Social Psychology Pp 435-457

1. 6th edition Social PsychologyPp 435-457 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

2. What Causes Prejudice?

3. As a broad-based and powerful attitude, prejudice has many causes. Four aspects of social life that bring about prejudice are: The way we think: Social Cognition • How we assign meaning: Attributional Biases • Prejudice and Economic Competition • The way we conform: Normative Rules Prejudice is enabled by the human tendency to organize people into in-groups and out-groups

4. How We Assign Meaning: Attributional Biases

5. Dispositional versus Situational Explanations • One reason stereotypes are so insidious and persistent is the human tendency to make dispositional attributions. That is, leaping to the conclusion that a person’s behavior is due to some aspect of his/her personality rather than to some aspect of the situation. • Relying too heavily on dispositional attributions often leads us to make attributional mistakes

6. 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

7. Dispositional versus Situational Explanations Bodenhausen & Wyer (1985) 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 upperclass 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.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. Expectations and Distortions • When a member of an out-group behaves as we expect it, it confirms and even strengthens our stereotype but what happens when an out-group member behaves in an unexpected, non-stereotypical fashion? • Attribution Theory provides the answer: We can simply engage in some attributional fancy footwork and emerge with our dispositional stereotype in tact by making a situational attribution to the exception (ie, “that person really is as we believe but it just isn’t apparent in this situation”)

13. 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

14. Blaming the Victim Ironically, this tendency to blame victims for their victimization is typically motivated by an understandable desire to see the world as a fair and just place, one where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. 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

15. Self-Fulfilling Prophecies On a societal level, the insidiousness of the self-fulfilling 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.

17. 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

18. Economic and Political Competition When times are tough and resources are scarce: • In-group members will feel more threatened by the out-group. • Incidents of prejudice, discrimination, and violence toward out-group members will increase. (Remember Robber’s Cave Studies)

19. 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 in-group in question. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

20. The Way We Conform: Normative Rules

21. 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, institutionalized racism and institutionalized sexism

22. 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.

23. “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

24. How Can Prejudice Be Reduced?

25. 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 only decrease when two conditions are met: • Both groups are of equal status. • Both share a common goal.

26. 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.

28. When Contact Reduces Prejudice: Six Conditions • Mutual interdependence • Common goal • Equal status • Friendly, informal setting • Knowing multiple out-group members • Social norms of equality

29. Reducing Prejudice Remember previous research to reduce conflict can be applied to reducing prejudice as well: • Robber Cave’s Study (Sherif, 1961) • The Jigsaw Classroom (Aronson, 1978)