Psychology of Prejudice

1. Types of Racism

2. Value Duality & Regressive Racism

3. Group Conflict (Sherif)

4. Causes of Prejudice (review)

5. Interdependence & Jigsaw Classroom

DefinitionsJ. Kovel, White Racism

• Racism: social institutions which disadvantage a group

• Prejudice: a person’s negative stereotypes, hostility, misunderstandings

Types of PrejudiceJoel Kovel: White Racism

• Dominative Racism

• Aversive Racism

• Metaracism

Dominative Racism

• Southern Slavery

• Face-to-face domination

• Emotionally “hot”– Aggression

– Sexuality

Aversive Racism

• Northern segregation

• Separation; distance

• Emotionally “cold”

– Pollution

– Dirt

Metaracism

• Post-Civil Rights Movement

• Official anti-discrimination

• Institutional Racism– Discrimination & inequality preserved

without personal prejudice

– Stereotypes operate automatically

– Value duality & ambivalence

– “reverse” & “regressive” racism

Ambivalence / Value Duality Theories

• Katz & Hass:Attitudinal AmbivalenceValue Duality

• Rogers & Prentice-Dunn:

Reverse Racism &

Regressive Racism

Ambivalence / Value Duality( Katz & Hass )

• Background

Stigma ambivalence quick to help, exonerate

quick to blame, avoid, reject

White Attitudes• Less overt prejudice; still covert prejudice

• Lip-Service?

• Positive & negative “side by side”?

• Co-existence of anti-discrimination attitudes & racial bias

• Duality:

Blacks seen as disadvantaged & deviant

Unintentional Harm Experiments

• Subjects who inflict unintentional harm derogate (view negatively) their victims

• Cognitive dissonance theory:

harm dissonance justification

Unintentional Harm Experiments

• Whites shock confederates (black or white)

Give more negative “personal impressions” of blacks than whites

• Prejudice scale & sympathy scale( Uncorrelated )

• Whites high on both -- “ambivalent” -- gave most derogatory views of black “victim”

Post-Harm Helping Experiment

• White subjects shock black vs. white

• “Victim” departs, leaving request for help on research project: writing sentence many times

• Subjects give black “victims” 3 times the help they give to white “victims”

Value Duality

• Egalitarianism

Blacks as disadvantaged(Egalitarianism scale)

• Competitive Individualism

Blacks as deviant(Protestant Ethic scale)

Attitude Ambivalence Study

• Pro-black scale(r = .58 with scale of egalitarian values)

• Anti-black scale(r = .49 with scale of Protestant Ethic values)

• Ambivalence = pro score X anti score

Attitude Ambivalence Study

• 100 Subjects (college students)

• Student endangered by chem lab fire

• Questionnaire with 4 versions:– White X Black main character– Brave X Timid actions

• Higher ambivalence higher praise & blame of blacks

Conclusion

“A substantial number of whites hold two opposing and contradictory racial attitudes, one friendly and the other hostile.

“This ambivalence can cause behavior toward minority persons to be unstable and extreme – in either a positive or a negative direction, depending on the situation.

Regressive Racism( Rogers & Prentice-Dunn )

• New egalitarian norms

“reverse discrimination”(preferential treatment)

“Behavior Modification” / “Biofeedback” Experiment

• 96 white college S-s in groups of 4

• Monitoring confederate’s heart rate

• Giving shocks when heart rate drops

• Dependent Variable: shock intensity

shock duration

2 x 2 x 2 Factorial Design

Insult

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Deindividuation

Yes

No

Yes

No

Victim

White

Black

Results

• Main effect of deindividuation– Deindividuation higher shock

• No main effect of race of victim

• Interaction effect of insult & race

Race X Insult

InteractionEffect

Reverse discrimination

Regressive racism

Discussion

• Ambivalence: Katz’s ambivalence amplification

• Disinhibition: de-indiv & insult allow deep-seated prejudice to be expressed

• Regression: de-indiv & insult cause regression to older prejudice

Conclusions

Americans take a Janus-faced view of interracial encounters, one face looking forward but the other face focusing grimly on the past.

Implications

• In conditions of meta-racism…

many whites feel anxious & ambivalent.

• They hold sincere anti-prejudicial attitudes…

but when threatened, quick to reject and “slip into” stereotyping

What to do?

…to overcome ambivalence& prejudices

Boys’ Camp Experimenton Group Conflict

Muzafir Sherif

1956

“Robbers’ Cave” Camp

• Mapped friendship networks

• Introduced group competition

• Mapped new friendship networks

• Observed behavior

• Non-competitive social interaction

• Staged Emergency

No groups:friendship networks formed

In-Group Formation:New Friendship Networks

In-Group Formation:New friendship networks

Robbers Cave ExperimentGroup Competition

Group Competitions

• In-group solidarity + prejudice against out-group

• Hostility: scuffles & raids

• Bullies become leaders & heroes

• Epithets (even for former “best friends”)

“Ladies first!” “Get the dirt off!”

How to Reduce Conflict?

Friendly social interaction:

more hostility, epithets, taunting

Staged Emergency

Staged Emergency

• Rattlers & eagles cooperate

• Hostility, taunting drop

• New cross-group friendships form

“Robbers’ Cave” Camp

• Opportunities for pleasant interaction

continued hostility

• Interdependence (staged emergency)

decreased hostility, cooperation,

re-formed friendship patterns

Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

• Low social status

• Scapegoating

• Authoritarian Personality

• Realistic Group Conflict

• Conformity to Social Norms

Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

• Low socio-economic status

higher prejudice

Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

1. Economic & political competition

( “realistic group conflict theory” )

Sherif experiment

Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

2. Scapegoat Theory

frustration displaced aggression

– Jews as scapegoats in Nazi Germany

– Lynchings correlated with cotton prices

– Pogroms against Chinese in Indonesia

Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

3. Prejudiced Personality

Authoritarian Personality

Causes of Prejudice( Elliot Aronson )

4. Conformity to community norms

people who move shift attitudes

miners: prejudiced above ground

integrated below

“Stateways can change folkways”

• Changing attitudes often doesn’t change behavior

• Changing behavior often changes attitudes

De-segregation

• “Equal status contact”

succeeds

• “Inequality & competition”

increases hostility

Successful Integration

• Equal Status + Interdependence

– Sherif experiment

• Jigsaw Classroom

http://www.jigsaw.org/

What to do?

Inter-dependence ! ! !