Prejudice

1
Prejudice

• Chapter 2

2
Ethnocentrism

• Defined as the tendency to assume that ones
  culture and way of life are superior to all
  others
• Such a person judges others by the standards of
  his or her own group

3
Prejudice

• Negative attitude toward an entire category of
  people
• Attitudes
• Thoughts
• Beliefs
• NOT actions
• Leads to categorical rejection

4
Ethnophaulisms

• Ethnic slurs
• Derisive nicknames
• Condescension
• Politically incorrect
• Some examples of ethnophaulisms
• http//www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/golliwog/
• http//www.deproverbio.com/DPjournal/DP,1,2,95/IND
  IO.html

5
Discrimination

• Behavior that excludes all members of a group
  from certain rights, opportunities or privileges
• Categorical
• Action or behavior
• Need not coincide with prejudice

6
Mertons Typology

• Relationship between negative attitude and
  negative behavior
• Unprejudiced nondiscriminator all-weather
  liberal
• Unprejudiced discriminator reluctant liberal
• Prejudiced nondiscriminator timid bigot
• Prejudiced discriminator all-weather bigot

7
Mertons Typology

• Liberals are committed to equality among people
• Bigots do not believe in equal treatment for
  racial and ethnic groups
• Attitudes should not be confused with behavior
• People do not always act as they believe

8
Theories of Prejudice

• Prejudice is learned from the usual agents of
  socialization
• Psychological
• Scapegoating theory
• Authoritarian personality
• Sociological
• Exploitation
• Normative
• See Table 2.1, page 51

9
Scapegoating Theory

• According to scapegoating theory
• Prejudiced people believe they are societys
  victims
• Individuals, rather than taking responsibility
  for some failure, transfer responsibility to a
  vulnerable group
• More prejudice with downward economically
  mobility
• Little explanation regarding why a specific group
  is selected
  
  

10
Authoritarian Personality

• Adorno, 1950
• Characteristics include
• Adherence to conventional values
• Uncritical acceptance of authority
• Concern with power and toughness
• Aggressiveness toward those who do not conform
• Developed from early childhood of harsh discipline

11
Exploitation Theory

• Conflict theory approach
• Powerful seek ways to maintain position of power
  and keep some groups subordinate
• Stigmatization perpetuates inferior status

12
Caste Approach

• System of social inequality in which status is
  inherited and there is no opportunity for upward
  mobility
• Race would be more significant than social class
• Descriptive but not analytical

13
Normative Approach

• Prejudice is influenced by societal norms and
  situations that serve to encourage or discourage
  tolerance
• Norms help develop the social climate conducive
  to the expression of prejudice

14
Extent of Prejudice

• Can prejudice be measured?
• In relative, rather than absolute, differences
• Bogardus Social Distance Scale
• Based on work of Park and Burgess
• Social distance tendency to approach or
  withdraw from a particular group
• http//history.wisc.edu/archdeacon/404tja/bog.html

15
Minority Self-hatred

• Another form of prejudice?
• Members of groups held in low esteem by society
  may, as a result, have low esteem themselves.
  (p. 59)
• Bloom debunks this belief
• Minority status may not influence personality
  traits in either a good or a bad way
• Such assumptions create a stereotype
• Such conclusions were based on limited research
  findings

16
Reducing Prejudice

• Based on the assumption that prejudice is wrong
  and causes problems for those who are prejudiced
  and for their victims
• Eliminate the causes
• Desire to exploit
• Fear of being threatened
• Need to blame others for ones own failure
• Programs need to be directed to society as a
  whole

17
Reducing Prejudice

• Prejudice is attacked when discrimination is
  attacked
• Best attempts to change negative attitudes seems
  to be using
• Mass media
• Education
• Intergroup contact

18
Mass Media and Education

• Research performed in artificially
  (experimentally) created situations
• Studies examining the influence on attitudes of
  motion pictures, television and advertisements
• Education in formal schooling as well as
  workplace inservice
• Television commands the widest viewing audience
  among children and adolescents

19
Equal Status Contact

• Contact hypothesisIntergroup contact between
  people of equal status in harmonious
  circumstances will cause them to become less
  prejudiced and cause them to abandon previously
  held stereotypes. (p. 68)
• Presence of a common goal reduces hostility

20
Exit Exercise

• According to research cited in your text,
  significant numbers of high school students feel
  that television entertainment presented an
  accurate representation of real life among
  African Americans.
• Consider the television programs you have watched
  the most. In terms of race and ethnicity, how
  well do the programs you watch tend to depict
  real life? Write your response in a 1 2 page
  paper.
• Cite examples of actual programs, including
  sample dialogue, etc., where possible.