Chapter 12 Lecture: stereotypes

Question 1

T/F: people are more reluctant to change their minds once they have an original attitude, even if they are presented with a counter argument

Answer 1

true

Question 2

what did gordon allport find using the MrX and Mr Y study

Answer 2

people are reluctant to change their minds once they have a solid attitude towards something

Mr X: The trouble with Jews is that they only take care of their own group.

Mr Y: But the record of the Community Chest campaign shows that they give more generously, in proportion to their numbers, to the general charities of the community than do non-Jews.

Mr X: That shows they are always trying to buy favour and intrude into Christian affairs. They think of nothing but money; that is why there are so many Jewish bankers.

Mr Y: But a recent study shows that the percentage of Jews in the banking business is negligible, far smaller than the percentage of non-Jews.

Mr X: That’s just it; they don’t go for respectable businesses; they are only in the movie business or run nightclubs.

Question 3

Why do we need to devise new ways of assessing prejudice?

Answer 3

because in the older days, people were more liekly to report being honest with their prejudice. over the years, it has become less acceptable to express prejudice and stereotypes. some prejudices are more acceptable than others but there is a trend that’s growing that WE SHOULDN’T VOICE OUR PREJUDICE.

Question 4

according to the prejudice study conducted by Katz and Braly, what were the top adjectives used to describe black people in the 30s? How did this change?

Answer 4

1) superstitious
2) lazy
3) ignorant
with HIGH RATES OF AGREEMENT, upwards of 84% of people agreed with these adjectives used to describe black people.

over the years, it gradually changed to more positive adjectives, with LOWER RATES OF AGREEMENTS
( ex/ musical, happy go lucky)

Question 5

using the adjective tests, katz and braly determine 3 main changes between 1933 and 1967 in terms of prejudice;

Answer 5

1) in later studies, people did not check off as many negative adjectives to characterize groups
2) less agreement about the stereotypes; stereotypes became WEAKER OVER TIME.
3) participants REACTION to even doing the test changed; in 1933, people were more willing. in 1967, more people were uncomfortable and questioned the test process. indiciated that people are less willing to admit to prejudice.

Question 6

since people are tending to hide their prejudice more, how can we study prejudice in a less direct manner?

Answer 6

assess behavior. you can control what you say, but its harder to hide your actions/subliminal behavior to other groups.

Question 7

how did feldman and donohue indirectly measure amounts of prejudice in university students towards black children?

Answer 7

• conducted a study with white university students. identified from a written test about being prejudice or non prejudice against african americans
• told that the purpose of the experiment was to see if kids do better when they’re praised
• they were asked to give a test to grade 3 students, and everytime he got a correct answer, they were told to praise the kid
• the kid was black and was trained to do really well on the task.
• the uni students were thus supposed tos ay “right, that’s good,” but their ACTIONS WERE BEING VIDEOTAPED

coders looked for positive/negative BEHAVIORS (EX/leaning in towards the student vs avoiding eye contact)

Question 8

___ ___ scale that assesses racism

Answer 8

modern racism scale

Question 9

___ ___ scale that assesses sexism

Answer 9

modern sexism scale

Question 10

a test in which you flash images on a computer screen that brings out your natural response to an image can look to see if you’re associating a certain group to a bunch of negative images. You can also give participants a fill in the blank words, like S___Y, and prejudiced people are more likely to fill out SLY vs SKY when assessing black people. This test induces ___ ____ in individuals

Answer 10

tests like this induces STEREOTYPE ACTIVATION in individuals.

Question 11

4 broad ways to mitigate prejudice attitudes

Answer 11

1) socializing children properly
2) inter-group contact.
3) extended contact hypothesis
4) adopting a mindful cognitive set
5) compassionate love induction

Question 12

6 conditions that need to be met for the contact hypothesis to work

Answer 12

1) needs to be socially acceptable for the two groups to meet
2) there shouldn’t be a power imbalance between the two groups (ex/ boss vs employee)
3) the outgroup needs to be representative of the entire group (group interactions needed- can’t have individual), or else hte prejudice group might just create “exceptions” to the rule
4) friendly informal setting
5) common goal
6) mutual interdependence

Question 13

what did Write and Art Aaron conclude in their fast friends study? outline the fast friends procedure

Answer 13

they concluded that you are less likely to be prejudice against a group of individuals if you have repeated positive contact with a member of that group.

procedure:
- first ask each other normal questions, and then lead up to more personal and intimate questions in order to imitate a sense of closeness. kine of related to a falling in love procedure, where they do a fast friends questionaire and then do romantic things.

• 4 weeks later after establishing friendship between the2 ppl, the lab calls the students and tells them they are getting funding cut, but they want the students input on how the money should be removed.
• asked the white students which student groups should vut the money.
• if the white student spent 4 weeks with the asian student prior, they said that 5% should be removed from asian student association, but 11% should be removed from the latina association
• if the white student spend 4 weeks with the latino student, they said that 9% should be removed from the asian student association and that 5% should be removed from the latina.

the more time you spend with the group of another race, the less likely you are to “gyp” them.

Question 14

explain the stanford project

Answer 14

there was a lot of conflict between white police officers and african american citizens. the city wanted a program to improve relations between police and community. they approached art aron about his work with intergroup contact and then MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY AND POLICE FORCE DID THE FAST FRIENDS PROCEDURE

5 weeks later, they assessed attitudes towards the police, people who had undergone that sort of intervention with police officers were more positive compared to people who did not do the fast friends exposure procedure.

Question 15

explain the experiment done by slatcher to reduce racial tension in detroit between white and black people

Answer 15

slatcher brought african american and white couples into the lab, therefore 4 people were in the lab, and then they did a fast friends procedure.
couples in the fast friend procedure reported more positive attitudes towar members of the other group.
- reduced peoples anxiety about interacting with people of a dif race. many couples exchanged numbers afterwards, they became real-life friends.

Question 16

in order to counteract prejudice, people need an ___ and ____ contact with a person of a different group- you can’t just be “exposed” to someone.

Answer 16

in order to counteract prejudice, people need an ENJOYABLE and REPEATED contact with a person of a different group- you can’t just be “exposed” to someone.

Question 17

5 reasons as to why contact is important

Answer 17

1) we can obtain more accurate, new info bout a group and how they “really” are
2) can discover SIMILARITIES between groups
3) dissonance reduction; having positive interactions with a member of an outgroup while holding negative thoughts can cause DISSONANCE resulting in an ATTITUDE CHANGE
4) friendship formation; when you set up a positive contact, you now feel more positive toward that one person, but it generalizes to all members of that entire group.

5) ethnocentrism reduction
contact with another group causes us to evaluate our own group differently. more interactions we have with other groups, we realize that our own group isn’t the only POV.

Question 18

according to the ___ ___ hypothesis, the more family members and friends you have that are friends with individuals in outgroups, the lower your prejudice to those groups as well.

Answer 18

according to the EXTENDED CONTACT hypothesis, the more family members and friends you have that are friends with individuals in outgroups, the lower your prejudice to those groups as well.

Question 19

DESCRIBe the extended contact hypothesis testing done by wright et al on teams of uni students

Answer 19

• uni students were assigned to dif teams; blue or green team
• lasted 4 days; on days 1-3 teams competed against each other to create hostility
• on day 4, took one member of each team aside and did the fast friends task
• those2 people of the opposite teams were friends and told their own teams about the inter-team friendship
• knowing that someone on their team had a positive interaction with a member of another team reduced the level of prejudice between the two teams.
• their attitudes became more positive towards the other team, and their behavior also may have come positive
• during allocation tasks, many were more likely to donate to the other team compared to previous numbers vefore the fast friends procedure.

Question 20

how can adopting a mindful cognitive set help in reducing prejudice? describe a study

Answer 20

often times we are on autopilot and only look at superficial things without thinking ex/ skin tone. this can be bad.

in a study, researchers showed grade 6 students slides of people with physcal disabilities. some kids were asked simple questions that could be answered without much thought.

other groups were asked complex questions that would require active, complex thought–MINDFUL COGNITIVE SET. ex/ how would this person drive their car?

later, they assessed prejudice against people with disabilities by asking “how much contact do you want with this person?”

found LESS prejudice amongst those in the mindful condition.

Question 21

explain the study that found out that people high in compasionate love have reduced prejudice. What were these studies overall findings?

Answer 21

sinclair and fehr:

• looked at behavior towards immigrants and conducted a budget cutting exercise
• set up survey that looked like UWSA about funding for UWSA is being decreased by 20%, and that the UWSA wants students to decide how these cuts will be distributed.
• those who were high in compasion cut less money $71 than those lower in compassion ($137).
• also asked students if they’d be willing to volunteer at an immigrant student help center. people high in compassionate love were more willing to get involved and volunteer at an immigrant student help center.

overall findings: people high in compassionate love were:

1) less prejudiced
2) cut less funding to minority groups
3) were more willing to volunteer for a minority help center.

Question 22

how can you increase compassionate love?

Answer 22

• name times that youve experienced compassionate love, and times that you put yourself in someone elses shoes.

in a study:

1) asked students to describe a time where they experienced compassionate love/being selfless
2) wanted to make sure these people are compassionate and not just generally happy
3) empathy condition: describe a time where you put yourself in someone else’s shoes
4) control: describe a typical day

found that people in the compassionate love section experiences less feelings of prejudice than the oher groups