PSY2001 S2 W2 Prejudice & Discrimination

Question 1

What is Prejudice?

Single-component definition?

Crandall & Eshelman 2003

Answer 1

a negative evaluation of a social group or an individual that is significantly based on the individual’s group membership

Question 2

What is the general publics thoughts on prejudice?

Answer 2

We think it is less a problem now even though it still is.
41.5% of Australians deny that “Australians from a British background enjoy a privileged position in our sosicety” (Dunn & Nelson, 2011)
Trump deny his tweets were racist and Laurance Fox saying that her country is the most tolerant and loveing in Europe.

Question 3

What happened on the 31/01/2025?

Answer 3

Trump’s Executive Order 14173 on “Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity”
Revokes previous executive orders aimed at establishing initiative to promote equal opportunity, diversity nad inclduiosn in federal government workplace. Sets out actions aimed at deterring diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives in the private sector.

Question 4

How much discrimination and prejudice happens in Britain?

(Abrams, et al. 2018)

Answer 4

Large-scale national survey measuring discrimination and prejudice experienced by people with protected characteristics:
64% report experience prejudice - Black ethnic background
70% report experience prejudice - Muslims
61% report experience prejudice - Mental health conditions.

Question 5

What is the traditional definition of prejudice?

Traditional three-component definitions

Answer 5

Consistent with the tripartite model of attitudes (Allport, 1954)
Cognitive (belief about a group)
Affective (strong feelings (usually -) about a group)
Conative (intentions to behave in certain ways towards the group

Question 6

What is discrimination compared to prejudice ?

Answer 6

Discrimination is our behaviour.
Prejudice is what we feel/believe/intention

Question 7

What is discrimination?

Dovidio, et al. 2010

Answer 7

Inappropriate ad potentially unfair treatment of individuals due to group membership.
Negative behaviour towards an outgroup or it’s members
Less positive behaviour towards an outgroup relative to the ingroup

Question 8

What are the 3 forms of discrimination?

Pincus, 1996

Answer 8

____ differential/harmful impact on specific groups of people

Indidivual - actions that are intended to have //

Institutional - institutional policies and the behaviours of indidividuals that run institutions that are intended to have //

Structural - policies that appear neutral in terms of intent, but that have negative //

Question 9

What is an example of a individual discrimination?

Answer 9

individual action with intention to create harm. Photo of a playground in Hove, Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan 2020)

Question 10

What is an example of institutional discrimination?

Answer 10

In March 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled that companies could ban individuals from wearing ‘religious symbols’ (including headscarves, hijabs)

Question 11

What is an example of structural discrimination?

Answer 11

In 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled that the requirement for police officers in Greece to be >1.7m tall is unlawful (and amounts to sex discrimination) – different ethnic groups and women are generally shorter

Question 12

What is the ISMs

Answer 12

Terminology used to describe prejudice and/or discrimination against specific groups.
Sexism, ableism, racism, ageism, anti-seminitism, heterosexism (sexual prejudice)

Question 13

What is intergroup bias?

Hewstone et al. 2002

Answer 13

The systematic tendency to evaluate one’s own membership group (the in-group) or its members more favourably than a non-membership group (the out-group) or its members

Question 14

What does intergroup bias encompasses?

Mackie and Smith (1998)

Answer 14

Cognition (stereotyping)
Attitude (prejudice)
Behaviour (discrimination)

Question 15

What may explain prejudice, discrimination and ingroup bias exist?

Answer 15

Indidivdual difference: individual attitudes towards different outgroups tended to be positively correlated. If one person has a negative attitude towards one outgroup, they are more likely to have a negative attitude towards a different outgroup.

Question 16

What are approaches that implicate personality and indidivdial differences? - explaining why prejudice exists

Answer 16

Frustration aggression hypothesis
The Authoritarian Personality

Question 17

What is the basic premise of the frstratio aggression hypothesis?

Dollard et al. 1939

Answer 17

fixed amount of psychic energy to enact our goals. Achieving our goal keeps us in balanced psychological state. If goals are frustrated, unspent energy leaves us in a state of psychological imbalance. we rebalance through acts of aggression directed at scapegoat (less powerful social group)

Question 18

What are the critiques of the frustration-aggression model?

Answer 18

Frustration isn’t necessary for nor does it inevitable lead to aggression so this approach can only explain some instances of intercrop aggression.

In taking an individual approach, the frustration-aggression hypothesis ignore social context so this approach can’t account for differences in prejudice towards particular social groups.

Question 19

What is the Authoritarian Personality?

Adorno et al. 1950

Answer 19

Punitive ‘authoritarian’ parenting style results in children developing a specific set of beliefs (e.G. ethnocentrism - preference of own over other groups & intolerance of minorities)
It also leads to increased aggression in the child, which is then projected on to minority groups.

Question 20

What are critiques of the authoritarian personality?

Answer 20

Acquiescence bias in the F-scale ( used to measure authoritarian personality) - no items were reversed, tendency to respond ‘yes’ would inflate correlations between items.
Psychoanalytic constructs (e.g. projectionà are hard to test empirically.
Ignores situational effects on prejudice

Question 21

Can prejudice increase due to situational effects?

Answer 21

Yes, prejudice increased towards muslins after 9/11 and towards south east Asian during covid

Question 22

What approaches emphasise the intercrop context?

Answer 22

Realistic conflict theory
Social identity theory

Question 23

What is the realistic conflict theory?

Sheriff, 1966

Answer 23

conflict and competition for limited resources leads to prejudice and discrimination.

Question 24

What is the famous research evidence for the realistic conflict theory?

Answer 24

Robber’s Cave studies (Sherif, 1966)

Question 25

What is the Robber's Cave studies?

Answer 25

field experiment involving 12 year old boys at a summer camp in robbers cave, oklahoma. Evaluated whether conflict between two groups can result in prejudice and discrimination and be resolved through co-operation towards superordinate goals.

Question 26

What were critiques of the Robber's Cave studies?

Answer 26

Are conflict and competition necessary for prejudice and discrimination? Ethical issues: "Morally it was the wrong thing to do."

Question 27

What is the social identity theory? | Turner & Tajfel 1986

Answer 27

Society consists of different social groups with specific power/status relations. Slef-concept: personal identity and social identity (our membership and identification with specific groups) and Engaging in favourable comparisons/behaviours that beneft the ingroup relative to the outgroup (ingroup favouritism) cna help us maintain positive self-concept. If we look good, then I look good.

Question 28

What is some evidence of the social identity theory?

Answer 28

Tajfel et al. Minimal group theory - 1971

Question 29

What is the minimal group studies?

Answer 29

PPTs assigned to a group based on a meaningless distinction (preference for paintings klee/Kandinsky). Tasked with allocating points/money to a member of their ingroup and a member of the outgroup, on various matrices. Participants tended to favour ingroup in a way that maximised the ingroup profit while also maximising the difference between groups in favour of the ingroup.

Question 30

What is maximum differentiation?

Answer 30

Max difference of 6 benefits the ingroup =/= maximum

Question 31

What is ingroup/joint profit?

Answer 31

Most point for the ingroup but you give more to outgroup

Question 32

How do we recognising prejudice and discrimination?

Answer 32

2 faces of prejudice and discrimination - transitional and modern forms of bais

Question 33

What are traditional forms of bias?

Answer 33

overt, blatant, obvious, arn't confined to history

Question 34

What are modern forms of bias?

Answer 34

Covert, subtle and ambigous

Question 35

Traditional prejudice and discrimination might manifest how?

Answer 35

Use of ethnophaulisms (ethnic slurs, racial epithets) Overt discrimination (segregation) Persecution (violence and genocide

Question 36

How does modern prejudice manifest as?

Answer 36

Resentment about ‘positive discrimination’ Denial of continuing discrimination Antagonism about perceived group demands Defence of traditional values Denial of positive emotions Exaggerated cultural differences

Question 37

How do we measure prejudice?

Answer 37

Explicit measure and implicit measure

Question 38

What are some explicit measures of prejudice?

Answer 38

Semantic differentials (PPTs rate target group according to pairs of opposing evaluative words Likert scales (prejudice questionnaires that tap into traditional or modern forms of prejudice) Blatant Prejudice scale Subtle prejudice scale Traditional sexism scale Modern sexism scale

Question 39

What are some implicit measures of prejudice and bias?

Answer 39

Behavioural measures (behavioural observations (seating distance, eye contact, body posture, approach and avoidance measure) Affective measures - implicit association test - we are faster to classify things that are related in memory than thing that are unrealted

Question 40

How does modern discrimination manifest as ?

Answer 40

a range of often subtle behaviour Indidividual discrimination - microaggressions Institutional - tokenism

Question 41

What is a microaggression

Answer 41

Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color. Perpetrators of microaggressions are often unaware that they engage in such communications when they interact with racial/ethnic minorities

Question 42

What are different forms of microaggressions?

Answer 42

Microinvalidation Microinsults Microassaults

Question 43

What are microinvalidation ?

Answer 43

actions (often unconscious) that invalidate the experiences, thoughts or feelings of people of colour (e.g. “I don’t see colour” )

Question 44

What are microinsults?

Answer 44

actions (often unconscious) that demean racial identity or are otherwise rude or insensitive (e.g, asking a person of colour how they got their job; following a person of colour around a shop)

Question 45

What are microassaults?

Answer 45

Racially-motivated actions (often conscious) meant to cause hurt (e.g. name calling, use of racial epithets, purposeful discriminatory behaviour)

Question 46

What is tokenism? | Hogg and Vaughn 2018

Answer 46

“The practice of publicly making small concessions to a minority group in order to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination”

Question 47

What is tokenism? | Wriht & Taylor, 1998

Answer 47

“an intergroup context in which very few members of a disadvantaged group are accepted into positions usually reserved for members of the advantaged group, while access is systematically denied for the vast majority of qualified disadvantaged group members”

Question 48

What is the glass gliff?

Answer 48

Women are more likely to be placed in precarious leadership roles (i.e., where there is a high risk of failure).

Question 49

What is some evidence of the glass cliff?

Answer 49

Ryan and Haslman 2005 Archival study of FTSE 100 companies before and after the appointment of a male or female board member. Companies appointing women on the board were more likely to have performed consistently poorly in the preceding 5 months, relative to those that appointed men Similar results in the domain of politics re hard to win seats (Ryan, Haslam & Kulich, 2010)

Question 50

What does prejudice refer to?

Answer 50

Unfavourable attitudes towards another group and it's members

Question 51

Rafael, a young black man, has just popped to the shops to pick up some milk. While he walks around the shop, he notices that the security guard is following him. This is an example of what?

Answer 51

Microinsult

Question 52

How does prejudice and discrimination manifest as?

Answer 52

Prejudice and discrimination may manifest both in more traditional ‘overt’ ways but also in more modern ‘covert’ ways- and this distinction is captured in different measures of prejudice and bias

Question 53

What is an explanation for prejudice?

Answer 53

Explanations for prejudice include approaches that implicate personality and individual differences (e.g. Adorno et al.’s Authoritarian Personality approach) or emphasise the intergroup context (e.g., Sherif’s Realistic Conflict Theory)