CHAPTER 9 PREJUDICE

Chapter 9: Prejudice

Defining Prejudice

  • Prejudice: A preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Cultural Stereotypes

  • Cultural Stereotypes:
    • People from X country are better than people from Y country.
    • People from X countries are less educated than people from Y or Z countries.

Religious Stereotypes

  • Religious Stereotypes:
    • People who practice X religion are extremists and hypocrites.
    • People who practice X religion are intolerant.

Social Stereotypes

  • Social Stereotypes:
    • X group is unfriendly and rude.
    • X people are not attractive because they are part of a certain group.

Racial Stereotypes

  • Racial Stereotypes:
    • X people are dangerous.
    • X people are untrustworthy.

Gender Stereotypes

  • Gender Stereotypes:

    • People of X gender are athletic.
    • People of X gender are all bad drivers.

  • Prejudicial evaluations are often supported by stereotypes:

    • These beliefs refer to the personal attributes associated with a group of people. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Defining Discrimination

  • Discrimination: Unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members. It represents negative attitudes manifesting in behavior. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Example: Voter Suppression

  • Voter Suppression: Alludes to the infringement of the right to vote, emphasizing the need for the freedom to vote.

Prejudice: Implicit and Explicit

  • Dual Attitude System:
    • Explicit Attitude Example: Someone might say, "Female scientists who are mothers are not serious about their research."
    • Implicit Attitude Example: Someone might not promote female scientists who have a family. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Racial Prejudice 1

  • Racial Prejudice Trends: Is racial prejudice disappearing?
    • Explicit attitudes can change quickly; however, subtle racial prejudice is a significant contemporary issue, including:
    • Employment discrimination
    • Favoritism in platforms like Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft.
    • Traffic stops
    • Patronization including overpraising accomplishments and overly critical responses to mistakes. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Racial Prejudice 2

  • Automatic (Implicit) Prejudice:
    • Can have life-or-death consequences, exemplified by healthcare quality disparities based on race.
    • Brain activity in the amygdala, which underlies fear and aggression, facilitates automatic responding. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Gender Prejudice

  • Hostile Sexism Examples:
    • Ban women from sports clubs
    • Wolf whistle at women
    • Love topless calendars
    • Leave household chores to wives
    • Believe women wanting equality actually desire special treatment
    • Suggest women misinterpret harmless remarks as sexism
  • Benevolent Sexism Examples:
    • Hold doors open for women
    • Use terms of endearment like 'love' or 'dear'
    • Refuse to split a bill
    • Offer jackets if women are cold
    • Suggest good women should be placed on a pedestal
    • State men should make sacrifices for women

Changing Gender Attitudes

  • Figure: Charts the changing gender attitudes from 1945 to 2023, showing a gradual acceptance of women candidates nominated by political parties.
    • In 2023, the percentage of people willing to vote for a qualified woman candidate is notably higher than in previous decades. (Source: Gallup, 2021)

LGBT Prejudice 1

  • Anti-Gay Prejudice in Western Countries: Continues via:
    • Job discrimination
    • Mixed support for same-sex marriage
    • Harassment
    • Rejection from friends or family members. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

LGBT Prejudice 2

  • Consequences of Disparaging Attitudes: Exploration of whether such attitudes and discriminatory practices lead to actual harm for gay and lesbian individuals. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Social Inequalities: Unequal Status and Prejudice

  • Social Dominance Orientation: Represents a motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Social Status

  • Social Status: Refers to a person's standing in society relative to others, based on:
    • Family descent
    • Prestige associated with their occupation
    • Cultural position.
  • Categories of Social Status:
    • Ascribed social status
    • Achieved status. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Socialization and Prejudice

  • Children's Prejudices: Often reflect those of their parents, particularly maternal influences.
  • Authoritarian Personality:
    • Disposition to favor obedience to authority and exhibit intolerance towards outgroups or lower-status individuals. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Example of Justification of Slavery

  • Historical processes illustrate how social inequalities are rationalized to justify actions like slavery. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Socialization: Religion and Racial Prejudice

  • Religion's Role: Often utilized to validate the existing social order, including racial prejudice. Findings include:
    • White church members show more racial prejudice than nonmembers.
    • Individuals with fundamentalist beliefs express more prejudice than progressives. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Causal Connections in Religion and Prejudice

  • There might not be a causal connection between religion and prejudice:
    • Prejudice may cause religion.
    • Conversely, religion may cause prejudice.
  • Contradictory findings suggest:
    • Faithful worshippers tend to exhibit lower prejudice levels.
    • Those with intrinsic religious motivations are often less prejudiced.
    • Clergy members show lower prejudice compared to laypeople. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Socialization: Conformity

  • Conformity Effects: If prejudice is widely accepted, individuals may conform to this social norm, attempting to align with group standards.
  • New norms can diminish prejudice when they emerge, such as acceptance of interracial or same-sex marriages. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Systemic Supports for Prejudice

  • Social Institutions: Can foster prejudice through both overt and passive support of the status quo.
    • Example: Banks and mortgage discrimination,
    • Media portrayals that strengthen stereotypes, inadvertently or unintentionally upholding prejudice.
  • Illustrative Example: Magazine and newspaper portrayals may show bias by emphasizing men’s faces more than women’s bodies. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Motivational Sources of Prejudice

  • Impact of Motivations: Hostility often arises from frustration, and individuals prefer to see themselves and their groups as superior to others. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Frustration and Aggression

  • Scapegoat Theory: Examines how frustrations can lead to scapegoating, contributing to aggressive behaviors against outgroups. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Social Identity Theory

  • Social Identity Theory Defined: Individuals derive a sense of self-esteem from their group memberships, feeling superior to others. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)
  • Ingroup vs. Outgroup:
    • Ingroup: Group to which an individual feels they belong.
    • Outgroup: Group to which an individual does not belong. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Ingroup Bias

  • Definition of Ingroup Bias: Preference for one's ingroup results in favoritism toward those within the group versus members of outgroups. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Motivation to Avoid Prejudice

  • Challenges in Breaking Prejudice: Difficult due to the persistence of unwanted thoughts and feelings, especially among older adults or people under intoxication.
    • Nonetheless, motivation to avoid prejudice can facilitate modifications in thoughts and actions.
    • Awareness of the disparity between one's actual feelings and how one should feel can promote change.
    • Even automatic prejudices can decrease when the motivation to avoid prejudice is internally driven rather than externally imposed. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Cognitive Sources of Prejudice

  • Influence of Thinking Processes on Prejudice: Individuals' cognitive processes can lead to the formation of stereotyped beliefs and prejudicial attitudes, especially through simplification of complex social realities. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Categorization of People into Groups

  • Group Classification: Individuals tend to classify others into groups, leading to biases.
  • Outgroup Homogeneity Bias: Perception that members of an outgroup are more similar to each other than they actually are. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Distinctiveness in Perception

  • Focus on Distinctive People: Individuals who stand out can distort perceptions and judgments. The visibility of unique group members leads to an exaggerated perception of their differences.
    • This phenomenon contributes to self-consciousness and influences shortcut judgment processes. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Illusory Correlations

  • Formation of Illusory Correlations: Distinctive events or characteristics lead people to perceive these as correlated, especially when they co-occur. Sensitivity to distinctive occurrences may lead to false associations. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Attribution and Just World Beliefs

  • Attribution Theory: Differentiates between internal and external attributions for behaviors:
    • Internal Focus: Attributing lateness to an individual's character.
    • External Focus: Considering situational factors such as traffic.
  • Fundamental Attribution Error: Tendency to ignore situational influences on behavior and focus solely on personal character traits.
  • Just-World Thinking: This belief justifies existing social systems, creating barriers to implementing new social policies. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Stereotype Threat

  • Impact of Stereotype Threat: Examines how the recognition of stereotypes may hinder performance in targeted groups, particularly under pressure to conform.
    • Factors include stress affecting cognitive processing and increased self-monitoring which drains cognitive resources. Positive stereotypes can also enhance performance. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)

Reflection: Reducing Prejudice

  1. Create cooperative relationships with equal status.
  2. Mandate nondiscriminatory practices.
  3. Remove institutional supports for prejudice.
  4. Promote inclusiveness as a social norm.
  5. Personalize views of seemingly homogeneous members of outgroups.
  6. Use feelings of guilt regarding automatic prejudices to motivate change. (Source: McGraw Hill LLC)