User:Sandy~enwikiversity/Week 5 Prejudice & Stereotypes

Prejudice
A negative attitude, or feeling, towards a person purely because they are a member of a certain group.
 * Discrimination – unequal (positive or negative) treatment bases on group membership e.g. woman in particular roles
 * Stereotypes – beliefs that associate groups with certain traits e.g. indigenous alcoholism
 * Subtypes – categories for people who don’t fit in to a general stereotype e.g. woman in the fire brigade

Categorisation – a natural human tendency to group object

Social Categorisation – sorting people in to groups based on their common characteristics e.g. men.

Cognitive Miser – to think in simple ways e.g. we sort people into categories to predict behaviour

Prejudice and intergroup Relations

 * Outgroup members (them) – belonging to another group
 * Ingroup members – (us) – the group I belong to
 * Out-group homogeneity bias – the assumption that the outgroup members have more in common than ingroups e.g. they all look the same
 * Eyewitnesses are more accurate when identifying people in their own racial group and angry outgroup members are easier to identify than angry ingroup members

Common Prejudices and Targets
Racial prejudice (racism) Gender prejudice (sexism) Overweight anti-fat attitudes begin as early as preschool The overweight stigma is that it is socially unappealing Both men and woman are intolerant of homosexuality in their own gender through perhaps the possible fear of a homosexual making advance on them or they may fear they’ll have a positive response to advances
 * Most prejudices come are the result of external characteristics such as the colour of the skin
 * Gender and race are the most common groups
 * Other common groups are Arabs (since September 11, 2001), overweight people and homosexuals (homophobia)
 * Stigma by association – discrimination towards those associated with the stigmatised person
 * Most people claim they are not prejudice but their behaviour can differ from the attitudes they express

Racism
Prejudice attitudes toward a particular group. It is much more subtle today than in the past. Aversive Racism Holding egalitarian values (everyone is equal) and negative feelings at the same time. Believing in racial equality and equal opportunity while feeling uncomfortable around and trying to avoid minorities where possible.

Discrimination
The unequal treatment of different people purely because of the groups or categories they belong to.

A B C of Intergroup Relationships
People are increasingly aware of what is socially acceptable (social identity theory)
 * Affective (emotional) component – prejudice
 * Behavioural component – discrimination (action taken not giving)
 * Cognitive component – stereotyping (putting people in groups)

Why Prejudice Exists

 * Our tendency to hold stereotypes and prejudices may be inborn. We learn the content of stereotypes through socialisation
 * We seem to automatically know stereotypes and have to consciously work to override them
 * We have ingroup favouritism and give preferential treatment to our own group members
 * Ingroup favouritism still occurs even if the group is randomly selected
 * Rationalisation for oppression – a powerful group retains its power through the use of stereotypes and prejudices
 * Prejudice and self-esteem – it can be self-affirming and if other groups are inferior ours must be superior. We also like to compete.
 * Culture increases the importance of stereotypes and helps us to deal with our social world
 * Stereotypes allow us to take mental shortcuts. “The law of least effort”(Allport)

Us Versus Them: Groups in Competition
Discontinuity Effect
 * Groups are more competitive than individuals and are motivated by greed or fear.
 * Realistic conflict theory – competing for a lack of resources leads to intergroup hostility

Reduce intergroup competitiveness
 * Create subordinate goals where the groups need to solve a problem or work together
 * By making the group member identifiable

Inner Processes
 * Although most stereotypes are negative they can also positive e.g. all Ethiopians are good long distance runners
 * The negative stereotypes last longer and it takes more exceptions to dispel a bad stereotype
 * Stereotypes can be formed on features that aren’t the norm and stand out (salience)
 * Scapegoat theory blames problems on the outgroup which in turn contributes and confirms the negative views
 * Self-serving bias – when things go right we attribute it to ourselves but when things wrong we blame another cause such as others or our environment
 * We behave aggressively to outgroups when things are going tough
 * Conflict and stress bring out stereotypes
 * To confirm our biases we use our existing stereotypes

Overcoming Stereotypes and Reducing Prejudice

 * We need to consciously override our prejudices and stereotypes
 * We have internal (morally wrong) and external (not socially acceptable) motivations to our prejudices and stereotypes
 * If we are accused of prejudice we tend to overcompensate or discriminate in reverse to prove the opposite
 * If we have frequent contact with a person or group this may reduce our prejudice

Impact of Prejudice of Targets
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
 * Our prediction may influence our behaviour which in turn may prove our prediction
 * Some target begin to behave the way they are stereotyped to behave

Self-defeating Prophecy
 * Our prediction may influence our behaviour which in turn may make the prediction not come true

Contact Hypothesis There needs to be equal status The social norms need to favour the equality The contact must be sustained The groups need to cooperate The groups need to be perceived as similar
 * Direct contact reduces prejudice, but:

../Week 10 Relationships/