Download Theories of Prejudice

Chapter 2
Prejudice
Prejudice & Discrimination
• Prejudice
– Negative attitude that rejects an entire group
• Discrimination
– Depriving group of certain rights/opportunities
• Ethnophaulism
– Ethnic slurs; derisive nicknames; speaking
about/to a group condescendingly
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Merton’s Typology
• Unprejudiced nondiscriminator –or all
weather liberal
• Unprejudiced discriminator –or reluctant
liberal
• Prejudiced nondiscriminator –or timid bigot
• The prejudiced discriminator –or allweather bigot
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LaPiere’s Study
• Merton’s typology points out that people
do not always act as they believe
• Richard LaPiere (1934, 1969)
– Exposed the relationship between racial
attitudes and social conduct
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LaPiere’s Study
– Traveled with a Chinese couple across the
United States
– Despite alleged intolerance, couple treated
courteously at hotels, motels, restaurants
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White Privilege
• Identified advantages:
– Being considered financially reliable when
using checks, credit cards, or cash.
– Taking a job without having coworkers
suspect it came about because of race.
– Never having to speak for all the people of
your race.
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White Privilege
– Watching television/reading a newspaper &
seeing people of your race widely represented
– Speaking effectively in a large group without
being called a credit to your race.
– Assuming that if legal or medical help is
needed, your race will not work against you
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Theories of Prejudice
• Four theories of prejudice
– Scapegoating
• When an individual (group) projects & blames their
own inadequacies or problems onto another group
– Criticisms of Scapegoat Theory
• Fails to explain why one group is used as a
scapegoat and not another
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Theories of Prejudice
• Fails to explain why two individuals who share the
same experience vary in tolerance
• Does not explain personality differences
– Authoritarian Personality
• Adorno et al 1950 – study of authoritarianism and
prejudice
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Theories of Prejudice
• Authoritarian Traits
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Rigid adherence to conventional values
Uncritical acceptance of authority
Power and toughness
Intolerance and aggression toward those that don’t
conform to conventional values
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Theories of Prejudice
– Criticisms of Authoritarian Personality
• Focus on right wing group & ignore left wing group
• Prejudice related to other traits such as social
class
• Methodology employed
• Focused on only extreme forms of prejudice and
not on other forms of prejudice
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Theories of Prejudice
– Exploitation
• Prejudice is rationally and economically motivated
on the basis of self interests
• The dominant group benefits from prejudice in that
it is rooted within the exploitation of a group
– Criticisms of Exploitation Theory
• Not all subordinate groups are exploited equally
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Theories of Prejudice
• Prejudice occurs for reasons other than economic
• Prejudice is not necessarily rational and may
undermine dominant group interests
– Normative
• Prejudice patterned into cultural norms & values of:
– A group or society; a function of conforming to group
norms of intolerance
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What are Stereotypes?
• Stereotypes
– Unreliable generalizations about members of
a group
• Don’t take individual differences into account
– Stereotypes are often exaggerated and
negative images of a group
– Stereotypes come from a variety of sources
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Power of Stereotypes
• Stereotypes often become a self-fulfilling
prophecy
– Affect how we feel
– Affect how we relate to others
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Power of Stereotypes
• Stereotyping In Action: Racial Profiling
– Any police-initiated action based on race,
ethnicity, or national origin
• Rather than the person’s behavior
– Can be an explicit use of stereotypes
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Color-Blind Racism
• The use of race-neutral principles to
defend the racially unequal status quo
• Recognition that race is rarely invoked in
public debates on social issues
• White attitudes toward African Americans
– Attitudes are subject to change
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Color-Blind Racism
– Less progress was made in the late 20th &
beginning of the 21st centuries
• Than was made in the relatively brief period of the
1950s and 1960s
– The pursuit of a color-blind agenda has
created lower levels of support for politics
• That could reduce racial inequality if implemented
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The Mood of the Oppressed
• Opinion polls have demonstrated interest
in White attitudes on racial issues:
– Longer than they have measured views of
subordinate groups
– Bias of White researchers
– Dominant group more important to study
because it’s in a better position act on beliefs
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The Mood of the Oppressed
• Research literature of the 1940s-1960s
emphasized low self esteem of minorities
– Should not assume minority status influences
personality traits in a good or bad way
• Such assumptions may create a stereotype
• Characteristics of minority-group members are nor
entirely the result of subordinate racial status
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The Mood of the Oppressed
• Many studies of personality imply that certain
values are normal or preferable
– But the values chosen are those of the dominant group
• Prejudice and its affect on the self esteem
of the subordinate group
• Prejudice affects perceptions on fairness
or equality of opportunity
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Intergroup Hostility
• Content and extent of prejudice and
stereotypes between ethnic - racial groups
• Members of oppressed groups have
adopted the widely held beliefs of:
– The dominant culture concerning oppressed
groups
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Intergroup Hostility
• Some groups feel they get along better
with Whites than other minority groups
– Low-income people compete with each other
• And do not see the larger societal forces the
contribute to their low status
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Reducing Prejudice
• Obvious way to eliminate prejudice is to
eliminate its causes
– The desire to exploit
– The fear of being threatened
– The need to blame others for one’s own
failure
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Reducing Prejudice
• Answer rests with programs directed at
society as a whole
• Prejudice is attacked indirectly when
discrimination is attacked
• Despite contrary prevailing beliefs,
prejudice can be legislated
– Statutes and decisions do affect attitudes
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Reducing Prejudice
• Studies on how to change negative
attitudes toward groups find encouraging:
– Education
– Mass Media
– Intergroup Contact
– Workplace training programs
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Education and Mass Media
• Research consists of two types:
– Artificially (experimentally) created situations
– The influence on attitudes of motion pictures,
television, and advertisements
• Media has had both positive and negative
effects depending on the:
– Program, situation and subjects exposed
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Education and Mass Media
• Well constructed programs tend to have
an impact on reducing prejudice
– To be effective: address cognitive, affective, &
action tendency dimensions
• Some programs only focus on the
cognitive or affective
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Education and Mass Media
• Formal education is related to a reduction
in prejudice
– Formal education may not reduce prejudice
uniformly within a group.
• Mass media may reduce prejudice without
the need of specially designed programs
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Avoidance versus Friendship
• Social Distance
– The tendency to approach or withdraw from a
racial group
• It is difficult to quantify the extent of
prejudice between groups
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Avoidance versus Friendship
• Measure the relative extent of prejudice
between groups
• Emory Bogardus’ Scale
– Used to measure social distance empirically
• And describes different degrees of social contact
or social distance
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Corporate Response: Diversity
Training
• Prejudice carries a cost
• Most organizations have initiated some
form of diversity training
• The effectiveness of diversity training
programs
• Diversity training should not be separated
from other aspects of the organization
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Ways to Fight Hate
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5.
Act
Unite
Support The Victims
Do Your Homework
Create An Alternative
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Ways to Fight Hate
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6. Speak Up
7. Lobby Leaders
8. Look Long Range
9. Teach Tolerance
10.Dig Deeper
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