PSY 345 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Class Discrimination, Unconscious Mind, Egalitarianism
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination
Introduction
- “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” – MLK Jr.
- Despite the wise words of MLK Jr., we can’t say that we are living in a society were we
are judged ONLY by the content of our character
o However, on a positive note our society has more closely embraced this idea in
2016 than when this quote was delivered in the “I Have a Dream” Speech in 1963
o To say prejudice behavior, stereotyping and discrimination have been eradicated
today is crazy. It still occurs in a variety of forms (depending on your race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, culture, etc.)
o However, to say that other people are constantly treating you a certain way
because of your race, gender, sexuality, etc. is equally absurd. The way others
treat you most often depends upon your behavior
Prejudice
- Allport (1954), during a time when racism in the US was out of control, defined
prejudice as “an antipathy based on a faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt
or expressed. It may be directed toward a group as a whole or toward an individual
because he is a group member.”
- Categorization is the key to prejudice attitudes – that human beings generalize and assign
characteristics to a social group. Categorizing people is not necessarily bad (by job, race,
age, gender), unless of course you assign your own specific attitudes toward all relevant
group members based on these features
- Identifying exactly how prejudice attitudes are assigned is difficult because it occurs
differently from individual to individual
- A person may not be prejudice against a certain gender in general, but they may have
specific prejudices for individuals of that gender who hold social roles traditionally
prescribed for other genders
- Prejudice also occurs when members of a group are believed to be competent or
incompetent simply because they belong to the specific group
- For example:
o All [race of people] are good at something. All [people of a certain gender] are
bad at something.
o Both statements are equally prejudiced, given that they generalizing nature of the
attitude extends to all people of a certain social group
o But we have learned that people seem to have more positive attitudes towards
other individuals who they view as most similar to them. Humans also tend to
evaluate their own behaviors in comparison to those that are most like them and
their personality. This is not by definition prejudice behavior.
o How a person categorizes themselves could dictate how favorably or negatively
they respond to others, both similar and different from these categories
Discrimination
- Discrimination is the way that a person is treated in a particular way because of his or
her group membership
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- Research into discriminatory behavior can be misleading. Certainly if one group of
individuals represents a much higher percent of employees than other group of
individuals, this seems like discriminatory hiring practices. However, if members of a
social group are not interested (overall) in this line of work, these differences in
employee percentages is not really discrimination.
- For example: a lot of research has found that women make less money when compared
to men, citing gender discrimination in the workplace. While this could be very true,
some research has shown that this pay balance could be due to the fact that men and
apply (and get hired) to more hazardous/risky jobs than women overall. These types of
jobs also typically tend to have higher salaries.
- A more complete definition of discrimination is when members of two different social
groups are otherwise equal, but are treated differently
- This can also be difficult to determine when two different social groups are “similarly
situated” in the real world because of the sheer number of variables to control for
- Legal definitions of discrimination focus on the intent of a company, group, person, etc.
to engage in unequal treatment of a person based on specific inherent features of that
person
- This is also difficult in the sense that evidence must be collected in legal disputes to show
an intention for discrimination – and finding this evidence to show a person’s intention
might not be concrete (behavior is interpreted as discriminatory, but the evidence to
support this more subjective or open to interpretation)
- Evidence also suggest that people discriminate without even realizing they are doing it
(are they intending to be discriminatory or not?) Carbado, Fisk, and Gulati (2008) argued
for the concept of “discrimination by inclusion” where people from diverse social
groups are included and represent active members in a social group (for example, at a
company), but their opinions, contributions, qualities are more often ignored or left our
compared to another social group
Stereotyping
- A stereotype is similar to prejudice with a subtle difference – rather than having a
generalize attitude towards all members of a group, a stereotype is the process of
attributing specific characteristics to particular individuals only because of their
membership in the group
- Stereotypes are more specific social generalizations about a person
- From the book: African Americans are naturally athletic or that Asians are
mathematically gifted. Generally though stereotypes are rarely positive, and generally
exist primarily as cognitive models in response to fear
- Stereotypes often follow a particular logical chain of reasoning, albeit faulty logic.
Someone may stereotype a group as “poor because they are unskilled, unskilled because
they failed in their educational pursuits, and educational failure because they are lazy and
do not apply themselves.” (p. 345)
- This line of reasoning assumes (completely wrong) that if C → B, if B → A, therefore C
→ A, which is essentially saying that a person is poor because they are lazy. This
broadly generalized set of assumptions, ignoring the more complex, realistic, and social
reasons a group might be poor
- Often this line of broad generalizations (which seems logical) is based on a pre-existing
belief that certain characteristics are innate in certain social groups
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- Another example of how faulty logic forms a string of opinionated statements to
create a stereotype
o Pitbulls attack children because they are aggressive dogs
o Pitbulls are aggressive dogs because they are good fighters
o Pitbulls are good fighters because they are vicious animals
▪ This is not true. Pitbulls are no more dangerous or aggressive than golden
retrievers
- Directly asking a participant in a lab setting about their thoughts regarding a certain
social group (or asking them to make a decision that might be viewed as discriminatory
or prejudice) is generally fairly obvious. Participants may respond in a more socially
acceptable, non-discriminatory way as to not appear prejudice or discriminatory
- So researchers have largely tried to avoid such explicit measurements for more implicit
ones: directly measuring eye movements, reaction time, facial movement (EMG),
amygdala activation, etc.
- These measures provide some insight into the automatic functions that occur in a person
when they are confronted with decisions that may involve discrimination or prejudice
(but that they might not want to express directly)
- For example: one study showed that when images of white and black individuals were
presented to police officers (some holding threatening objects and some not) in a “shoot”
or “don’t shoot” video game, officers were quicker to choose shoot for armed black
images than armed white. More common errors were made to choose “shoot” for
unarmed black images and “not-shoot” for armed white. The race of the police officers
did not effect this phenomena
How do prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination relate to each other?
- Theory of Reasoned Action – stereotypes develop cognitive models for a social group,
which then develop into prejudice (negative generalized beliefs that are based on the
characteristics the group is assumed to possess)
- Finally, prejudice gives rise to discrimination (people treat people differently because of
the developed attitude of prejudice)
- Cognitive appraisals → emotional reactions → prejudice intentions → discriminatory
behavior
- As strange as this sounds, prejudice attitudes change. So do discriminatory actions and
stereotypes. With new developments and different social perspectives come new forms
of racism, sexism, etc. that affect people
- More subtle forms of prejudice beliefs, discriminatory behavior, and stereotypes occur
today as opposed to 50 years ago
- However, even though ideas that support the superiority of certain social groups are not
widely accepted anymore and seen as extreme, these ideas still persist in their original
“form” in some parts of the country
- Gaertner and Dovidio’s (1986) theory of aversive racism argued that most people in
modern society believe they are fair and do not consider themselves to be prejudice
- The authors of chapter 10 argue that people in general “often tend to possess lingering
prejudice feelings… egalitarianism tends to win out [over racist ideals] whenever the role
of race is obvious and clear-cut. Under such circumstances, the aversive racist will take
pains to avoid behaving in a ostensibly biased manner” (p. 348)
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character mlk jr. 2016 than when this quote was delivered in the i have a dream speech in 1963: to say prejudice behavior, stereotyping and discrimination have been eradicated today is crazy. The way others treat you most often depends upon your behavior. Allport (1954), during a time when racism in the us was out of control, defined prejudice as an antipathy based on a faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be directed toward a group as a whole or toward an individual because he is a group member. Categorization is the key to prejudice attitudes that human beings generalize and assign characteristics to a social group.
