CH 13: PREJUDICE
Nov 29/2011
1. Prejudice is Everywhere - Prejudice is a hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable group of
Prejudice and Self esteem people based solely on their membership in that group
Clark - Refers to the general attitude structure and its affective (emotional)
component.
- Found that African American children, some already 3 years old were already
convinced that it was not particularly desirable to be black
Prejudice and Gender - The children were offered a choice between playing with a white or black doll
Goldberg and the great majority of them chose to play with the white doll feeling that
the white doll was prettier
- Found that women in this culture had learned to consider themselves
intellectually inferior to men
- Female college students read scholarly articles and evaluate them in terms of
competence and writing style
- Male signed papers (John T. McKay) vs. Female papers (Joan T. McKay)
- The male signed articles were rated higher
2. Defining Stereotypes - Stereotype: a generalization about a group of people in which certain traits are
assigned to virtually all members of the group regardless of actual variation
among the members
- It is often a technique we use to simplify how we look at the world and doesn’t
necessarily lead to intentional acts of abuse
o Ex. In 19 nations, older adults are seen as likeable but less strong
and active than younger adults
o Germans = hard working, French=pleasure loving, Brits=cool&
unexcitable
Sports and Stereotypes - Accurate stereotype may even be desirable, making you aware of culture
o Ex. Knowing that British are more punctual helps you know how to
act in that country.
- It is generally a stereotype that Blacks are better than Whites at basketball,
which is a stereotype about a positive attribute
- However, if we meet a Black man who is bad at basketball, then we deny him
of his individuality
- In an experiment, students listened to a 20 minute tape of a college basketball
game
- Told to focus on one of the players, Mark Flick
- Half the students saw a folder of Flick including his photo – either black or
white and they had to rate his performance afterwards.
- Students who believed Flick was African rated him as having better ability.
Gender and Stereotypes - But problems arise when stereotypes are overgeneralized or attribute negative
differences to biology but ignore social forces.
- Women are thought to be more nurturant and less assertive than men
- When confronted with a successful female physician, male undergraduates
perceived her as less competent and having an easier path toward success than
a successful male physician
- Females perceived male and female as equally competent, the male was seen
as having an easier time of it and attributed higher motivation/ harder working
to the female.
- In both children and adults, girls blamed unsuccessful performance on
themselves but boys blamed it on bad luck.
Discrimination + Mental Patients
Bond - Discrimination is an unjustified negative or harmful action toward the
members of a group simply because of their membership in that group
o Ex. If you’re a math teacher who thinks that girls are hopeless at
math, you might be less likely to spend as much time in the
classroom coaching a girl than a boy - In Bond’s study, the treatment of patients in a psychiatric hospital run by an
all-white staff were compared.
- Found that harsh methods of handling patients’ violent behaviour – straitjacket
and tranquilizing drugs – were 4 times likely to be administered to black
patients.
- After several weeks, the staff noticed the black and white patients didn’t differ
in their degree of violent behaviour and they began to treat these patients
equally.
Discrimination + Homosexuals
Hebl - 16 college students (8 male, 8 female) were confederates of the experimenters
applied for jobs at local stores
- In some of their interviews, they were portrayed as being homosexual or not
- All stressed similarly to standardize the interactions
- Looked at formal discrimination (availability of jobs, fill out job application,
request to use bathroom) and interpersonal discrimination
- Found no formal discrimination but there was interpersonal discrimination
whereby some employers were less verbally positive, spent less time speaking
to them
Stereotypes and Jobs -
Kunda - Friends describe to Ps that Michael was extraverted
Cohen - Ps were told that Michael was either an actor or a car salesman
- If Michael was described as a salesman, Ps thought he spoke loudly and
monopolize the conversation
- If Michael was an actor, he was the life of the party, making others
comfortable.
- Ps watched a video of an interaction between a woman and her husband
- Ps were told she was either a librarian or a waitress
o Librarian stereotype: listens to classical music
o Waitress: drinking beer or being affectionate with husband
- The video depicted behaviors consistent with both stereotypes
- When Ps asked to recall woman’s behaviors, those who thought she was a
librarian recalled the librarian characteristics.
3. Formation of Stereotypes –
social categorization - To make sense of things, we are naturally inclined to categorize people based
on their characteristics, such as gender, nationality, ethnicity and so on.
Assimilation & Contrast - Assimilation: to minimize differences within categories
o If you see a continuum of shapes with a square on one end and a
diamond on the other, the shapes in between is either in square or
diamond categories.
- Contrast: to exaggerate differences between categories
o Ex. The temperature gap for Nov 15 and 23 was rated as less
different than Nov 30 and Dec 8
Blue eyed vs brown eyed - Children were grouped based on eye colour
Jane Elliot - Told students that blue-eyed people were superior to brown-eyed people and
the brown-eyed people had to wear collars so they would be instantly
recognized as a member of the inferior group
- Blue eyed kids had special privileges during play time or lunch
- The brown-eyed kids performed poorly on tests, they were made fun of and
the blue-eyed kids thought up new restrictions and punishments for them
- The next day, Elliot switched the stereotypes about eye colour, allowing
brown-eyed kids to exact their revenge
- On the third day, Elliot explained to her students about discrimination.
Height of Women vs. men
Nelson - Ps had to judge the height of various men and women from a series of
photographs
- The men and women were actually of equal height but Ps perceived males a
few inches taller than women.
Disadvantages - We tend to group people based on similar attributes
- But this can lead to overestimating or underestimating them, and we come to view categorizations as rigid social groups.
4. Formation of stereotypes –
In-group/Out-group Bias
Why we show In-group bias 1. Social identity
- Belonging to a group gives us a social identity and contributes to good feelings
about yourself
- We have a motivational bias where we’re motivated to protect our own group
identity
2. Self esteem benefits
- Having a social identity contributes to feelings of self esteem
- Social identity theory: people favour ingroups over outgroups to enhance
their self esteem
Implicit Personality theories of
Groups 1. Entity Theorists
- Tend to see social groups as relatively fixed, static entities and borders clear
Q: How can these be innate? and rigid
A :I'd say it's like optimism/pessimism or - They expect more consistency b/w groups, thus using stereotypes
any similar personality trait. Something in 2. Incremental theorists
your brain chemistry with a genetic basis - Tend to see social groups as dynamic and changeable with less consistency
predisposes you to view the world a and more malleability
certain way, which may be encouraged or
discouraged by learning experience - Less likely to use stereotype
Minimal group experiment - Complete strangers are formed into groups using the most trivial criteria
possible
Tajfel - Ps watched a coin toss that randomly assigned them to group X or group W
- In another experiment, Ps were asked to express their opinons about artists
they never heard of and were assigned to made up Klee style or Kandinsky
style group based on picture preferences.
- Ps ended up liking their own members better, rating them to have pleasant
personalities and have done better work than outgroup members
- Out –group homogeneity is the belief that individuals of the out group are
Out group homogeneity- Princeton
vs. Rutgers more similar to each other than they really are, as well as more similar than the
Quattrone members of the in-group are
o Ex. Middle East people are based on Taliban hostile
- The rivalry between these colleges is based on athletics, academics, and class-
consciousness.
- Male research Ps watched videotaped scenes in which 3 different young men
were asked to make a decision
o Ex. If he wanted to listen to rock music or classical
- Ps were told the man was either a Princeton or Rutgers student and they had to
predict which music he’d choose
- After they saw the man make his choice, they had to predict what percentage
of male students at that institution would make the same choice
- Results showed that when the target person was an out-group member, Ps
believed his choice was more predictive of what his peers would choose than
when he was an in-group member.
5. Formation of Stereotypes – - Influence of media and socialization is a not always obvious way of
Sociocultural factors stereotyping men and women
o Ex. Men are shown as facial close-ups, so they’re perceived as more
powerful
o Women are shown as full body shots, which implies physical
appearance
o When homosexuals or mental patients commit a crime, these factors
Social situation + Dimension of are mentioned because they’re newsworthy.
stereotype
- People carry with them many rich dimensions of social identity, associated
with different stereotypes
- Different social situations trigger different identities
o Ex. If you see a white male Christian accountant, and he is doing your taxes for you, the accountant identity is more salient so you
make a stereotype based on that.
6. Persistence of Stereotypes
Activation of Stereotypes - If you know a stereotype, will it affect your cognitive processing about a target
Greenberg even if you don’t believe the stereotype nor consider yourself prejudiced
against the group?
- Using 2 confeds, one African American and one white, had a debate about
nuclear e
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