Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

True Colors
What are your thoughts? Does it ring true?

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

True Colors
What are your thoughts? Does it ring true? Can we use social psychological principles to understand what happened?

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

stereotypes
a set of beliefs about the personal attributes of a group of people (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1981) a type of schema

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

prejudice
a biased evaluation of a group (often targeted at its individual members), based on real or imagined characteristics of the group members
(Nelson, 2002)

a type of attitude

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

discrimination
negative act towards a person or group of people because of their group membership

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

ABCs of social psychology
Affect: prejudice Behavior: discrimination Cognition: stereotypes

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

What did we see in True Colors?
What stereotypes? What examples of prejudice? What examples of discrimination?

Stereotypes
How stereotypes are formed?
categorization

Stereotypes
How stereotypes are formed?
categorization ingroups and outgroups (Social Identity Theory; Tajfel & Turner, 1986)
ingroup bias (Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992) outgroup homogeneity bias (Hamilton, 1976)

Stereotypes
How stereotypes are formed?
categorization ingroups and outgroups social learning

Stereotypes
stereotypes make information processing more efficient
name and 10 personality characteristics Nigel: caring, honest, reliable, friendly stereotype: Nigel is a doctor cognitive load task recall characteristics and facts about Indonesia

(Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994)

Stereotypes
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Neut. St. Indonesia Consis.

Label No Label

(Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994)

Stereotypes
Why do stereotypes persist?
subcategorization

Stereotypes
Why do stereotypes persist?
subcategorization illusory correlations

Stereotypes
Why do stereotypes persist?
subcategorization illusory correlations selective attention to stereotype-relevant information

Stereotypes
Why do stereotypes persist?
subcategorization illusory correlations selective attention to stereotype-relevant information once formed, very difficult to change

Stereotypes
stereotype threat
African American and White participants difficult verbal task IV: intellectual ability (threat) or verbal task (no threat) DV: performance on the verbal task

(Steele & Aronson, 1995)

Stereotypes
stereotype threat
no threat condition: AA and White participants performed equally threat condition: AA performed more poorly than the White participants also shown to occur when race is made salient

(Steele & Aronson, 1995)

Prejudice
Where does prejudice come from? What can be done about it?

Origins of Prejudice
cultural/group norms
conformity to the group norm can influence prejudice

Origins of Prejudice
social dynamics
Realistic Group Conflict Theory (Levine & Campbell,
1972)

Origins of Prejudice
social dynamics
Realistic Group Conflict Theory (Levine & Campbell,
1972)

Scapegoat Theory

Origins of Prejudice
social dynamics
Realistic Group Conflict Theory (Levine & Campbell,
1972)

Scapegoat Theory Just World Theory

Origins of Prejudice
universal cognitive processes
e.g., minimal group paradigm

What Can Be Done about Prejudice?

stereotype suppression
5 minutes writing about a skinhead IV: suppress negative thoughts or not 5 minutes writing about the second skinhead DV: How stereotypic is the writing?

(Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994)

What Can Be Done about Prejudice?

stereotype suppression
suppression condition: less stereotypic thinking the first time, but more stereotypic thinking the second time

(Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994)

What Can Be Done about Prejudice?

contact hypothesis
increasing exposure to members of outgroups can increase positive evaluations of the outgroup and decrease prejudice and stereotyping
e.g., Sherifs Robbers Cave studies

What Can Be Done about Prejudice?

contact hypothesis
Allport (1954): the effect of contact will depend on the kind of association that occurs, and on the kinds of persons who are involved.

What Can Be Done about Prejudice?

contact hypothesis
four necessary criteria:
equal status members common goals intergroup cooperation support of a legitimate authority (e.g., social norms)

(Allport, 1954)

What Can Be Done about Prejudice?

contact hypothesis
an additional criterion:
must be friendship potential

(Pettigrew, 1998)

What Can Be Done about Prejudice?

Jigsaw Classroom
6-person learning groups each responsible for teaching and learning the material pay more attention to and respect each other more

(Aronson, 1979)

Discrimination
difficult to demonstrate at the individual level
women tend to acknowledge having been discriminated against as a group, but few report being personally being discriminated against

(Crosby, 1981)

Discrimination
normally assessed at the aggregate level
Florida homicide cases 1976-77 rate of first degree murder prosecution based on the race of the victim and defendant

(Radelet, 1981)

Discrimination
normally assessed at the aggregate level
AA defendant/White victim White defendant/White victim White defendant/AA victim AA defendant/AA victim 90% 50% 50% 40%

(Radelet, 1981)

Discrimination
normally assessed at the aggregate level
White man African American man White woman African American woman $11, 362 $11, 783 $11, 504 $12, 237

(Ayres, 1991)

Conclusion
stereotypes are cognitive schemas stereotypes facilitate information processing, but are resistant to change prejudice is a negative evaluation (i.e., an attitude) discrimination is a negative action