Prejudice II

Question 1

What are the intergroup theories?

Answer 1

– Realistic Group Conflict Theory
– Social Identity Theory
– Intergroup Threats

Question 2

Realistic Group Conflict Theory
- when did signs of ethnocentrism start?
- therefore…
- who was this idea tested by and led to?

Answer 2

• Signs of ethnocentrism started before groups got into competitions, i.e. when there was no realistic conflict between them yet.
• Therefore: Is ethnocentrism the result of fighting over scarce resources or does the mere existence of two groups generate ethnocentrism?
• Idea tested by Henri Tajfel and led to the development of Social Identity Theory (SIT).

Question 3

Who was Social Identity Theory (SIT) proposed by?

Answer 3

First proposed in the 1970s by Henri Tajfel and John Turner as a theory of intergroup conflict and it is considered one of the major theories in social psychology.

Question 4

What was Tajfel’s starting point

Answer 4

• How do people come to see each other as enemies in the absence of rational or objective reasons? Can prejudice exist outside of competition over resources?
• To answer this question, Tajfel adopted an experimental approach. (his main concern was) What are the minimal conditions needed to produce ingroup bias?

Question 5

Origins of SIT

Answer 5

• Minimal group studies methodology (Tajfel et al., 1971):
  Participants assigned to one of two groups based on chance or an arbitrary criterion e.g. painting preference or even flip of a coin (heads or tails group)
• Meaningless groups
  Groups would have no history of conflict with one another and they don’t interact with other pp’s

Question 6

Minimal group studies methodology (Tajfel et al., 1971)

Answer 6

• Participants don’t know the other participants (no
  history of conflict)
• Participants don’t interact with other participants
  in the group (no contact)
• Very artificial groups, because Tajfel was interested in how just knowing that one belongs to a group affects behavior toward other groups…
• Participants are led to private cubicles where they are asked to allocate points (which would convert into money) to:
  – Two members of the ingroup
  – Two members of the outgroup
  – A member of their group (ingroup) and a member of the other group (outgroup)
• Participants are told how they allocate money would not affect the points (money) they receive as individuals for participation. So their choices of monetary allocations cannot be driven by personal gree

Question 7

Minimal group studies- how does the minimal group paradigm matrix work

Answer 7

Decide how much money they divide between ingroup and outgroup members. So they have to pick the option that is most suitable.

Question 8

Minimal group paradigm matrix- what are the distribution strategies?

Answer 8

1- fairness- you can decide to distribute money equally

2- maximum ingroup profit- you can decide that what you care about is how much money your own group gets

3- maximum joint profit- you can have the goal of making things better for the in group and the outgroup

4- maximising the difference- between your group and the outgroup- all options involve more money for the ingroup compared to the outgroup

Question 9

Minimal group studies (Tajfel et al., 1971)
1- Which strategy is more likely to be used when allocating to two different ingroup members?

2- Which strategy is more likely to be used when allocating to two different outgroup members?

3- Which strategy is more likely to be used when allocating to an ingroup member and an outgroup member?

Answer 9

1- Fairness
2- Fairness
3- Ingroup favoritism: more points to ingroup members than to outgroup members!

Question 10

Minimal group studies (Tajfel et al., 1971):
1- what do ingroup members prefer?
2- as a result of this, what is happenning?

Answer 10

1- Participants are not trying to maximise their possession of a scarce resource (money): they prefer their ingroup to get more than the outgroup, even if this means receiving less material resources overall!
They care about the relative rather than the absolute standing of the group…

2- This discrimination in favor of the ingroup is happening in the absence of any conflict history and any prior contact.

Question 11

Minimal group studies (Tajfel et al., 1971):
1- what effect?
2- what have hundreds of minimal group experiments showed?
3- what is unclear?
4- but…

Answer 11

1- “Mere categorization” effect: categorizing people into different social groups is sufficient for creating ethnocentrism.
2- Hundreds of minimal group experiments showed that mere categorization produces ethnocentrism and competitive intergroup behavior.
3- Mechanisms for minimal ingroup bias are unclear and different explanations exist.
4- But results interpreted as evidence that there is a psychological motivation operating in individuals to defend group interests regardless of self-interest.

Question 12

Social Identity Theory:
- why did it emerge?
- Aim?

Answer 12

Social Identity Theory emerged as an attempt to explain the results of the minimal group experiments: people sometimes behave as group members rather than as individuals. (regardless of their own personal interest)

Aim of SIT: when do people think of themselves in terms of “we” (social identity) rather than “I” (personal identity)?

Question 13

Definition of social identification
- varies among?
- varies depending on?

Answer 13

Social identification: “that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of membership of a social group (or groups) together with the emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel, 1974, p.69).

• Varies among individuals
• Varies depending on context (group identity can become more salient)

Question 14

SIT:
What do the groups we belong to affect?

Answer 14

The groups we belong to affect how we define ourselves, but also how much we value ourselves: when our group accomplishes valued achievements, we feel positive about our group but when our group is negatively valued, we feel negative about our group.

Question 15

SIT:
- what are people motivated to do?
- what should a group member who identifies strongly with the ingroup be motivated to do?

Answer 15

• People are motivated to feel good/positive about themselves.
• A group member who identifies strongly with the ingroup should be motivated to positively distinguish the ingroup from outgroups on dimensions valued by the perceiver (Tajfel, 1978c).

Question 16

SIT:
- how can the need for positive distinctiveness be achieved?
- what does the motive for positive distinctiveness lead to?

Answer 16

• The need for positive distinctiveness can be achieved by:
  – highlighting dimensions on which the ingroup is superior to the outgroup
  – by actively derogating or discriminating against the outgroup to create or to reinforce an existing hierarchy.
• The motive for positive distinctiveness leads to ingroup favoritism.

Question 17

SIT:
1- what are immigrants defined as immigrants based on. What does this mean?
2- what does SIT predict?
3- what is this supported by?

Answer 17

1- Immigrants are defined as immigrants based on national group membership. Therefore variation in national identification should impact attitudes toward immigrants.

2- SIT predicts that greater national identification should result in greater prejudice toward immigrants.

3- This is supported by empirical evidence from various studies in several European countries (e.g. Weiss, 2003; Billiet, Maddens, & Beerten, 2003; Blank & Schmidt, 2003).- the more people that identify with their nation, the more prejudice they show towards immigrants

Question 18

SIT:
But…
1- what does national attachment not necessarily lead to?
2- what is nationalism according to Kosterman & Feshbach (1989)
3- measures?

Answer 18

1- National attachment does not necessarily lead to prejudice toward immigrants. We should distinguish between nationalism and patriotism.

2- Nationalism:
— “a belief in national superiority and dominance’ (p. 175)
— ‘feelings of nationalism are inherently comparative and almost exclusively, downward comparative’ (p. 178).

3- Measures: scales which contain items such as e.g. ‘In view of America’s moral and material superiority, it is only right that we should have the biggest say in deciding United Nations policy.’

Question 19

SIT:
1- what is patriotism
2- what should patriotism not necessarily correlate with?
3- what did a series of studies with British respondents show?

Answer 19

1- Patriotism: loving one’s country without necessarily feeling that one’s country is superior to others.
2- Patriotism should not necessarily correlate positively with prejudice toward outgroups, while nationalism should.
3- A series of studies with British respondents showed that national identification is associated with prejudice toward asylum-seekers, but particularly among those who think that national group membership is based on ethnic (essentialist and unchangeable) attributes (Pehrson, Brown, & Zagefka, 2009)

Question 20

SIT:
1- what does Portugal have?
2- what matters
3- example

Answer 20

1- Portugal has strong anti-racism norms following a history of colonialism. Vala, Lopes, and Lima (2008) found no link between national identification and prejudice toward immigrants in Portugal.

2- What matters is not just strength of national identification but what people understand their own identity to stand for (identity content, identity norms).

3- example: the definition of what it means to be American is about being welcome to immigrants

Question 21

Threat perceptions

Answer 21

• Threat perceptions play an important role in explaining prejudice toward outgroups.
• Various types of threats

Question 22

Intergroup Threat Theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000):
What are the types of threat?

Answer 22

Realistic threats
Threat can arise because group members perceive themselves to be competing with the outgroup over scarce material resources or when they feel that their physical safety or power is endangered
(eg. refugees not welcome we are full- so refugees are seen as realistic threat)

Symbolic threat
Group members can also feel threatened if they perceive the outgroup to be a threat to their cultural values, religion, belief system, ideology, philosophy, morality or world

Meta-analytic findings: (Riek et al., 2006): realistic and symbolic threats are associated with negative outgroup attitudes.

Question 23

Threat perceptions
Dovidio and Esses (2001)

Answer 23

Immigrants can be seen as a threat regardless of their success in the host country:
– If unsuccessful, they are perceived as a threat to the country’s economic standing.
– If successful, they are viewed as competing with the host society with jobs and other resources.

Question 24

Threat perceptions:
- what do threats need not to be?
- scapegoating of immigrants
- what does this lead to

Answer 24

• Threats need not be real, but need to be perceived as such.
• Politicians sometimes blame immigrants for any negative socioeconomic development, e.g. unemployment, deficits in the health system, problems in education: scapegoating of immigrants.
• This leads to increased prejudice toward immigrants.

scapegoating- denying responsibility and reflecting it on another group

Question 25

What can have a big influence on perceptions of threat and immigrant attitudes

What did Brosius and Esser (1995) find?

Answer 25

Media can have a big influence on perceptions of threat and immigrant attitudes.

Brosius and Esser (1995) found a significant relationship between media presentations of immigrants in Germany in the 1990s and hate crimes one week later (see also Koopmans & Olzack, 2004).

Question 26

Can one theory explain all instances of prejudice

Answer 26

No- all theories contribute to why prejudice happens

Question 27

Prejudice reduction- INTERGROUP CONTACT
What is the contact hypothesis?

Answer 27

• Contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954): Interaction between individuals belonging to different social groups will reduce ethnic prejudice and intergroup tension (Hewstone & Brown 1986)
• One of the most popular and researched prejudice reduction strategies

Question 28

Four conditions for intergroup contact
Allport (1954)

Answer 28

• contact could lead to an increase in prejudice as well as its reduction
• the outcome of contact will be favourable when:
  1. the participants are of equal status
  2. pursuing common goals cooperatively
  3. backed by social and institutional support
  4. There is acquaintance potential

Question 29

Intergroup contact theory: Meta-analytic findings

Answer 29

Pettigrew & Tropp (2006): Meta-analysis of 500+ studies across 38 nations supports intergroup contact theory:

• contact is linked to reduced prejudice
• on variety of DVs: emotions/attitudes/stereotypes

Question 30

Meta-analytic findings
- Are the four conditions necessary?
- Critique

Answer 30

• Are the four conditions necessary?
  –Meta-analytic findings: the four conditions are facilitating
  rather than necessary (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2005)
  – contact is usually linked to positive effects (95% of studies)
  and how well depends on facilitating factors
• Critique: few experimental designs manipulate the four conditions and look at delayed effects of contact on prejudice. Field not in a position to make definitive conclusions on this (Paluck, Green & Green, 2019)

Question 31

Meta-analytic findings:
What do effects of contact depend on?
Explain the effects for groups

Answer 31

TARGET GROUP

• Stronger effects for heterosexual prejudice towards gay/lesbian and individuals with physical disabilities
• Average effects for racial and ethnic prejudice
• Weaker effects for prejudice towards elderly and individuals with mental illness
• Stronger effects for advantaged than disadvantaged groups

Question 32

Causality?
- what does research suggest about where the relationship runs?
- what does recent review of studies with high-quality experimental designs show?

Answer 32

• Not much longitudinal research but available evidence suggest that relationship runs from contact to improved attitudes rather than vice versa (Pettigrew 1998)
• Recent review of studies with high-quality experimental designs (randomized groups and delayed measures of prejudice) (Paluck et al., 2019): 27 experimental studies
  – Supports positive effects of contact on prejudice
  But…
  points to important limitations in our knowledge:
  – Most studies are with children and young adults (<25years)
  – Contact effects stronger for prejudice against those with mental or physical disabilities (weaker for ethnic and racial prejudice)

Question 33

• Which type of contact is most effective?
• Do intergroup contact effects generalize from individuals to overall outgroup attitudes?

Answer 33

• Which type of contact is most effective?
  Not about contact quantity (frequency) but contact quality: importance of cross-group friendships (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006)
• Do intergroup contact effects generalize from individuals to overall outgroup attitudes?
  Meta-analytic findings: typically yes (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006)
  But more likely to generalize when outgroup member is seen as representative of the outgroup. Otherwise subtyping occurs! (Brown & Hewstone, 2005)

Question 34

• does intergroup contact consistently work?
• what can occur and increase prejudice?
• asymmetry hypothesis?

Answer 34

• Does intergroup contact consistently work? not really because it can be negative which would increase prejudice
• Negative intergroup contact can occur and increase prejudice!
• Situations where the participants feel threatened and did not choose to have the contact (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). (e.g. work environments with high intergroup competition but also situations involving intergroup conflict).
• Asymmetry hypothesis: negative intergroup contact affects prejudice more than positive contact! Positive and negative contact do not have equal weight/ affect on prejudice

Question 35

1- who is intergroup contact more negative for?
2- what intergroup contact is more frequent in many settings?
3- how are effects of negative intergroup contact moderated?
4- what do effects of positive and negative contact depend on?

Answer 35

1- Intergroup contact is more negative for disadvantaged groups.
2- In various settings positive intergroup contact is more frequent than negative intergroup contact.
3- Effects of negative intergroup contact are moderated by whether the participant has entered the contact freely (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011).
4- Effects of positive and negative contact depend on whether intergroup conflict is ongoing (e.g. Tropp etal., 2018).

Question 36

How does contact work?

Answer 36

Different mechanisms (see Pettigrew, 2011)
- Increased knowledge of outgroup (cognitive dimension): relatively limited effects

Affective mediators are more important:
- Intergroup anxiety
- Intergroup threats (Aberson, 2019)
- Enhanced empathy and adopting of outgroup’s perspective
(Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008).

Other:
- Ingroup reappraisal (ingroup norms are not inherently superior to those of the outgroup): secondary effects of intergroup contact

Question 37

Is getting us to like one another the solution?
- what has come under criticism in recent years?
- focus on?
- what effects for disadvantaged groups?

Answer 37

• Contact theory has come under criticism in recent years (see Dixon et al., 2012).
• Focus on advantaged groups but…what about disadvantaged groups?
• Ironic or paradoxical effects of positive intergroup contact for disadvantaged groups: decreases in perceptions of injustice and reduced willingness to engage in collective action to challenge social inequalities!

Question 38

Intergroup contact and social change:
- What did Haessler et al. (2020) use?
- What did authors find?

Answer 38

Haessler et al. (2020) used a large and heterogeneous dataset (12,997 individuals from 69 countries). Authors found that intergroup contact and support for social change towards greater equality are:
- positively associated among members of advantaged groups (ethnic majorities and cis-heterosexuals)
- negatively associated among disadvantaged groups
(ethnic minorities and sexual and gender minorities).

Question 39

Intergroup contact and social change:
- what did Reimer & Sengupta (2022) do?
- what did they find?
- limitations?

Answer 39

Reimer & Sengupta (2022): meta-analysis across 98 studies with 140 samples of 213,085 disadvantaged group members.
- Intergroup contact is more likely to be negatively associated with perceived injustice, collective action and support for reparative policies. But effect sizes are small.

Results dependent on type of contact:
- Cross-group friendships are associated with reduced social change orientations
- A third of studies found that intergroup contact increases perceived injustice (discrimination made more salient)

Limitations:
- Cross-sectional data , mostly from western countries

Question 40

Intergroup contact and social change:
- what do you need to carefully assess?
- question
- what is needed?

Answer 40

• Need to carefully assess the effects of prejudice reduction interventions in a holistic manner.
• When and how can intergroup contact foster allyship in the struggle for greater equality and justice?
• More research needed!

Question 41

Going beyond intergroup contact:
- What did Paluck & Greene (2009) and Paluck et al. (2021) study?
- Examples

Answer 41

• Paluck & Greene (2009) and Paluck et al. (2021) studied the effects of different prejudice reduction interventions.
• Examples:
  Diversity training, peer-influence, cognitive and emotional training, entertainment

Question 42

Prejudice reduction- other strategies:
- entertainment?
- examples?
- what did 12 studies that used entertainment interventions show?

Answer 42

• Entertainment: category of interventions based on the power of storytelling and narrative or artistic transportation (individuals get carried away by the story and reduce their defenses (Green & Brock 2000).
• Examples:
  – participate in the creation of stories about outgroups (Parrott et al. 2017)
  – films made by and for Black audiences (Eno & Ewoldsen 2010)
  – pro-integration music lyrics (Greitemeyer & Schwab 2014)
  – educational messages about prejudice integrated into a soap opera or film (Murrar & Brauer 2018, Paluck & Green 2009).
• 12 studies that used entertainment interventions show a strong effect on prejudice reduction.

Question 43

What did Paluck et al. (2021) say?

Answer 43

“much research effort is theoretically and empirically ill-suited to provide actionable, evidence-based recommendations for reducing prejudice”

Question 44

CRITICAL NOTES

Answer 44

• Most social psychological research on prejudice done in the west, especially the USA.
• Most researched forms of prejudice are sexism and racism.
• Theories of prejudice assume some commonalities in the psychological processes of different forms of prejudice, but must also account for differences between different types of prejudice.
• Dynamics underlying sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, ableism etc may not always be similar!
• Less interest in the literature in forms of prejudice that occur in different parts of the world (e.g. see Bouzeineddine et al., 2022).
• Prejudices in mainstream social psychological literature itself…
• Theories remain necessarily limited if we do not include more research(ers) on prejudice from around the world and from different economic, cultural, social and political systems.
• Does prejudice by the disadvantaged toward the advantaged count as prejudice?
• Are all prejudices equal?

Question 45

What is wrong with the definitions of prejudice?

Answer 45

Prejudice: “unfavorable attitude towards a social group and its members” (Hogg & Vaughn, 2018)

Prejudice: “an attitude or orientation toward a group (or its members) that devalues it, directly or indirectly, often to the benefit of the self or the group ” (Spears & Tausch, 2016)

What is the role of power inequalities in our definitions of prejudice?

Defining specific types of prejudice: Who decides what counts as prejudice?