairly disadvantaged due to conditions or regulations that apply to everyone

• (may be) unintentional

e.g., a building without elevators or ramps, only stairs

*7.3 Examples of Prejudice and Discrimination in society

Gender- “sexism”

• women have borne the brunt of sexism due to having less power than males

Age – “ageism”

Race – “racism”

• Race is a social construct.

Ethnicity -

• refers to the culture of people based on their geographic location. It includes religion, customs, heritage and language.

Disability – ‘ableism’

• Feeling uneasy in the presence of someone with a disability is a form of prejudice.

• using a different voice when speaking to someone with a disability

Mental illness -

• Avoidance and fear due to a lack of education about mental health.

*7.4 Causes of Prejudice

Social categorisation is an unconscious process. Prejudice develops from environmental influence

Social influence

• Prejudice can be learned from important members of our group – friends and family.

Intergroup conflict

• occurs when members of different groups compete to achieve or control something that is wanted by members of each group.

Social categorisation

• Schemas also lead people to assume that all members of a different group share the same beliefs and values, and also that those beliefs and values differ from those of their own group (Gaertner, Dovido, & Houlette, 2010)

Just world phenomenon

• The cognitive bias where people make dispositional attributions to justify inequalities.

*7.5 Reducing Prejudice

• Contact Hypothesis

  • intergroup contact

• Superordinate goals

• Mutual Interdependence

• Equal-Status Contact

*7.5 Contact Hypothesis and Intergroup Contact

Contact Hypothesis:

• “Stereotypes and prejudice toward a group will decrease as contact with that group increases.” (Pettigrew & Hewstone, 2017)

Intergroup Contact:

• There is some correlational evidence to suggest that intergroup contact does reduce prejudice

• Integration reduced prejudice only when certain social conditions were created

*7.5 Equal status contact

• People must come together with equal status between groups in order for prejudiced attitudes to be reduced.

• Although it is often difficult to create conditions that satisfy the requirement of equal status, friendships may be a good place to start.

*7.5 Mutual interdependence

• When members of different groups are jointly dependent on each other to obtain real, valued resources, then prejudiced attitudes are most likely to be reduced.

• This is called mutual interdependence.

*7.5 Superordinate goals

• When two groups are dependent on each other in a positive way for a common, shared, superordinate goal, prejudice can be reduced.

• These are aspirations that are shared between different groups (or different individuals).

• The presence of a shared, superordinate goal alone does not lead to prejudice reduction. Instead, the two groups must work together and cooperate to reach that goal

*7.5 Sustained Contact

• increasing contact leads to more favourable attitudes

• Meanwhile, there is no increase in the favourableness of attitudes held when there is no contact at all.