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6th edition
Social Psychology
Elliot Aronson
University of California, Santa Cruz
Timothy D. Wilson
University of Virginia
Robin M. Akert
Wellesley College
slides by Travis Langley
Henderson State University
Chapter 13
Prejudice:
Causes and Cures
Source of image: www.clipart.com
Prejudice:
The Ubiquitous Social Phenomenon
• Prejudice is ubiquitous: In one form or
another, it affects us all.
• For one thing, prejudice is a two-way
street; it often flows from the minority
group to the majority group as well as in
the other direction.
• And any group can be a target of
prejudice.
Prejudice:
The Ubiquitous Social Phenomenon
Many aspects of your identity can cause
you to be labeled and discriminated
against:
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nationality
racial and ethnic identity
gender
sexual orientation
religion
appearance
physical state
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weight
disabilities
diseases
hair color
professions
hobbies
Prejudice:
The Ubiquitous Social Phenomenon
Many aspects of your identity can cause
you to be labeled and discriminated
against.
• Consider the stereotypes of the “ditzy blonde”, “dumb
jock,” or “computer nerd.”
• Some people have negative attitudes about blue-collar
workers; others, about Fortune 500 CEOs.
• The point is that none of us emerges completely
unscathed by prejudice; it is a problem common to all
humankind.
Prejudice:
The Ubiquitous Social Phenomenon
In addition to being widespread, prejudice is dangerous.
Simple dislike of a group can be relentless and can
escalate to extreme hatred, to thinking of its members
as less than human, and to torture, murder, and even
genocide.
Even when murder or genocide is not the culmination of
prejudiced beliefs, the targets of prejudice will suffer in
less dramatic ways.
One frequent consequence of being the target of relentless
prejudice is a diminution of one’s self-esteem.
Prejudice and Self-Esteem
• Seeds of low self-esteem are sown early.
• Clark and Clark (1947) demonstrated that
African American children as young as 3
already thought it was not particularly
desirable to be black.
• Children were offered a choice between playing with a
white doll and playing with a black doll. The great
majority of them rejected the black doll, feeling that the
white doll was prettier and generally superior.
• Taking this evidence into consideration, the Supreme
Court ruled that separating black children from white
children on the basis of race alone “generates a feeling
of inferiority."
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
Prejudice and Self-Esteem
• Goldberg (1968) women in this culture had learned to
consider themselves intellectually inferior to men.
• In his experiment, Goldberg asked female college
students to read scholarly articles and to evaluate
them in terms of their competence and writing style.
• For some students, specific articles were signed by
male authors (e.g., “John T. McKay”), while for
others, the same articles were signed by female
authors (e.g., “Joan T. McKay”).
• The female students rated the articles much higher if
they were attributed to a male author than if the same
articles were attributed to a female author.
A Progress Report
Significant changes have happened since those
studies:
• The number of blatant acts of overt prejudice
and discrimination has decreased sharply.
• Affirmative action opened the door to greater
opportunities for women and minorities.
• The media have increased our exposure to
women and minorities doing important work in
positions of power and influence.
A Progress Report
These changes are reflected in the gradual
increase in self-esteem of people in these
groups.
Most recent research has failed to replicate the
results of those earlier experiments.
1. African American children have gradually
become more content with black dolls than
they were in the late 1930s.
2. People no longer discriminate against a piece
of writing simply because it is attributed to a
woman.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
A Progress Report
While this progress is real, it would be a
mistake to conclude that prejudice has
ceased to be a serious problem in the
United States.
Prejudice exists in countless subtle and
not-so-subtle ways.
For the most part, in America, prejudice has
gone underground and become less
overt.
Prejudice Defined
Prejudice is an attitude.
Attitudes are made up of three components:
• affective or emotional component, representing
both the type of emotion linked with the attitude
(e.g., anger, warmth) and the extremity of the
attitude (e.g., mild uneasiness, outright hostility),
• cognitive component, involving the beliefs or
thoughts (cognitions) that make up the attitude,
• behavioral component, relating to one’s actions—
people don’t simply hold attitudes; they usually
act on them as well.
Prejudice Defined
Prejudice refers to the general attitude
structure and its affective (emotional)
component.
While prejudice can involve either positive
or negative affect, social psychologists
(and people in general) use the word
prejudice primarily when referring to
negative attitudes about others.
Prejudice Defined
Prejudice refers to the general attitude
structure and its affective (emotional)
component.
While
prejudice can involve either positive
Prejudice
or negative affect, social psychologists
A hostile or negative attitude toward people
(and people in general) use the word
in a distinguishable group, based solely
prejudice
primarily when referring to
on their membership in that group.
negative attitudes about others.
Source of image: www.clipart.com
Stereotypes:
The Cognitive Component
The distinguished journalist Walter
Lippmann (1922), who was the first to
introduce the term stereotype, described
the distinction between the world out there
and stereotypes—“the little pictures we
carry around inside our heads.”
Within a given culture, these pictures tend
to be remarkably similar.
Stereotypes:
The Cognitive Component
Stereotype
A generalization about a group of people
in which identical characteristics are
assigned to virtually all members of the
group, regardless of actual variation
among the members.
Once formed, stereotypes are resistant to
change on the basis of new information.
Source of image: www.clipart.com
Stereotypes:
The Cognitive Component
Stereotyping is a cognitive process, not an
emotional one.
Stereotyping does not necessarily lead to
intentional acts of abuse.
Often stereotyping is merely a technique we
use to simplify how we look at the world—
and we all do it to some extent.
SPORTS, RACE, AND ATTRIBUTION
• POTENTIAL ABUSE OF STEREOTYPING’S
MENTAL SHORTCUTS CAN BE BLATANT
AND OBVIOUS—AS WHEN ONE ETHNIC
GROUP IS CONSIDERED LAZY OR
ANOTHER ETHNIC GROUP IS CONSIDERED
GREEDY.
• THE POTENTIAL ABUSE CAN BE MORE
SUBTLE—AND IT MIGHT EVEN INVOLVE A
STEREOTYPE ABOUT A POSITIVE
ATTRIBUTE.
SPORTS, RACE, AND ATTRIBUTION
So what here is abusive to the
minority?
What’s wrong with the implication
that black men can jump?
The abuse enters when we ignore the
overlap in the distributions—like when we
ignore the fact that plenty of African
American kids are not adept at basketball
and a plenty of white kids are.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
SPORTS, RACE, AND ATTRIBUTION
So what here is abusive to the
minority?
What’s wrong with the implication
that black men can jump?
The
entersa when
ignore
the
Thusabuse
if we meet
youngwe
African
American
overlap
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distributions—like
when we
man andinare
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ignore
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weofare,
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and a plenty of white kids are.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
STEREOTYPES, ATTRIBUTION, AND GENDER
1. Compared to men, women do tend to manifest
behaviors that can best be described as more
socially sensitive, friendlier, and more
concerned with the welfare of others, while men
tend to behave in ways that are more dominant,
controlling, and independent.
2. Some data indicate that the stereotype tends to
underestimate the actual gender differences.
3. While overlap exists between men and women
on these characteristics, the differences are too
consistent to be dismissed as unimportant.
STEREOTYPES, ATTRIBUTION, AND GENDER
Needless to say, the phenomenon of gender
stereotyping often does not reflect reality and
can cut deeply.
When a man is successful on a given
task, observers of both sexes
attribute his success to ability.
If a woman is successful at that same
task, observers attribute her
success to hard work.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
STEREOTYPES, ATTRIBUTION, AND GENDER
Even as children, girls have a tendency to downplay
their own ability.
While 4th-grade boys attribute their own
successful outcomes on a difficult intellectual
task to their ability, girls tend to derogate their
own successful performance.
While boys learn to protect their egos by
attributing their own failures to bad luck, girls
take more blame for failures.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
STEREOTYPES, ATTRIBUTION, AND GENDER
These beliefs can be influenced by the attitudes
of our society in general and parents.
• Mothers who hold the strongest genderstereotypical beliefs also believe their own
daughters have relatively low math ability and
that their sons have relatively high math ability.
• Mothers who don't hold stereotypical beliefs do
not see their daughters as less able in math
than their sons.
Discrimination:
The Behavioral Component
Discrimination
An unjustified negative or harmful action
toward the members of a group simply
because of their membership in that
group.
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS
SEVERAL STUDIES DURING THE PAST TWO
DECADES HAVE SHOWN THAT
HOMOSEXUALS FACE A GOOD DEAL OF
DISCRIMINATION AND ANTIPATHY IN THEIR
DAY-TO-DAY LIVES.
Unlike women, ethnic minorities, and people with
disabilities, homosexuals are not protected by
national laws banning discrimination in the
workplace.
Only 11 states have such laws.
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS
Researchers have found that compared to
the way they interacted with
“nonhomosexuals,” employers interacting
with job applicants they have been led to
think are homosexual:
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were less verbally positive
spent less time interviewing them
used fewer words while chatting with them
made less eye contact with them
What Causes
Prejudice?
The Way We Think:
Social Cognition
Our first explanation for what causes prejudice is
that it is the inevitable byproduct of the way we
process and organize information.
Our tendency to categorize and group
information, to form schemas and use them to
interpret new or unusual information, to rely on
potentially inaccurate heuristics (shortcuts in
mental reasoning), and to depend on what are
often faulty memory processes—all of these
aspects of social cognition can lead us to form
negative stereotypes and to apply them in a
discriminatory way.
SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION:
US VERSUS THEM
• THE FIRST STEP IN PREJUDICE IS THE CREATION
OF GROUPS—PUTTING SOME PEOPLE INTO ONE
GROUP BASED ON CERTAIN CHARACTERISTICS
AND OTHERS INTO ANOTHER GROUP BASED ON
THEIR DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS.
• THIS KIND OF CATEGORIZATION IS THE
UNDERLYING THEME OF HUMAN SOCIAL
COGNITION.
• THUS SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION IS BOTH USEFUL
AND NECESSARY; HOWEVER, THIS SIMPLE
COGNITIVE PROCESS HAS PROFOUND
IMPLICATIONS.
SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION:
US VERSUS THEM
For example, in Jane Elliot’s third-grade classroom,
children grouped according to eye color began to act
differently based on that social categorization.
• Blue-eyed children, the superior group, stuck together
and actively promoted and used their higher status and
power in the classroom.
• They formed an in-group, defined as the group with
which an individual identifies.
• The blue-eyed kids saw the brown-eyed ones as
outsiders—different and inferior.
• To the blue-eyed children, the brown-eyed kids were
the out-group, the group with which the individual does
not identify.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
IN-GROUP BIAS
In-Group Bias
Positive feelings and special treatment for
people we have defined as being part of our
in-group and negative feelings and unfair
treatment for others simply because we
have defined them as being in the out-group.
IN-GROUP BIAS
The major underlying motive is self-esteem:
• Individuals seek to enhance their selfesteem by identifying with specific social
groups.
• Self-esteem will be enhanced only if the
individual sees these groups as superior
to other groups.
IN-GROUP BIAS
To get at the pure, unvarnished mechanisms
behind this phenomenon, researchers have
created entities that they refer to as minimal
groups.
• In these experiments, complete strangers are
formed into groups using the most trivial criteria
imaginable.
• For example, in one experiment, participants
watched a coin toss that randomly assigned
them to either group X or group W.
IN-GROUP BIAS
The striking thing about this research is that despite
the fact that the participants were strangers before
the experiment and didn’t interact during it, they
behaved as if those who shared the same
meaningless label were their dear friends or close
kin.
• They liked the members of their own group better.
• They rated the members of their in-group as more
likely to have pleasant personalities and to have
done better work than out-group members.
• Most striking, participants allocated more rewards
to those who shared their label.
OUT-GROUP HOMOGENEITY
OUT-GROUP HOMOGENEITY
THE BELIEF THAT “THEY”
ARE ALL ALIKE.
IN-GROUP MEMBERS TEND TO PERCEIVE
THOSE IN THE OUT-GROUP AS MORE
SIMILAR TO EACH OTHER (HOMOGENEOUS)
THAN THEY REALLY ARE, AS WELL AS MORE
HOMOGENEOUS THAN THE IN-GROUP
MEMBERS ARE.
If you know something about one out-group
member, you are more likely to feel you know
something about all of them.
THE FAILURE OF LOGIC
EVEN PEOPLE WHO ARE USUALLY SENSIBLE
BECOME RELATIVELY IMMUNE TO
RATIONAL, LOGICAL ARGUMENTS WHEN
IT COMES TO THEIR PREJUDICE.
WHY IS THIS SO?
1. It is primarily the emotional aspect of
attitudes that makes a prejudiced person so
hard to agree with.
LOGICAL ARGUMENTS ARE NOT EFFECTIVE
IN COUNTERING EMOTIONS.
THE FAILURE OF LOGIC
EVEN PEOPLE WHO ARE USUALLY SENSIBLE
BECOME RELATIVELY IMMUNE TO
RATIONAL, LOGICAL ARGUMENTS WHEN
IT COMES TO THEIR PREJUDICE.
WHY IS THIS SO?
2. As discussed in earlier chapters, an attitude
tends to organize the way we process
relevant information about the targets of that
attitude.
THE FAILURE OF LOGIC
Specifically, information consistent with their
notions about these target groups will
be:
• Given more attention
• Rehearsed (or recalled) more often, and
• Therefore remembered better than
information that contradicts these
notions.
THE PERSISTENCE OF STEREOTYPES
STEREOTYPES REFLECT CULTURAL
BELIEFS.
EVEN IF WE DON’T BELIEVE THESE
STEREOTYPES, WE CAN EASILY
RECOGNIZE THEM AS COMMON
BELIEFS HELD BY OTHERS.
THE ACTIVATION OF STEREOTYPES
Automatic and Controlled
Processing of Stereotypes
• An automatic process is one over which
we have no control.
• Stereotypes are automatically triggered
under certain conditions—they just pop
into one’s mind.
• Since the process is automatic, you can’t
control it or stop it from occurring.
• However, for people who are not deeply
prejudiced, their control processes can
suppress or override these stereotypes.
The Justification-Suppression
Model of Prejudice
• According to Crandall and Eschleman’s (2003) model,
most people struggle between their urge to express
prejudice and need to maintain positive self-concept (as
a non-bigot).
• However, it requires energy to suppress prejudiced
impulses.
• Because people are programmed to avoid the constant
expenditure of energy, we seek information that can
convince us there is a valid justification for holding a
negative attitude toward a particular out-group.
• Once we find a valid justification for disliking this group,
we can act against them and still feel as though we are
not bigots—thus avoiding cognitive dissonance.
THE ILLUSORY CORRELATION
Illusory Correlation
When we expect two things to be related,
we fool ourselves into believing that they
are actually unrelated.
CAN WE CHANGE
STEREOTYPICAL BELIEFS?
• Researchers have found that when people are
presented with an example or two that seems
to refute their existing stereotype, most do not
change their general belief.
• Indeed, in one experiment, some people
presented with disconfirming evidence actually
strengthened stereotypical belief because the
disconfirming evidence challenged them to
come up with additional reasons for holding on
to that belief.
How We Assign Meaning:
Attributional Biases
DISPOSITIONAL VERSUS
SITUATIONAL EXPLANATIONS
• ONE REASON STEREOTYPES ARE SO
INSIDIOUS AND PERSISTENT IS THE
HUMAN TENDENCY TO MAKE
DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS.
• RELYING TOO HEAVILY ON
DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS
OFTEN LEADS US TO MAKE
ATTRIBUTIONAL MISTAKES.
DISPOSITIONAL VERSUS
SITUATIONAL EXPLANATIONS
Ultimate Attribution Error
Our tendency to make dispositional
attributions about an individual’s negative
behavior to an entire group of people.
Source of image: www.clipart.com
DISPOSITIONAL VERSUS
SITUATIONAL EXPLANATIONS
Researchers had college students read fictionalized files
on prisoners to make a parole decision.
Sometimes the crime matched the common stereotype of
the offender—for example, when a Hispanic male,
committed assault and battery, or when an upper-class
Anglo-American committed embezzlement.
When prisoners’ crimes were consistent with participants’
stereotypes, the students’ recommendations for parole
were harsher.
Most students ignored additional information that was
relevant to a parole decision but inconsistent with the
stereotype, such as evidence of good behavior in
prison.
Stereotype Threat
When African American
students find themselves in
highly evaluative educational
situations, most tend to
experience apprehension
about confirming the existing
negative cultural stereotype of
“intellectual inferiority.”
Source of image: www.clipart.com
Stereotype Threat
Stone and his colleagues (1999)
found that when a game of
miniature golf was framed as a
measure of “sport strategic
intelligence” black athletes
performed worse at it than whites.
But when the game was framed as a
measure of “natural athletic ability”
the pattern reversed, and the
Black athletes outperformed the
Whites.
Source of image: www.clipart.com
Stereotype Threat
• The common stereotype has it that men are better at
math than women are.
• When women in one experiment were led to believe
that a particular test was designed to show differences
in math abilities between men and women, they did not
perform as well as men.
• In another condition, when women were told that the
same test had nothing to do with male-female
differences, they performed as well as men. The
phenomenon even shows itself among white males if
you put them in a similarly threatening situation.
Stereotype Threat
• How can the effects of stereotype threat
be reversed?
• An understanding of stereotype threat
can be very useful for improving
performance on tests and other.
• Merely reminding participants they were
“selective northeastern liberal arts
college” students eliminated the gender
gap on a spatial ability test.
EXPECTATIONS AND DISTORTIONS
• WHEN A MEMBER OF AN OUT-GROUP BEHAVES
AS WE EXPECT, IT CONFIRMS AND EVEN
STRENGTHENS OUR STEREOTYPE. AND WHEN AN
OUT-GROUP MEMBER BEHAVES IN AN
UNEXPECTED, NONSTEREOTYPICAL FASHION?
• ATTRIBUTION THEORY PROVIDES THE ANSWER:
WE CAN SIMPLY ENGAGE IN SOME
ATTRIBUTIONAL FANCY FOOTWORK AND EMERGE
WITH OUR DISPOSITIONAL STEREOTYPE INTACT.
• PRINCIPALLY, WE CAN MAKE SITUATIONAL
ATTRIBUTIONS ABOUT THE EXCEPTION—FOR
EXAMPLE, THAT THE PERSON REALLY IS AS WE
BELIEVE, BUT IT JUST ISN’T APPARENT IN THIS
SITUATION.
BLAMING THE VICTIM
WHEN EMPATHY IS ABSENT, IT IS
SOMETIMES HARD TO AVOID
FALLING INTO THE TRAP OF
BLAMING THE VICTIM FOR HIS OR
HER PLIGHT.
Source of image: www.clipart.com
BLAMING THE VICTIM
Ironically,
this tendency
to
WHEN EMPATHY
IS ABSENT,
IT IS
blame
victims HARD
for theirTO AVOID
SOMETIMES
victimization
is typically
FALLING INTO
THE TRAP OF
motivated
anVICTIM FOR HIS OR
BLAMING by
THE
understandable desire
HER
PLIGHT.
to see the world as a
fair and just place, one
where people get what
they deserve and
deserve what they get.
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES
On a societal level, the insidiousness of the selffulfilling prophecy goes far.
• Suppose that there is a general belief that a
particular group is irredeemably stupid,
uneducable, and fit only for menial jobs.
• Why waste educational resources on them?
Hence they are given inadequate schooling.
• Thirty years later, what do you find? An entire
group that with few exceptions is fit only for
menial jobs.
Prejudice and Economic Competition:
Realistic Conflict Theory
• Realistic conflict theory holds that limited
resources lead to conflict among groups
and result in prejudice and discrimination.
• Thus prejudiced attitudes tend to increase
when times are tense and conflict exists
over mutually exclusive goals.
Source of image: www.clipart.com
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL COMPETITION
When times are tough and resources are
scarce:
1. In-group members will feel more
threatened by the out-group.
2. Incidents of prejudice, discrimination,
and violence toward out-group members
will increase.
THE ROLE OF THE SCAPEGOAT
Research on scapegoating shows
that individuals, when frustrated
or unhappy, tend to displace
aggression onto groups that are
disliked, are visible, and are
relatively powerless.
The form the aggression takes depends on
what is allowed or approved by the ingroup in question.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
The Way We Conform:
Normative Rules
WHEN PREJUDICE IS INSTITUTIONALIZED
• SIMPLY BY LIVING IN A SOCIETY WHERE
STEREOTYPICAL INFORMATION ABOUNDS
AND WHERE DISCRIMINATORY BEHAVIOR
IS THE NORM, THE VAST MAJORITY OF US
WILL UNWITTINGLY DEVELOP PREJUDICED
ATTITUDES AND DISCRIMINATORY
BEHAVIOR TO SOME EXTENT.
• WE CALL THIS INSTITUTIONAL
DISCRIMINATION OR, MORE SPECIFICALLY,
AS INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM AND
INSTITUTIONALIZED SEXISM.
WHEN PREJUDICE IS INSTITUTIONALIZED
Normative Conformity
The strong tendency to go along with
the group in order to fulfill the group’s
expectations and gain acceptance.
“MODERN” PREJUDICE
• AS THE NORM SWINGS
TOWARD TOLERANCE,
MANY PEOPLE SIMPLY
BECOME MORE CAREFUL—
OUTWARDLY ACTING
UNPREJUDICED YET
INWARDLY MAINTAINING
STEREOTYPED VIEWS.
• PEOPLE HAVE LEARNED TO HIDE
PREJUDICE IN ORDER TO AVOID BEING
LABELED AS RACIST, BUT WHEN THE
SITUATION BECOMES “SAFE,” THEIR
PREJUDICE WILL BE REVEALED.
Source of image: www.clipart.com
SUBTLE AND BLATANT PREJUDICE
ELSEWHERE
EXAMPLES OF BLATANT PREJUDICE
ABOUND IN DAILY NEWSPAPER
HEADLINES:
• ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BOSNIA
• VIOLENT CONFLICT BETWEEN ARABS AND
JEWS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• MASS MURDER BETWEEN WARRING
TRIBES IN RWANDA
• THIS PREJUDICE EXISTS IN “MODERN”
FORMS AS WELL.
Subtle Sexism
• Hostile sexists hold stereotypical views of
women that suggest that women are
inferior to men (e.g., that they are less
intelligent, less competent, and so on).
• Benevolent sexists hold stereotypically
positive views of women.
How Can Prejudice
Be Reduced?
The Contact Hypothesis
Mere contact between groups is not sufficient to
reduce prejudice.
In fact, it can create opportunities for conflict that
may increase it.
Prejudice will decrease when two conditions are
met:
1. Both groups are of equal status.
2. Both share a common goal.
When Contact Reduces Prejudice:
Six Conditions
Sherif and colleagues (1961) found:
Once hostility and distrust were established,
simply removing a conflict and the
competition did not restore harmony.
In fact, bringing two competing groups together in
neutral situations actually increased their
hostility and distrust.
Mutual Interdependence
The need to depend on each other to accomplish
a goal that is important to each group.
When Contact Reduces Prejudice:
Six Conditions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Mutual interdependence
Common goal
Equal status
Friendly, informal setting
Knowing multiple out-group members
Social norms of equality
6th edition
Social Psychology
Elliot Aronson
University of California, Santa Cruz
Timothy D. Wilson
University of Virginia
Robin M. Akert
Wellesley College
slides by Travis Langley
Henderson State University