Stereotypes Flashcards
What are stereotypes?
Stereotypes are mental representations or beliefs about a particular group of people based on their social category (e.g. race, gender, age, nationality.) It is a cognitive process in which individuals classify people into different social groups based on shared characteristics. They are learnt characteristics that are acquired through environmental experiences. From an evolutionaly perspective, where they have helped people assess social situations such as danger. E.g. You see a snake and you categorise it as a threat and could be harmful, so you avoid it.
Stereotypes as a form of social categorisation and the function of stereotypes
Stereotypes are cognitive schemata used to quickly and simply process large amounts of information, freeing up cognitive processing that can be used to perform other mental
tasks.
o From an evolutionary perspective, stereotypes may have helped people assess social situations and consequently avoid danger.
o Stereotype: an oversimplified belief about an outgroup pertaining to either positive or negative thoughts about its members.
Tripartite model of attitude structure – affective, behavioural, cognitive
The tripartite model of attitudes is a latent variable model that is based on the assumption that the latent variable (i.e., a person’s attitude) elicits three modes or types of manifestations: a person’s cognitive, affective, and Behavioral responses to an attitude object. The tripartite model can be used to help explain the relationship between stereotypes.
Affective - The affective component involves the emotional reactions and feelings associated with a particular social group. It reflects the emotional responses people experience towards members of a stereotyped group, which can range from positive to negative emotions.
Cognitive - This component represents the beliefs and generalizations about a particular social group. It involves the cognitive aspect of stereotypes, where individuals categorize people into groups based on shared characteristics and form beliefs about those groups.
Behaviour - The behavioural component relates to the behavioural tendencies and intentions associated with a specific social group. Stereotypes can influence how individuals interact with members of the stereotyped group, leading to discriminatory behaviour or differential treatment.
The relationship between attitudes, prejudice and discrimination
The tripartite model of attitudes can be used to explain the relationship between social categorisation, prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination (Figure 9.1). The three aspects of social bias; prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes, are interrelated, but can also occur individually.
Social categorisation can lead to prejudice, which is negative feelings held toward members of an outgroup (any group an individual does not belong to).
Prejudice is often described as unjustified attitudes toward members of social groups and is made up of the three components of an attitude, however, people mainly focus on the affective component of prejudice. Discrimination, however, only involves behaviour.
Distinguish between prejudice and discrimination.
Prejudice does not inevitably lead to discrimination; an individual can discriminate against a group of people without holding negative feelings toward them. For example, a shop assistant could deny entry to a person with an assistant dog. This is discrimination based on disability, but the shop assistant may not feel negative emotions toward individuals with disabilities. Their behaviour is based on the belief that dogs are not allowed in the shop.
Negative feelings or attitudes held toward others can develop into discrimination if these feelings are acted upon. Emotions are a strong component of attitudes; thus, prejudice can become a concern if emotions are so strong that they develop into unjust behaviours against members of an outgroup (discrimination).Once prejudices are learned, stereotypes tend to naturally develop. Stereotypes can also result in prejudice.
Holding overgeneralised stereotypes about all members of a group, whether it be positive or negative, can lead to acts of discrimination. A teacher giving less time on a maths test to the Asian students in his class is an example of the stereotype that all Asians are superior in maths, leading to discriminatory behaviour. Conversely, discriminative behaviour can strengthen stereotypes. For example, if an English teacher believes that immigrants are bad at English, they are more likely to give their immigrant students poor marks. Those poor marks reinforce the belief that the students are bad at English.
Direct discrimination
Direct discrimination occurs when an individual is treated unfairly because of a characteristic they have or are assumed to have.
o Direct discrimination is intentional.
o For example, a real estate agent telling a single mother with two children that there are no rental properties available, but offering a rental property to a couple with no children.
Indirect discrimination
Indirect discrimination occurs when individuals who have a particular characteristic are unfairly disadvantaged due to conditions or regulations that apply to everyone.
o Indirect discrimination may be unintentional at times.
o For example, a public building with no ramp access disadvantages people who use wheelchairs as they are unable to enter the building.
Causes of prejudice
social influence, intergroup competition, social categorisation, just world phenomenon
Ingroup behaviour
interactions members from one group have with members of another group (also known as intergroup relations). While social categorisation is an innate process, prejudice develops from environmental influences.
Social influence
Children learn prejudices from their family, teachers, peers and friends. Television, music and movies are examples of mass media that can reinforce the prejudices learned from the people around them. If a social group an individual seeks to be part of accepts prejudices as the social norm, the individual may be motivated to conform to these attitudes and develop the same prejudices.
Intergroup competition
Economic competition over access to resources, wealth and jobs can lead to groups purpose- fully inciting prejudice against outgroups by portraying them as a threat. The chance of prejudice increases when the competing groups are of relatively equal status. An example of prejudice being caused by intergroup competition is the economic threat a social group feels from new immigrants arriving at a country where there is high competition over access to jobs.
Social categorization
People unconsciously identify individuals that are part of their ingroup, and those that are part of an outgroup. This process of social categorisation occurs immediately upon contact with a new person and is an important tool that minimises effort required to assess the multitude of characteristics each person possesses. Social categorisation is the natural way humans learn and there is nothing wrong with categorising people into differentiated groups if people keep an open mind to changing the categories created and try to avoid the development of prejudices and stereotypes.
Just world phenomenon
Just world phenomenon: the assumption people make that everything that happens for a reason and that the world is just (fair). The just world phenomenon is a cognitive bias whereby people make dispositional attributions by blaming victims for the misfortune they are experiencing. For example, that victims of rape are responsible for being assaulted, and that people who have HIV or AIDS do not deserve high-quality healthcare because having the illness is their own fault. Making dispositional attributions for people who have had bad things happen to them may lead to negative emotions felt toward them, thus prejudice
Reducing prejudice
contact hypothesis including intergroup contact;
superordinate goals, mutual interdependence, equal status contact, contact hypothesis
Intergroup contact:
Intergroup contact: contact between members of different social groups. The contact hypothesis of prejudice reduction is the concept that the more people within social groups interact with each other, the less prejudice they will hold toward each other.
