Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

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Stereotypes Prejudice and Discrimination

• Social Psychology
• Chapter 5
• September 17 2004
• Class 4

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(No Transcript)
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He fit the description

• Case Study
• February 4 1999 Amadou Diallo 22 died in a
  hail of 41 bullets outside his Bronx apartment in
  what the officers testified was a tragic error

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Stereotypes and Prejudices

• Stereotypes
• The generalized perceptions beliefs and
  expectations a person has about members in some
  group
• Schemas about entire groups of people
• Effects of stereotypes on behavior can be
  automatic and unconscious
• Prejudice
• A negative attitude toward an individual based
  solely on the persons membership is some group
• Includes an irrational hostility toward a
  particular race or group
• In one wordprejudgment
• Discrimination
• Differential treatment of individuals who belong
  to different groups

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Stereotype

• Stereotypes about racial ethnic gender or
  sexual orientation groups are schemas. 
• Generalized belief about members of a group
• May or may not be accurate
• Most researchers believe it is even possible to
  have a schema that you dont personally believe
  (OTHER PEOPLE think that Group x has qualities
  y... but I dont)
• Lets try this
• What are the characteristics of
• A typical New Yorker
• A typical Californian
• A typical white male
• A typical career woman
• A typical stay-at-home mom

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How Stereotypes Form Social Categorization

• The classification of persons into groups on the
  basis of common attributes.
• Helps us form impressions quickly and use past
  experiences to guide new interactions.
• Serious drawback By categorizing people we
  often
• Overestimate the differences between groups
• Underestimate the differences within groups
• Can bias our perceptions

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Stone et al. (1997)

• Radio broadcast played to participants
• They are shown a photograph of the player to be
  analyzed
• Participants rated the player better if they
  thought he was black

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How Stereotypes Form In-groups vs. Out-groups

• Strong tendency to divide people into ingroups
  and outgroups
• Such group identifications can promote an ingroup
  bias
• Often it becomes an Us vs. Them attitude
• Consequences
• Exaggerate differences between ingroups and other
  outgroups.
• Outgroup homogeneity effect

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Perceived Outgroup Homogeneity

• Phenomenon of overestimating the extent to which
  members within other groups are similar to each
  other
• Example They all look the same to me

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How Stereotypes Form Maybe they become
automatic

• Devine (1989)
• Suggests that our parents and media may have
  started an early process that has now become
  automatic

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Racial Bias Study Sagar Schofield (1980)

• Purpose
• Demonstrate that stereotypes bias interpretation
  of ambiguous events
• Participants
• 40 African American 40 White
• Procedures
• Participants presented with four ambiguous
  drawings
• Bumping
• Requesting food
• Poking
• Taking a pencil

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Sagar Schofield (1980)

• Participants were to rate actors behavior
  as.....
• Mean
• Threatening
• Playful
• Friendly

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Sagar Schofield (1980) Experimental Set-Up
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Sagar Schofield (1980) Results
Subject Actor Mean
Threatening White W
8.28 AA 8.99 African W
7.38 American AA 8.40 Conclusion
White and African American participants rated
identical behavior as more mean and threatening
when actor was African American. Schemas
influence the interpretation of events.
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Who has the razor

• Allport and Postmans (1947)
• Subjects were shown a picture depicting two men
  one black and one white confronting each other
  on a subway car
• The white man has a straight razor in his hand
• After viewing the picture the first subject
  describes it to a second subject who in turn
  describes it to another and so on
• After a few retellings the straight razor ends
  up (is inferred to be) in the hand of the black
  man

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Interesting replication

• Boon Davies (1987)
• Subjects see a cartoon story of 2 men interacting
  on the subway.  At the end of the interaction
  one man pulls a knife.
• Different subjects see one of three different
  versions
• 1) Both men are white 
• Man A has the knife (wearing a suit)   
• 2) Both men are white 
• Man B has the knife (wearing work clothes)   
• 3) One is black one is white 
• White man has the knife

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Boon Davies (1987)

• Retrieval phase
• Both recall and recognition tests
• Recall test 
• No stimuli just describe the man who pulled the
  knife
• Recognition test 
• See two versions of the critical picture (correct
  knife-holder or knife in the OTHER mans hand)
  instructions are pick the one you saw before
• There is a correct and an incorrect version for
  the participants who saw the original story with
  two white men AND also for those participants
  who saw the original story with one white man and
  one black man

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Results

• What do you think happened
• Explanations

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Can stereotypes actually create self-fulfilling
prophecies

• Wood et al. (1974)
• White male University students interviewed white
  and black male high school students seeking
  employment
• White interviewers of black applicants (relative
  to white interviewers of white applicants)
• Sat further away
• Conducted shorter interviews
• Made more speech errors
• Appeared to cause black applicants to become
  uncomfortable
• Follow-up Experiment
• While males were applicants
• Treated like black applicants were treated in the
  first experiment
• They performed similarly (to black applicants in
  exp. 1) during the interview

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Three Levels of Stereotypes

• Public
• What we say to others about a group
• Private
• what we consciously think about a group but
  dont say to others
• Implicit
• unconscious mental associations guiding our
  judgments and actions without our conscious
  awareness
• Public stereotypes have decreased in North
  America recently (political correctness)

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Well there are exceptions

• The biggest thing I dont like about New York
  are the foreigners

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Explicit versus Implicit Prejudice

• If you were asked your opinions about Irishmen
  Californians or fraternity men that would tap
  
• Explicit prejudice positive or negative
  feelings of which you are aware
• But not implicit prejudice feelings of which
  you are not aware

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Intergroup Competition

• Sherif (1961) The Robbers Cave Experiment
• Two groups of eleven year-old boys were sent to a
  remote summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park
  (Oklahoma)
• Initially unaware of their fragile co-existence
  they formed tribalistic bonds and having a great
  timeand then
• These middle class boys placed into competing
  areas in a summer camp
• They competed for medals and attention

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Competed in a variety of contests
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Soon the rivalry became violent

• Raided one anothers cabins
• Stole and burned one anothers flags
• Came to view one another as stinkers
  smart-alecks and sneaks
• Verbal prejudice became apparent spiraling
  downward towards aggressive territorial violence
• The groups eventually had to be separated

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So how did experimenters try to reduce the
prejudice they had created

• Propaganda No
• Positive propaganda about one group directed to
  the other by the experimenters did not help
• Contact No
• Doing non-competitive activities together (e.g.
  watching movies) did not help
• Cooperative action Yes
• Experimenters arranged for camp truck to break
  down
• Both groups needed to pull it uphill
• Intergroup friendships began to develop

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Realistic Conflict Theory

• Proposal that intergroup conflict and negative
  prejudices and stereotypes emerge out of actual
  competition between groups for desired resources
• Example Members of different ethnic groups may
  compete for the same jobs or the same farmland

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Realistic Conflict Theory

• Competition for valuable but limited resources
  breeds hostility
• Loser becomes frustrated
• Winner becomes threatened
• Result Much conflict
• Example Women and immigrants joining the
  workforce
• When conflict arises there is a higher tendency
  to rely on stereotypestheyre all the same

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SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

• Rubin Hewstone (1998)
• Comparing our ingroups with outgroups that are
  less well off can raise our self-esteem
• We desire to feel good about ourselves
• Part of our identity comes from the groups to
  which we belong

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Discrimination

• Behaviors directed toward people on the basis of
  their group membership
• Unfair treatment

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History Repeats Itself
Who is more likely to get harassed at the airport
security check
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Who is more likely to get harassed at an airport
security check

• Note Several of the previouss were
  prepared by the following website
  http//instruct.uwo.ca/psychology/023/pdfs/

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Discrimination

• Do you know anyone who has because of their
  membership in a group been
• Denied a job or promotion
• Insulted or harassed
• Ignored or poorly served in a restaurant or other
  business
• Denied an apartment or house

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Herek (2000)

• On the one hand people surveyed seemed to think
  that homosexuals deserved similar job
  opportunities
• But when we got to specifics old attitudes
  surfaced
• See next twos

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Do you think homosexuals should or should not
have equal rights in terms of job opportunities
100
Should Have Equal Rights
Percentage
50
Should NOT Have Equal Rights
0
1977
1982
1989
1992
1996
YEAR
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Do you think homosexuals should or should not be
hired for the following occupations
100
Salespersons
Doctors
Percentage Saying Should
50
Many still believe homosexuals should be excluded
from some jobs.
Clergy
Elementary School Teachers
0
1977
1982
1989
1992
1996
YEAR
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Sexual Harassment as Gender Discrimination

• Fitzgerald (1993)
• As many as 50 of women are sexually harassed
  during their academic or working lives
• Faley et al. (1999)
• U.S. Army spent 250 million in one year to deal
  with problems related to sexual harassment

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Sexual Harassment as Gender Discrimination

• Pryor Day (1988)
• Behavior seen as more harassing when performed by
  person in power
• Sheets Braver (1993)
• Less harassing when performed by an attractive
  single individual
• Terpstra Baker (1986)
• Women more likely than men to define staring and
  flirting as sexually harassing

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Sexual Harassment as Gender Discrimination

• Men are more likely to harass than are women
• But whether men harass or not depends on the man
  and on the situation
• In one study male students were asked to train a
  young woman on a complex word-processing task

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Pryor LaVite Stoller (1993)

• Male participants were introduced to the female
  trainee (confederate) by a male graduate student
  (confederate) who acted either
• Sexist
• Put his arm around trainee visually checked out
  her body
• Professional
• Respectful of trainee

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Pryor LaVite Stoller (1993)

• DV
• The amount of sexuality expressed by the male
  student while instructing the female trainee
• IV
• Amount of exposure to sexual harassment
• Results did not depend on the IV but rather
  depended on the participants chronic disposition
  to harass
• So the situational factor here was relatively
  unimportant

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Costs of Prejudice Discrimination and
Stereotyping

• Schulman et al. (1999)
• Physicians were only 60 as likely to suggest a
  top-rated diagnostic test for black heart
  patients as for whites
• Even when blacks presented same symptoms and
  gave identical information about themselves

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Costs of Prejudice Discrimination and
Stereotyping

• Ayres Siegelman (1995)
• This study found that white men were offered
  better deals on cars
• 109 less than White women
• 318 less than Black women
• 935 less than Black men

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Stereotype threat

• Can you see how a stereotype threat can develop
• You go to ATM and woman in front looks at you and
  seems nervous

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Reducing Prejudice

• One hypothesis is - negative stereotypes and
  prejudice are due to ignorance
• From this perspective simply exposing people to
  members of different groups should reduce
  prejudice
• But merely putting different groups together has
  not generally worked

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Reducing Prejudice

• Contact Hypothesis
• Stereotypes and prejudice toward a group will
  diminish as contact with the group increases
• Getting to know and hopefully to understand a
  group
• Get two groups to work towards a common goal
• Cooperation helps competition hurts

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Effective group contact

• Outgroup members have traits and abilities
  challenging negative stereotypes
• Contact is supported by local authorities and
  norms
• Groups are of equal status at least in contact
  setting
• Contact is at individual level
• Contact is rewarding
• Groups work toward common goals

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Jigsaw Classroom

• Each student in a mixed race group is given a
  different and essential task to complete
  towards a class project
• This intervention takes advantage of each of the
  six principles of effective group contact

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Back to the Rattlers and Eagles

• Importance of common goals was shown in the study
  of the Rattlers and Eagles
• When their only contact involved competitive
  games interactions became increasingly negative
• But then researchers forced the boys to cooperate
  towards common goals (such as starting a bus to
  take them all to a movie)

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Ratings of Own Group
100
Ratings of Other Group
80
60
Percentage of Rattler and Eagle Ratings That Were
Unfavorable
40
20
0
After Competition
After Cooperation

• After competing the Rattlers impressions of the
  Eagles were highly unfavorable as were the
  Eagles impressions of the Rattlers

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Ratings of Own Group
100
Ratings of Other Group
80
60
Percentage of Rattler and Eagle Ratings That
Were Unfavorable
40
20
0
After Competition
After Cooperation

• The hostility between the groups eventually
  turned into friendship and acceptance after they
  were induced to begin cooperating with each other

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Finally maybe we should just eliminate these
altogether