Lecture 6 - Social Categorisation, Stereotypes and Prejudice Flashcards
(56 cards)
What is personal identity?
Personality characteristics e.g. introverted, honest, caring
What is social identity?
Groups you are a member of e.g. woman, business executive, collect stamps -> stereotyping
What is a stereotype?
“Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its members” (Hogg & Vaughan, 2014, p.47)
What is a category?
Collections of instances that have a family resemblance organised around a prototype
What are prototypes?
Cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category (standards against which family resemblance is assessed & category membership decided)
Describe the process of categorisation
“The process of understanding what something is by knowing what other things it is equivalent to, and what other things it is different from” (McGarty, 1999 - cited in Crisp & Turner, 2014, p.53)
Are categories rigid?
No - categories not rigid, but fuzzy i.e. move and change (Rosch, 1978)
More or less typical of the category
Depending on the prototype
What happens when trying to categorise less typical members?
Categorisation of less typical members is more difficult
Describe an example of how social identity leads to stereotyping
Characteristics of person? – e.g. mask, stripy jumper, ‘SWAG’ bag
How would you describe this person? – e.g. burglar
If it is a burglar, what does this mean? – e.g. steals other peoples’ possessions, criminal, dangerous?
Why does it matter? – e.g. you want to run away
We categorise people, give assumptions based on category, influences behaviour
Why do we categorise? - save cognitive energy
Saves time & cognitive processing
Simplify how individuals think about world
Why do we categorise? - clarifies and refines perception of the world
Once category is activated - tend to see members as possessing all traits of the stereotype
Reducing uncertainty, predict social world
Why do we categorise? - maintain a positive self-esteem
Motivational function for social identify & self-concept
E.g. understand what group you are and how others are different (understand self)
What are some common group distinctions?
Sexual orientation
Profession
‘Class’
Race
Age
Employment status
Nationality
Immigrant status
What is the illusory correlation?
Negative stereotypes may occur when people inaccurately pair minority groups with negative events/behaviours because they are both distinct
What did Hamilton and Sherman (1996) find about illusory correlations?
Asked White American participants to estimate the arrest rate of various types of American
African Americans were estimated to have a higher arrest rate than they, in fact, did
African Americans = relative minority <- illusion that they are correlated -> being arrested = negative and therefore unusual
What is behavioural assimilation?
An effect of stereotyping
Stereotypes don’t just influence our perceptions of others; they influence our own behaviour
What did Bargh et al. (1996) show about behavioural assimilation
‘Scrambled sentence’ task - making sentences out of randomly ordered words
IV: word types (2 conditions) = (1) ‘elderly’: task used words associated with elderly stereotypes (e.g. grey, lonely, wise, old). (2) Neutral: words unrelated to age (e.g. thirsty, clean)
DV: participants directed to the exit and hidden confederate timed how long it took them to leave room
Participants primed with elderly words behaved in a way related to an ‘elderly’ stereotype i.e. moved more slowly to leave the room (even though ‘slow’ wasn’t primed specifically – it was part of the stereotype activated)
What are some potential problems with Bargh et al.’s (1996) study?
The studies that prime stereotypes (e.g. the Bargh study) often don’t replicate
It might be because the effects are not universal; people might already need to care about what’s being primed
What did Papies (2015) find in relation to these problems?
Papies (2015) found that people who want to become thinner are likelier to make healthy food choices if they are primes, say, with words on a menu such as ‘diet’, ‘thin’ and ‘trim figure’
But it works only in people for whom a healthy diet is a central goal; it doesn’t make everyone avoid fattening foods
What is stereotype threat?
The threat of negative evaluations can actually lead to poor performance e.g. sinking to the level expected of you when expectations are low
When negative stereotypes define our own groups, and we behave in line with them:
“Feeling that we will be judged and treated in terms of negative stereotypes of our group & that we will inadvertently confirm these stereotypes through our behaviour” (Hogg & Vaughan, 2014, p.383)
What are some examples of stereotype threat?
Women and maths (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999)
Men and social sensitivity (Koenig & Eagly, 2005)
Elderly people and memory (Levy, 1996)
Is the negative impact of stereotype threat inevitable?
This negative impact is not inevitable; reframing low expectations as a challenge instead of a threat can eliminate the effect (Alter & al., 2010)
Does stereotype threat replicate across groups?
Tan and Barber (2020) examined whether age-based stereotypes impact older Chinese adults
They tested older Chinese participants’ memory recall under a stereotype threat condition (or control condition)
Results demonstrated poorer memory recall in the stereotype threat condition (vs. control)
What should be notes in participants in Tan and Barber’s (2020) study?
However, it should be noted that participants were immigrants residing in the United States
As shown in other studies, could the effects of stereotype threat be different in Asian participants who still reside in an Asian country (e.g., Zhang et al. 2017)?
