CH. 13 PREJUDICE

Chapter 13: Prejudice

Learning Outcomes

  • Define Social Identities and recognize one's own identities.

  • Define Prejudice

    • Differentiate between Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination.

    • Differentiate between Explicit and Implicit Prejudice.

  • Recognize the power of implicit prejudice in high-stakes situations.

  • Define Ambivalent Sexism and recognize the negative consequences of sexism.

Prejudice

  • Prejudice: An attitude towards people based on their group membership.

Social Identity

  • Social identity encompasses parts of our identity that stem from our membership in social groups.

  • Source for further reading: Inclusive Teaching, University of Michigan Social Identity Wheel.

Components of Prejudice

  • Prejudice consists of three components:

    • Affective: Emotional responses to a group.

    • Discrimination: Behaviors directed towards an individual or group based on prejudice.

    • Stereotypes: Cognitive beliefs about members of different social groups.

Prejudicial Attitudes: Explicit vs. Implicit

  • Explicit Attitudes:

    • Conscious attitudes that individuals can easily report.

    • Reflect personal beliefs and opinions.

  • Implicit Attitudes:

    • Involuntary and often unconscious attitudes that individuals may not be aware of.

    • Can be measured through various tests like the Implicit Association Test (IAT).

Measuring Implicit Prejudice

  • Implicit Association Test (IAT):

    • Measures the speed of participants' reactions to positive and negative stimuli related to target groups.

    • Faster reactions indicate a stronger association between the group and the evaluations.

Discrimination and Prejudice

  • Discrimination:

    • Defined as differential treatment or actions, often negative, directed towards individuals based on their group membership.

    • Can be a manifestation of implicit prejudice, especially in high-stakes situations which invoke automatic vs. controlled thinking (Eberhardt).

Ambivalent Sexism

  • Ambivalent Sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001):

    • Theory positing that prejudice against men and women involves both negative and positive ideologies.

    • Prejudice can manifest in ways that, while seemingly positive, can still be detrimental.

Expressions of Benevolent Sexism

  • An example of benevolent sexism is gallantry, where men are courteous towards women, perceived as a form of protection rather than equality.

Measuring Ambivalent Sexism

  • Hostile Sexism:

    • Statements include:

    • “Most women fail to appreciate all that men do for them.”

    • “Women seek to gain power by getting control over men.”

    • Expresses a negative view of women’s intentions and capabilities.

  • Benevolent Sexism:

    • Statements include:

    • “Women should be cherished and protected by men.”

    • “Many women have a quality of purity that few men possess.”

    • Conveys a seemingly positive but ultimately limiting perspective of women.

National Indexes of Gender Equality and Sexism

  • Research indicates that sexism within a country predicts discrimination against women.

  • Relevant indexes:

    • Gender Development Index

    • Gender Empowerment Index

Correlations Between Sexism and Gender Equality (Glick et al., 2000)

  • Analyzed 19 countries using Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) scale.

  • Results:

    • Hostile sexism negatively correlated with both Gender Development Index (-.47) and Gender Empowerment Measure (-.53).

    • Benevolent sexism also displayed negative correlations (-.40).

Consequences of Stereotypes

  • Stereotypes:

    • Beliefs about what members of social groups are like, can be accurate or inaccurate, positive or negative.

    • Recognized impact on self-fulfilling prophecies and judgments made about individuals.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy & Gender Stereotypes (Muntoni & Retelsdorf, 2018)

  • Conducted a longitudinal study with 54 teachers and 1358 fifth-grade students looking at gender stereotypes regarding reading abilities.

  • Findings: Girls outperformed boys in reading, attributed to teachers’ gender stereotypes influencing expectations that shaped performance.

Perception Consistent with Stereotypes (Halberstadt et al., 2018)

  • Study where undergraduate education majors viewed aggressive child vignettes; the child's race influenced hostility ratings.

  • Conclusion: Participants rated the child’s hostility based on race-consistent stereotypes.

Stereotype Threat

  • Stereotype Threat: An anxiety induced by fear of being evaluated based on a negative stereotype; this concern can harm performance.

  • Influences include brain activity impairment, disrupted focused attention due to self-monitoring, and energy depletion from suppressing unwanted thoughts.

Example of Stereotype Threat (Spencer et al., 1999)

  • Research shows that women perform worse on math tests when they are led to believe gender differences exist in performance.

  • Under conditions where gender differences were not expected, women's performance was equal to men's, indicating the damaging influence of stereotype threat.

Implications of Stereotype Threat

  • Cultural Stereotypes: (e.g., the belief that women do not excel in math).

  • The threat of stereotype can lead to poor performance, resulting in disidentification with the stereotyped area, like deeming math unimportant for future work.

Motivational Sources of Prejudice

  • Frustration and Aggression:

    • According to realistic group conflict theory, prejudice can arise from competition between groups for scarce resources.

Social Identity Theory

  • Involves categorization, identification, and comparison, creating distinct social identities categorized as “we” (in-group) or “they” (out-group) leading to in-group favoritism.

Ingroup Bias

  • Ingroup Bias: The tendency to favor one’s own group over others, as illustrated by Tajfel & Billig (1974) in their Minimal Group Paradigm studies.

Minimal Group Paradigm (Tajfel & Billig, 1974)

  • Demonstrates how arbitrary group distinctions can result in ingroup bias, leading to favorable views about one’s own group irrespective of meaningful differences.

Consequences of Labeling & Distinctiveness

  • Outgroup Homogeneity Effect: Tendency to view members of an outgroup as more similar than they are.

  • Own-Race Bias: More accurate recognition of faces from one’s own racial group compared to others.

Illusory Correlations

  • Crisis situations (e.g., terrorism) can create distortions in judgment based on extreme examples or events that capture attention and influence beliefs about groups.

Attributions Related to Group Process

  • Group-Serving Bias: Tendency to attribute positive behaviors of outgroup members to external factors and negative behaviors to their traits.

  • Just-World Phenomenon: Belief that individuals get what they deserve, influencing perceptions of justice and justification of prejudice.

Closing Thoughts

  • It is crucial to identify and acknowledge biases to combat prejudice effectively. Actions towards reducing discrimination should stem from understanding its motivational and cognitive bases.