Complete summary of the Rejecting Minorities (MK: Rejecting Minorities) course, now renamed Understanding Prejudice. Includes all video lectures, lectures and additions from working groups. All theories are described and explained using examples: Social Identity Theory (SIT), Realistic Group Confli...
REJECTING MINORITIES HC – WEEK 1 INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION – LIVE LECTURE
Each lecture uses an intergroup relations theory to explain why people reject minorities. The central
theories of intergroup relations:
o Social Identity Theory
o Realistic Group Conflict Theory
o Contact Theory
o Social Dominance Orientation
o Right-Wing Authoritarianism
o Integrated Threat Theory
o Theories of Socialization
Practicalities:
1. Watch the videos about the topic
a. Multiple short videos each week
b. Watch the videos before Thursday (SEE BB)
2. Attend the live lectures on Thursday
a. Brief discussion of the more complex topics in the (video)lectures
3. Attend the working group on campus
SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY – VIDEO LECTURES
A categorization process, so the categorization of people, is a central component of Social Identity
Theory. We as humans perceive groups all the time and put people in a specific category, but why do
we do this?
o Evolutionary perspective: it is necessary to distinguish a friend and an enemy
o Cognitive perspective: it is necessary to process a large amount of information
People constantly search actively for information. People simplify processing all that information by
ignoring certain differences and emphasizing (or even exaggerating) certain similarities of that
information.
TAJFEL looked at how people deal with categories and how they perceive these categories and their
differences and similarities. He set up an experiment and brought participants into a lab and showed
them a few lines and asked them to guess how long the lines were. After that he added letters (A&B)
and divided the lines into two groups.
o Categorization of non-social stimuli: similarities within groups and differences between
groups are over-emphasized.
o But can this be generalized to social stimuli?
A second experiment ‘Minimal Group Experiment’ has been done. The goal is to manipulate social
categorization as an independent variable.
o Step 1: Generate social categorization on
basis of a trivial criterion
o Step 2: Let participants give rewards to
members of their own and the other group
The participants got a reward
‘overestimated’ or ‘underestimated’ to
put them into a category (example with
dots in video lecture).
In the second part of the experiment,
the participants had to give a
monetary reward to 2 people, and they
had to choose from a strategy table
(see pp in video lecture). People
chose for the ingroup
member/strategy.
,The conclusion of these experiments is that group formation leads to discriminatory behavior (in-group
favoritism), even if groups are formed on basis of a trivial category.
o TAJFEL said that “Social categorization per se is a sufficient condition for development of
intergroup bias (discrimination in favor of the own group)”.
The above is the start of THE SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY. The SIT is based on four central
concepts:
o Social categorization
o Social identity
o Social comparison
o Sociological group distinctiveness
Social categorization is the categorization of people into groups.
o According to TAJFEL it is “the process of bringing together social objects or events in groups
which are equivalent with regard to an individual’s actions, intentions, and systems of beliefs
(Tajfel, 1982:254)
o We perceive more homogeneity by the process of social categorization. This can in the end
lead to de-humanization because you don’t see the person as a person anymore.
Social identity is based on the realization that one belongs to a social category and the positive or
negative evaluation associated with this membership.
o A social identity is divisive and exclusive. You either belong to the social category of you
don’t.
o A social identity is context dependent. You identify with different groups in different situations
o A social identity has a cultural component. There are some certain behaviors and normative
expectations attached to the identities. This turns a category into an identity
o A social identity includes a judgement of the nature of people in a certain category
A social identity is therefore more than a minimal group. Social identities may thus have even more
powerful consequences in intergroup interaction.
Social comparison is the comparing of ‘our’ groups to other groups. Through social comparison with
other groups, people try to evaluate their group’s relative status. People strive for a positive social
identity.
o People are motivated to belong to a positively evaluated group
o They value their own group more than other groups (social identification versus contra-
identification)
Psychological group distinctiveness focuses on that people, one the one hand, want to belong to a
positively evaluated group and that they, on the other hand, have the need to be distinct from others.
, o People only want to be part of a group that has something special, because you want to differ
from another group/other people around you
People thus strive to belong to groups that have positive and distinct identities, and we can see if
people really have these identities by intergroup comparison. Intergroup comparison can have two
outcomes:
o you have an adequate social identity. Within this identity, people have two goals:
They attempt to maintain superiority
They attempt to extend superiority
o you have an inadequate social identity. When people have this identity, they want to change
that (seek change). They do this by looking if there are cognitive alternatives.
NO: SITUATION IS STABLE OR LEGITIMIZED. Then you have an individual
strategy to change your social identity. This can be done in two ways (two
strategies):
Social mobility: you as a person try to leave the social group that you belong
to and join the higher states group. (For example: by education)
Intra-group comparison: you don’t compare yourself to the higher state
group, but you start to compare yourself with lower state groups because they
are ‘worse’ of. This to feel better about yourself.
YES: SITUATION NOT STABLE/LEGITIMIZED. Then you have group strategies to
change your social identity. This can be done with five different strategies:
Absorption: people give up their own identity/culture and absorb the
identity/culture of the other
Redefine characteristics: this is about changing the way some negative
characteristics are perceived (for example: the black is beautiful movement)
Creativity: this is not about changing a characteristic that is perceived
negative, but opening up a new dimension about your identity/culture (for
example: emphasizing that coffee is made in an African country OR
collectivism vs. individualism)
Compare to others: compare your social group to another social group that
is doing worse than yours
, Challenge: protesting or demonstrating because of the position of your social
group. This is the only strategy that can really proactively change the status
of a social group.
Example SIT Zwarte Piet:
o Challenge: minority groups challenge dominant position of majority on cultural dimension
o Attempt to maintain superiority: people react negatively to threats to their positive social
identity. The Dutch gain part of their positive social identity from the notion of being a very
tolerant society (Harsh reactions of the Dutch)
To sum up SIT:
o Helps understand positive and negative social relationships
o Explains behavior of dominant and subordinate group
o Allows clear hypothesis about group members’ behavior if they face negative social identity
o Is broadly applicable
REJECTING MINORITIES HC – WEEK 2 SIT & RGCT
RGCT (REALISTIC GROUP CONFLICT THEORY) – VIDEO LECTURES
In intergroup relations we often see that relations are being framed in terms of competition between
the groups. It is about the idea that refugees, minorities, newcomers, etc. take away from the natives.
o REALISTIC GROUP CONFLICT THEORY looks at this in more detail
There are a few classical explanations of prejudice:
o Early explanations of prejudice focused on personality characteristics:
ALLPORT: the prejudiced personality is ego-alienated, it longs for
definitiveness, for safety and authority
Authoritarian personality: the idea that there are some people who blindly
follow some authorities and the people who blindly follow the authorities react
really aggressively towards ‘newcomers.
But in the 1950s BLUMER spoke about that prejudice is fundamentally a matter of relationships
between racial groups. This idea/definition was inspired by the Robbers Cave Experiment by
Muzafer Sherif. This focused on the following two questions:
o How do group conflicts develop?
o How can we solve group conflicts?
o There was a summer camp with 22 boys who were split up (random allocation) into two
groups. There were phases:
Phase 1: group formation (no contact between the two groups), groups got
names and certain hierarchies & friendships developed
Phase 2: group competition (contact between the two groups), only the
winning group would get something dynamics between groups changed
(tensions beforehand & during competition)
Phase 3: Integration (contact between the two groups), get to know-activities
like watching movies or eating together. But this didn’t work
Solution: they organized shared activities on urgent problems (fix water
reservoir). They had to work together to solve the problem
This was exactly SHERIF’S idea of conflict theory. When there is competition between groups:
o In-group: solidarity, positive stereotypes
o Out-group: hostility, negative stereotypes
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