ch 11 prejudice stereotyping and discrimination

prejudice

general attitude to members of a social catergory (feeing/affect)

eg: hostile attitude to zionists, political party members,

eg: geneal positive attitude towards people from my alma mater / anime fans like me

explicit prejudice - pos/ neg feelings that we are aware of and can state

implicit prejudice - feelings of which you are not aware - subconscious associates or difficulty associating

stereotyping

beliefs about members of a social category (cognition)

eg: people from raffles institution are pretentious and weird, low eq

eg:korean people are gd at makeup

discrimination

behaviours directed toward others because of thier group membership

can be pos/neg

tb example: discrinimation based on race in car salesrooms

• more concessions to white people (esp males) as compared to black people (esp males) even though customers used identical bargaining strategies 

sexual harassment

eg: i give single mothers discounts when they buy products from me

eg: I avoid speaking to Christians  who approach me when i am alone because i do not trust them and will make excuses to not speak to them 

sexual harassment 

unwanted attention and behaviours by virtue of sex 

• seen as more harassing when done by a person in power, even though women respond more positively to social status 

  • being asked on a date by low status people more upsetting than those with high status

• less harassing when done by an attractive single individual (available)

• women more likely to interpret staring and flirting as sexually harassing

• can be interpreted differently depending on if the receiver llkes it 

stereotype threat

when we are aware of/ when negative stereotype is made salient / important, our performance is impaired

(fear of confirming stereotype creates distress/ anxiety)

• white men did worse in math when though they were gonna be compared to an asian

• white students did worse at minigolf (framed as an aptitude test) when they were told it was a test of “natural ability” wheras black students did worse when framed as “strategic thinking” test

  • natural ability: black people took only around 24 strokes vs whites 29 strokes

  • athletic intelligence: blacks took around 27 strokes, whites took about 24 strokes

• when race is make salient by asking students to report their race before verbal portion of graduate record exam (vocab test), blacks performed far worse (4 items correct vs 8 items correct) and whites had boosted confidence (9 vs 5 correct) 

goals of prejudice, streotyping and discrimation 

1. supporting and protect one’s group - need to create and maintain ingroup advantage, competition for limited resource

2. seeking social approval 

3. managing self image -comparing ingroups with outgroups that are less well off can raise our self esteem

4. seeking mental efficiency - increase distinctions between groups and decrease differences within groups, esp outgroups (outgroup homogeneity)

supporting and protect one’s group 

• realistic conflict theory: intergroup conflict due to actual competition over desired resources 

• need to create and maintain ingroup advantage, even if groups based on arbitrary meaningless and artificial catergorisation 

  • eg: who like what painting better 

  • minimal intergroup paradigm: students give preferential treatment to others they believe share otherwise irrelevant traits 

  • Factors 

  • social dominance orientation - extent to which a person wants own group to dominate other groups and be socially and materially superior to them  —> more prejudiced against weaker groups

    • men typically higher in social dominance orientation

  • intergroup competition 

    • econ downturns show more lynchings and violence against blacks 

    • robbers cave - simulated intergoup competition caused attacks and prejudiced between the 2 groups of boys who had no real differnces in background 

seeking social approval

factor:

perceived social standing

• newcomers more likley to express hostility to outgroup since they are uncertain of thier acceptance into teh group

  • new members of sorority/ fraternity showed more bias against outgroup than full fledged members in public than in private (less than full fledged members. For full fledged members, the public and private opinion was about the same

religious perspective

• extrinsic religiousity - sees religion as a means of gaining frinedship status and comfort (ends)—> more prejudice than non-religious ppl

• intrinsic religiousity - iinternalise religious teaching, religion as an end in itself —> present themselves as unprejudiced, but when they think no one is wtaching may be discriminnating 

• fundamentalism religiosity - religion as an absolute truth —> more prejudice than non-religious 

• quest religiousity- personal journey to undertsand complex spiritual and moral issues —> unprejudiced in word and deed

managing self image

social identity: belief and feelings that we have towards the groups to which we see ourselves belonging 

Theory:

1. we want to feel gd abt ourselves

2. identity can come from group membership

3. —> comparing ingroups with outgroups that are less well off can raise our self esteem (downward social comparison)

factors affecting prejudice

• more common for those with low self esteem 

• when people with high self esteem threatened with failure however they can be even more prejudiced

• those with low self esteem derogated against other sororities more, with those in high status sorority having slightly more neg bias

• those with high self esteem and thought highly of themselves however would have far higher negative bias than those with low self esteem when they were in a low status sorority vs high status sorority (lower bias than low esteem)

mental efficiency

• cognitive heuristics - stereotypes usually hv kernel of truth

• we rarely get the direction of actual sex differences wrong, but overestimate the differences 

• to save cognitive effort we increase distinctions between groups and decrease differences within groups 

• perceive less individual differences for members in outgroups (outgroup homogeneity)

  • difficulty distinguishing between members of other races

factor: mood and emotions: when we are happy/ more aroused / angry/anxious, fearful, we are more likely to use cognitive shortcuts

• social dominance orientation -

• extent to which a person wants own group to dominate other groups and be socially and materially superior to them  —> more prejudiced against weaker groups

  • men typically higher in social dominance orientation

  • more likely to seek jobs involving dominance over others 

  • more likly to band together to conquer other groups 

  • linked to sexual selection (dominance linked to mating success)

what is the interaction between self esteem, status and negative bias/prejudice?

• those with low self esteem derogated against other sororities more, with those in high status sorority having slightly more neg bias

• those with high self esteem and thought highly of themselves however would have far higher negative bias than those with low self esteem when they were in a low status sorority vs high status sorority (lower bias than low esteem)

—> generally those with low self esteem derogate against others more

—> but views of those who think highly of themsleves depend on the prestige of their affiliations

reducing prejudice ste and disc

hypothesis: due to ignorance

—> expose ppl to diverse groups 

but just putting ppl tgt hasnt worked 

contact helps when 

• outgroup members have traits that challenge the neg stereotypes 

• supported by local authorities and norms 

• groups are equal in status in contact setting

• contact at indiv level

• contact is rewarding for all

  • common goals —>

    • percentage of rattlers who rated eagles unfavourably decreased from 70% to 18% —> friendship and acceptance after induced to cooperate

applied in jigsaw classrm where diff student given differnt and essential task for class proj