Chapter 17 Flashcards
(29 cards)
Stereotypes
Generalised and simplified beliefs that certain groups have particular characteristics that are typical of them. Stereotypes contribute to prejudice, both positive and negative and are difficult to change. The most common stereotypes are gender, age, ethnic and occupational stereotypes.
Attributions
Why do we do the things we do? Why did she react the way she did? Why does he feel that way? To help navigate our social experiences, we feel an inexplicable need to explain or determine the reason for behaviour.
Attributions are inferences that we make about the causes of events, the behaviour of others, or our own behaviour. They were rst described in 1958 by researcher Fritz Heider. He posited that people tend to either see the cause of a behaviour or action as being either located within (internal) the person or outside (external) the person.
Julia invites Kim (a co-worker) and Liz (a long-time friend) to the movies. Liz arrives 30 minutes late. Kim thinks that there must have been a lot of tra c or that parking was scarce in the area, causing Liz to be delayed. Julia knows that Liz is rarely on time and thinks her friend is disorganised. Both these responses are examples of attributions, but each is di erent.
Julia’s attributions blame the delay on Liz’s character: her poor planning and lack of time management skills. These are dispositional (personal) attributions and are internal factors. Kim blames the delay on situational attributions, where the cause of behaviour is attributed to a situation or event that is external to the person involved. Table 17.1 lists some of the reasons behind internal and external attributions that we use to explain behaviour.
Attitudes
An attitude is a positive or negative evaluation of an attitude object (a person, object, event or idea). An attitude is a learned, stable and relatively enduring evaluation of a person, object or idea that can a ect an individual’s behaviour.
Tri-component model
According to the tri-component model, an attitude is made up of a cluster of beliefs (thoughts and ideas), feelings (likes and dislikes) and behaviours (actions and intentions). These elements t within three components of an attitude: a ect, behaviour and cognition (the ABC of attitudes).
Prejudice
Prejudice (literally pre-judgement) is an unfavourable or negative attitude towards a group of people, based on insu cient or incorrect information about the group to whom it is directed – it often arises from stereotyping. Note that prejudice is towards an identi able group or an identi able member of a group, not towards an isolated individual.
Discrimination
Discrimination is the action that expresses the attitude of prejudice and it is often an individual who is the victim.
Social categorisation
Social categorisation is our natural human tendency to classify people into groups based on characteristics that we perceive them to have in common. Categorising people is a means of organising the information that we have about them:
for example, through the use of labels such as hipsters, bogans, hoons, bikies, bimbos, wimps and snobs.
Why do we stereotype
Stereotyping is a normal human thought process that is usually automatic and e cient because it saves time and e ort to form an opinion of someone. Put simply, stereotypes are a convenient way of simplifying our social world.
Why is stereotyping bad
However, there is a problem with this simpli cation because it leads to inaccurate generalisations. It causes us to pre- judge people according to the categories we put them into based on our experiences and the in uence of others, including social and traditional media outlets.
Stereotyping includes 2 million things
Categorising
Assuming
Categorising
categorising people into groups – this is usually based on appearance, for example
gender, ethnicity, race, physical ability or disability and age, but can also be based
on culture, sexuality, social class, occupation, intelligence and so on
Assuming
assuming that all members of the group are the same (for example, Homer Simpson is a stereotypical ‘stupid, white, working-class American man’, or
Crocodile Dundee is a stereotypical Aussie).
An attitude is learned
we are not born with attitudes. Instead, we acquire our
attitudes through experience in our daily lives.
An attitude can influence an individual’s behaviour.
Our attitudes may drive us to behave in particular ways when we vote, buy goods, make friends, choose subjects and make decisions in general.
Two different types of attitudes
Explicit attitudes are where people openly state their attitude and behave in a
way that re ects this attitude. For example:
- exercise is good for my health (attitude)
- visit the gym daily (action).
> Implicit attitudes are involuntary, uncontrollable and sometimes unconscious. It is possible for individuals to be unaware that they hold a particular attitude until their actions reveal it. For example:
- moths are harmless (attitude)
- scream on seeing a moth (action).
Using an example, explain how some attitudes do not contain all 3 components
Some attitudes do not contain all three components. Therefore, psychologists prefer to say that attitudes can have up to three components. For example, it is possible to have an attitude that is mostly cognitively based (such as rational thinking). This might be the case during elections, where a voter evaluates the policies of each political candidate (cognition) and votes (behaviour) for whichever candidate has the appropriate policies. In this example, there is very little of the emotional component (a ect) in the voter’s attitude.
Using an example explain how one component can be more dominant
In addition, any one of these components can be more dominant than another for a particular attitude object. For example, an attitude can be cognitively based rather than a ectively based – your attitude towards smoking could be cognitively based because you have studied and learned about the health issues associated with smoking; whereas your attitude towards your favourite songs could be a ectively based because the rhythm of the music makes you feel happy.
Cognitive component
A person’s thoughts, ideas and understanding about an attitude object. It is what we know, or think we know, about an attitude
object. For example, dogs can be good guard dogs and good companions.
Affective component
This is a person’s feelings and emotional response to an attitude object. This component is mostly learnt during the
course of our daily lives. It is the emotional reaction we have, or the way we feel about the attitude object. This involves a physiological response to the attitude object. For example, you may love dogs.
Behavioural component
This is a person’s behaviour towards an attitude object. This is what we say and how we act towards the object. For example, you get a dog as a pet and spend time with it.
The tri component model of attitudes applied to prejudice and discrimination
PREJUDICE
Cognitive
The categorisation of people, and beliefs about the people that are put into these categories, especially stereotyping
Affective
Feelings that are either friendly or hostile towards a group of people
DISCRIMINATION
Behavioural
Behaviour towards a group of people
Example of Tri component model in relation to prejudice and discrimination
For example, prejudice against elderly people (ageism) includes negative beliefs about elderly people (cognitive component), a strong feeling of dislike towards
the elderly (a ective component) and the action of discriminating against them (behavioural component).
5 common prejudices
Sexism
Racism
Ageism
Homophobia
Disability
4 effects of prejudice and discrimination
Low self esteem
Disadvantage/failure
Self fulfilling prophecies
Violence and genocide
