Summary
Summary Stereotypes and prejudice - Devine
- Course
- Institution
Stereotypes and prejudice - Devine (1989) Full english summary
[Show more]
Seller
Followscarlettrosethorne
Content preview
Stereotypes and Prejudice: Their Automatic and Controlled ComponentsAbstract
- 3 studies tested assumptions from a model based on the dissociation of
automatic and controlled processes involved in prejudice
- Study 1:
- supported assumptions that high and low prejudice people are equally
knowledgeable of the cultural stereotype
- Suggested that the stereotype is automatically activated in the
presence of a member of the stereotyped group & that low prejudice
responses require controlled inhibition of the automatically activated
stereotype
- Study 2:
- Examined effects of automatic stereotype activation on the evaluation
of ambiguous stereotype-relevant behaviours performed by a race-
unspecified person
- Suggested that when subject’s ability to consciously monitor stereotype
activation is prevented, both high and low prejudice subjects produce
stereotype congruent evaluations of ambiguous behaviours
- Study 3:
- Examined high and low prejudice subjects responses in a consciously
directed thought-listing task
- Supporting model, only low prejudice subjects inhibited the
automatically activated stereotype congruent thoughts and replaced
them with thought reflecting equality and negations of stereotype
Intro
- Many theorists have suggested that prejudice is an inevitable consequence of
normal categorisation (stereotyping) processes
- This ‘inevitability of prejudice’ perspective states that as long as stereotypes
exist, prejudice will follow
- Approach suggests that stereotypes are automatically applied to members of
the stereotyped group i.e. knowledge of a stereotype is equated with prejudice
- This approach has implications bc no one can escape learning about
prevailing attitudes / stereotypes towards ethnic groups
- Approach overlooks important distinction between knowledge of a cultural
stereotype & acceptance or endorsement of it i.e altho one may have
knowledge of a stereotype, his/her beliefs may or may not be congruent with it
- Argued that stereotypes and conceptually distinct cognitive structures
- Beliefs can differ from one’s knowledge about a group
- Because stereotypes & beliefs represent different subsets of info about ethnic
groups, they may have different implications for evaluation of and behaviour
toward members of the ethnic & racial groups
- Goal: Examine how stereotypes & personal beliefs are involved in responses
, toward stereotyped groups
- Paper challenges inevitability of prejudice model & offers a model of
responses to stereotyped groups that’s derived from work in info processing
that distinguishes between automatic (involuntary) and controlled (mostly
voluntary) processes
- Automatic processes:
- Involve the unintentional/spontaneous activation of some well-learned
set of associations/responses that may have been developed through
repeated activation in memory
- Do not require conscious effort & are initiated by the presence of
stimulus cues in environment
- Inescapability (occur despite deliberate attempts to ignore)
- Controlled processes:
- Intentional & require the active attention of the individual
- Limited by capacity, but more flexible (than automatic)
- Useful for decision making, problem solving & new behaviours
- Previous work on both processes suggests that they can operate
independently of each other (tested in studies of semantic priming on words)
- E.g. prime was either semantically related to the target (body-arm) or related
to the target through instruction (participants told that ‘body’ would be followed
by the name of a bird like sparrow)
- In latter condition, subjects had a conscious expectancy for bird name, but
body should have also automatically primed its semantic category of body
parts
- Found that with short intervals, prime facilitated decisions for semantically related
targets (automatic)
- With longer intervals, induced expectancies produced facilitation for expected
targets (bird) AND inhibition for unexpected targets (eg body) regardless of their
semantic relation
- Before inhibition of automatically activated responses can occur, there has to be
enough time & cog capacity for conscious expectancy to develop & inhibit the
automatic processes
Study 1: Stereotype Content & Prejudice Level
- Examined high and low prejudice subjects knowledge of the content of the
stereotype of blacks
- Used a free response task in which no clues were provided
- Both asked to list content of the stereotype of blacks regardless of their beliefs
Method
- 40 white students, isolated
- Remained anonymous
- After listing content, subjects completed 7 item Modern Racism Scale
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller scarlettrosethorne. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $7.61. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
67232 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now