Social Perception

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Social Perception Prejudice
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Three Minute Review

• THEORY OF MIND
• extreme male brain theory
• things (systemizing) vs. people (empathizing)
• men vs. women
• autistics vs. ??? (Williams syndrome perhaps?)
• correlated with length of ring finger vs. index
  finger?
• is there a geek syndrome?

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Three Minute Review

• SOCIAL PERCEPTION
• Attachment
• Harlows monkeys
• Strange Situation Test
• Secure Attachment
• Insecure Attachment
• Avoidant
• Anxious Resistant
• Sex and Gender
• case of Bruce/Brenda/David
• sex ? gender
• both biological and socialization effects
• gender socialization
• behavior toward infants
• gender-specific toys

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• SOCIAL PERCEPTION
• Self perception
• Mirror test of self awareness
• Roles determine self-perception
• people with self complexity are more resilient to
  successes and failures
• Reference groups
• better-than-average effect
• incompetent people usually dont know theyre
  incompetent
• see ourselves more positively than others do
• see ourselves more positively now than before

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Prejudice
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History Repeats Itself
Who is more likely to get harassed at the airport
security check?
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Discrimination vs. Prejudice
No Prejudice Prejudice
No Discrimination No relevant behaviors A restaurant owner who is bigoted against Jews treats them fairly because she needs their business
Discrimination An executive with favorable views toward Hispanics doesnt hire them because he would get in trouble with his boss A professor who is hostile toward women grades his female students unfairly

• Discrimination
• unfair treatment of a group
• Prejudice
• negative attitudes toward or beliefs
  (stereotypes) about members of a group

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Origins of Prejudice

• Social Categorization
• us vs. them
• In-group
• ones own group (e.g., UWO students)
• Out-group
• group outside ones own group (e.g., Fanshawe
  students)
• In-group bias
• evaluation of ones own group as better than
  others
• can lead to racism, sexism, prejudice,
  discrimination
• Out-group homogeneity bias
• members of out-groups are viewed as more similar
  to one another than are members of in-group
• We are diverse They are all alike.
• white Americans see Hispanics as all alike
  Mexican Americans see themselves as different
  from the other types of Hispanics who they see as
  all alike (Cuban-Americans, Puerto-Rican
  Americans)
• stereotypes

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Other Factors

• prejudice can be learned very early (age 3)
• competition for resources enhances prejudice
• ongoing prejudice against immigrants
• in-group bias can occur even when group
  assignment is arbitrary
• blue-eyed vs. brown-eyed video
• exceptions
• counter-examples to stereotypes may be seen as
  exceptions or subcategories
• e.g., someone who sees women as passive may label
  an assertive woman as a feminist

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An Evolutionary Interpretation

• in-group more likely to share genes
• is prejudice the negative side of altruism?
• stigmatized people are often defined by their
  flaws (disabled, disease victims, obese, drug
  addict), especially if their flaws are seen as
  controllable (e.g., obesity)

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Stereotypes

• exaggerated overgeneralizations about members of
  a particular group
• same characteristics are assigned to all members
  of a group
• behavioral confirmation
• remember the confirmation bias?
• people tend to absorb information consistent with
  their biases more easily than inconsistent
  information

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Three Levels of Stereotypes

• public
• what we say to others about a group
• private
• what we consciously think about a group, but
  dont say to others
• implicit
• unconscious mental associations guiding our
  judgements and actions without our conscious
  awareness
• Public stereotypes have decreased in North
  America recently (political correctness). Does
  this mean people no longer carry stereotypes?

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Implicit Stereotypes
Anthony Greenwald

• Do our true views always agree with our stated
  views?
• How can we measure implicit stereotypes?
• Implicit Association Test (IAT)
• Are certain concepts more easily paired with one
  another concepts?

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Implicit Association Test
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Logic of IAT
slower
Reaction Time (ms)
Bias in favor of white
faster
White Good, Black Bad
White Bad, Black Good
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Web test results

• Race
• 75 of White participants showed
  pro-White/anti-Black preference
• 42 of Black participants showed
  pro-White/anti-Black preference

• Age
• preference for young over old, held by old and
  young, the strongest effect yet observed.

• GenderCareer and GenderScience
• Males and females equally linked women to home
  and Liberal Arts and men to career and
  Science.

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Implicit Stereotypes
Mahzarin Banaji
"I was taken aback by my inability to make the
intended association, the difficulty in making
the counter-stereotypical association between,
say, female and career, or male and home." If
we are aware of our biases, we can correct for
themas when driving a car that drifts to the
right, we steer left to go where we intend." --
Mahzarin Banaji
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How Prejudice Confirms Itself

• Discriminatory behavior can lead to a
  self-fulfilling prophecy confirming the initial
  stereotype
• Experiment (Wood, 1974)
• White male University students interviewed white
  and black male high school students seeking
  admission to a group
• White interviewers of black applicants (relative
  to white interviewers of white applicants)
• sat further away
• conducted shorter interviews
• made more speech errors
• Follow-up Experiment
• While males were applicants
• treated either like white or black applicants in
  first experiment (e.g., interviewer sat close or
  far)
• those treated like the black applicants performed
  worse during the interview

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Stereotype Threat
Claude Steele

• black students perform worse on a verbal test
  when its described as an intelligence test a
  (race prime) than when its described as a
  laboratory test (no race prime)
• Asian American women did better on a math test
  when primed by Asians are good at math and
  worse when primed by Women are bad at math.

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How can we reduce prejudice?

• be mindful of your biases
• children who were shown pictures of handicapped
  individuals and asked to think carefully about
  them (e.g., to think how they would drive a car)
  were more willing to play with disabled children
  than those who did only a superficial task
  (Langer et al., 1985)

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How can we reduce prejudice?

• Robbers Cave Experiment
• (Sherif et al., 1961)
• 22 5th grade boys in summer camp in 1954
• grouped into two groups, Eagles and Rattlers
• boys only interacted with their own group for one
  week
• groups began to interact in competitive
  situations (e.g., football, tug-of-war)
• rivalry became violent
• group flags burned, cabins ransacked, food fights

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How can we reduce prejudice?

• Propaganda No
• positive propaganda about one group directed to
  the other by the experimenters did not help
• Contact No
• doing non-competitive activities together (e.g.,
  watching movies) did not help
• Cooperative action Yes
• experimenters arranged for camp truck to break
  down
• both groups needed to pull it uphill
• intergroup friendships began to develop
• cooperative approached is being used in US
  classrooms
• give assignment where students from different
  racial groups can only succeed by working
  together in a jigsaw approach

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Its hard to hate your friends

• friendships with outgroup members (as friends,
  neighbors, co-workers) leads to reliably lower
  levels of prejudice