Contemporary Forms of Prejudice

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Contemporary Forms of Prejudice

• Miles Hewstone, University of Oxford

Equality Diversity Forum. EOC, London, November
28, 2005
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Outline

• Prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination
• Forms of prejudice
• Measurement of prejudice
• Explicit vs implicit measures
• Eradicating prejudice
• Intergroup contact
• Prejudice in the brain
• The new social neuroscience
• Conclusions

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Prejudice, Stereotypes Discrimination

• Prejudice
• An unjustifiable negative attitude toward a group
  and its individual members
• Stereotype
• A belief about the personal attitudes of a group
  of people. Stereotypes can be over generalized,
  inaccurate, and resistant to new information
• Discrimination
• Unjustifiable negative behaviour towards a group
  or its members

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Modern Conceptions of Prejudice

• Prejudice as intergroup emotion (Smith, 1993)
• Attempt to account for wide range of feelings
  about out-groups, and ways in which they are
  dehumanized, and discriminated against
• Stereotype Content Model (Fiske et al., 2002)
• Blatant and subtle prejudice (Pettigrew
  Meertens, 1985)
• Explicit and implicit biases (Hewstone et al.,
  2002)
• Aversive racism (Gaertner Dovidio, 2000)
• (Conceptions of prejudice reflected in how
  prejudice is measured)

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Prejudice as Emotion

• Focus What are the emotional consequences of
  classifying others as out-groups?
• 5 specific emotions most likely to be aroused in
  an intergroup context
• fear, disgust, contempt, anger, jealousy

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Intergroup Emotions and Action Tendencies(Devos
et al., 2002 Mackie Smith, 2002 Mackie et
al., 2000)

• More differentiated view of out-group emotions
• Specific emotionsgtperceptions of the
  out-groupgtaction tendencies
• Fear and disgust imply avoidance
• Contempt and anger imply movement against
  outgroup
• Examples of intergroup emotion-action links
• An out-group that violates in-group norms may
  elicit disgust and avoidance
• An out-group seen as benefiting unjustly (e.g.,
  from government programs) may elicit resentment
  and actions aimed at reducing benefits
• An out-group seen as threatening elicits fear and
  hostile actions

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The Stereotype Content Model(Fiske et al., 2002)

• Two fundamental dimensions warmth competence
• Entirely positive stereotypes (high warmth/high
  competence) gt in-groups
• Entirely negative stereotypes (low warmth/low
  competence
• welfare recipients, homeless people
• Warmth and competence often negatively
  correlated,
• gt Stereotypes with a mixed content
• Paternalistic stereotypes (high warmth/low
  competence)
• e.g., elderly, disabled people, some gender
  stereotypes
• Envious stereotypes (low warmth/high competence)
• Asians, Jews
• The 4 different combinations of warmth and
  competence are associated with different
  intergroup emotions

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Stereotype Content Model(Fiske, Cuddy, Glick,
Xu, 1999 2002)

• Low competence, Low warmth -gt Contempt
• (e.g., poor people, welfare recipients, gypsies)
• Low competence, High warmth -gt Pity
• (e.g., older people, disabled people)
• High competence, Low warmth -gt Envy
• (e.g., Jews, Asians, female professionals)
• High competence, High warmth -gt Pride
• (e.g., ingroup, close allies, reference groups)

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Blatant vs Subtle Prejudice(Pettigrew
Meertens, 1985)

• Blatant Prejudice Items
• Would you personally mind or not mind if a
  suitably qualified Asian were appointed as your
  boss?
• Would you personally mind or not mind if one of
  your close relatives were to marry a person of a
  different religion?
• Subtle Prejudice Items
• If Asians living in Britain would only try
  harder, they could be as well off as white
  people
• Asians living in Britain have values and
  behaviours different from those required to be
  good British citizens

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Prejudice Out of Sight, still in Mind?

• Explicit prejudice operates in a conscious mode
  and is typically assessed by traditional,
  self-report measures
• Implicit prejudice can take the form of automatic
  activation of negative traits in memory
• Functions in an unconscious fashion
• Without the perceivers awareness or intention.
• Whilst explicit displays of prejudice may be less
  prevalent implicit prejudice may still occur

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Priming(Dovidio, Evans, Tyler, 1986)

• Lexical decision task Can the following traits
  ever be true or are they always false with
  regard to preceding category?
• Categories black and white
• Traits positive and negative
• White participants
• Reaction times measured after prime (word black
  vs white)

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Adapted from Dovidio et al. (1986)
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The Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Greenwald,
McGhee Schwartz, 1998)

• We make connections more quickly between pairs of
  ideas that are already related in our minds
• It should be more difficult, and thus take
  longer, to produce evaluatively incompatible
  responses than compatible responses
• Ageism examples
• Incompatible press same key for a stimulus that
  is either old/good or young/bad (slower
  responses)
• Compatible press same key for a stimulus that
  is either old/bad or young/good (faster
  responses)
• Bias stronger mental associations between,
  e.g., old and bad, and young and good

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Results(Greenwald et al., 1998, Study 3)

• Implicit attitudinal preference for White over
  Black
• Stronger bias on IAT measure than explicit
  measure
• Implicit measures only weakly correlated with
  explicit measures
• But is it prejudice?
• gt 80 of IAT participants show pro-white
  associations
• So do about 50 of 50,000 African Americans!
• Environmental association

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Aversive Racism 1(Dovidio Gaertner, 1998)

• Existence and operation of dual attitudes
• Explicit and implicit
• Traditional form of racial prejudice is direct
  and negative
• Contemporary racial attitudes of Whites are more
  complex
• Reflecting both negative and positive reactions.
• Many people consciously, explicitly, and
  sincerely support egalitarian principles
• Believe themselves to be non-prejudiced
• But also develop unconscious negative feelings
  and beliefs about Blacks and other groups
• Aversive racists
• Consciously egalitarian but unconsciously negative

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Aversive Racism 2(Dovidio Gaertner, 1998)

• Bias is expressed in indirect ways that do not
  threaten the aversive racist's non-prejudiced
  self-image
• When inappropriate behaviour is not obvious
• When a negative response can be justified on the
  basis of some factor other than race.
• E.g., by-stander intervention, Wh vs Bl. Victim
  (Gaertner Dovidio, 1977)
• Whites may simultaneously hold egalitarian
  attitudes about Blacks while also having negative
  racial feelings
• Dual attitudes
• One explicit and egalitarian the other implicit
  and negative.
• Explicit, non-prejudiced attitudes may govern
  overt and deliberative forms of interracial
  behavior
• Implicit negative attitudes are related to
  indirect, subtle, and less obvious racial biases.

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Combating PrejudiceThe Contact Hypothesis
(Allport, 1954)
Positive contact with a member of a negatively
stereotyped group might improve negative
attitudes -- not only towards the specific
member, --but also towards the group as a whole
(generalization)
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Key Dimensions of Contact(Allport, 1954 Amir,
1969 Cook, 1982)

• Equal status
• Stereotypes are disconfirmed
• Cooperation
• Situation allows participants to get to know each
  other properly
• Norms support equality
• Cross-group friendships
• Extended/indirect contact

Should be seen as facilitating rather than
essential conditions (Pettigrew, 1998)
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Impact and Application of the Contact
Hypothesis(Pettigrew Tropp, in press)

• Positive effects of contact demonstrated in many
  domains including attitudes towards
• The elderly (Caspi, 1984)
• Gays (Herek Capitanio, 1996)
• Children with disability (Maras Brown, 1996)
• Racial and ethnic groups
• (gender?)
• Meta-analysis of gt 500 studies shows reliable
  effects

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How Does Contact Work? (Brown Hewstone, 2005)

• Generating affective ties
• Reducing (intergroup) anxiety
• Encouraging empathy perspective taking
• Promoting reciprocal self-disclosure
• Cf. emotion-based views of prejudice

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Contact is not the only Cure

• Increased empathy (e.g., Batson et al., 1997
  Finlay Stephan,2000)
• Cooperative learning paradigms (e.g., Aronson
  Patnoe, 1997)
• Multi-cultural education programs (e.g., Banks,
  1997)
• Superordinate categorization (e.g., Crisp
  Hewstone, in press Gaertner Dovidio, 2000)
• But these all involve, to a greater or lesser
  extent, intergroup contact

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Prejudice in the BrainSocial Neuroscience
(Eberhardt, 2005)

• Social neuroscience study of the neural
  correlates of social-psychological phenomena,
  including racial perception and bias
• Research tends to use fMRI, ERPs
• Uncontrollable responses

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Effects of Race on the Amygdala Phelps et al.
(2000)

• White Ps fMRI to Bl. and Wh. unfamiliar faces
  explicit measure implicit measure (IAT)
• No overall difference in amygdala activation as a
  function of stimulus race
• Differences in amygdala activation to Bl faces
  were sig. correl. with IAT (not explicit measure)
• Wh. Ps with most negative implicit attitudes
  toward Bls. showed greatest amygdala activation
  responses to Bl. Faces vs Wh. Faces
• Media furore!

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Effects of Race on the Amygdala

• Phelps et al. (2000, Study 2)
• White Ps fMRI to faces of famous, well-liked
  Bls.
• No sig. correl. between IAT responses and
  amygdala activation
• Role of social experience in alteration of neural
  responses in the amygdala
• Racial categorization processes are quite
  flexible

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But is it Bias?

• Social knowledge/experience, not bias, may
  explain these findings (parallel debate re IAT)
• Knowledge of the cultural association of Blacks
  and negative affect could elevate both amygdala
  activation and IAT
• Should these measures be used for selection
  (e.g., police recruits)?
• No! But for training/awareness

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Race and Face Processing

• What neural circuitry is involved in initial
  racial categorization?
• Attention to race occurs within first 120ms of
  onset of face stimulus (Ito Urland, 2003)
• Black and White Ps viewed unfamiliar Bl. and Wh.
  faces during fMRI (Golby et al., 2001)
• Face recognition test
• Usual ORB in racial face recognition (sig. only
  for Whs.)
• Same-race faces receive greater activation in
  fusiform face area (FFA) than other-race faces

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What does it all mean? (Eberhardt, 2005 Phelps,
2005)

• Involvement of biological processes does not
  imply something fundamental, determinative, and
  unchangeable
• Social neuroscience approach emphasizes that
  social variables can influence biological
  processes
• To the extent that Blacks and Whites have
  different social experiences they are bound to
  show differences in neural functioning
• Showing a behaviour to be in the brain does not
  indicate that it is innate, hard-wired, or
  unchangeable

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Conclusions

• Modern prejudices are more complex than
  traditional ones
• May include negative and positive associations
• Involve cognitive and affective components
• Involve dual attitudes explicit and implicit
• Which one is more important?
• It depends what behaviour you are trying to
  predict
• Can be changed by experience (contact)
• Do involve the social brain
• But that does not mean they are unchangeable

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No one is born hating another person because of
the colour of his skin, or his background, or his
religion. People must learn to hate, and if they
can learn to hate, they can be taught to love . .
. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom