Psych 351 Chap 9 Prejudice

Negative feelings about others because of their connection to a social group

negative behaviors directed against persons because of their membership in a particular group

beliefs that associate a whole group of people with certain traits

prejudice and discrimination based on a person's background

prejudice and discrimination based on a person's gender

Conscious

Automatic

A form of racism that surfaces in subtle ways when it is safe, socially acceptable, and easy to rationalize. (appears subtly, in our preferences for what is familiar, similar, and comfortable)

divides based on race seem to be more vast and promote stronger feelings of hostility, fear, and distrust than with other social categories such as gender age, etc.
*Being perceived as part of an outgroup may automatically trigger such a response.

labor market discrimination
*patronization
*avoiding criticisms
*overpraising accomplishments

*Involves primitive regions of the brain(amygdala) are associated with fear

Benevolent and Hostile
*most see women as understanding, kind, and helpful, controlling and weak

Disappearing in democratic Western countries
*Non-Western countries gender bias is still strong

*Social dominance orientation
*motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups.
*being in a dominant high-status position tends to promote this orientation and justification

*Personality that's disposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of out-groups and those lower in status

Believing in the superiority of one's own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups.

leaders invoke religion to sanctify the present order.
*Church members express more racial prejudice than nonmembers.
*Those professing traditional or fundamentalist Christian beliefs express more prejudice than those professing more progressive beliefs.

* If prejudice is socially accepted, many people will follow the path of least resistance and conform to the fashion.
*If prejudice is not deeply ingrained in personality, then as fashions changes and new norms evolve, prejudice can diminish.

government, school (books, stories), magazines and newspapers (face-ism), films and TV

Displaced frustration and aggression
eg) Low cotton prices, economic chaos in Germany after WWI

prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources

Feeling superior to others
* We strive to enhance our self-esteem, which is comprised of 2 components:
1) personal identity
2) social identities
**the "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I? " that comes from our group memberships.

*tendency to favor to one's own group
*because of our social identifications, we conform to our group norms.
* when our group succeeds, we feel better by identifying strongly with it.

1) threats to one's self-esteem heighten the need for ingroup favoritism
2)expressions of in-group favoritism enhances one's self-esteem

*Degree of in-group identification
*relative size and distinctiveness of one's in-group
*person's status relative to others in the in-group

**Feeling superior to others
*Need for status, self-regard, and belonging

People's self-protective emotional and cognitive responses when confronted with reminders of their mortality

Motivation to avoid prejudice can lead people to modify their thoughts and actions.
* Self- conscious people will feel guilt and try to inhibit their prejudicial response.

(Cognitive source)
**Classification of persons into groups on the basis of attributes.
*In some ways, is natural and adaptive (saves time and energy)
* But can lead to overestimation of differences between groups and underestimation of differences within groups.

**Social identity theory implies that those who feel their social identity keenly will concern themselves with correctly categorizing people as US or THEM
* Necessary for prejudice.

(Perceived similarities and Differences)
* Perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members.

Tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race.

Often do not notice subtle differences among outgroups because have little personal contact with them.
Often do not encounter a representative sample of outgroup members.
New research indicates that perceivers may actually process faces of outgroups members more like objects than fellow human beings

**Perceiving people who stand out
*Distinctive people= feeds on self-consciousnesss

*Person's expectation of being victimized by prejudice or discrimination

**Given limited experience with a particular social group.
*can prime the stereotype

**Stereotypes assume a correlation between group membership and individuals' presumed characteristics.
*Attentiveness to unusual occurrences
.

**the tendency for people to overestimate the link between variables that are only slightly or not at all correlated.
**Tend to overestimate the association between variables when::
1. The variables are distinctive (Availability heuristics)
2. The variables are already expected to go together (Representative heuristics)

*Stereotypes are often maintained and strengthened through confirmation biases.
*Tendency to interpret, seek, and create information to confirm expectations.

*Whenever a member of a group behaves as expected, we duly note the fact; our prior belief is confirmed.
*When a member of a group behaves inconsistently with our expectation, we may interpret or explain away the behavior as due to special circumstances.

**accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as "exceptions to the rule"

**Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group.

*Tendency of people to believe that the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

*Explaining away outgroup members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions.