PSYC1030 Lecture 7: Prejudice & Stereotyping
PSYC1030 Lecture Seven: Prejudice &
Stereotyping
• Stereotyping sometimes occurs without awareness
• Almost in the first few seconds of meeting someone new, people form judgements
about that person based on their appearance and how they conduct themselves.
• And this prejudgment of the other person can sometimes be positive i.e. if the other
person is familiar to the person judging them, it is more likely that their prejudgment
of them will be positive. But it can also be negative.
• Prejudice refers to the prejudgment or initial opinion people firm about someone bore
they've had a chance to properly get to know them. It's being judged negatively on the
basis of something other than the quality of their character
e.g. how they look, their accents, where they lived, tattoos, body shape, etc.
Prejudice literally means 'prejudgment' and comes from the Latin word
prae judice
,
prejudgment
• In social psychology, prejudice refers to the unfavourable attitudes that people have
towards a social group and its members. Social psychologists are interested in
answering the question of why people are prejudiced, and knowing factors that are
associated with prejudice would enable them to work out a way to at least reduce
prejudice in society. It serves as a big social justice mission for many psychologists.
Sexism and racism are the two largest researched 'isms' over the years
• People living with chronic stress from their experience of sexism or racism have been
found to be more at risk of taking their own lives (Perry, et al, 2012)
• There are three components to prejudice
- the cognitive component refers to a person’s beliefs, and in the case of prejudice, it
is the beliefs about a group, often these beliefs are represented in the form of a
stereotype (a simplified idea of what a group of people are like, often a gross
exaggeration of something)
• Some people feel negatively towards developing stereotypes about groups of people,
they feel guilty about stereotyping. It's as though they have this sense that developing
stereotypes shouldn’t be done, because stereotyping is prejudice and prejudice is bad.
Unfortunately, is it actually very difficult, if not impossible, to avoid stereotyping
altogether
• People are sensitive to the categorical characteristic that are typically associated with
different groups of people--what they typically do, what they wear, how they speak,
and so on. The sensitivity held towards these characteristics can be very helpful most
of the time. The world is a complex place, and in order to deal with the tremendous
amount of information that is encountered every day, the brain has evolved to take
short cuts. People use rule of thumbs, they make assumptions, they draw
generalisations, they have schemas that help them get through. If they didn’t do this,
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it would be impossible for them to process all the information that they encounter
throughout the day (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000)
• Stereotyping becomes dysfunctional when initial judgements about a group is
negative--when initial judgements about a group is based on something other than
what is actually true in reality. Then people rigidly cling onto and are unwilling to
modify their judgement in light of disconfirming evidence
• In a person's mind, they are able to hold a thought about a stereotype, as well as the
knowledge that they're not taking the stereotype seriously, at the same time
e.g. the stereotypical Frenchman
• Stereotypes can be formed even with the absence of any actual experience with such
specific groups of people
• The second component is the affective component which includes the usually negative
feelings about another group, whether it's dislike, resentment, or disgust
• The last component is the behavioural component of prejudice, this is what
discrimination refers to. People who are target of prejudice are being denied
opportunities, treated badly because of their disability, gender, sexuality, race, etc. It's
an intention to behave negatively towards a group and it’s members
• Traditionally, women are stereotyped as being nurturing and kind, associated with
being maternal. Everything that implies benevolent, kind, good-natured, patient
behaviours are linked to women. They are seen as more interested in domestic matters
than men, seen as more emotionally rich and complex than men (Archer & Lloyd,
2002; Pretice & Carranza, 2002). Women are characterised as being warm and
expressive--according to the stereotype, women are nice but maybe not so competent
(Gilbert, Fiske & Lindzey, 1998)
• Men, stereotypically are emotionally resilient in the face of difficult times, dominant,
aggressive. Often associated with criminals, soldiers, builders, etc. Men are seen as
more intelligent, tougher more resilient, and more independent than women. They are
see as having a can-do attitude, more practical, good in a crisis, and have a warrior
kind of stereotype (Archer & Lloyd, 2002; Pretice & Carranza, 2002). According to
Sigmund Freud, men are thought to think about sport, cars, and sex. Men are
perceived as being competent, ambitious, doers, and independent. According to the
men will get the job done, but are not necessarily nice (Gilbert, Fiske & Lindzey, 1998)
• Some stereotypes of men and women in western societies have changed over the years
e.g. girls tend to perform better in school, and go on to university more often than
boys, which is a contrast to the domestic stereotype of the past, and the challenges
that stereotypes that women are less competent than men
• When asking where such stereotypes come from, it is very tempting to answer that
they exist because they are true, this is the kernel of truth argument (LeVine &
Campbell, 1972). Kernel meaning seed, suggesting that at their heart these
stereotypes are somewhat true and based of reality. The stereotypes are not 100%
true, the kernel of truth is suggesting that there's a seed of truth, and that the
stereotype is a great exaggeration of that seed. It's not like to people are having
collection delusions about these stereotypes, not as though they all collectively
imagined this myth, it's based on something
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Document Summary
But it can also be negative: prejudice refers to the prejudgment or initial opinion people firm about someone bore they"ve had a chance to properly get to know them. It"s being judged negatively on the basis of something other than the quality of their character e. g. how they look, their accents, where they lived, tattoos, body shape, etc. Prejudice literally means "prejudgment" and comes from the latin word prae judice, prejudgment. In social psychology, prejudice refers to the unfavourable attitudes that people have towards a social group and its members. Social psychologists are interested in answering the question of why people are prejudiced, and knowing factors that are associated with prejudice would enable them to work out a way to at least reduce prejudice in society. It serves as a big social justice mission for many psychologists. It"s as though they have this sense that developing stereotypes shouldn"t be done, because stereotyping is prejudice and prejudice is bad.
