social categorisation, stereotypes and prejudice

Question 1

What are the 2 types of identity?

Answer 1

-Personal identity = personality characteristics
-Social identity = groups you are a member of
-Social identity is what can create stereotypes

Question 2

Category

Answer 2

Collection of instances that have family resemblance around prototypes

Question 3

Prototypes

Answer 3

Cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category

Question 4

What did Crisp and Turner (2014) suggest?

Answer 4

-Categorise due to 3 things;
-Saving cognitive energy
-Refining perception
-Positive self esteem

Question 5

Saving cognitive energy means…

Answer 5

-Saving time and cognitive processing
-Simplifies our view of the world

Question 6

Refining perception means…

Answer 6

-Reduces uncertainty
-Allows us to predict social world
-See all members of one group possessing the same traits when a category is activated

Question 7

Positive self esteem means…

Answer 7

-Acts as a motivational function for social identity and self concept

Question 8

What is illusory correlation?

Answer 8

-Negative stereotypes occur due to pairing of minority groups with negative behaviours
-Due to these both being distinct things

Question 9

What study supports the illusory correlation?

Answer 9

-Hamilton and Sherman (1996)
-Asked white americans to estimate arrest rate of various types of american
-African americans were estimated to have highest, and they did
-African american (minority) + being arrested (negative) = illusion that they are correlated

Question 10

What are the 3 effects of stereotyping?

Answer 10

-Behavioural assimilation = stereotypes influence our perceptions of others and own behaviour
-Stereotype threat = threat of negative evaluations cause poor performance
-Prejudice and discrimination

Question 11

What did Bargh et al., (1996) find?

Answer 11

-Looked into behavioural assimilation
-Ppts primed with elderly words ended up acting in a way that fit the ‘elderly’ stereotype e.g. took more time to leave a room due to walking slowly, even though ‘slow’ wasn’t one of the primed words
-Seems to be lack of replication as effects aren’t universal

Question 12

What did Papies (2015) find?

Answer 12

-People who want to become thinner tend to make more healthy food choices if they are primed with words on menu such as ‘diet’
-Only work if having a healthy diet is your main goal

Question 13

What did Steele and Aronson (1995) find in regards to stereotype threat?

Answer 13

-If negative stereotypes define our groups then we tend to change our behaviour to fit them
-Women and maths = Spencer, Steele and Quinn (1999)
-Men and social sensitivity = Koenig and Eagly (2005)
-Elderly people and memory = Levy (1996)

Question 14

What did Tan and Barber (2020) find?

Answer 14

-Whether age based stereotypes have an impact on older Chinese adults
-Looked at memory recall under stereotype threat condition and a control condition
-Results found poor memory recall in stereotype threat condition
-Ppts were immigrants in US

Question 15

What is prejudice and discrimination?

Answer 15

-Strong negative attitude dominated by cognitive bias and negative stereotypes that we hold
-Based on unjust treatment of groups in regards to reluctance, tokenism and reverse discrimination

Question 16

Reluctance

Answer 16

-Gaetner and Dovidio (1977)
Ppts more reluctant to help minority member compared to their own group when faced with emergency, but prejudice only occurred when others were present

Question 17

Tokenism

Answer 17

-Favouring a member of minority group in isolated episode
-Monin and Miller (2001)
Ppts who were give opportunity to hire well-qualified minority individual were discriminative against other minorities in future hiring, as they had already proven that they were not prejudice

Question 18

Reverse discrimination

Answer 18

-Dutton and Lake (1973)
-Opening displays pro-minority behaviour but as a way to deflect accusations of prejudice e.g. giving more money to minority member when feeling threatened

Question 19

What did Dovidio et al., (1996) find to do with racism?

Answer 19

-Decline of racist attitudes over 60 years

Question 20

What did Quilian and Lee (2022) find to do with racism?

Answer 20

-Hiring discrimination among 170,000 apps for minority groups hasn’t dropped

Question 21

What do these studies show?

Answer 21

-Stereotypes change however the negativity stays the same

Question 22

What are the 3 theories of prejudice?

Answer 22

-Modern and symbolic racism (Kinder and Sears, 1981)
-Ambivalent racism (Katz and Hass, 1988)
-Ambivalent sexism (Glick and Fiske, 1996)

Question 23

Describe the Modern and symbolic racism (Kinder and Sears, 1981) theory

Answer 23

-Blame victim
-Support policies that happen to disadvantage ethnic minorities

Question 24

Describe the Ambivalent racism (Katz and Hass, 1988) theory

Answer 24

-High scores on pro-black attitudes show pity
-High scores on anti-black attitudes show hostility

Question 25

Describe the Ambivalent sexism (Glick and Fiske, 1996) theory

Answer 25

-Hostile sexism paints women in bad light -Benevolent sexism can be seen as slightly positive

Question 26

What are the 2 types of things to cause prejudice?

Answer 26

-Historical/Economical = frustration of aggression -Psychological = individual differences

Question 27

Describe the frustration aggression hypothesis (Dollard et al., 1939)

Answer 27

-States that frustration causes aggression -Psychic energy builds up and needs outlet -Need someone to aim negativity to (scapegoat) so we aim this to minority -Links to Freuds idea of displacement

Question 28

What did Hovland and Sears (1940) find to do with the historical and economical factors affecting prejudice?

Answer 28

-Study around cotton workers -Over 50 years they took note of the price of cotton and the number of lynchings of black workers -Frustration increased (cotton price fell) = lynchings increased (displacement) -Can’t determine cause and effect, just a correlation

Question 29

What is an Authoritarian personality?

Answer 29

-Psychological factors -Extreme reactions to authority figures -Obsessed over rank and status -Displaced anger -Due to harsh parenting styles during childhood

Question 30

What did Adorno et al. (1950) find in regards to the authoritarian personality?

Answer 30

-Retrospective interviews around childhood -Questionnaires looked at; anti-semitism, ethnocentrism, political and economic conservatism and potential for fascism -Correlation found between harsh parenting and prejudice levels

Question 31

What are the negatives of authoritarian personality?

Answer 31

-Can’t determine cause and effect -Poor methodology = self report data, and relies solely on memory of upbringing -Ignores the social context

Question 32

How can social learning impact prejudice?

Answer 32

-Modelling can occur (child witness racist comments) as well as conditioning (parents approve of racist behaviour) -Tajfel (1981) = hatred towards certain groups were learnt mainly in childhood

Question 33

What is conformity?

Answer 33

-Conforming to group norms

Question 34

What did Minard (1952) find in relation to conformity?

Answer 34

-Looked at attitudes of white miners -Found that 60% would switch between racism and non racism depending on whether situational norms encouraged or discouraged prejudice

Question 35

What is Social Identity Theory?

Answer 35

-In group v out groups causes biases to occur -Difference between personal self and social self -Important for self-esteem and social bonding

Question 36

Describe Jane Elliot (1968) study

Answer 36

-Blue eyed people and brown eyed people -One day blue eyed people were ‘inferior’ which causes brown eyed people to derogate the individuals who had blue eyes

Question 37

Describe Akrami et al., (2011) study

Answer 37

-Looked at whether personality e.g. right wing authoritarianism or social-psychological processes e.g. being a group member can predict sexism -Results found sexism was explained by combination of both -Integrate approaches to explain prejudice