C82SAD Prejudice and Discrimination

1. C82SAD Prejudice and Discrimination

2. What is Prejudice? • Prejudice: An unfavorable attitude towards a social group and its members • Discrimination: Singling out members of a social group for prejudice based on attributes of their group membership • Dehumanisation: Stripping people of their dignity and humanity

3. Prejudice and the Bystander Effect Percentage of participants offering to aid apparent victim Source: Gaertner and Dovidio (1977)

4. Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination • Sex stereotyping – social stereotypes of women as “nice and incompetent and men as competent but not so nice” prevail across cultures and in both genders! (Fiske, 1998) • But research suggests that people do not actually describe themselves in terms of this sex stereotype (Martin, 1987) (e.g., women and sex-discrimination) • People actually represent the sexes as ‘subtypes’:  Housewife  Businessman • Sexy woman  Macho man • Career woman • Feminist/athlete/lesbian • Men and women generally see women as more homogenous than men (Lorenzi-Cioldi et al., 1995)

5. Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination • Why are there these differential stereotypes which prevail across genders? • Sex roles: Behaviour viewed as sex-stereotypically appropriate • Socialisation into sex roles – so do sex stereotypes reflect actual differences in psychological factors or role assignment? • Very few differences on psychological dimensions, but large differences in terms of perceptions of sex roles • Therefore certain roles are ‘sex typed’ (Eagly & Steffen, 1984) • E.g. role assignment in jobs

6. Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination

7. Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination More masculine Ratings of Target More feminine Source: Eagly and Steffen (1984)

8. Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination • Glass-ceiling effect: Stereotypes prevent promotion due to competence perceptions e.g. female in upper management, males in flight attendants • Maintaining sex stereotypes: Media largely responsible – unsubtle vs. subtle • Face-ism: Media depiction gives greater prominence to the head and less prominence to the body for men, but vice-versa for women (Archer et al., 1983)

9. Sex Stereotypes and Attributions By a MAN attributed to ability or high level of effort Performance viewed as more deserving of reward or recognition Successful task performance By a WOMAN attributed to luck or an easy task Performance viewed as less deserving of reward or recognition

10. Sex Stereotypes and Attribution More to luck Ratings of Target More to ability Source: Deaux and Emswiller (1974)

11. Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination • Illegality of sexism means sex stereotypes are more subtle (Glick & Fiske, 1996) • Ambivalent sexism inventory. Sexists hold benevolent and hostile attitudes towards different ‘subtypes’ • Benevolent attitudes towards traditional women • Hostile attitudes towards non-traditional women • Recent reviews suggest that there are no longer tendencies to devalue women’s work and a positive female stereotype is emerging (Eagly & Mladinic, 1994)

12. Racism • Racism: Prejudice and discrimination against people based on ethnicity or race • Much research focused on anti-black attitudes among whites in the United States • Dramatic reduction in unfavorable attitudes since 1930’s • Similar reduction toward ethnic minorities in Britain and Western Europe

13. Racism ‘Superstitious’ ‘Lazy’ Percentage of white respondents selecting trait ‘Ignorant’ Source: Dovidio et al. (1996)

14. ‘New’ Racism • Racial stereotypes have not gone away but changed • Devine and Elliot (1995): 45% of white Americans perceived African-Americans as lazy and 25% characterised the group as athletic, rhythmic, low intelligence, criminal, hostile, and loud • Theories of new racism suggest that people experience conflict between prejudiced attitudes and modern egalitarian values • E.g. Gaertner and Dovidio’s (1986) notion of aversive racism suggests that racist attitudes are expressed when egalitarian values are weak and people are in homogenous groups where prejudiced values are accepted

15. ‘New’ Racism Reaction time (milliseconds) Source: Gaertner and McLaughlin (1983)

16. Forms of Discrimination • Reluctance to help: passively or actively declining to help other groups improve their position in society (e.g., Gaertner & Dovidio, 1977) • Tokenism: Practice of publicly making small concessions to a minority group to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination • Reverse discrimination: Practice of publicly being prejudiced in favour of a minority in order to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination

17. Tokenism Reported commitment/satisfaction Source: Gaertner and McLaughlin (1983)

18. Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination • Mere exposure effect: Zajonc (1968) • People’s attitudes towards other improve with direct contact and familiarity (Perlman & Oskamp, 1971) • Tajfel (1981) believes this is not the case and that prejudices are learned early in life before exposure • Barrett and Short (1992) found that children had clear preferences for European nations despite not having contact with anyone from those cultures • Parental modeling, instrumental/operant conditioning and classical conditioning may be responsible for these learned predjudices

19. Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination • Frustration aggression hypothesis: Dollard et al. (1939) • All frustration leads to aggression and all aggression arises from frustration • Catharsis was the reason why people performed psychological activities and if frustrated these had to be vented elsewhere e.g. frustrationaggression • Target of aggression usually source of frustration but if unavailable a specific ‘scapegoat’ is targeted – process known as displacement • Research is inconclusive as to whether displacement always occurs, as some research has shown a generalisation response – direction of anger towards irrelevant other stimuli (Horowitz, 1973) • Critics of frustration-aggression hypothesis suggest that it does not take into account interpersonal communication – people are passive victims of individual frustration and anger

20. Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination • The authoritarian personality: Adorno et al. (1950) • Some people had ‘prejudiced’ or authoritarian personalities that caused discrimination • Characteristics: • Respect for authority • Obsession with rank and status • Tendency to displace anger and resentment onto weaker groups • Intolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity • Need for a rigidly defined world • Problems achieving intimacy • Developed through excessively harsh and disciplinarian practices to secure emotional dependence • While it has attracted a lot of research, research has shown few differences between prejudiced and non-prejudiced people on authoritarian personality traits (Pettigrew, 1958; Minard, 1952) • Fails to account for situational factors – cultures of prejudice, relative deprivation

21. Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination • Dogmatism and closed-mindedness: Rokeach (1948, 1960) • A more generalised ‘syndrome of intolerance’ – cognitive style rather than traits per se called dogmatism or closed-mindedness • Characterised by being rigid and intolerant and predisposes people to be prejudiced • Correlates well with authoritarianism and therefore suffers from same limitations – ignores situational and contextual factors (Billig, 1976)

22. Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination • Belief congruence theory: Rokeach (1960) • Similar beliefs promote liking and social harmony among people while dissimilar beliefs promote dislike and prejudice • “Belief is more important than ethnic or racial membership as a determinant of social discrimination” (Rokeach, 1960, p. 135) • Research requiring people to report attitudes toward people of different race and similar or dissimilar beliefs support this hypothesis (e.g., Rokeach & Mezei, 1966) • But states that in situations of ‘institutionalised’ prejudice belief congruence plays no part • Rokeach’s (1960) research designs might blur the boundaries between beliefs and race – no clear consistency

23. Belief Congruence Theory Institutionalised or socially sanctioned prejudice? Interpersonal assessment of belief dominance No Yes Negative attitude, dislike Positive attitude, attraction Prejudice Friendly relations

24. Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination • Social dominance theory: Pratto (1999) • Prejudice is attributed to an individual’s acceptance of a ideology that legitimises ingroup-serving hierarchy and domination, and rejects egalitarian ideologies • An ‘individual differences’ explanations – people tend to desire their own group to be dominant and therefore have a high ‘social dominance orientation’ • This legitimises prejudice towards outgroups as the ingroup is perceived as dominant