social psychology prejudice: causes and curesdemarcusjackson.com/files/37456875.pdf · unscathed by...

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Social PsychologyElliot Aronson

7th edition

Elliot AronsonUniversity of California, Santa Cruz

Timothy D. WilsonUniversity of Virginia

Robin M. AkertWellesley College

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Wellesley College

slides prepared byTravis Langley

Henderson State University

Prejudice: Causes and CuresChapter 13Chapter 13

“The world is full of pots jeering at kettles.”


j g- Francois de la RochefoucauldMaxims, 1665

Prejudice: The Ubiquitous Social Phenomenon• Prejudice is ubiquitous: In one form or

another it affects us allanother, it affects us all. • For one thing, prejudice is a two-way

street; it often flows from the minority group to the majority group as well as in the other direction.


• And any group can be a target of prejudice.

Prejudice: The Ubiquitous Social PhenomenonMany aspects of your identity can cause

you to be labeled and discriminatedyou to be labeled and discriminated against:– nationality– racial and ethnic identity– gender

sexual orientation

– weight– disabilities– diseases


– sexual orientation– religion– appearance– physical state

– hair color– professions– hobbies

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Prejudice: The Ubiquitous Social PhenomenonMany aspects of your identity can cause

you to be labeled and discriminatedyou to be labeled and discriminated against.

• Consider the stereotypes of the “ditzy blonde,” “dumb jock,” or “computer nerd.”

• Some people have negative attitudes about blue-collar workers; others, about Fortune 500 CEOs.

• The point is that none of us emerges completely


• The point is that none of us emerges completely unscathed by prejudice; it is a problem common to all humankind.

Prejudice: The Ubiquitous Social PhenomenonIn addition to being widespread, prejudice is

dangerous.dangerous.Simple dislike of a group can be relentless and

can escalate to extreme hatred, to thinking of its members as less than human, and to torture, murder, and even genocide.

Even when murder or genocide is not the l i ti f j di d b li f th t t f


culmination of prejudiced beliefs, the targets of prejudice will suffer in less dramatic ways.

One frequent consequence of being the target of relentless prejudice is a diminution of one’s self-esteem.

Prejudice and Self-Esteem

• Seeds of low self-esteem are sown early.• Clark and Clark (1947) demonstrated that AfricanClark and Clark (1947) demonstrated that African

American children as young as three already thought it was not particularly desirable to be black.

• Children were offered a choice between playing with a white doll and playing with a black doll. The great majority of them rejected the black doll, feeling that the white doll was prettier and generally superior.


• Taking this evidence into consideration, the Supreme Court ruled that separating black children from white children on the basis of race alone “generates a feeling of inferiority."

Prejudice and Self-Esteem

• Goldberg (1968) women in this culture had learned to consider themselves intellectually inferior to men.

• In his experiment, Goldberg asked female college students to read scholarly articles and to evaluate them in terms of their competence and writing style.

• For some students, specific articles were signed by male authors (e.g., “John T. McKay”), while for others, the same articles were signed by female

th ( “J T M K ”)


authors (e.g., “Joan T. McKay”). • The female students rated the articles much higher if

they were attributed to a male author than if the same articles were attributed to a female author.

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A Progress Report

Significant changes have happened since those studies:studies:• The number of blatant acts of overt prejudice

and discrimination has decreased sharply.• Affirmative action opened the door to greater

opportunities for women and minorities.Th di h i d t


• The media have increased our exposure to women and minorities doing important work in positions of power and influence.

A Progress ReportThese changes are reflected in the gradual

increase in self-esteem of people in these groups.

Most recent research has failed to replicate the results of those earlier experiments.

1. African American children have gradually become more content with black dolls than


they were in the late 1930s.2. People no longer discriminate against a piece

of writing simply because it is attributed to a woman.

A Progress Report

While this progress is real, it would be a mistake to conclude that prejudice hasmistake to conclude that prejudice has ceased to be a serious problem in the United States.

Prejudice exists in countless subtle and not-so-subtle ways.


For the most part, in America, prejudice has gone underground and become less overt.

Prejudice DefinedPrejudice is an attitude.Attitudes are made up of three components: • affective or emotional component, representing

both the type of emotion linked with the attitude (e.g., anger, warmth) and the extremity of the attitude (e.g., mild uneasiness, outright hostility),

• cognitive component, involving the beliefs or


g p gthoughts (cognitions) that make up the attitude,

• behavioral component, relating to one’s actions—people don’t simply hold attitudes; they usually act on them as well.

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Prejudice Defined

Prejudice refers to the general attitude structure and its affective (emotional)structure and its affective (emotional) component.

While prejudice can involve either positive or negative affect, social psychologists (and people in general) use the word


( p p g )prejudice primarily when referring to negative attitudes about others.

Prejudice DefinedPrejudiceA hostile or negative attitude toward people

Prejudice refers to the general attitude structure and its affective (emotional) component.

g p pin a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership in that group.


While prejudice can involve either positive or negative affect, social psychologists (and people in general) use the word prejudiceprimarily when referring to negative attitudes about others.

Stereotypes: The Cognitive Component

The distinguished journalist Walter Li (1922) h th fi t tLippmann (1922), who was the first to introduce the term stereotype, described the distinction between the world out there and stereotypes—“the little pictures we carry around inside our heads.”


Within a given culture, these pictures tend to be remarkably similar.


StereotypeA generalization about a group of people in which identical characteristics are assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual variation among the members


Once formed, stereotypes are resistant to change on the basis of new information.

among the members.

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Stereotyping is a cognitive process, not an ti lemotional one.

Stereotyping does not necessarily lead to intentional acts of abuse.

Often stereotyping is merely a technique we use to simplify how we look at the world—


use to simplify how we look at the world—and we all do it to some extent.

Sports, Race, and Attribution

• Potential abuse of stereotyping’s mental shortcuts can be blatant and obvious—as whenshortcuts can be blatant and obvious—as when one ethnic group is considered lazy or another ethnic group is considered greedy.

• Potential abuse can be more subtle—and might involve a stereotype about a positive attribute.



So what here is abusive to the minority?Wh ’ i h h i li i h bl kWhat’s wrong with the implication that black

men can jump?

The abuse enters when we ignore the overlap in the distributions—like when we


ignore the fact that plenty of African American kids are not adept at basketball and a plenty of white kids are.


So what here is abusive to the minority?Wh ’ i h h i li i h bl kWhat’s wrong with the implication that black

men can jump?

The abuse enters when we ignore the overlap in the distributions—like when we

Thus if we meet a young African American man and feel astonished at his


overlap in the distributions like when we ignore the fact that plenty of African American kids are not adept at basketball and a plenty of white kids are.

ineptitude on the basketball court, we are, in a very real sense, denying him his individuality.

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Stereotypes, Attribution, and Gender

1. Compared to men, women do tend to manifest behaviors that can best be described as morebehaviors that can best be described as more socially sensitive, friendlier, and more concerned with the welfare of others, while men tend to behave in ways that are more dominant, controlling, and independent.

2. Some data indicate that the stereotype tends to underestimate the actual gender differences


underestimate the actual gender differences.3. While overlap exists between men and women

on these characteristics, the differences are too consistent to be dismissed as unimportant.


Needless to say, the phenomenon of gender stereotyping often does not reflect reality andstereotyping often does not reflect reality and can cut deeply.

When a man is successful on a given task, observers of both sexes attribute his success to ability.

If i f l t th t t k


If a woman is successful at that same task, observers attribute her success to hard work.

Stereotypes, Attribution, and GenderEven as children, girls have a tendency to

downplay their own ability.

While fourth-grade boys attribute their own successful outcomes on a difficult intellectual task to their ability, girls tend to derogate their own successful performance.

While boys learn to protect their egos by


y p g yattributing their own failures to bad luck, girls take more blame for failures.


These beliefs can be influenced by the attitudes of our society in general and parentsof our society in general and parents.

• Mothers who hold the strongest gender-stereotypical beliefs also believe their own daughters have relatively low math ability and that their sons have relatively high math ability.

• Mothers who don't hold stereotypical beliefs do


• Mothers who don t hold stereotypical beliefs do not see their daughters as less able in math than their sons.

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Discrimination:The Behavioral Component

DiscriminationDiscriminationAn unjustified negative or harmful action toward the members of a group simply because of their membership in that group.


Adapted from Bond, diCandia & McKennon, 1988.


Discrimination against Homosexuals

Several studies have shown homosexuals face much discrimination and antipathy in day-to-daymuch discrimination and antipathy in day-to-day lives.

Unlike women, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities, homosexuals are not protected by national laws banning discrimination in the workplace.


workplace.Only 11 states have such laws.

Discrimination against Homosexuals

Researchers have found that compared to the way they interacted with “non-the way they interacted with non-homosexuals,” employers interacting with job applicants they have been led to think are homosexual:– were less verbally positive– spent less time interviewing them


spent less time interviewing them– used fewer words while chatting with them– made less eye contact with them

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What Causes Prejudice?


The Way We Think: Social Cognition

Our first explanation for what causes prejudice is that it is the inevitable byproduct of the way we process and yp y porganize information.

Our tendency to categorize and group information, to form schemas and use them to interpret new or unusual information, to rely on potentially inaccurate heuristics (shortcuts in mental reasoning), and to depend on what are often faulty memory processes—all of these


y y paspects of social cognition can lead us to form negative stereotypes and to apply them in a discriminatory way.

Social Categorization: Us versus Them

• The first step in prejudice is the creation of groups—putting some people into one groupgroups—putting some people into one group based on certain characteristics and others into another group based on their different characteristics.

• This kind of categorization is the underlying theme of human social cognition.


theme of human social cognition.• Thus social categorization is both useful and

necessary; however, this simple cognitive process has profound implications.

Social Categorization: Us versus Them

For example, in Jane Elliot’s third-grade classroom, children grouped according to eye color began to actchildren grouped according to eye color began to act differently based on that social categorization.

• Blue-eyed children, the superior group, stuck together and actively promoted and used their higher status and power in the classroom.

• They formed an in-group, defined as the group with which an individual identifies.


• The blue-eyed kids saw the brown-eyed ones as outsiders—different and inferior.

• To the blue-eyed children, the brown-eyed kids were the out-group, the group with which the individual does not identify.

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In-Group Bias

In-Group BiasIn Group BiasPositive feelings and special treatment for people we have defined as being part of our in-group and negative feelings and unfair treatment for others simply because we have defined them as being in the out-group


defined them as being in the out-group.

In-Group Bias

The major underlying motive is self-esteem: I di id l k h h i lf• Individuals seek to enhance their self-esteem by identifying with specific social groups.

• Self-esteem will be enhanced only if the individual sees these groups as superior


individual sees these groups as superior to other groups.

In-Group Bias

To get at the pure, unvarnished mechanisms behind this phenomenon, researchers have created entities that they refer to as minimal groups.

• In these experiments, complete strangers are formed into groups using the most trivial criteria imaginable.


• For example, in one experiment, participants watched a coin toss that randomly assigned them to either group X or group W.

In-Group BiasThe striking thing about this research is that despite

the fact that the participants were strangers before the experiment and didn’t interact during it theythe experiment and didn t interact during it, they behaved as if those who shared the same meaningless label were their dear friends or close kin.

• They liked the members of their own group better.• They rated the members of their in-group as more


y g plikely to have pleasant personalities and to have done better work than out-group members.

• Most striking, participants allocated more rewards to those who shared their label.

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Out-Group Homogeneity

OUT-GROUP HOMOGENEITYTh b li f h “ h ” llThe belief that “they” are all

alike.

In-group members tend to perceive out-group members as being more similar (homogeneous)


members as being more similar (homogeneous) than they really are—and more homogenous than the in-group members.

If you know something about one out-group member, you are more likely to feel you know something about all of them.

Adapted from Quattrone & Jones 1980


Jones, 1980.

The Failure of Logic

Even people who are usually sensible become relatively immune to rational logicalrelatively immune to rational, logical arguments when it comes to their prejudice.

Why is this so? 1. It is primarily the emotional aspect of

attitudes that makes a prejudiced person so hard to agree with. Logical arguments are


not effective in countering emotions.


Even people who are usually sensible become relatively immune to rational logicalrelatively immune to rational, logical arguments when it comes to their prejudice.

Why is this so? 2. As discussed in earlier chapters, an attitude

tends to organize the way we process relevant information about the targets of that


attitude.

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Specifically, information consistent with their ti b t th t t ill bnotions about these target groups will be:

• Given more attention• Rehearsed (or recalled) more often, and• Therefore remembered better than

information that contradicts these


information that contradicts these notions.

The Persistence of Stereotypes

Stereotypes reflect cultural beliefs.E if d ’ b li hEven if we don’t believe these

stereotypes, we can easily recognize them as common beliefs held by others.


The Activation of Stereotypes


Adapted from Greenberg & Pysczynski, 1985.

Automatic and ControlledProcessing of Stereotypes

• An automatic process is one over which we have no controlwe have no control.

• Stereotypes are automatically triggered under certain conditions—they just pop into one’s mind.

• Since the process is automatic, you can’t control it or stop it from occurring


control it or stop it from occurring.• However, for people who are not deeply

prejudiced, their control processes can suppress or override these stereotypes.

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The Justification-Suppression Model of Prejudice

• According to Crandall and Eschleman’s (2003) model, most people struggle between their urge to express prejudice and need to maintain positive self-concept (as a non-bigot).

• However, it requires energy to suppress prejudiced impulses.

• Because people are programmed to avoid the constant expenditure of energy, we seek information that can


convince us there is a valid justification for holding a negative attitude toward a particular out-group.

• Once we find a valid justification for disliking this group, we can act against them and still feel as though we are not bigots—thus avoiding cognitive dissonance.

The Illusory Correlation

Illusory CorrelationWhen we expect two things to be related, we fool ourselves into believing that they are actually unrelated.


Can We Change Stereotypical Beliefs?

• Researchers have found that when people are presented with an example or two that seemspresented with an example or two that seems to refute their existing stereotype, most do notchange their general belief.

• Indeed, in one experiment, some people presented with disconfirming evidence actually strengthened stereotypical belief because the


strengthened stereotypical belief because the disconfirming evidence challenged them to come up with additional reasons for holding on to that belief.

How We Assign Meaning: Attributional Biases


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Dispositional versusSituational Explanations

• One reason stereotypes are so insidious and persistent is the human tendency toand persistent is the human tendency to make dispositional attributions.

• Relying too heavily on dispositional attributions often leads us to make attributional mistakes.



Ultimate Attribution ErrorOur tendency to make dispositional

attributions about an individual’s negative behavior to an entire group of people.



Researchers had college students read fictionalized files on prisoners to make a parole decision. p p

Sometimes the crime matched the common stereotype of the offender—for example, when a Hispanic male, committed assault and battery, or when an upper-class Anglo-American committed embezzlement.

When prisoners’ crimes were consistent with participants’ stereotypes the students’ recommendations for parole


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.

Stereotype Threat

When African American students find h l i hi hl l ithemselves in highly evaluative educational situations, most tend to experience apprehension about confirming the existing negative cultural stereotype of “intellectual inferiority.”


yp y

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Stereotype Threat

Stone and his colleagues (1999) found that when a game of miniature golf was framed aswhen 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


natural athletic ability the pattern reversed, and the black athletes outperformed the whites.

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


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.

Stereotype Threat

• How can the effects of stereotype threat be reversed?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


selective northeastern liberal arts college” students eliminated the gender gap on a spatial ability test.

Expectations and Distortions

• When a member of an out-group behaves as we expect, it confirms and even strengthens our p , gstereotype. And when an out-group member behaves in an unexpected, nonstereotypical fashion?

• Attribution theory provides the answer: we can simply engage in some attributional fancy footwork and emerge with our dispositional stereotype intact.

• Principally we can make situational attributions about


Principally, we can make situational attributions about the exception—for example, that the person really is as we believe, but it just isn’t apparent in this situation.

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Blaming the Victim

When empathy is absent, it can be hard to avoid blaming the victim for his or

Ironically, this tendency to blame victims for their victimization is typically motivated by a desire to see the world as a fair and

to avoid blaming the victim for his or her plight.


by a desire to see the world as a fair and just place, one where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Self-fulfilling Prophecies

On a societal level, the insidiousness of the self-fulfilling prophecy goes farfulfilling 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.


Prejudice and Economic Competition: Realistic Conflict Theory

• Realistic conflict theory holds that limitedRealistic 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

t ll l i l


over mutually exclusive goals.

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Economic and Political Competition

When times are tough and resources are scarce:scarce:1. In-group members will feel more

threatened by the out-group.2. Incidents of prejudice, discrimination,

and violence toward out-group members


and violence toward out group members will increase.

The Role of the Scapegoat

Research on scapegoating shows that individuals when frustrated or unhappyindividuals, 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


gg pwhat is allowed or approved by the in-group in question.

The Way We Conform: Normative Rules


When Prejudice Is Institutionalized

• Simply by living in a society where stereotypical information abounds and where discriminatoryinformation 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 as institutionalized racism and


specifically, as institutionalized racism and institutionalized sexism.

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When Prejudice Is Institutionalized

Normative ConformityThe strong tendency to go along with

the group in order to fulfill the group’s expectations and gain acceptance.


“Modern” Prejudice

• As the norm swings toward tolerance, many people simply become more careful—p p p youtwardly 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.


Subtle and Blatant Prejudice Elsewhere

Examples of blatant prejudice abound in newspaper headlines: •Ethic cleansing in Bosnia.•Violent conflict between Arabs and Jews in Middle East.•Mass murder between warring tribes in Rwanda.•Bother blatant and “modern” subtle racism in


•Bother blatant and modern subtle racism in France, Great Britain, etc.

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Subtle Sexism

• Hostile sexists hold stereotypical views of women that suggest that women areof women that suggest that women are inferior to men (e.g., that they are less intelligent, less competent, and so on).

• Benevolent sexists hold stereotypically positive views of women.


p

How Can Prejudice Be Reduced?


The Contact Hypothesis

Mere contact between groups is not sufficient to reduce prejudicereduce prejudice.

In fact, it can create opportunities for conflict that may increase it.

Prejudice will decrease when two conditions are met: 1 Both groups are of equal status


1. Both groups are of equal status.2. Both share a common goal.

When Contact Reduces Prejudice:Six Conditions

Sherif and colleagues (1961) found:• Once hostility and distrust were established• 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 InterdependenceThe need to depend on each other to accomplish a goal that is important to each group.

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Adapted from Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood & Sherif, 1961.

When Contact Reduces Prejudice:Six Conditions

1 M t l i t d d1. Mutual interdependence2. Common goal3. Equal status4. Friendly, informal setting


5. Knowing multiple out-group members6. Social norms of equality

Social PsychologyElliot Aronson

7th edition

Elliot AronsonUniversity of California, Santa Cruz

Timothy D. WilsonUniversity of Virginia

Robin M. AkertWellesley College


Wellesley College

slides prepared byTravis Langley

Henderson State University

social psychology prejudice: causes and curesdemarcusjackson.com/files/37456875.pdf · unscathed by...

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