M3 stereotype and prejudice Flashcards
(23 cards)
3 sources of stereotypes
society, culture, cognition
2 cognitive sources of stereotypes
1) social categorization
2) ingroup/outgroup categorization
social categorization
process of classifying people into groups
ingroup/outgroup categorization
classifying people as ingroup or outgroup members
2 consequences of in/outgroup categorization
1) outgroup homogeneity bias: lumping outgroup members together - think they are all the same/more homogenous than members of ingroup
2) ingroup/outgroup bias: more negative attitudes toward outgroup members
minimal group procedure
studies ingroup/outgroup bias
1) put people into groups using trivial criteria
2) have people rate their group members
3) people rated ingroup members more favorably than outgroup members
why do we rate ingroup members more favorably? (theory and 3 premises)
social identity theory
1) all have basic need to maintain/enhance self esteem
2) self esteem influenced by personal and social identities
3) therefore, motivated to evaluate ingroup members more positively than outgroup members
social identity research (4 things)
1) ingroup bias experiences increase self esteem
2) self esteem threats lead us to increase ingroup bias to protect self esteem
3) lower status groups show more ingroup bias (hungrier for self esteem)
4) BIRGING (basking in reflected glory)
allport and postman study on stereotypes
1) show picture of black man standing near white man with razor
2) participants play telephone describing image
3) 6th subject describes image
result: over 50% of the time, 6th person said the black man was holding the razor (not true!)
how stereotype threat works (3 steps)
1) stereotyped group members are aware of the stereotype
2) they become anxious in situations that may confirm the stereotype
3) anxiety interferes with their performance –> worse performance confirms stereotype
spencer and steele stereotype threat study
1) tell M and F that they’re going to take a math test
2) two conditions: stereotype threat (tell subjects F usually do worse than men in math) vs. control (tell subjects that M/F do equally well in math)
3) take a hard math test
results: compared to their controls, F did worse and M did better when stereotype was activated
steele and aronson stereotype threat study
1) tell black and white people they’re going to take an SAT-like exam
2) two conditions: stereotype threat (tell subjects that their race will be reported with their score) vs. control (race not reported with score)
3) take test
results: compared to their controls, whites did better and blacks did worse when told that their race would be reported
6 ways to reduce stereotype threat
1) reframe task (change description to avoid stereotype activation)
2) reduce salience of threatened social identity or activate an opposite identity (eliminate procedures that activate the stereotype-relevant identity/include ones that activate a counter-stereotypic identity)
3) provide a role model
4) educate stereotyped people on stereotype threat
5) activate reactance
6) encourage growth mindset
3 positions on whether stereotypes and prejudice are changing
1) optimistic
2) pessimistic
3) mixed
study that supports optimistic stereotype view
princeton trilogy
shows % of people who believe superstition, laziness, and ignorance are characteristic of african americans is decreasing
study that supports pessimistic sterotype view
duncan experiment
white subjects see one man push another
2 conditions: pusher was black or white
subjects say of the push was violent or playful
result: when white pushed black, 13% said push was violent (73% vice versa)
3 studies that support mixed stereotype view
1) Devine/Elliot: measure explicit prejudice; measure prejudice of stereotypes and beliefs
2) devine: classify ppl as prejudiced or not; activate stereotype or not; rate ambiguous person’s hostility
3) chen/bargh: show white ppl flashes (B or W faces); play game and code for hostility
4 premises of devine’s dissociation model
1) stereotypes are association only; we accept beliefs as being true; they are different
2) stereotypes can be activated automatically
3) activated stereotypes will influence our behavior unless inhibited
4) reducing prejudice is a long/difficult process
4 ways stereotypes are self perpetuating
1) subtyping and subgrouping: ways of maintaining original stereotype
2) illusory correlation
3) ultimate attribution error
4) stereotype suppression effects
subtyping and subgrouping
subtyping: “they’re an acception” when you come across someone who does not fit stereotype
subgrouping: making a different stereotype about a subset of the original group
illusory correlation
overestimating the correlation between 2 distinctive events
1) members of a majority group have few interactions with members of the minority group –> interactions are distinctive
2) negative events are also distinctive
3) we overestimate the co-occurrence of these 2 types of distinctive events
ultimate attribution error
type of fundamental attribution error
attribute minority members’ neg behavior to their dispositional characteristics; positive to the situation
study that revealed stereotype suppression effects
Macrae et al
1) show british people a picture of a skinhead and write a paragraph about a day in that person’s life
2) either told to avoid stereotypes or were given no instructions]
3) meet skinhead and choose where to sit in relation
results: if told to avoid stereotypes –> sat farther away from skinhead –> suppression leads stereotype to manifest stronger
