Intergroup Relations Notes

Intergroup Relations

Introductory Quote

  • Herbert Spencer: "We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced."

Key Concepts in Intergroup Dynamics

  • Stereotypes: Unfair generalizations about a group

  • Discrimination: encompassing biased behaviors towards a group

  • Prejudice: emotional responses towards a group

Outline for Understanding Group Processes

Group Processes

  • Prejudice arises from competition and inequalities (real or imagined) between groups.

Cognitive Processes

  • Prejudice is a result of cognitive processes leading to the stereotyping of out-groups and their members.

Theories Based on Group Processes

Realistic Group Conflict Theory (RGCT)

  • Describes how group interests can be incompatible or complementary.

    • Negative Interdependence: Situations where one group's gain is another's loss, leading to conflict.

    • Positive Interdependence: Situations where groups benefit from working together towards a common goal.

Robber’s Cave Field Experiment (Sherif et al., 1961)

  • Stage 1: No Contact: Initial conditions where two groups were isolated.

  • Stage 2: Discovery: Groups became aware of each other.

  • Stage 3: Competition: Engaged in competitive activities leading to conflict.

  • Stage 4: Reducing the Conflict: Techniques to reduce conflict involving transition from negative to positive interdependence through superordinate goals.

Racism as a Zero-Sum Game (Norton & Sammers, 2010)

  • Depiction of perceptions of bias over decades:

    • The graph presents ratings by both Black and White participants regarding anti-Black and anti-White bias.

    • Significant fluctuations were noted across the decades of the 1950s through the 2000s.

Social Identity Theory (SIT)

Basic Concepts

  • Automatic categorization of individuals as belonging to either an ingroup (“us”) or an outgroup (“them”).

  • Ingroups contribute to self-identity and self-esteem (SE).

    • Positive distinctiveness is felt when one's ingroup is perceived to be superior.

    • Negative distinctiveness drives efforts to elevate one's ingroup status when it is perceived as inferior.

  • Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are fundamentally motivated by competition for positive distinctiveness.

Tajfel (1970) Study

  • Investigated discrimination using a minimal-groups paradigm.

    • Methodology:

    1. Participants completed a dot estimation task.

    2. Independent Variable 1 (IV1): Random assignment to minimal groups.

    3. Independent Variable 2 (IV2): Various types of reward allocation presented in random order.

    4. Dependent Variable (DV): Choices of reward allocation.

Allocation Booklets in Tajfel's Study

Booklet for Overestimators: Ingroup-Ingroup Allocation

  • Participants would select rewards for ingroup members to encourage bias towards their own group.

Booklet for Overestimators: Outgroup-Outgroup Allocation

  • Participants made decisions on rewards for members of another, less favored group.

Booklet for Overestimators: Intergroup Allocation

  • Participants selected rewards for both ingroup and outgroup members, reflecting their biases and attitudes.

Tajfel (1970) Study Results

  • Maximum fairness allocation is noted as (13:13).

  • Various allocation types presented are indicative of biases: ingroup-ingroup, outgroup-outgroup, and intergroup allocations with maximum discrepancy illustrated as (7:1).

Is This Effect Really About Self-Esteem? (Lemyre & Smith, 1985)

  • Explores minimal group assignment and its effect on self-esteem (SE) and allocation choices.

    • Independent Variable: Allocation opportunity (yes/no).

    • Within-Groups IV: Type of allocation.

    • Dependent Variables: Allocations and self-esteem levels measured.

Summary of Prejudice Origins

  • Prejudice typically emerges from incompatible goals between groups.

  • These goals can relate to tangible resources (RGCT) or abstract concepts such as self-esteem (SIT).

  • Further investigation into alternate routes leading to prejudice is prompted.

Theories Based on Cognitive Processes

  • Focus on the automatic cognitive processes that contribute to stereotyping outgroups.

Spreading Activation Networks

  • Concept: Stereotypes are seen as highly practiced relationships among concepts stored in long-term memory.

  • This allows for cognitive efficiency via automatic activation but is difficult to override, leading to cognitive biases.

Example of a Spreading Activation Network (Lerner et al., 2012)

  • Networks demonstrate various associations, like

    • "Danger" may lead to "Caution" or "Beware"”

    • Other associations can include domestic settings (house, cat, mouse) related to cautionary behaviors and perceptions of strength.

Questions for Exploration

  • How are stereotypes formed and maintained?

  • What pathways exist for overcoming spreading activation networks that promote stereotyping?

Shared Distinctiveness

  • Concept: Stereotypes emerge when two distinct events co-occur, leading to a mistaken belief that they will always co-occur (illusory correlation).

Shared Distinctiveness Illustration

  • Contrast and likelihood of stereotype development illustrated through the actor's group membership and behaviors.

Outgroup Homogeneity

  • Describes the tendency to view outgroup members as more similar to each other than ingroup members, contributing to stereotypes and their maintenance.

  • The contrast of outgroup homogeneity with ingroup heterogeneity reinforces biased perceptions.

Encoding Bias

  • Definition: Biased processing of information favoring one group over another, which leads to the persistence of stereotypes.

Research Example: Rothbart et al. (1979)

  • Independent Variable: Target’s group membership categorized as friendly vs. intelligent.

  • Dependent Variable: Recall of behaviors categorized as "Intelligent" vs. "Friendly"”

Retrieval Bias

  • Definition: The tendency for previously encoded stereotypes to influence later recall of information.

  • Example: Snyder & Uranowitz's (1978) study demonstrated the role of notifications regarding a target's characteristics on recall accuracy across different contexts.

Subcategorization

  • Two methods of subcategorization were explored:

    1. Subtyping: Maintains stereotypes by allowing exceptions to the rule.

    2. Subgrouping: Can weaken stereotypes by allowing for diversity within groups.

Concluding Thoughts on Stereotyping and Prejudice

  • Discusses the potential for overcoming established stereotypes and prejudice, emphasizing the need for mechanisms to rewrite our Spreading Activation Networks (SANs).

  • Wyer (2004) presents insights into approaches that highlight stereotype-confirming versus stereotype-disconfirming information as part of this discourse.