Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination: Lecture Insights

1. Outline of Lecture Sessions Regarding Prejudice and Discrimination Definition of the concepts of prejudiceand discrimination.

2. Prejudice: A negative prejudgement of a group and its individual members. Prejudice is an attitude. .

3. Prejudice: A negative prejudgement of a group and its individual members. Prejudice is an attitude. . Stereotype: A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people.

4. Prejudice: A negative prejudgement of a group and its individual members. Prejudice is an attitude. . Stereotype: A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people. Discrimination: Unjustifiable negative behaviour toward a group or its members.

5. Attribute prejudice and discrimination to thoughts and acts of stupidity or immorality Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, baseball, and the Kiwanis Music Festival in Montreal, 1946.

6. Components of prejudice and therelation of prejudice (attitude) todiscrimination (behaviour).

7. Prejudice as an Attitude • Components of prejudice (attitude) • Beliefs (may include stereotypes) • 2. Emotions • 3. Intended actions

8. The question of the relation of prejudice (as attitude) to discrimination (as behaviour)

9. By definition, a positive attitude toward your group is not prejudice. Should we be concerned, nevertheless (and the role of social identity theory).

10. Attitudes Towards Ingroup and Outgroup neutral unfavourable: ____________________________________:favourable Outgroup Outgroup Ingroup

11. The Power of Ingroup Favouritism Majeed(1982) Participants: 13 to 18 years old from a rural district of India.

12. Trait Adjective Ratings Ingroup OutGroup High Caste Adolescents Low Caste

13. Trait Adjective Ratings Ingroup OutGroup High Caste Adolescents 8.5 Low Caste 4.6

14. Trait Adjective Ratings Ingroup OutGroup High Caste Adolescents 8.5 -1.8 Low Caste 4.6

15. Trait Adjective Ratings Ingroup OutGroup High Caste Adolescents 8.5 -1.8 Low Caste 4.6 3.5

16. Perdue (1990) Study was presented as a lexical decision making task. For example: XEH paired always with us or we or ours (ingroup words). YOF paired always with them or they or theirs (outgroup words)

17. Participants were asked to rate the nonsense syllables on: Unpleasant : : : : : : : : pleasant

18. Result: Nonsense syllables paired with ingroup words were rated more pleasant than nonsense syllables paired with outgroup words.

19. A study of systemic (institutional)discrimination.

20. Report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System Community Summary (1995)

21. Question police, lawyers, and judges. Is there discrimination in the criminal justice system?

22. General Response was No.

23. Archival data (public records:

24. Release and detained • data fortotal sample • Released by police: White -- 29% • Black -- 18% • Detained to trial: White -- 23% • Black -- 30%

25. b) Release and detained data for drug • charges only • Released by police: White -- 60% • Black -- 30% • Detained to trial: White -- 10% • Black -- 31%

26. c) Imprisonment after • conviction • Drug charge: White -- 36% • Black -- 66% • All charges: White -- 57% • Black -- 69%

27. d) Imprisonment after conviction by • criminal record • 0 convictions: White -- 38% • Black -- 52% • 1 to 5 convictions: White -- 52% • Black -- 71% • 6 or more convictions: White -- 77% • Black -- 88%

28. Research by Esses On the individual contribution of three components of attitude to the overall attitude we have toward some group.

29. The Components Studied Were: i) stereotypes, ii) emotions, and an added component iii) beliefs about the degree to which somegroup facilitates or blocks your cherishedvalues in society

30. Overall attitude was measured using a “thermometer” scale Favourable 100 Neutral 50 Unfavourable 0

31. Target groups studied English Canadian French Canadian Native Indian Pakistani Homosexual

32. Components of Attitude towards Group • Measuring the Stereotype Component • On a blank piece of paper, list the characteristics that you would use to describe typical members of the group

33. Components of Attitude towards Group • Measuring the Stereotype Component • Indicate the value of each attribute: • if negative, indicate two minus signs or one minus sign; • if positive, indicate two plus signs or one plus sign; • if neutral indicate zero

34. Components of Attitude towards Group • Measuring the Stereotype Component • Indicate the percentage of the group to which each characteristic applies (0% to 100%)

35. Measuring the Symbolic beliefs Component • List values, customs and traditions that you believe are blocked or facilitated by the group. • Indicate the extent to which each was blocked or facilitated: • if blocked, indicate two minus signs or one minus sign; • if facilitated, indicate two plus signs or one plus sign • Indicate the percentage of the group to which this applies (0% to 100%)

36. Emotions • List emotions and feelings that you experience when you see, meet, or think about members of the group. • Indicate the valence of each emotion: • if negative, indicate two minus signs or one minus sign; • if positive, indicate two plus signs or one plus sign • Indicate the percentage of the group that make you feel this way (0% to 100%)

37. Target groupMean Attitude (as measured on the thermometer scale English Canadian 81.4 French Canadian 69.1 Native Indian 66.2 Pakistani 58.9 Homosexual 44.1

38. The Relations between Individual Stereotypes, Symbolic Beliefs, and Emotions with Attitudes toward the Groups

39. For Judgements about the Target Group "Pakistani," the Correlation Coefficient between the Symbolic Belief Component and Overall Attitude was +.58 Overall AttitudeSymbolic Belief Score Score (0-100) (Higher the score, the more the group is seen to facilitate cherished values) Subject 1 63 12 2 42 05 3 54 07 4 82 16 5 68 12 and so on

40. Which Components Contributed to the Prediction of Overall Attitude? Target GroupComponent English Canadians no component was a unique predictor

41. Which Components Contributed to the Prediction of Overall Attitude? Target GroupComponent French Canadians a) emotions and b) symbolic beliefs were unique predictors

42. Which Components Contributed to the Prediction of Overall Attitude? Target GroupComponent Native Indians a) emotions were unique predictor

43. Which Components Contributed to the Prediction of Overall Attitude? Target GroupComponent Pakistanis a) symbolic beliefs was unique predictor

44. Which Components Contributed to the Prediction of Overall Attitude? Target GroupComponent Homosexuals a) symbolic beliefs was unique predictor

45. Components of a Stereotype and Meaning The same trait term, for example, may have a different meaning depending on the group being referred to. My earlier example with judgements of French-Canadians-in-general when discussing stereotypes.

46. Components of a Stereotype and Meaning Saenger (1954) -- there was overlap in terms ascribed by university students to Americans (own-group) and to Jews (outgroup). Yet, common terms such as aggressive and materialistic were evaluated more unfavourably in reference to the category Jews.

47. Mood and Meaning of Components of a Stereotype Victoria Esses (1995) found that the meaning of a term ascribed to a particular outgroup can vary with the mood of the individual making the judgements. Mood was experimentally manipulated. In a negative mood, the evaluations of terms associated with outgroups were more unfavourable.

48. The textbook considers the question do we stereotype in the context of its discussion of prejudice. The textbook does not make any distinction between stereotypes and stereotyping. Is stereotyping necessarily a product of prejudice and is it behaviour representing discrimination?

49. Page 455 of the textbook -- Do stereotypes bias judgements of individuals? Their answer is Yes. But, there are exceptions.

50. Example of An Exception Information provided about Nancy or Paul concerning their assertive behaviour (information provided by supposed transcript of one of their telephone conversations). Nancy or Paul speak about their recent behaviour in which they behaved assertively or non-assertively. A day later, participants in the study predicted how Nancy or Paul would respond to other situations. Their past behaviour influenced judgements about how they would behave, but their gender did not.