Stereotyping and Prejudice II

• Conditions for reducing prejudice

• Three types of prejudice– Old-fashioned– Modern– Implicit

What are the conditions necessary for reducing prejudice?

• Last time we discussed:

• 1. Equal status

• 2. Personal, informal contact

• 3. Contact w/ multiple group members to breakdown stereotypes.

• 4. Mutual interdependence and 5. Common goals

• 6. Existing norms must favor group equality– Not true during desegregation – in fact, much

resistance.

Jigsaw technique

• Jigsaw technique (Eliot Aronson): A jigsaw classroom is a classroom setting designed to reduce prejudice and raise the self-esteem of children by placing them in small desegregated groups and making each child dependent on the other children in the group to learn the course material and do well in the class.

Jigsaw technique

• 6 person learning groups• Day’s lesson divided into 6 parts• Each student responsible for 1 part and each

piece of info is important (jigsaw piece)• Must teach material to others (expert role)• Must do work, and listen and work w/others

Results of jigsaw studies

• Children in jigsaw classrooms:– Liked each other more– Showed less prejudice– Liked school more– Had higher self-esteem

Why does the “jigsaw” work?

• How does the jigsaw establish each of the conditions for reducing prejudice?

• What happens when these conditions are established?

Three Types of Prejudice

• Old fashioned prejudice/racism– Blatant negative stereotypes– Open opposition to racial equality

• Modern prejudice/racism– Outwardly acting unprejudiced while inwardly

maintaining prejudiced attitudes

• Implicit prejudice/racism– Hold automatic biases, often without

conscious awareness

Old-fashioned racism

• On the decline

• Survey responses show shift from 1950’s/1960’s to more recent years– Majority of white/Caucasian people show less

blatantly prejudiced responses • Ex: 78% (1996) say they would not move if

Black/African-Amer people moved into their neighborhood vs. only 25% (1960)

Other survey responses by White participants (not on outline)

Report willing to admit Blacks to: 1949 1968 1992

• Employment in my occupation 78% 98% 99%Club as personalfriends 51% 97% 96%Close kinship bymarriage 0% 66% 74%

How can we interpret this change in survey responses over time?

How can we study modern prejudice/racism?

• Issues to address– May not express because________________– May truly believe _________, but still

__________________– May be _________________

• Automatic processing– Everyone knows cultural stereotypes for different groups,

even if they don’t endorse them– Cultural stereotype can be automatically activated when

encounter a group member or stereotypical statement.

How can we measure more covert prejudice?

• Bogus pipeline: A fake lie detector test where participants are wired with electrodes that supposedly record their true feelings.– White students express more negative views

of Black students when the bogus pipeline is used.

How can we measure more covert prejudice?

• Assess behavior (Rogers & Prentice-Dunn,1981)• IV1: Confederate: Insulted or did not insult• IV2: Confed: Caucasian or African-American• DV: Strength and duration of shocks participants thought they were

administering to the confederate (as part of a “biofeedback experiment”)• Results:

• Insulting confederate: Ps gave ______intense shocks when he was ______than when he was _____.

• Non-insulting confederate: Ps gave _____ intense shocks when he was _____ than when he was ______.

Modern racism

• Supports theories of modern racism which suggest that discrimination against minorities/underrepresented groups is especially likely to surface when it seems safe, socially acceptable, and easy to rationalize.

Implicit Association Test

• Greenwald & Banaji, 1995– Class exercise

IAT

• https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

If people are unaware of their prejudices, are they unable to control their behavior?

– It depends.• Under what conditions will people be able to ignore

cultural stereotypes?– Controlled processing: Occurs with your awareness – for

example, when you choose to ignore or counter stereotypes that have been brought to mind. More likely when:

» we are _______________________________» we make judgments based on the

_________________________rather than their _______________.

Under what conditions are people not able to ignore an activated stereotype?

• Ironic processes – tired, multiple tasks, time pressure (automatic processing)

Stereotype suppression and the “rebound” effect

Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, & Jetten, 1994• IV: Warned perceptions often biased by stereotypes and

asked to inhibit bias (suppression instruction) or did not receive these instructions

• Dv: Negativity/positivity of paragraph description after seeing the 1st photo of male skinhead and then after seeing a new photo of a 2nd male skinhead

• Results: 1. After 1st photo, less stereotyping by those _______ than __________.2. After 2nd photo, previously warned group ____________________. (rebound effect)

Rebound effect

• Conscious efforts to suppress a stereotype may backfire; instead, focus on the unique characteristics of the person.

How do cultural stereotypes affect perceptions of members of the stereotyped group?

– Stereotype threat (Claude Steele, 1997): “the predicament where one's actions can be interpreted, either by others or the self, in a way that confirms a negative cultural stereotype. "

• Intellectual settings: “a threat in the air”

Stereotype threat

• Why might African-American students drop out of college at a much higher rate (70%) than Caucasian students (42%)?

• Standard explanations– Socioeconomic disadvantage, segregation, and

discrimination

• Steele’s explanation– Above not adequate because drop out rate is true for

students at all levels of achievement (i.e., those who enter college w/high SAT scores and high GPA)

Stereotype threat

• Steele & Aronson, 1995• Iv: E says test will measure general intellectual

ability (stereotype threat) or it is a problem-solving task not related to general intellectual ability (no threat)

• Quasi-Iv: Black/Af-Am or White/Cauc. Students• DV: Performance on a difficult test • Results:

– Stereotype threat: African-American/Black students in the stereotype threat condition scored ____________than Caucasian/White students.

– No stereotype threat: _______________________

Stereotype Threat

• Applies to gender too

• Similar paradigm

• IV: Stereotype threat or not (Ps told that math test designed to show differences between m and f (threat) or that test performance was unrelated to gender (no threat).

• Results:

How can we apply these findings to educational settings?

• "Wise" educational environments (Steele) applied in Univ. of Michigan program:– positive student-teacher relationships– feedback that is clear but affirming (“Look, we’re using high

standards in evaluating this work. But, I have looked at your work, and I think you can meet those standards.”

– challenge, not remediation – stressing intelligence's expandability – group study – leadership of university clearly expresses (and supports)

the value of diversity

• (Recommended video: “Stand & Deliver” Jaime Escalante)