Prejudice

1
Prejudice

• Do we dislike each other?
• Why?
• Trying to educate a bigot is like shining a
  light into the pupil of an eye it constricts.
  (Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.)

2
Key Terms

• Stereotype many ways to define term
• A generalization.
• A structured set of beliefs about the personal
  attributes of a group of people (Ashmore Del
  Boca).
• Stereotypes are heuristics and are more likely to
  be used when we are pressed for time, tired,
  preoccupied, and/or emotionally aroused.
• Kernel of Truth concept that many stereotypes
  are based upon some element of truth
• However, problem arises when they are
  overgeneralized.

3
Key Terms

• Prejudice
• A negative prejudgment of a group and its
  members.
• An attitudinal bias.
• A hostile or negative attitude toward a
  distinguishable group based on generalizations
  derived from faulty or incomplete information.
• Discrimination
• Negative behaviors aimed toward a group and its
  members.
• Institutional forms of discrimination may not be
  motivated by prejudice (e.g., hiring through word
  of mouth practices).

4
Is Racial Prejudice Still an Issue?

• Stunning reduction in blatant discrimination in
  last 50 years.
• African-American attitudes toward blacks have
  also become more positive.
• Clark and Clark (1947) demonstrated anti-black
  attitudes among blacks. This was the basis of
  the 1954 Brown vs. The Board of Education Supreme
  Court decision.

5
Modern Prejudice

• Although blatant prejudice is greatly reduced,
  subtle forms of prejudice still exist.
• Prejudice and discrimination seem to manifest
  when motives can be hidden.
• For example, not hating Africans, but hating
  immigrants.
• Modern prejudice also demonstrated with
  exaggerated race sensitivity (e.g., over praise
  or criticism of a minority).

6
Subtlety of Bias

• Darley and Gross (1983)
• Show a picture of young Hannah dressed as an
  upper or lower class citizen.
• Subjects refuse to use her class background to
  prejudge her academic ability.
• However, if subsequently shown taking an oral
  achievement test, subjects view upper class
  Hannah as rating above grade level and remember
  her getting more correct answers than she did.

7
Modern Prejudice

• Harber (1998) provide participants with poorly
  written essays.
• White students rated these essays higher if led
  to believe that black students wrote them.
• Also, provided much less criticism.
• Thus, creates a combination of inflated praise
  and lower standards.
• What are the potential academic effects of such
  behavior for minority students?

8
Automatic Prejudice

• Dual attitude system implicit vs. explicit
  attitudes.
• Banaji, Fazio, Greenwald, Bargh have all
  demonstrated that non-prejudiced people
  demonstrate prejudicial thought at an unconscious
  or automatic level.
• For instance, when primed with an image of an
  African American it takes whites longer to
  identify words like peace and paradise as good.

9
Gender Prejudice

• Gender stereotypes are pervasive and generally
  embraced by the stereotyped group!
• Janet Swims research suggests that gender
  stereotypes are generally accurate (kernel of
  truth). However
• Stereotypes can still be misapplied.
• Tend to exaggerate small differences between the
  groups.

10
Gender Prejudice and Discrimination

• Eagly has demonstrated that attitudes toward
  women are generally positive.
• Yet, Glick and Fiske point out the ambivalent
  nature of gender stereotypes
• Benevolent sexism vs. hostile sexism.
• Undeniable differences exist however in starting
  salary, likelihood of promotion, and attributions
  of success.

11
Sources of Prejudice

• (1) Economic and Political Competition/Unequal
  Status/Realistic Group Conflict Theory
• Prejudice increases during economic difficulties
• In the west in the late 1800s attitudes toward
  the Chinese varied greatly depending upon the
  amount of employment opportunities. After Civil
  War the Chinese were hated due to competition for
  jobs
• Research shows that the most anti-black prejudice
  is found in groups that are one rung higher on
  the SES ladder
• This variable is confounded w/ educational level

12
Stereotype Threat

• Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson
• Tried to explain gap in test scores between
  whites and blacks
• Argued that blacks in test situations may feel
  apprehension about confirming existing negative
  stereotypes of intellectual inferiority
• They labeled this Stereotype Threat
• Demonstrated that black students did as well as
  whites on the GRE verbal when led to believe that
  the test itself, and not the student, was being
  tested
• Good news is that positive stereotypes enhance
  behavior (e.g., Asian students on math tests)

13
Competition for Resources

• Muzafer Sherif Boy Scout Research
• Created competition between the Eagles and the
  Rattlers and conflict over scarce resources.
• Even after competition ended animosity remained
  and even continued to escalate.

14
Self-fulfilling Prophecy

• Social beliefs can be self-confirming.
• Word, Zanna, and Cooper (1974)
• Observed whites interviewing black and white
  confederates. Whites were provided with more
  positive cues (e.g., distance, eye contact).
• In second study, trained interviewers treated new
  interviewees as either black or white (all
  participants were white).
• Quality of interviews of subjects treated as
  black were rated lower by a group of observers
  who were unaware of the manipulation or
  hypothesis.

15
Sources of Prejudice

• (2) Social Identity Theory Proposed by Tajfel
  and Turner
• Key concept is that self-esteem can be increased
  through our group identifications.
• Assumptions of the theory
• We categorize
• We identify (associate self with in-group)
• We compare (evaluate group against outgroup).

16
Social Identity Theory

• Ingroup biases tend to increase when our group is
  small, easily identifiable, and lower in status
  relative to the outgroup.
• Outgroup homogeneity tendency to view everyone
  in the other group as being the same.

17
Sources of Prejudice

• (3) Conformity
• Pettigrew suggests that discrimination arrives
  predominately from social conformity
• Prejudiced individuals, particularly Southerners,
  who enter the army tend to become less prejudiced
  
• More non-prejudicial norms to follow in the armed
  forces.

18
Sources of Prejudice

• (4) Misplaced Aggression/Scapegoating
• Blaming a relatively powerless innocent person
  for something that is not his or her fault
• Similar to Freuds concept of displacement
• Term is based on ancient Hebrew practice
• Long history Holocaust, southern Blacks
• Between 1882-1930 the number of lynchings in the
  south in any give year could be predicted by the
  price of cotton

19
Sources of Prejudice

• (5) Personality Factors
• Are there individual differences in the tendency
  to hate?
• Adorno and his research on the Authoritarian
  Personality suggests yes
• Authoritarian Personality has these
  characteristics
• Adherence to conventional values (e.g.,
  government, church, parents, middle-class)
• Contempt toward outgroups
• Superstition

20
Authoritarian Personality

• Further characteristics
• Resistance to change
• Belief in censorship and strict laws (people need
  to be controlled)
• Intolerant of weakness
• Highly punitive
• Extremely respectful of authority
• Appears to stem from harsh and
• threatening parental discipline

21
Sources of Prejudice

• (6) Cognitive Factors
• Solo or minority figure in a group appears more
  prominent and influential. We view them as
  causing whatever happens.
• Leads to availability heuristic. Vivid cases are
  more memorable. We tend to base our assumptions
  off of vivid memories not reality.
• For example, common belief is that welfare is
  the greatest scam going.

22
Sources of Prejudice

• (7) Attribution errors
• Group-serving bias (Pettigrew, 1979). Much like
  self-serving bias. In-group successes are
  dispositional, outgroup are situational.
• Just World Phenomenon. The belief that people
  get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
  For example, the tendency to blame rape victims
  is stronger in those with a Just World
  perspective.