Prejudice & Discrimination

ingroup bias

seeing people in your ingroup more favorably than people in your outgroup

Old-fashioned Racism

the blatant expression of negative or unfair stereotypes of others based on their category membership.- societal norms to some extent prohibit the blatant expression of prejudiced beliefs

Aversive Racism

defined by having both egalitarian attitudes and negative emotions towards members of different groups. Modern racism is the conflict between egalitarian values (belief of equal treatment of all and sympathy for victims of racial prejudice) and more explicit forms of prejudice through imagery of minority groups as conforming to negative stereotypes. Result of this conflict is experience of negative emotions e.g. uneasiness, fear and discomfort, and as egalitarism is important to people, these negative emotions make them feel shame or guilt, publicly avoid acknowledging these feelings and avoid intergroup contact that could make them face their internal conflict

hostile sexism

view women are inferior, irrational and weak

benevolent sexism

positive in valence, idealizing women in traditional roles, although positive stereotypes restrict women into specific roles, justifying male social dominance. Conflict between positive (egalitarian) and negative (prejudiced) attitudes.

ambivalent sexism

Possible for sexist men to have hostile and benevolent attitudes. – ambivalent sexist men can hold both: feel negative about woman in careers (hostile), feel positive about woman as home-makers (benevolent). – makes it harder to counteract sexism

hard to show someone negative stereotype is unjustifiable if they can counter they have a positive view (albeit only in the kitchen)

2 measures of prejudice

explicit

implicit

explicit prejudice

Explicit attitudes are conscious deliberate and controllable, usually captured in questionnaires. – questionnaires limited by social desirability

implicit prejudice

Use of millisecond reaction time in methodology- measuring the time it takes to answer a question relating to prejudice- helps measure implicit attitudes

unintentionally activated by mere presence of an attitude object, whether actual or symbolic.- may be triggered by seeing someone from an outgroup or seeing something associated with it e.g. religious icon or symbol

Another measure implicit association test: speed with which participants can categorise positive and negative stimuli alongside ingroup and outgroup stimuli. – demonstrated people show implicit intergroup bias.find it easier to associate their ingroup with positive stimuli and outgroup with negative stimuli including male-female, black-white, Christian-muslim biases.

Was thought that explicit attitudes easy to change but implicit like old habits, recently found current events have profound effect on implicit attitudes.

Also biological: when shown black and white faces amygdala activation correlated with IAT bias but not explicit attitudes, this did not occur with familiar black and white faces. – amygdala may be involved in people learning negative attitudes about the outgroup.

Implicit measure mean don’t have to report attitudes, not affected by social desirability bias, good for looking at prejudice towards groups that social norms discourage. Also explicit and implicit affect behaviour in different ways.

Implicit: non-verbal behaviours, e.g. avoiding eye-contact creating physical distance from outgroup member and stuttering during speech that can lead to breakdown in intergroup communications without people realising.

infrahumanization

form of implicit prejudice due to types of emotion people attribute to certain outgroups.

tendency to attribute secondary uniquely human emotions to ingroups more than outgroups. – can justify discrimination

If a group believed to be ‘less human’, deserve less rights

Participants who did not infrahumanize others more likely to offer to help.

Infrahumanization leads to the dehumanisation of outgroups. – so less likely to appreciate the suffering of the target group. Allows them to legitamize their actions and reduce feelings of shame and guilt, allowing an increase in the likelihood of aggression.

Prisoners made to act like animals, humanity ignored, and put bags over their head, become anonymous- easier to behave aggressively.

One explanation of dehumanization, especially on a group level is delegitimization: when a group is seen in a negative light it is placed in a negative social category, labelled as a threat to the norms, values and way of life of the ingroup- this delegitmization of the outgroup dehumanization of the group and subsequent aggression can be justified

social exclusion

being rejected, excluded or marginalised from desired groups

Connecting socially with others in a critical part of human life. People more likely to survive and reproduce if they have strong social bonds to help them through difficult times.

  Ethnic minorities in the UK more likely to report ill-health, higher rates of cardiovascular disease and die from strokes.

  But also lifestyle, job, housing also contributes to these differences

  Individuals suffering from poorest health excluded from good employment, education and healthcare

·Poor health in minorities can also be due to pervasive discrimination, whether experienced or perceived they experience

Perceptions of racial discrimination also correlated with higher alcohol consumption and smoking, leading to poorer health.

authoritarian personality

argued people more prejudiced than others due to their upbringing. Authoritarian personality arises as a defensive reaction against overly strict parents. As child is unable to express any natural hostility towards parents, transfer their aggression elsewhere onto weaker, easier targets. These tendencies carry on into adulthood, along with others e.g. overly deferential attitude towards authority. LIMITATIONS: didn’t receive unequivocal empirical support. Personality theories by definition, explain differences in attitudes and behaviours so problematic as explanations of widespread and unitary prejudice.

significant variation across different people in terms of how willing they are to express prejudiced views.

social dominance orientation

the extent to which people hold broad ideologies about the nature of society can predict differences in prejudice.

People vary according to social dominance orientation: the idea that our societies are defined in part by implicit ideologies that either promote or attenuate intergroup status hieracrchies, and people can vary in the extent that they agree or disagree with these ideas ingrained in society

  People high in social dominance orientation favour intergroup hierarchies so people in high or low status groups should favour the high-status group. – can explain both ingroup and outgroup favourtism.

Those high in social dominance orientation more likely to support the ‘top-dogs’ in international sports competitions. Empirical evidence more supportive of social dominance orientation than authoritarian personality

Social dominance orientation can predict sexism, nationalism and ethnic prejudice and belief in suspension of civil liberties. Explains why we observe differences in tendency to express prejudice views in contradiction of social norms.

Authoritarianism: want to maintain social order, SDO want to preserve power relations between groups- these groups not accounted for during US election, not included in DT voters, why he was so underestimated.

self-regulation

Since end of WW2, increasing opposition to expression of prejudiced attitudes. – people can develop motivation to control prejudice -cognitive dissonance between attitudes and behaviour (belief shouldn’t be prejudiced, acting prejudicly) results in change of attitude

People who detect these discrepancies and are motivated to control their prejudices then engage in deliberate self-regulation process to monitor and consistently inhibit prejudice-related thoughts, replacing them with a low-prejudice response, until ultimately no longer think or behave in a prejudiced way.. On an individual level the belief people an control their prejudice mean people can change their attitudes.

the contact hypothesis theory

contact between different social groups, under appropriate conditions can lead to reductions in intergroup bias

Allport 1954: number of conditions needed to reduce intergroup bias:

Social norms favouring equality must be in place.- social conditions (government policy, laws and schools) should promote integration – link with cognitive dissonance: attitudes don’t align with behaviour feel uncomfortable, motivated to avoid this discomfort so change attitudes to be in line with behaviour, laws which prevent discriminatory behaviour therefore can lead to attitude changes.

Contact must occur under conditions of equal social group status- if minority group as contact with the majority group as a subordinate likely to perpetuate negative stereotypes of inferiority.

Contact must involve cooperation to achieve a common goal. Sherif: cooperation and common goals necessary for reducing bias. Blanchard: cooperation works best when outcome of the superordinate goal is successful.

indirect contact

Just the knowledge that other people in your group has friends in the outgroup can reduce intergroup bias- extended contact

Group membership of those involved in the extended contact must remain salient if interventions to lead to more positive attitudes towards the outgroup in general.

Extended contact reduce intergroup anxiety, improving outgroup attitudes

More ingroup participants that are known to have outgroup friends.. less anxious about interacting with outgroup member themselves. And the more positive the outgroup attitudes become.

Observing positive intergroup relations reduces the expectation of negative experiences. Useful in situations with less opportunity for contact between groups.

If children relate to character in a book who has friends in stigmatized groups e.g. harry potter and half-bloods, show less prejudice towards outgroups. – character has to be likeable, and someone the reader wants to be like themselves.

Indirect forms of contact more versatile. So can improve attitudes even in segregated settings. But attitudes based on direct experiences last longer and more powerful than indirect. Actual contact stronger impact on prejudice than extended contact

When boundaries begin to permeate, and some positive interactions occur between different group members, extended contact can reinforce the impact of isolated contact encounters. Increasing extended contact could lead to development of friendship netwrkd which include people from different social groups. This can lead to a cascade of positive direct interactions which further benefits intergroup relations.

imagined contact

The mental simulation of social interaction with member(s) of the outgroup.

Mentally simulating positive contact activates concepts normally associated with successful interactions with members of the outgroup.

Feeling comfortable and less apprehensive about future contact with outgroup members.

Imagined contact shown to improve attitudes related to a variety of groups, gay men, muslims and indigenous people in Mexico.

Also influences subsequent intergroup contact. When anticipating contact with the outgroup seem less anxious, lower heartrate less sweating and had a more positive interaction.

In highly segregated contexts, imagined contact can change attitudes towards intentions to engage in preliminary contact, and help ensure when contact does occur it does with open-mindness increasing chance of success.

online contact (e-contact)

Can successfully reduce intergroup bias when involving real intergroup interactions and also pre-programmed outgroup members

Observing positive portrayals of outgroup members via media, also reduces prejudice: known as parasocial contact.

  Parasocial contact hypothesis: exposure to outgroups via positive media representation fosters development of positive outgroup attitudes by encouraging intimacy with media characters like that found in direct contact. E.g. TV programmes

More reduction in prejudice in individuals who with less prior experience of direct contact with the outgroup.

Direct contact and media contact can increase prejudice when portrayals of outgroup members are negative.

Imagined, extended and actual contact form a continuum of contact interventions with each recommended based on how much opportunity for contact is available in a particular context.