Download Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice

Psychology of Prejudice
and Discrimination
Old-Fashioned and Contemporary
Forms of Prejudice
Prepared by S. Saterfield,
Whitley& Kite, (2006) The
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Old-Fashioned and
Contemporary Forms of
Prejudice
Research suggest that prejudice continues to
be alive and well in the United States,
however only in a subtle rather than overt
form.
What evidence support this statement?
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Old-Fashioned and
Contemporary
Forms of Prejudice
2001 Gallup poll:
64% White respondents –very satisfied or
somewhat satisfied with way Blacks treated in
society.
64% White respondents—replied the same when
asked about Hispanics.
Implications of research is that prejudice has
decreased.
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Old-Fashioned and
Contemporary
Forms of Prejudice
Others Studies indicate that stereotypes become
less negative over time.
• Several studies indicate changes in attitudes of the
general population, for example
• Beliefs about the social roles of women has become less
stereotyped between 1970 and 1995
• Attitudes towards lesbians and gay men had become less
negative between 1973 and 1996.
But is America Truly becoming less prejudiced?.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Bogus Pipeline Research:
Assessment of behavior also indicate that prejudice
continues.
64% White
39% Blacks
45% Hispanics
Respondents said they were satisfied with the way Blacks
and Hispanics were treated as indicated in a Gallup Poll
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Old-Fashioned and
Contemporary
Forms of Prejudice
Is prejudice in this country becoming
more indirect and subtle compared to
the overt and blatant prejudice of the
past?
Can positive stereotypes as well as
negative stereotype reflect a prejudiced
mind-set? EEOC report
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Bogus Pipeline Research: participants
answered questions while their physiological responses
are measured by what they believe to be an effective lie
detector
Physiological and implicit cognition
measures of prejudice: self-reported data
indicate low levels of prejudice nonetheless exhibiting
physiological responses indicating negative emotions
Day-to-day experience of women and
members of minority groups
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Women and African Americans Reporting Observed Sexist or Racist Behavior -2 week
Type of Behavior
SEXIST BEHAVIORS:
Gender-role stereotyping
Examples
% Reporting
36%
Demeaning comments
Expressions of a double standard for men
and women
Referring to a woman as “bitch” or “chick”
Sexual Objectification
Staring at breasts, unwanted touches
25%
Hostile stares, being watched closely in
stores
36%
Verbal expressions
Racial slurs, prejudiced jokes
24%
Bad service
Whites who arrived later seated first in
restaurant
Rude behavior, avoiding contact
18%
RACIST BEHAVIORS:
Nonverbal behavior
Interpersonal offense
31%
15%
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Why is there a contradiction between
people’s non-prejudiced responses to
questions about race, gender, and
sexual orientation and their prejudiced
everyday behavior?
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
But Only Bad People Are Prejudiced.......
Two social issues• Change in American racial attitudes since
World War II
• Jim Crow Racism
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Affect of world events on American
racial attitudes
Before World War II prejudice by the
dominate group against members of
other groups was the social norm. Refer
to as
JIM CROW RACISM
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
JIM CROW RACISM
• Whites were inherently superior to other
races
• Keeping members of minority groups at a
distance through racial segregation (More)
• Use of laws and power of government to establish racial
segregated school system and other forms of
discrimination (examples of Jim Crow Laws)
• Restriction of voting rights California had more Jim Crow laws
enacted then any other state.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
WORLD WAR II
• Beginning of change in racial beliefs
•
and attitudes
• U.S. government portrayed Nazi
racist as dangerous and un-American
• U.S. proclamation of Nazi racism lead to a look at
paradoxes in our own society
• American values changed to racial prejudice was no
longer acceptable
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
WORLD WAR II
Within the two decades following WW II
legislation was proposed
• Desegregating armed forces
• Voting rights act passed
• Equal employment opportunity
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Anti-communist Cold War
How could the U.S. criticize communist for
violating civil liberties of their citizens while
not granting full equality to all U.S. citizens.
Racial equality established as a social norm
in 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v,
Board of education
Made segregated schools illegal
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Implicit prejudice
Negative stereotypes still exist and are absorbed in
the negative emotions associated with those
stereotypes
Individuals are not aware of having them
Effect people’s emotional responses to and behavior
towards minority groups
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Implicit prejudice
• Prejudices that can be assess through implicit
cognition and some behavioral measures
which people are not aware of having.
• Learned through socialization
• The nature of prejudice has changed from
being “hot, close and direct” to being more
“cool, distant and indirect”.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Transformation of Prejudice
Racism changed from being normal to
being bad and racist began to be seen as
bad people.
Can behaviors change from a cultural
legacy of 400 years of racism in only a
few decades?
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Theories of Contemporary
Prejudice
Three Propositions:
• Genuine change in American’s social norms since WW
II, belief in the principle of equality for all people
• Not everyone has accepted this norm to the same
degree
• Even those people who have not yet fully accepted the
norm are motivated to act in non-prejudiced ways
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Theories of Contemporary
Prejudice
•Dominant social groups who hold
contemporary prejudices express those
prejudices in ways that can be justified on
unprejudiced grounds.
•Employ psychological defense mechanism
to rationalize and justify their prejudice
behavior.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Theories of Contemporary
Prejudice
People will express those prejudices in
ways that can be justified on unprejudiced
grounds
People will have a genuine acceptance of
the principle of equality and rejection of
traditional prejudice with effects of oldfashioned prejudices that has been
learned while growing up.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Theories of Contemporary
Prejudice
Four Theories of Contemporary Prejudice
•Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
•Subtle Prejudice
•Aversive Prejudice
•Racial Ambivalence
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
Symbolic racism: a set of beliefs about Black
people as an abstract group (anonymous they—”If they
would only...) rather than as an individuals. Can be
applied to any minority social group.
Beliefs are expressed behaviorally as ACTS that are
justified on a nonracial basis but that operate to maintain
the racial status quo
Which leads to discrimination
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
Old-fashioned Racism:
•Based on belief in the biological inferiority of Black
people and the attendant stereotypes
•Low intelligence
•Laziness
•Exclusion from certain jobs and segregated housing
and social clubs:
•Legalized, formal discrimination in the form of racially
separated schools and denial of voting rights
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
Difference between old-fashioned and
contemporize racism—
-old fashioned is based on belief in the biological
inferiority of Black people and the attendant
stereotypes of low intelligence.
-symbolic racism is not link directly to race, linked
indirectly to race through political and social issues.
Most members of the dominant social group do not
see symbolic racist beliefs as prejudice
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
Symbolic racism was changed to modern
racism to emphasize the contemporary, post
civil-rights–movement new ideology or belief
systems
Some researchers have give this new
contemporary form of prejudice a different
name: racial resentment and laissez-faire
racism
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
Characteristics of Modern-Symbolic
prejudice•Racial prejudice and discrimination no longer exist
•Black-white differences in economic outcomes result from
Black people’s lack of motivation to work hard enough to get
what they want
•Black people are unwilling to work to get what they want, their
continuing anger over inequality is unjustified
•Rather than working for the ahead, Black people seek special
favors
•Relative to White people, Black people have been getting more
than they deserve economically.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
Psychological Bases for Modern-Symbolic
Prejudice
• Socialization (learning from childhood)
• Egalitarianism—(value system based in belief that all people are
equal and should be treated identically) two meanings
• Equality of opportunity
• Equality of outcome
Relative deprivation
Self- interest
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
Psychological Bases for Modern-Symbolic
Prejudice
• Socialization
• Egalitarianism—term has two meanings
• Equality of opportunity
• Equality of outcome
• Relative deprivations
Self- interest
Relative deprivation
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
Psychological Bases for Modern-Symbolic
Prejudice
• Socialization
• Egalitarianism—term has two meanings
• Equality of opportunity
• Equality of outcome
• Self- interest
• Relative deprivation
• Little personal knowledge of people who are
different
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Modern-Symbolic Prejudice
--->
---->
Belief in equality of
opportunity
Modern-Symbolic
prejudice
Implicitly anti-Black
affect and negative
stereotypes
Blacks should work
harder
---->
Opposition to
equality-enhancing
social programs
Racialized belief in
traditional values
Claims of continued
inequality are
unjustified
Individual
discrimination
Low belief in
equality of outcome
Minority groups
demand special
favors
Institutional
Discrimination
Continuing racial
inequality
Group self-interest
Low knowledge of
Black people or
people of color
Minority groups
receive underserved
outcomes
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Subtle Prejudice
Strongly endorse the traditional values of
dominant social group’s cultures
Exaggeration of cultural differences as a
component of subtle prejudice
See differences between majority and
minority cultures as greater than they
really are.
Leads to the belief that minority group
memers could never adopt or coexist with
the majority culture.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Aversive Prejudice
Attitudes of a person who tries to.....
• ignore the existence of Black people or people
of color,
• tires to avoid contact with tem ,
• and at most to be polite, correct, and cold
whatever dealings are necessary between the
races
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Aversive Prejudice
Characteristics of Aversive Prejudice
• Dominant social group absorb implicit negative attitudes towards
minority groups while they are growing up in American society
• Reject the racialized traditional beliefs that support modernsymbolic prejudice
• Strongly motivated to see themselves as unprejudiced and lack
of prejudice is an important aspect of their self-concept
• Prefer to avoid most interracial contact because it arouses the
negative affect they associate with minority groups.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Aversive Prejudice
Three underpinnings for Psychological
Bases of Aversive Prejudice
• Cognitive categorization
• Predisposition leads people to categorize people into
discrete social groups and to contrast groups
• Belief that their own group is better than other groups
• Socialization of two sets of incompatible values that are in
conflict
• Will not discriminate in situation in which they recognize that
discrimination would be obvious to others and themselves.
• Situational factors that arouse prejudice such as interracial
interactions
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Aversive Prejudice
Aversive Prejudice and Behaviors
• Avoidance of contact with members of minority
groups
• Motivated by feelings of anxiety and discomfort
• Low intimacy with members of minority groups
• Highly scripted situations, rules for interaction are
clear and accepted by all participants
• Overly positive intergroup behavior
•
desire to appear unprejudiced
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Aversive Prejudice
Aversive Prejudice and Behaviors
• Pro-White bias
• Show pro-white bias in ambiguous situations
• Anti-minority discrimination
•
Will discriminate against members of other groups
when the behavior can be justified as unprejudiced
• Derogation of higher status minority group
members
Belief in White superiority, discomfort is greater when
Black people or people of color are in higher status
positions.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Ambivalent Prejudice
Ambivalent prejudice holds that the majority
social group (White Americans) genuinely
accept the principle of racial equality.
However, they perceive that people of
color have negative and positive
characteristics, and their attitudes and
behavior are ambivalent towards these
minority social groups.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Ambivalent Prejudice
Types of ambivalent racial attitudes
Individualism—emphasizes personal
responsibility, hard work as the means to
success, self-reliance, and trying to improve
one’s lot in life
Humanitarianism/egalitarianism—belief that
all people should be treated equally and that
people have a responsibility to help others
who are disadvantaged
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Ambivalent Prejudice
Theory of ambivalence by majority group
History of Black people leads to perception
as deviant and disadvantaged
• Affect peoples perceptions
• Leads to negative feelings
• Feelings of sympathy for the
disadvantaged
• Leading to mixed feelings/Benevolence
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Ambivalent Prejudice
Psychological Conflict
Conflict with the egalitarian value system
Cognitive dissonance—people prefer that all
their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors
adhere to simple, consistent patterns. Any
inconsistencies or contradictions lead to a
state of unpleasant emotion which people
are motivated to reduce
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Benevolent and Hostile
Prejudice
Benevolent Prejudice--is expressed in terms of
positive beliefs and emotional responses to
targets of prejudice
Hostile prejudice--refers to the traditional form of
prejudice. Expressed in terms of negative
beliefs about and emotional response to
targets of prejudice
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Old-fashioned Racism
Marta believes that political correctness
has gone too far and that everyone knows
Blacks should have been kept in their
place. She would prefer her children
attend segregated schools and believes
that Blacks simply don’t have the same
abilities as whites.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Contemporary Prejudice
Bill simply doesn’t believe that Blacks
today are discriminated against. He is
sure that Blacks who work hard earn
good salary and that lazy Blacks get the
pay they deserve. Bill is sure that the
reason he has not been promoted to
supervisors is because his company has a
quota system that favors Blacks and other
minorities over whites.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Ambivalent Prejudice
Julie thinks of herself as an accepting person and
readily admits that Blacks have been
disadvantaged in many ways. She strongly
believes that when tax dollars go to support the
poor, it is money well spent and helps level the
playing field. Yet, at the same time, Julie can’t
understand why Blacks don’t try a little harder to
fit in. She dislikes hip hop, for example, and thinks
that those artists set a bad example for younger
people by both their dress and their manner. She
gets uncomfortable, however, when her daughter
points out that such beliefs are incompatible with
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a tolerant perspective.
Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Subtle Prejudice
Silvia lives in Northern Italy and genuinely
likes many of the people she’s met from
Southern Italy. At the same time, she sees
a larger cultural gap between her beliefs
and those of many Southern Italians; in her
view, people from that region are sexist
and intrusive, compared to people from
her area who value tolerance.
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Old-Fashioned and Contemporary Forms of Prejudice
Aversive Prejudice
Harold thinks of himself as an accepting
person. He regularly contributes money to
the American Civil Liberties Union because
they are such good advocates for equality
for all people. However, when Harold
chose his house, he was careful to find a
predominately White neighborhood and
joined local social organizations whose
members were similar to him. He would be
very upset if one of his children married a
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person of another race.