Prejudice

1
Prejudice

• What is prejudice?
• Why are people prejudiced?
• Individual view
• Intergroup view
• Can prejudice be reduced?

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2
Prejudice

• An attitude (usually negative) toward the
  members of some group, based purely on their
  membership in that group (Baron Byrne, 1991)

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3
Prejudice

• A type of attitude
• Cognitive component - thinking
• Affective component - feeling
• Behavioural component - doing
• Related terms
• Stereotype
• Discrimination

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4
Individual Theories

• Suggest that prejudice is due to the
  psychological make-up of the individual
• Authoritarian personality
• Frustration-aggression (scapegoating)
• Norm theory

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5
Authoritarian Personality

• Adorno et al (1950)
• Suggestion that people who are prejudiced have a
  particular personality type
• Hostile to inferiors
• Servile to superiors
• Rigid inflexible
• Conventional in outlook
• Intolerant of ambiguity

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6
Authoritarian Personality
Harsh Punitive upbringing Little affection from
parents
Outward respect towards authority High opinion
of parents
Repressed hostility and anger Needs an outlet
somewhere
Anger displaced onto inferior groups Prejudice
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7
Authoritarian Personality

• Some evidence that shows correlation between
  authoritarianism e.g. anti-Semitism
• Many methodological problems
• Doesnt explain uniformity of prejudices across
  society e.g.
• Nazi Germany anti-Semitism
• US in WWII anti-Japanese
• South Africa during apartheid

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8
Other Individual Theories

• Scapegoating
• Displacement of aggression onto outgroups
  during times of hardship
• Social norms
• We acquire prejudices through social learning in
  the same way as other attitudes

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9
Realistic Conflict Theory

• Idea that prejudice arises when social groups
  compete for scarce resources
• Prejudice leads to hostility which is a strategy
  for denying resources to the outgroup whilst
  securing them for the ingroup

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10
Realistic Conflict Theory

• The Robbers Cave study (Sherif et al, 1961)
• Creating prejudice between two groups of boys at
  a US summer camp

Group isolation
Prejudice against out-group
In-group favouritism
Competition
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11
Social Identity Theory

• Based on idea that competition between groups is
  not necessary for prejudice simply having
  different social groups is enough
• Our sense of self is bound up in the groups we
  belong to feel better about ourselves by making
  favourable comparisons with other groups

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12
Social Identity Theory

• Jane Eliots Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment
• Tajfel colleagues (1970s) the minimal groups
  experiments

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13
Reducing Prejudice

• Equal-status contact with outgroups
• Pursuit of common goals
• Education

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