PSYB10H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Minimal Group Paradigm, Wassily Kandinsky, Ethnocentrism
Lecture 8: Groups, Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Ultrasociality
• Thousands (or millions) of individuals living together
• In all other ultrasocial species, individuals are closely related
• Groups are an adaptation that enables human ultrasociality
• Good and bad consequences
We See Groups Everywhere
• Subjects made a choice b/w several paintings and were divided into supporters of Klee or
Kandinsky
Minimal Group Paradigm
• Subjects were divided into two groups: Klee fans or Kandinsky fans.
• Then a task to assign dollars to a Klee and Kandinskymember.
• The amount the other assigns to them is the amount they get to keep at the end of the
experiment
• Maximize ingroup profit
• Maximize equality
• Maximize difference (in favor of ingroup)
• Participants chose to:
o Maximize ingroup profit.
o Maximize differences between groups, even at the expense of ingroup profit!
Intergroup Bias
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Intergroup Attitudes
• Like all attitudes, attitudes toward different social groups are composed of three components
o Affective: prejudice refers to the general attitude structure, but more specifically the
emotional component
o Behavioral: discrimination is differential treatment due to group membership.
o Cognitive:
▪ Stereotype is a generalization about a group that is seen as descriptive of all
members of that group.
▪ Outgroup homogeneity: the tendency to see all outgroup members as alike
the’re all the sae
Modern Prejudice
• Blatat old fashioed rais:
o Beliefs about minorities that are clearly bigoted and readily admitted
o E.g., Blaks are laz, Jes are heap
o Open expression of bigoted views is now less common in some countries
Benevolent Stereotypes
• Not all stereotypes are necessarily negative
o Some stereotypes include favourable assessments of abilities
▪ Some groups may be stereotyped as smarter, nicer, or more athletic than
others
• Benevolent racism (or sexism)
o Race and gender stereotypes often contain a mix of both positive and negative
sentiments
• Trouble with positive stereotypes
o Can be used to justify holding other negative stereotypes
▪ For instance, may believe that women are kinder and more nurturing but that
they are less capable than men
▪ Holding a positive stereotype can be seen to justify or balance out (-)
stereotypes
o May disparage eers that do’t fit the + stereotpe
Implicit Attitudes
• Because ppl often are motivated to control expressions of prejudice, it can be difficult to
measure true attitudes toward different social groups
Automatic and Controlled Processing
• Social information may be processed two different ways
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• Automatic processing
o Automatic, involuntary, and unconscious
o Often based on emotional responses
• Controlled processing
o Conscious, systematic, and deliberate
o Controlled processing can override automatic responses
Implicit Attitudes
• Ipliit attitudes are a easure of soeoe’s autoati egatie or positie ealuatio of a
social group or category
o Implicit attitudes can be measured by ease of associating different social categories with
positive or negative words
o Ppl may report non-prejudiced attitudes explicitly, but show biases on an implicit
measure
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
• Timed sorting task
• Categorize group A with good; group B with bad
• Then reverse: categorize group A w/ bad/ group B with bad
• Difference b/w reaction times in the two blocks = implicit preference for A over B
Implicit Attitudes
• White Americans show constant pro-white preference on average
• Black Americans show no preference on average
Implicit Attitudes Predict:
• Social closeness (seating distance)
• Economic decisions
o whether they'd trust a group member with their money
• Voting
• Amygdala activation, and more
Origins of Prejudice and Discrimination
• Economic perspective
o Argues that prejudice results from different social groups competing over scarce
resources
• Motivational perspective
o Argues that prejudie results fro otiatios to ie oe’s igroup ore favorably
than outgroups
o individual's desire to feel good about themselves
▪ when we're feeling less secure we may turn to discriminating and out group
• Cognitive perspective
o Argues that prejudice results from biases in social cognition due to schemas about
differences b/w ingroup and outgroup members
o how do we naturally categorize the world
▪ certain predictable biases
Economic Perspective
• Realistic group conflict theory
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Ultrasociality: thousands (or millions) of individuals living together. In all other ultrasocial species, individuals are closely related: groups are an adaptation that enables human ultrasociality, good and bad consequences. Subjects made a choice b/w several paintings and were divided into supporters of klee or. Like all attitudes, attitudes toward different social groups are composed of three components: affective: prejudice refers to the general attitude structure, but more specifically the emotional component, behavioral: discrimination is differential treatment due to group membership, cognitive: Stereotype is a generalization about a group that is seen as descriptive of all members of that group: outgroup homogeneity: the tendency to see all outgroup members as alike (cid:894)(cid:862)the(cid:455)"re all the sa(cid:373)e(cid:863)(cid:895) Modern prejudice: blata(cid:374)t (cid:894)(cid:862)old fashio(cid:374)ed(cid:863)(cid:895) ra(cid:272)is(cid:373), beliefs about minorities that are clearly bigoted and readily admitted, e. g. , (cid:862)bla(cid:272)ks are laz(cid:455), je(cid:449)s are (cid:272)heap(cid:863, open expression of bigoted views is now less common in some countries.
