Social Psychology Unit 3 (Final Exam)

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Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

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Christopher Columbus

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stereotyped out-groups.

described the appearance of the inhabitants of San Salvador when he arrived in 1492. At the end of his description, he wrote: “they ought to make good slaves.” Since the islanders were different from what he was used to, he felt no need to treat them as he would treat his crew or other Europeans. Although slavery is no longer a state-sponsored enterprise, there is still slavery. There has been much progress, however. We are more multicultural than ever before. Despite such progress, however, the human tendency is to stereotype, harbor prejudice, and engage in discrimination—this happens even in the U.S.

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One single comprehensive theory of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination?

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will never be the case, thus the economic perspective, motivational perspective, and cognitive perspective

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The economic perspective

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identifies the roots of much intergroup hostility in the competing interests that set many groups apart from one another.

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The motivational perspective

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emphasizes the psychological needs and wishes that lead to inter-group conflict.

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The cognitive perspective

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traces the origin of stereotyping to the same cognitive processes that allow people to categorize, say, items of furniture into distinct classes of chairs, couches, and tables.

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Stereotypes

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beliefs that certain attributes are characteristic of members of particular groups. They can be positive or negative, true or false. And whether valid or not, they are a way of categorizing people. Projecting what (you think) you know about the group onto your expectations about the individual.

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Prejudice

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refers to an attitudinal and affective response toward a certain group and its individual members. Negative attitudes have received the most attention, but it’s also possible to be positively prejudiced toward a particular group. Prejudice involves prejudging other because they belong to a specific category.

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Discrimination

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refers to negative or harmful behavior directed toward members of particular groups. It involves unfair treatment of others—treatment based not on their character or abilities but on their membership in a group.

We were discriminated at Longview because we belong to the “group” of Brandeis undergraduates.

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Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination

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refer to the belief, attitudinal, and behavioral components, respectively, of negative inter-group relations. These three behaviors often go together, but they don’t always go together.

Jewish parents discriminate without prejudice. They sometimes say that they don’t want their children to marry outside the faith because they are concerned about assimilation and its implications for the future of Judaism.

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modern racism

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subtler type of distrust, you know that you are supposed to think that all people are equal and that genetically different intelligence levels do not exist, however, if you are approached by a black man on the street, you are likely to think that you are in more danger than when you are approached by a white man

prejudice directed at other racial groups that exists alongside of rejection of explicitly racial beliefs

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Experiment: Gaertner & Dovidio

Modern racism

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if people thought they were the only one who could help, they would come to the aid of the black victim a little more than they came to the aid of the white victim, but when they thought that other people were present and their inaction could be justified on nonracial grounds, then they helped the black victim much less often than they helped the white victim -- 38% vs. 75%

Modern racism shows itself in subtle ways.

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Experiment: Gaertner & Dovidio

College applications from black and white students

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When the black and white students were both equally good or equally bad there was not a difference in how they were judged by the participants.

However, when the applicants excelled in certain dimensions and fell short in others, then the prejudice people would rate blacks less favorably then the white applicants because they had a justification for being discriminatory, they could claim that the dimension on which the black applicant was below average was more important.

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Experiment: Norton, Vandelo, and Darley

College applications and priming prejudice

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If you prime white people by telling them that the processes are often biased, then they actually become biased towards the in-group.

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racism, sexism and ageism

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are ambivalent, containing both positive and negative features. Many people illustrate a common conviction that stereotypes must be negative to be harmful.

example: someone might believe that asians are colder and more rigid than whites, and at the same time believe that they are more intellectually gifted

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experiment: Glick and Fiske

benevolent and hostile sexism

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benevolent sexism (chivalry) often coexists with hostile sexist norms. Study interviewed 15000 men and women in 19 nations.

by rewarding women and minorities who conform to the status quo, benevolent sexism can be damaging by preventing racial and gender progress towards equality.

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Measuring attitudes about groups

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attitudes towards blacks scale (Brigham)
modern racism scale (McConahay)
international motivation to respond without prejudice scale (Plant and Devine)

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physiological measures of prejudice and stereotyping

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these are used since many forms of prejudice are ambivalent, uncertain or hidden even from the self and are not likely to be revealed through self-report