PSYC 1004: Introduction to Social Psychology

Lecture 6 Notes – Prejudice

What are Stereotypes
 Stereotypes — generalized beliefs about social groups in terms of the traits or characteristics that they are believed
to share.
 Cognitive components of attitudes about social groups. The affective and behavioural components are prejudice and
discrimination respectively.
 Can be positive or negative.
 Can be accurate or inaccurate.
 Can be agreed with or rejected by group members.

Why do People Form and Use Stereotypes?

 We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we would need to make fair
judgments about people or situations.
 In the absence of the "total picture," stereotypes in many cases allow us to "fill in the blanks".
 Stereotypes often act as schemas. Stereotypes save cognitive effort and serve motivational purposes.
 Out-group homogeneity - members of an out-group appear to be “all alike” or more similar to each other than are
members of the in-group.
 In-group differentiation - members of own group are more heterogeneous.
 Devine (1989) states that we become highly aware of the contents of many stereotypes through socio-cultural
mechanisms.

How are stereotypes activated?

Automatic processing
 Triggered by observing stimuli associated with stereotyped group.
 Occurs without conscious effort.
 Based on cultural environment.
Motivated processing
 Activated when stereotypes could help fulfil goals/ needs of the perceiver.
 Goals influenced by individual differences or situational factors.

Factors that influence stereotype activation

 Amount of exposure to the stereotype.
 The kind and amount of information the perceiver encounters.
 The perceiver’s motivational goals.

How do Stereotypes Operate?

 Stereotypes strongly affect how social information is processed.
 Information related to an activated stereotype is remembered better.
 Stereotype-consistent information is more likely to be noticed.
 Stereotype-inconsistent information often is refuted or changed to make it appear consistent with the stereotype.
 People who do not fit their group’s stereotype are put in a subtype and the stereotype is not changed.
 Stereotypes contribute to the formation of illusory correlations, i.e., the perception of a stronger association
between two variables than actually exists.
 Example: White Americans overestimating crime rates of minority groups.

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 One explanation is that infrequent events stand out and are easily noticed, especially when they confirm existing
stereotypes.

How do Stereotypes Survive?

Attributions
 Attribution biases can perpetuate stereotypes.
o Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional cues on others’
behaviour

Subtyping and contrast effects

 Illusory correlations: perceiving a relationship between variables when no such relationship exists.
 Selective memory: information relevant to an activated stereotype is often processed more quickly and remembered
better that unrelated information.
 Subtyping: protects the stereotype by placing inconsistent information into a separate group.
 Contrast effect:

Confirmation biases
 Stereotypes are often maintained and strengthened through confirmation biases.
o The stereotype creates a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
o Example: “White men can’t jump” (Stone et al., 1997). Subjects listened to a basketball game and were led to
believe a player was either black or white. Then they were asked how athletic and how “court smart” the
player was. Results showed that “black” players were thought to have more ability but be less “court smart”
in comparison to “white” players.

Gender Stereotypes
 Overgeneralization of the traits possessed by females and males, which distinguish the two genders from each other.
 Contain both positive and negative traits and convey status.

“Glass ceiling” - barriers that prevent qualified females from advancing to top-level positions.
 Women face greater obstacles than men do to achieve similar levels of success.
 Men in traditionally female occupations do not face the glass ceiling.

Tokenism
The term tokenism has many meanings:
 Hiring based on group membership.
 Numerically infrequent presence of members of a particular category.
 Instances where individuals perform trivial positive actions for members of out-group that are later used as an excuse
for refusing more meaningful beneficial actions for members of these groups.

Consequences of token women in high places

 Tokenism can be an effective strategy for deterring protest by disadvantaged groups.
 Tokens serve purpose of maintaining status quo.
 It can be used as evidence that employers are not really prejudiced and maintains perceptions that system is fair.
 Being a token employee can be upsetting and damaging to self-esteem.
 Tokens are perceived negatively by their co-workers.

Sexism - reflects stereotypes based on gender

 Ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996) – framework that proposes 2 components to sexism: benevolent and hostile.

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 Benevolent Sexism – subjectively positive beliefs about women which also imply that they are weak and best suited
to traditional gender roles.
 E.g., women are pure and should be protected.
 May serve to keep women in low-status positions as the more women depend on men to be their provider, the less
likely they are to seek independence.
 E.g., Rudman & Heppen (2000) found that college women who implicitly associated male romantic partners with
chivalrous images (Prince Charming) had less ambitious career goals.

 Hostile Sexism — negative beliefs about women which suggest that they are a threat to men’s position
 E.g., women try to seize power from men by getting control over them
 Reflects negative stereotyping of women.
 Men exhibit higher levels of hostile sexism than do women.

 Gender stereotypes are based on exaggerations of attributes possessed by men and women. Common gender
stereotypes include:
Men are Women are
Active Passive
Aggressive Submissive
Confident Dependent
Ambitious Emotional
Rational Decisive

 Although behavioural differences between males and females exist, the degree of these differences is much smaller
than gender stereotypes suggest.
 Despite this, stereotypes continue to influence ratings people give of men and women.

Do Stereotypes Ever Change?

 Change may result when the relationships between groups and corresponding behaviours change.
 Change may result if in-group favouritism becomes socially unacceptable.
 Change may result when social values and group memberships change since stereotypes justify unequal social
conditions.
 Example: people with power are more likely to attend to negative stereotypic information about members of
subordinate groups.

What is Discrimination?
 Discrimination - differential (usually negative) behaviours directed toward members of different social groups.
 Exposure to harmful actions of members of own national group can raise collective guilt and subsequent strategies to
reduce it.
 Strategies to reduce collective guilt
o Argue that it is not the group as a whole that is responsible (it is only a “few bad apples”)
o Minimize the magnitude of the harm done
o Legitimize the harm that was done
o Deny the possibility of collective responsibility
o Blame the victims by suggesting that they deserved being harmed
o Perceive the abuse as serving the nation’s higher aspirations

 Examples of discrimination
o Racism - discrimination directed at a specific racial group.
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o Sexism - discrimination directed at a specific gender.

o Ageism - discrimination directed at various age groups.
o Heterosexism - discrimination against LGBTQ+ community (sexual orientation).
 Systemic discrimination stems from assumptions and stereotypes about women and men, as well as about class, age,
race, sexuality, ethnicity, and ability.
 Learned through the socialization process that starts at birth when baby girls are dressed in pink and boys in blue, and
when boys are encouraged to be noisy and boisterous and play, while girls are expected to be gentle and quiet.

Prejudice
 Prejudice - negative attitudes toward members of specific social groups
 People high in prejudice toward a certain group tend to process information about that group differently compared to
information about other groups.
 Information consistent with prejudiced attitudes is given more attention and is remembered better.
 Incidental feelings are induced separately or before target is encouraged – they are irrelevant to the group being
judged, but can still affect judgments of the target.

Types of Prejudice
 Implicit prejudice can be automatically activated and can affect overt behaviour even though people are unaware
that they hold such views.
 Explicit prejudice operates at the conscious level and are the attitudes you are aware of towards a specific event,
situation, person, or group.

Origins of Prejudice
 Generally, perceptions of threat are involved.
o Threat to self-esteem or group interests: Holding prejudiced attitudes toward an out-group allows people to
increase their self-esteem when they are feeling threatened. This tendency is strongest among those who
think their group’s interests are being threatened.
o Competition for scarce resources: Realistic Conflict Theory (Bobo, 1983) - prejudice stems from direct
competition between various social groups over scarce and valued resources. As competition increases,
prejudice increases. However, it can be reduced if cooperation (superordinate goals) are introduced.
o Social-categorization: Individual as a member of a group and others as members of a different group:
 The us-versus-them effect. People easily divide the social world into us (the in-group) versus them
(the out-group). Ultimate Attribution Error - tendency to make more favourable and flattering
attributions about members of one’s own group than about members of other groups, which is the
self-serving attribution bias at the group level. Once people are categorized into groups, in-group
loyalty and out-group discrimination would begin to develop.
 Social Identity Theory - concerned with the consequences of perceiving the self as a member of a
social group and identifying with it. One of the consequences is that self-esteem is higher. A need to
increase self-esteem can result in seeing other groups as inferior to one’s own. When group
members feel that their identity is being threatened, they tend to exhibit increased levels of
prejudice toward the other group.

Why does Prejudice Persist?

 Boosts self-esteem (individual/ group).
 Saves cognitive effort (relies on quick, heuristic processing).
 Prejudice may occur beyond one’s awareness.

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 Even non-prejudiced subjects tend to show more negative affect (facial muscle activity) toward minority group
members.

Techniques for Countering Prejudice

Learning not to hate
 Social Learning View — prejudice is acquired through direct and vicarious experiences.
 Remind parents of the high costs of holding prejudiced attitudes (learn non-prejudice attitudes).
 Direct experience with people of other groups also influences attitudes.

Benefits of contact
 Contact Hypothesis - increased contact between members of various social groups can be effective in reducing
prejudice between them.
 Increased contact can decrease prejudice by increasing familiarity and reducing anxiety.
 Positive contact that involves cooperation and interdependence between groups can result in the adoption of
egalitarian social norms and prejudice.

Re-categorization
 Shifts in the boundaries between an in-group and some out-group.
 Common In-group Identity Model — suggests that to the extent individuals in different groups view themselves as
members of a single social entity, intergroup bias will be reduced.

Social influence
 People’s racial attitudes are affected by social influence.
 Social influence: efforts by others to change the behaviour, attitudes, or feelings of one or more others
 Lowering the in-group’s endorsement of prejudice can reduce prejudice in prejudiced people.

Consequences of Exposure to Others’ Prejudice

 Exposure to prejudiced comments can make people yield to conformity pressures and express prejudice.
 Exposure can cue negative stereotypes.
 People who hold prejudiced attitudes are more likely to respond to being primed by others’ prejudice, by expressing
prejudice themselves compared to people who do not hold racist attitudes and people who hold ambivalent racial
attitudes.

Measuring Racial Attitudes

Modern racism
 More subtle beliefs than blatant feelings of superiority.
 It consists of thinking minorities are seeking and receiving more benefits than they deserve and a denial that
discrimination affects their outcomes.
 Racism can involve concealing prejudice from others in public settings, but expressing bigoted attitudes when it is
safe to do so.

Explicit measures: Aware of true attitudes

 Bogus Pipeline — “lie detector” convinces subjects to respond honestly.
 Technique used to reduce false answers when attempting to collect self-report data. It measures your true attitudes,
irrespective of what you express.
 The experimenter attaches electrodes connected to an elaborate-looking piece of electronic equipment to your
forearms.

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 You are told that the machine accurately predicts responses by “measuring ‘implicit muscle movements’ in the
forearm” generated by the experimenter’s questions.
 The experimenter asks a series of questions, knowing your attitude towards the issue.
 The machine puts on an impressive display to convince you that it is analyzing your responses and correctly identifies
your true attitude.
 Convinced that this machine can read people mind, the ‘pipeline’ to people’s innermost thought and feelings, you
dare not lie, and thus your reveal your true attitudes.
 Studies using this procedure have found that people do give more authentic answers regarding their feelings.

Implicit measures: Unaware of true attitudes

 Bona fide Pipeline - uses priming to measure implicit racial attitudes.
 People alternate between looking at different kinds of faces (Black/ White) and reading words that they need to
classify as pleasant/ unpleasant.
 The assumption is that someone who is prejudiced against Black people will answer “unpleasant” faster after seeing a
Black face than a White face.
 However, the results depend on the instructions. If instructed to look at faces with the expectation of trying to
remember them later, there is little effect on how fast they respond “pleasant or unpleasant” to the word.
 If instructed to count the number of Black/ White faces so that they are forced to pay attention to race, then the
prejudiced results do occur.

Required Reading
Social Psychology
Robert A. Baron * Nyla R. Branscombe
Chapter SIX
The Causes, Effects and Cures of Stereotyping, Prejudice and Discrimination