Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Prejudice
•Negative attitude based on another’s group membership
•Applied inflexibly
Components of Prejudice
•Affective: negative feelings
•Cognitive: beliefs about targets
•Behavioral: treat targets unfairly
Expression of Negative Attitudes
•Segregation
•Stereotypes
•Lipmann (1922): Father of stereotypes
•Fixed way of thinking about someone
Social Categorization
•See members within an outgroup as more alike than they really are
•Why Does This Happen?
–Little contact between groups
–Groups that compete
–Few members in the outgroup
Ingroup vs. Outgroup
•Affects ability to correctly identify people of other races
•Own race bias is NOT confined to one racial group and does NOT appear to be related to one’s racial attitudes
Why Do Stereotypes Persist?
•Social Learning (Bandura, 1977)
–Differentiating between social groups
–Leads to evaluations of these groups
–Influence agents play a large role
Why Do Stereotypes Survive?
•1. Illusory Correlations
•Belief that two variables are related when they are not
•Positive or negative mood makes people less likely to see such a correlation
•Predispose people to perceive such correlations
•Engagement of biased processing
•Stereotype proves resistant to change
•2. Global Stereotype
•More limited, specific subtypes called subcategories
•Allows stereotypes to persist in the face of disconfirming evidence
–Deau, Winton, Crowley, & Lewis (1985)
–Subcategories for women:
•Very little overlap between the two
•Devin and Baker (1991)
–White Americans’ stereotype of Black business people and athletes is primarily positive
–Global stereotype still negative
•3. The Media
•Perpetuates negative stereotypes
•Black men, homosexuals, etc.
•Focus more on negative events than positive events
•Availability heuristic?
•4. Power
•Pay less attention to those below them
•More likely to judge based on social stereotypes
–Too little time
–The “powerless” have less impact on the “powerful”
Simple Stereotypes Declining
•Katz & Braly (1933) Lazy Loyal1933 75% 39%1988 6% 49%
Effects of Negative Schemas
•Bias our perceptions of others
•Bias how the stereotyped group perceives itself
–Eye of the Storm
Fredrickson et al. (1998)
•“That Swimsuit Becomes You”
–Study of emotions & consumer behavior
•Asked to evaluate scent, clothes, food
–Calvin Klein’s CK One, swimsuit,cookies or Twix
•Given a math test in swimsuit condition
Social Causes of Prejudice
•Unequal power and oppression
•Intergroup competition
•Realistic Conflict Theory
–Competition for limited resources
Two Important Changes
•Hostility increases toward the opposing group
•Increase of ingroup loyalty
–Ethnocentrism
Experimental Evidence
•Robber’s Cave (Sherif, 1966)
•Tajfel (1969)
–Intergroup competition not necessary
–Minimal groups
–Performance biased in favor of ingroup member
Social Identity Theory
•Tajfel & Turner (1979)
•Personal Identity: specific facts
•Social Identity: memberships
–Self-esteem partly determined by the social esteem of our ingroups
•Basking in Reflected Glory (BiRG)
–Good = collective “We”
•Cutting Off Reflected Failure (CORF-ing)
–Bad = “They”
Cialdini’s Phone Call Study
•Explanations for football game outcomes
–Team Wins: “WE won!”
–Team Loses: “THEY lost”
•Group is an central component of their self-concept
Flip-Side
•Low self-esteem may lead us to derogate members of the outgroup
–Why?
•Meindl and Lerner (1985) “Computer Card” Study
Ambivalence Models of Racism
•1. Modern/Aversive Racism
•Egalitarian values Negative feelings
–Feel ashamed Avoidance
•Protects self-image
Fried (1997)
•Pts. asked to evaluate lyrics to a song
–“Blind Man’s Blunder”
•Rap vs. Country Song
•Pts. asked evaluative questions
Modern/Aversive Racism
•Whites feel discomfort around Blacks1. Sit farther away2. Less friendly voice tone3. Less eye contact and more errors4. Interviews end more quickly
2. Value Duality
•Two value systems:
–Egalitarianism and Individualism
•Egalitarianism gives rise to pro-Black attitudes
•Individualism gives rise to attributing negative patterns to outgroups
3. Prejudice with Compunction
•Discrepancies in how people would and should act
•People ARE AWARE of their discrepancies
•Stereotypes are well-learned = automatic activation
Prejudice Reduction
•1. Takes Time, Effort, & Attention
•Contact Hypothesis:1. Equal status2. Close one-to-one contact3. Intergroup cooperation4. Norms favoring equality
– Authority figures play a key role here
•2. Don’t Feed Your Biases
•Well-informed
•Legacy of our segregationist policies CREATED the ghettos where many Blacks HAD to live…not chose to live
•3. Learn & Appreciate Cultural Diffs.
•“Melting Pot” notion