Week 11 - Stereotyping, Prejudice & Discrimination

Question 1

Tripartite (“ABC”) View of Intergroup Bias

Answer 1

Prejudice: 
Affective response (positive or negative) toward a group and its members.

Discrimination:
Behaviours (positive or negative) toward individuals based on their group membership.

Stereotypes:
Cognitions or beliefs that certain attributes are characteristic of members of certain groups.

Question 2

Attitudes Toward Ingroup vs. Outgroup

Answer 2

If someone is biased towards their own ingroup…

Stereotype: People from my ingroup are all good/intelligent/hardworking.

Prejudice: I like people in my ingroup. Ivan is part of my ingroup, so I like him.

Discrimination: Ivan applied for a job in my company, and I will definitely hire him because he is in my ingroup

Question 3

Attitudes Toward Ingroup vs. Outgroup

Answer 3

If someone is biased against a certain outgroup…

Stereotype: People from that outgroup are all bad/unintelligent/lazy.

Prejudice: I don’t like people in that outgroup. Bob is part of that outgroup, so I dislike him.

Discrimination: Bob applied for a job in my company, but I definitely will not hire him, because he is in that outgroup

Question 4

But What Does It Mean To Be Prejudiced?

Answer 4

There are two main types:

• Traditional
• Modern

Question 5

Traditional vs. Modern Racism

Answer 5

Traditional:

• Prejudice against a racial group that is explicitly acknowledged and expressed by the individual
• Obvious indicators: E.g., Racial segregation in the US back in 1950s

Modern:

• Prejudice against a racial group that exists even though explicit racist beliefs are rejected
• Subtle indicators: E.g., Sitting further away from members of a racial group, despite opposing segregation

Question 6

Modern Racism Example

Answer 6

1) 1 person: “If I do not help, I would look clearly racist.”
Group: “There are others around to help; I can act in line with my racism.”
2) Modern racism is suppressed when a behavior would make you look clearly “racist”.
i.e., Rejecting a Black applicant who is excellent, accepting a White applicant who is terrible
But it emerges when the racist behavior can be masked.
i.e., Rejecting a Black applicant who has mixed qualities, accepting a White applicant who has mixed qualities.

Question 7

Measuring Prejudicial Attitudes

Answer 7

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Affective Priming Paradigm

Question 8

Measuring Prejudicial Attitudes: Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Answer 8

Affective Priming Paradigm: Prime individuals with faces of members from a racial group, followed by a target letter string presented
Task: Is it a word or non-word?
- Implicit racial bias when people recognize real words faster than non-words after being primed with pictures of members associated with those words.

Question 9

Many people believe that all implicit measures accurately uncovers “hidden” or “secret” attitudes—this is not necessarily true!

Answer 9

Two reasons implicit attitudes might differ from explicit:
1) People are trying to hide/mask their “true” attitudes.
2) People may not be aware of these implicit associations
These are not actually representative of their explicit beliefs

Question 10

Why do we favour ingroup members over outgroup members?

Answer 10

(1) Economic Perspective
Competition with outgroups over valuable/scarce resources.
(2) Motivational Perspective
Need to enhance one’s self-esteem or social identity.
(3) Cognitive Perspective
We are “cognitive misers” and are “fast and frugal” with our thinking patterns.

Question 11

Economic Perspective

Answer 11

Realistic Group Conflict Theory: When groups compete for limited resources (e.g., territory, jobs, power), these groups experience conflict, prejudice, and discrimination.
- Prejudice and discrimination should be strongest among groups that stand to lose the most if another group succeeds.

Question 12

Robber’s Cave: Three Important Points

Answer 12

1. There were no differences in background, appearance, or history of conflict; intergroup hostility developed anyway
   - All that is required for conflict is economic competition
   - Economic Competition = Sufficient for intergroup bias
2. Competition against outgroups often increases ingroup cohesion
3. Intergroup conflict can be reduced by forcing groups to work together and depend on each other

Question 13

Motivational Perspective

Answer 13

Social Identity Theory: A person’s self-concept and self-esteem are derived from

1. Personal identity
2. AND ingroup status/accomplishments.

People are motivated to view their ingroup favorably because this enhances self-concept and self-esteem.

Question 14

Motivated Ingroup Preference: Minimal Group Paradigm

Answer 14

Researchers create groups based on arbitrary and meaningless criteria to see if they can get people to develop intergroup bias as a result.
E.g., flipping a coin, shoelace color, and other silly things

Across many different experiments, they found that people tended to prefer their ingroup, even when these group distinctions were meaningless!

Explains somewhat frivolous rivalries in real life

Question 15

Motivated Ingroup Preference: Enhancing Self-Esteem

Answer 15

Ingroup love: Positive ingroup evaluations

• Basking in Reflected Glory: Taking pride in the accomplishments of those we feel associated with in some way
• When ingroups succeed, we have higher self-esteem.
• People who take particularly strong pride in their group affiliations are more vulnerable to ingroup favoritism when placed in minimal group situations

Outgroup derogation: Negative outgroup evaluations

• People are motivated for ingroup success relative to the outgroup
• “Either I am better or you are worse!”
• Maintaining Self-image via Prejudice

Question 16

Cognitive Perspective

Answer 16

We have limited cognitive resources, so sometimes STEREOTYPING IS FASTER!

Question 17

Cognitive Perspective: When Stereotypes are USEFUL

Answer 17

Participants with a stereotype that could be applied to a person they read about recalled more trait information about that person, as well as information about Indonesia on another test

Question 18

Cognitive Perspective: When Stereotypes are HARMFUL

Answer 18

Stereotypes can be useful because they decrease the time/effort needed to deal with the environment.
- But stereotypes also become harmful when rigidly over-applied.
- When you rely on schemas and automatic judgments to dictate how you respond in any one particular person or situation, leading to negative intergroup interactions
- Over-reliance on stereotypes can lead to
Distinctiveness and Illusory correlations
Biased information processing
Self-fulfilling prophecies
Outgroup homogeneity effect
Automatic (negative) behaviors

Question 19

Illusory Correlations

Answer 19

• An incorrect belief that two things are related when they are in fact not related.
• Low frequency events are distinctive and capture attention easily.
• Minority members are low frequency by definition.
• Negative behaviors (theft, murder) also occur at a lower frequency than positive behaviors (saying “thank you”, holding doors).
• Therefore, negative behaviors from minority members are doubly distinct (paired distinctiveness), and seem much more common than they really are

Double distinctiveness leading to an illusory correlation and over-attribution:
“Minorities always do this!”

Question 20

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Answer 20

When Black (or other discriminated group members) display negative behaviours, it may be that the behaviours were elicited by people who discriminate against them, rather than reflective of their true nature.

Question 21

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

Answer 21

The tendency to assume that members of outgroups are “all alike” whereas members of ingroups have differences.

Own-race identification bias: people are better at distinguishing ingroup faces than outgroup faces (“outgroup members all look alike”).

You encounter the ingroup all the time, so unique/identifying information about ingroup members is most useful, frequent, and attention-grabbing.

If you rarely (or never) encounter members of a particular outgroup, the only info you may have about them are stereotypes.

Question 22

Automatic vs. Controlled Processing

Answer 22

Police Officer’s Dilemma
- Many people hold stereotypes that associate African-Americans with hostility and violence, which influences how participants perceive the objects in their hands

Question 23

Being Stigmatized

Answer 23

Attributional Ambiguity: Members of stigmatized groups may be uncertain if the treatment they receive is due to themselves personally or due to their group membership

Question 24

Attributional Ambiguity

Answer 24

Attributional ambiguity can lead to discounting of validity or authenticity of feedback

Question 25

Stereotype Threat

Answer 25

Group members typically know the stereotypes that others hold about them/their groups

Stereotype Threat: The fear that we will confirm a stereotype that others have because of a stereotyped group we belong to.

• In a performance situation, people often want to prove that the stereotype is not true
• > This leads to anxiety about accidentally confirming it.
• > This hypervigilance actually makes it more likely one will confirm it.
  i. e. Women do worse when told there are gender differences

Question 26

Cost of Concealment

Answer 26

• Members of stigmatized groups often feel the need to hide their true identity
• Concealment has negative effects on health!
• Concealment also takes a cognitive toll

Question 27

Reducing Intergroup Bias – How?

Answer 27

Contact Hypothesis: Prejudice can be reduced if majority and minority groups are in frequent contact with one another.

• Groups need to feel equal in status.
• Groups need to have a shared goal.
• A community’s broader social norms must support intergroup contact.
• Interactions need to based at an individual level (i.e., One-to-one interactions)