8/17/2012 - myweb.dmacc.edu · slides prepared by jonell strough, ph.d. & philip lemaster, m.a....

8/17/2012

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Social Psychology, Eighth Edition Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert

©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Slides prepared by JoNell Strough, Ph.D. & Philip Lemaster, M.A. West Virginia University

Chapter 13

Prejudice: Causes, Consequences, and Cures



Prejudice—The Ubiquitous Social Phenomenon

• Prejudice is ubiquitous.

– It affects us all.

• Prejudice often flows from the minority group to the majority group.

– Can also flow in the other direction

• Any group can be a target of prejudice.




• Many aspects of your identity can cause you to be labeled and discriminated against:

– Name some…

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• Prejudice is dangerous.

– It can escalate to extreme hatred, torture, murder, and even genocide.

– Even when murder or genocide is not the result, the targets of prejudice will suffer in less dramatic ways.

– One frequent consequence is diminution of one’s self-esteem.



Prejudice Defined

• Prejudice is an attitude with three components:

– Affective (emotional) component

• Type of emotion linked with the attitude (e.g., anger, warmth)

• Extremity of the attitude (e.g., mild uneasiness, outright hostility)



Prejudice Defined

• Prejudice is an attitude with three components:

– Behavioral component

• How people act on emotions and cognitions

– Cognitive component

• Beliefs or thoughts that make up the attitude

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Prejudice Defined

• Prejudice

– General attitude structure and its affective (emotional) component

• Social psychologists use the word prejudice primarily when referring to negative attitudes about others.

– But we have have positive attitudes too.



Prejudice Defined

• A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership in that group



Stereotypes—The Cognitive Component

• Stereotype

– A generalization about a group of people in which identical characteristics are assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual variation among the members.

• Once formed, stereotypes are resistant to change on the basis of new information!

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Stereotypes—The Cognitive Component

• Stereotyping is a cognitive process, not an emotional one.

– Stereotyping does not necessarily lead to intentional acts of abuse.

– Stereotyping is a technique we use to simplify how we look at the world.

• We all do it to some extent.



The Illusory Correlation

• Minority groups are distinctive so we remember their behavior.

– Creates an illusory correlation between the group and behavior we encounter.

– Example—thinking Muslims are terrorists after 9/11

Illusory Correlation When we expect two things to be related, we fool

ourselves into believing that they are actually unrelated.



What’s Wrong with Positive Stereotypes?

• Potential abuse of stereotyping can be more subtle—and might involve a stereotype about a positive attribute.

– Example—race and sports ability

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What’s Wrong with Positive Stereotypes?

• Denies individuality of person

– Ignore the fact that plenty of African American kids are not adept at basketball and a plenty of white kids are

• If we meet a young African American man and feel astonished at his ineptitude on the basketball court, we are denying him his individuality.



Stereotypes of Gender

• Traditional Stereotypes

– Women

• More socially sensitive, friendlier, and more concerned with the welfare of others

– Men

• More dominant, controlling, and independent



Stereotypes of Gender

• Hostile sexism

– Stereotypical views of women that suggest that women are inferior to men

• E.g., that they are less intelligent, less competent, and so on

• Benevolent sexism

– Stereotypical, positive views of women

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Emotions—The Affective Component

• Negative emotions about groups are often ingrained.

• This makes such attitudes difficult to dispel.



Discrimination— The Behavioral Component

• Discrimination

– An unjustified negative or harmful action toward the members of a group simply because of their membership in that group.



Discrimination— The Behavioral Component

• Microaggressions

– Slights, indignities and “putdowns” directed at minorities and people with disabilities

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One unobtrusive measure of social distance and “microaggressions” is to notice how people respond, nonverbally, to people with disabilities.

Source: Sally Greenhill/Sally and Richard Greenhill/Alamy



“Modern” Racism and Other Implicit Prejudices

• People hide prejudice.

– When situation becomes “safe,” their prejudice will be revealed.

• Example

– Questioning President Obama’s Americanism, not his race per se



Measuring Implicit Prejudices

• Most people don’t want to admit their prejudices, so unobtrusive measures are necessary.

– Bogus pipeline

• Participants believed a “lie detector” could detect true attitudes.

• More likely to express racist attitudes

– Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT)

• Measures speed of positive and negative reactions to target groups

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Typical stimuli used in the IAT to measure implicit racism. Source: William A. Cunningham, University of Toronto



Automatic and Controlled Processing of Stereotypes

• Automatic processing of information

– Do not have control over

• Stereotypes may be automatically triggered under certain conditions.

• Controlled processing of information

– Have control over

• Ignore or refute stereotype that was automatically activated



Figure 13.3 A Two-Step Model of the Cognitive Processing of Stereotypes

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Effects of Prejudice on the Victim—Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

• Example

– If a society believes that a particular group is stupid, uneducable, it will act in accordance with beliefs.

• Educational resources will not be provided to that group.

• The Consequence—The group will not attain adequate education.

• The Result—The society’s original belief will be confirmed.



Stereotype Threat

• The apprehension experienced by members of a group that their behavior might confirm a cultural stereotype

– Victim of prejudice may internalize stereotypes

– Experience anxiety about confirming stereotype



Stereotype Threats Video

Click on the screenshot to hear Dr. Aronson discuss how stereotype threat can affect performance as well as ways to counteract stereotype threat.

Back to Directory

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What Causes Prejudice?



Children often learn prejudice from parents and grandparents. Source: AP Photo/The Herald, Ross Taylor



Pressures to Conform: Normative Rules

• Institutional discrimination

– Practices that discriminate, legally or illegally, against a minority group by virtue of its ethnicity, gender, culture, age, sexual orientation, or other target of societal or company prejudice.

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Institutionalized Racism and Sexism

• Institutionalized racism

– Racist attitudes that are held by the vast majority of people living in a society where stereotypes and discrimination are the norm

• Institutionalized sexism

– Sexist attitudes that are held by the vast majority of people living in a society where stereotypes and discrimination are the norm



When Prejudice Is Institutionalized

• Normative conformity

– The strong tendency to go along with the group in order to fulfill the group’s expectations and gain acceptance



Social Categorization— Us Versus Them

• The first step in prejudice

– Creation of groups

• Putting some people into one group based on certain characteristics

• This kind of categorization—an underlying theme of human social cognition

– Useful and necessary

– But can have profound implications

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In-Group Bias

• Positive feelings and special treatment for people we have defined as being part of our in-group and negative feelings and unfair treatment for others simply because we have defined them as being in the out-group



Dressing alike is a way of demonstrating membership in an in-group. Source: Cultura Creative/Alamy



In-Group Bias

• The major underlying motive is self-esteem

– Individuals enhance self-esteem by identifying with specific social groups.

– Self-esteem is enhanced only if the individual sees these groups as superior to other groups.

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Out-Group Homogeneity

• In-group members tend to perceive out-group members as being more similar (homogeneous) than they really are.

• If you know something about one out-group member, you are more likely to feel you know something about all of them.

Out-Group Homogeneity The belief that “they” are all alike.



How We Assign Meaning Attributional Biases



Dispositional Versus Situational Explanations

• One reason stereotypes are so insidious and persistent is the human tendency to make dispositional attributions.

• Relying too heavily on dispositional attributions often leads us to make attributional mistakes.

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Dispositional Versus Situational Explanations

• Ultimate attribution error

– Our tendency to make dispositional attributions about an individual’s negative behavior to an entire group of people.



Blaming the Victim

• When empathy is absent, it can be hard to avoid blaming the victim.

Blaming the Victim The tendency to blame individuals (make

dispositional attributions) for their victimization, is typically motivated by a desire to see the world as a

fair place.



The Justification-Suppression Model of Prejudice

• Crandall and Eschleman’s (2003) model

– Struggle between urge to express prejudice and the need to maintain positive self-concept (as a non-bigot)

– Requires energy to suppress prejudiced impulses

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The Justification-Suppression Model of Prejudice

• To conserve energy, seek valid justification for holding a negative attitude toward a particular out-group

• Can then act against that group and still feel like a non-bigot

– Avoids cognitive dissonance



Prejudice and Economic Competition

• Realistic conflict theory

– Limited resources conflict among groups prejudice and discrimination

– The idea that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination



Economic and Political Competition

• When times are tough and resources are scarce:

1. In-group members will feel more threatened by the out-group.

2. Incidents of prejudice, discrimination, and violence toward out-group members will increase.

3. Sherif’s classic study—Eagles versus Rattlers

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Realistic Group Conflict Theory

• Prejudice increases when times are tense and conflict exists over mutually exclusive goals.

– Example

• Economic recession and violence against Latinos



The Role of the Scapegoat

• Scapegoating

– When frustrated or unhappy, people tend to displace aggression onto groups that are disliked, visible, and relatively powerless

• Form of aggression dependent on what in-group approves of or allows



After the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11, scapegoating of Muslims increased.

Source: David Taylor Photography/Alamy

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How Can Prejudice Be Reduced?




• Researchers have found that when people are presented with an example that seems to refute their existing stereotype, most do not change their general belief.

– One experiment—some people presented with disconfirming evidence actually strengthened stereotypical belief.




• Researchers have found that when people are presented with an example that seems to refute their existing stereotype, most do not change their general belief.

– Disconfirming evidence challenged them to come up with additional reasons for holding on to that belief.

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The Contact Hypothesis

• Mere contact between groups not sufficient to reduce prejudice

– Can create opportunities for conflict that may increase it

• Prejudice will decrease when two conditions are met:

– Both groups are of equal status.

– Both share a common goal.



When Contact Reduces Prejudice—Six Conditions

• Sherif and colleagues (1961) found:

– Once hostility and distrust were established, simply removing a conflict and the competition did not restore harmony.

– In fact, bringing two competing groups together in neutral situations actually increased their hostility and distrust.

Mutual Interdependence The need to depend on each other to accomplish a

goal that is important to each group.



Figure 13.7 How Cooperation Fosters Intergroup Relations

When the Eagles and the Rattlers were in competition, very few of the boys in each group had friends from the other side. Intergroup tensions were eased only after the boys had to cooperate to get shared privileges and the boys began to make friends

across “enemy lines.” (Based on data in Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, & Sherif, 1961)

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When Contact Reduces Prejudice—Six Conditions

1. Mutual interdependence

2. Common goal

3. Equal status

4. Friendly, informal setting

5. Knowing multiple out-group members

6. Social norms of equality



Social Categorization— Us Versus Them

• Classic study:

– Jane Elliot’s third-grade classroom, Blue-eyed versus brown-eyed children



Implicit Prejudice

• Often aren’t aware of our prejudices.

• How can it be prejudice if we aren’t even aware of it?

– Can manifest in dangerous consequences.

– Example

• Studies have shown people more likely to accidentally shoot an unarmed African American than a White person

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Expectations and Distortions

• When a member of an out-group behaves as we expect, it confirms and even strengthens our stereotype. And when an out-group member behaves in an unexpected, nonstereotypical fashion?



Expectations and Distortions

• Attribution theory: can simply engage in some attributional fancy footwork and emerge with our dispositional stereotype intact

• Can make situational attributions about the exception.

– Example, that the person really is as we believe, but it just isn’t apparent in this situation.

8/17/2012 - myweb.dmacc.edu · slides prepared by jonell strough, ph.d. & philip lemaster, m.a....

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