Download Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination

Prejudice, Stereotypes, and
Discrimination
Why do we treat “others” differently?
Self-esteem of the Oppressed
• Kenneth and Mamie Clark (1947).
– Demonstrated that black children, as young as
3, rejected black dolls. Felt that white dolls
were prettier and generally superior
– Key point in 1954 Brown vs. Board of
Education desegregation decision
• Goldberg found similar results for gender
– Women rated articles as superior if “written” by
a man (John vs. Joan McKay)
• Swim and others have shown that these
tendencies have diminished over the years
Definitions
• Prejudice
– A hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable
group based on generalizations derived from faulty or
incomplete information
– Jussim (1996) counters this to some extent with his
kernel of truth theory
– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. – “Trying to educate a
bigot is like shining a light into the pupil of an eye –
it constricts.”
– Very difficult to change prejudice through
information
Definitions
• Stereotype
– Assigning identical characteristics to any
person in a group, regardless of the actual
variation among members of that group
– Not necessarily intended to be abusive, may
even be a “positive” stereotype
– They are mental shortcuts like the
representative heuristic
– But, if they rob us of our individuality that may
be problematic
– Remember the dangers of deindividuation
Stereotype Threat
• Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson
– Tried to explain gap in test scores between whites
and blacks
– Argued that blacks in test situations may feel
apprehension about confirming existing negative
stereotypes of intellectual inferiority
– They labeled this Stereotype Threat
– Demonstrated that black students did as well as
whites on the GRE verbal when led to believe that
the test itself, and not the student, was being tested
Stereotypes and Attributions
• Ultimate attribution error – in ambiguous
situations we make attributions consistent
with our beliefs and prejudices
• Formation of these attributions then
strengthen the original prejudice because
they provide supportive evidence
Gender and Attributions of Success
• Male success is attributed to ability, female
success is attributed to luck or effort
– True for male and female perceivers
– Women frequently do this to themselves,
particularly in “male” domains (Stipek & Galinski)
• Mindset may be learned from parents
– Daughters of women who hold strong gender
stereotypes tend to believe they don’t have much
math ability
Gender and Attributions of
Success
• Tennis and attributions for failure
– Women were more likely to lose a tennis match in
straight sets (even at the professional level)
– Nicholls argues that women may give up because
they attribute the loss in the first set to a lack of
ability
– Ignores the fact that men have more chance to
come back since they play 3 sets vs. 2 for women
Gender and Attributions of
Success
• How might Affirmative Action measures
impact attributions of success?
– Turner and Pratkanis found that women who
believed that they received a job because of
their gender (not merit) downplayed their own
abilities and engaged in self-handicapping
behaviors
Blaming the Victim
• There is a tendency to assume that those who
are worse off deserve it in some way
– e.g., the homeless should try harder to find a job
– e.g., the often implicit assumption that a women
who was raped brought it on herself somehow
– This tendency is even higher in those who have a
strong belief in a Just World
– Frightening to think that bad things happen
randomly
Prejudice and Science
• Best source for this type of information is
Stephen J. Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man
– Follows the history of people like Louis
Agassiz, Samuel George Morton, and Paul
Broca, and the history of IQ debates
– Each of these individuals wanted to “prove” the
superiority of their group and allowed their
biases to taint their science
– For example, Broca based male intellectual
superiority on skull size, yet he only used 6
female skulls. Each of these skulls came from a
women who died of infectious disease
– Foresaw the quotes from The Bell Curve
Prejudice and Self-fulfilling
Prophecies
• Word, Zanna, and Cooper
– Study One, white interviewers interact with black
and white subjects
– Find that interviewers are less “immediate” with
black subjects
– Study Two, trained interviewers to treat white
subjects the same way that blacks had been treated.
– Independent judges rate the quality of these
interviewers as less effective than those treated like
white subjects
– Belief creates reality
Automaticity of Stereotypes
• Patricia Devine (1989)
– Low prejudice individuals exert conscious
vigilance that reduces stereotyping and prejudice
– But, when conscious control is is minimized even
those who are relatively unprejudiced slip into
automatic prejudice
– Banaji and Greenawald have recently done a huge
amount of research that supports this assertion
Gender Role Socialization
• Traditionally
– Males are described by instrumental traits
– Females are described by expressive traits
• These traits lead to behavioral expectations
– Porter and Geis, in all male group person at the
head of the table is viewed as the leader
– But, when group is mixed males are viewed as
leader no matter where the women sit
– This interpretation is the same even when
subjects self-rate as feminists!!!!
Gender Role Socialization
• Sandra Bem argues for androgyny
– Should use both sets of traits in the appropriate
situation
– Further research shows that androgynous
individuals are perceived as more likable and
better adjusted
– However, must combine the traits. Acting
solely in a cross-gendered manner is evaluated
very poorly (e.g., highly effeminate male)
Time to Blame the Media Again
• Visibility of minorities is low on prime-time
television. One study shows that the
presence of African-Americans has
fluctuated between 6-16% over the last 15
years.
– When present, African-Americans tend to be
concentrated in virtually all Black situation
comedies.
Minority Presence
• Even worse for other minorities in the 1990’s
– Slightly more than 1% of primetime characters
were Latino
– Slightly less than 1% were Asian or Native
American
– Presence of gays and lesbians almost nonexistent. When present they are often presented
as caricatures
– Women outnumbered by men 2 to 1, and are
more frequently portrayed as victims of crime
Causes of Prejudice
• Are we biologically wired to hate those who
are not like us?
– Possible, but even if so, the specifics of
prejudice must be learned
• Four causes have been researched
extensively:
– Economic and political competition, displaced
aggression, personality needs, conformity to
existing social norms
Economic and Political Competition
• Prejudice increases during economic difficulties
– In the west in the late 1800’s attitudes toward the
Chinese varied greatly depending upon the amount
of employment opportunities. After Civil War the
Chinese were hated due to competition for jobs
• Research shows that the most anti-black
prejudice is found in groups that are one rung
higher on the SES ladder
– This variable is confounded w/ educational level
Economic and Political Competition
• All of this data is correlational and
descriptive, what about experimental data?
• Muzafer Sherif – Boy Scout Research
– Created competition between the Eagles and the
Rattlers and conflict over scarce resources
– Even after competition ended animosity
remained and even continued to escalate
Misplaced Aggression
• More commonly known as Scapegoating
– Blaming a relatively powerless innocent person
for something that is not his or her fault
– Similar to Freud’s concept of displacement
– Term is based on ancient Hebrew practice
• Long history – Holocaust, southern Blacks
– Between 1882-1930 the number of lynchings in
the south in any give year could be predicted by
the price of cotton
Scapegoating
• Laboratory experiments reveal that we
scapegoat the following:
– Groups that are generally disliked
– Groups that are visible
– Groups that are relatively powerless
The Prejudiced Personality
• Are there individual differences in the tendency to
hate?
– Adorno and his research on the Authoritarian Personality
suggests yes
• Authoritarian Personality has these characteristics
– Adherence to conventional values (e.g., government,
church, parents, middle-class)
– Contempt toward outgroups
– Superstition
Authoritarian Personality
• Further characteristics:
– Resistance to change
– Belief in censorship and strict laws (people
need to be controlled)
– Intolerant of weakness
– Highly punitive
– Extremely respectful of authority
• Appears to stem from harsh and
threatening parental discipline
Prejudice through Conformity
• Pettigrew suggests that discrimination arrives
predominately from social conformity
• Prejudiced individuals, particularly
Southerners, who enter the army tend to
become less prejudiced
– More non-prejudicial norms to follow
• Laws and customs may provide the notion that
one group is inferior to another
– Segregation laws
– Affirmative Action?
Can Government Policies Reduce
Discrimination and Prejudice?
• Desegregation?
– Key doesn’t seem to be mere contact, but equal
status contact. Does desegregation insure this?
– Dissonance research shows that knowing I will
have to have contact with you reduces my
dislike of you (all other things being equal)
– Things are not equal if desegregation leads to
economic conflict
Possible Solution?
• Interdependence
– Sherif finally reduced the conflict between his
groups of boy scouts by leading them into a
cooperative task where everyone was important
• Jigsaw classrooms
– Aronson and his work in cooperative classroom
environments. Everyone contributes and
competition is counterproductive in the learning
environment
A Successful Solution
• Integration of Jackie Robinson into Major
League Baseball
• Branch Rickey used a number of
Psychological principles to increase the
chances of Robinson’s success, including:
– Psychology of inevitable change (traded players
who refused)
– Establish equal status contact
Jackie Robinson
• Creation of a norm of acceptance (Pee Wee
Reese)
• Non-violent resistance
• Individuate the new group member
• Undo perception of preferential selection
• Remove institutional barriers (built
Dodgertown)