Stereotypes

Question 1

What is social categorisation?

Answer 1

The process of assigning people to groups based on social categories, e.g gender. race religion

Question 2

What is prejudice?

Answer 2

A negative attitude held towards a social group or its members

Question 3

What is discrimination?I

Answer 3

Refers to negative behaviours towards a person of their group

Question 4

Why do we socially categorise?

Answer 4

In order to understand; they are informative for person perception. Allows us to make judgements. Evolutionarily adaptive, allows us to identify members of allied groups

Question 5

What is an ingroup?

Answer 5

Groups with which an individual feels a sense of membership, belonging, and identity

Question 6

What is an outgroup?

Answer 6

Groups with which an individual does not feel a sense of membership, belonging and identity

Question 7

Where does the term stereotype originate from?

Answer 7

Lippman - that helps us navigate person perception and justify social hierarchies

Question 8

How do we now define stereotypes?

Answer 8

The collection of traits that society associated with a particular social group. Beliefs about the characteristics, attributes, and behaviours of members of a certain group

Question 9

How are stereotypes formed?

Answer 9

Learnt from parents, peers. media

Question 10

What is a social explanation for stereotype formation?

Answer 10

Stereotype content model, Fiske et al 2002

Question 11

What is the stereotype content model?

Answer 11

Argues that stereotype content reflects changes in society, classified along two key dimensions of warmth and competence which are linked to the group’s current status in society, and potential for competition.

Question 12

What is warmth about?

Answer 12

Intent and linked to competition (for resources). Low competition means perceptions of positive intentions so high warmth stereotypes. High competition means negative intentions and low warmth stereotypes

Question 13

What is competence about?

Answer 13

Capability and is linked to the group’s status in society. High status means high capability so high competence stereotypes/

Question 14

What is illusory correlation?

Answer 14

Hamilton and Gifford argued that when two statistically infrequent events are paired, the correlation between the two is overestimated due to their distinctiveness (false illusory correlation)

Question 15

What is stereotype application?

Answer 15

The actual use of activated stereotypes in judgements, e.g forming an impression

Question 16

What does it mean when you measure stereotype application?

Answer 16

Measures that assess whether someone uses stereotypes in judgements, e.g may ask participant to form an impression of an outgroup and then rate the degree to which they possess certain stereotypic traits.

Question 17

What is one common measure of stereotype activation?

Answer 17

The lexical decision task - Decide whether the stimuli in black text are real words or nonsense words as quickly as possible. Tap your left index finger on the table if it is a nonsense word, and tap your right index finger on the table if it is a real word. Ignore the stimuli in red

Question 18

Why do people stereotype?

Answer 18

Acts as an energy saving device - to simplify information processing and reduce cognitive load. Can be thought of as judgemental heuristics. A mental shortcut for streamlining social perception.

Question 19

What study supports the theory of stereotyping as a judgemental heuristic?

Answer 19

Macrae et al - experimental group were given category labels and so could use stereotypes, control group not given so can’t, if using stereotypes saves cognitive resources, participants who are able to use stereotypes should remember more about the audio track. Was found

Question 20

Why do people stereotype?

Answer 20

May serve a justification function. System Justification Theory, Jost and Banaji, argues that people want to believe that social systems are fair, and stereotypes can help rationalise any inequity.

Question 21

How are stereotypes perpetuated?

Answer 21

Biases in exposure to information

Question 22

Johnston and Macrae’s impression formation task

Answer 22

articipants were presented with a list of questions that ostensibly came from interviews with physics students.
‘Forced’ group: Read all questions and answers
‘Controlled’ group: Select and read as many as needed to confidently form an impression of physics students
Participants then rated stereotype consistent and stereotype inconsistent traits on how descriptive they were of the group

Participants in the ‘controlled’ condition chose to view more stereotype-confirming than stereotype-disconfirming questions
Participants in the ‘controlled’ condition rated the group of physics students higher on stereotypic traits than participants in the ‘forced’ condition

People are more likely to seek out stereotype confirming information, and this increases their endorsement of stereotypes, which may be one reason why stereotypes persist.

Question 23

What is the ultimate attribution error?

Answer 23

• Negative/stereotypes behaviours are attributed to disposition
  Positive/counter-stereotypic behaviours are attributed to situation

Question 24

What is the evidence for UAE?

Answer 24

Hewstone’s (1990) meta-analysis supports the prediction that negative behaviours or failures are attributed more to disposition, and that positive behaviours or success may be more likely to be ‘explained away’ (i.e. as being due to luck or situational causes) in outgroup vs. ingroup members

Question 25

What is stereotype threat?

Answer 25

The concern experienced by a person when there is a possibility that they may act in a way consistent with negative stereotypes (Steele & Aronson, 1995)

Question 26

What are the consequences of stereotype threat?

Answer 26

It can affect performance on stereotype-relevant tasks. Can also affect learning on stereotype relevant activities and tasks, and disengagement from the stereotyped domain.

Question 27

Steele and Aronson 1995 original study

Answer 27

ST condition - told the test measured their verbal abilities and limitations
Control - help the researchers analyse problem solving process, no results taken
Results - black students performed worse in ST condition than control.