Theme 5 – Stereotypes and prejudices
Vignette 1-3
• (Kassin, Fein & Markus, 2020 – Social Psychology)
• (Kunda & Spencer, 2003 – When do stereotypes come to mind and when do they colour
judgment? A goal-based theoretical framework for stereotype activation and application)
• (Burns, Monteith & Parker, 2017 – Training away bias: The differential effects of
counterstereotype training and self-regulation on stereotype activation and application)
VIGNETTE 1
What are the underlying mechanisms causing stereotyping and prejudice?
Why are specific groups more stereotyped than others within a culture?
(Kassin, Fein & Markus, 2020 – Social Psychology)
The Nature of the Problem: Persistence and Change
Defining our Terms
❖ Stereotypes: Beliefs or associations that link whole groups of people with certain traits or
characteristics.
❖ Prejudice: Consists of negative feelings about others because of their connection to a social
group. Whereas stereotypes concern associations or beliefs and prejudice concerns feelings.
❖ Discrimination: Concerns behaviour – specially, negative behaviours directed against persons
because of their memberships in a particular group.
These 3 can operate somewhat independently, but they often influence and reinforce each other.
Racism: Current Forms and Challenges
❖ Modern Racism: This is a subtle form of prejudice that tends to surface when it is safe,
socially acceptable, or easy to rationalize, is far more subtle and most likely to be present
under the cloud of ambiguity. Many people are racially ambivalent; they want to see
themselves as fair, but they still harbour feelings of anxiety and discomfort about other racial
groups.
❖ Aversive racism: Concerns the ambivalence between individuals’ sincerely fair-minded
attitude and beliefs, and their largely unconscious and unrecognized negative feelings and
beliefs about blacks. Some scholar use the term micro-aggression to characterize the
everyday, rather subtle but hurtful forms of discrimination that are experienced frequently
by members of targeted groups. EG: ‘I can’t be racist because I have black friends’.
❖ Implicit Racism: Operates unconsciously and unintentionally. Implicit racism can skew
judgements, feelings, and behaviour, without including the guilt of more conscious, explicit
forms of racism. It may be subtle, but the effects can be profound. EG: The more the
defendant’s appearance was stereotypically black, the more likely was a death sentence.
Because of implicit racism, it can’t be assessed by asking people to answer some questions about
their attitudes. The most well-known measures is the Implicit Association Test (IAT): measures the
extent to which 2 concepts are associated. It measures racism by comparing how quickly or slowly
participants associate cues from a group with negative and positive concepts compared to another
group.
Interracial interactions
The divides between racial and ethnic groups tend to be more vast and may promote stronger
feelings of hostility, fear, and distrust than the divides based on other social categories, such as
gender, appearance, and age. The relative lack of contact between people of different racial and
ethnic groups can keep these negative feelings strong. Also the stigma of being perceived as racist is
troubling for most people. This combination of stronger negative emotions, less contact, and greater
,anxiety about appearing racist makes interracial interaction challenging and fraught with emotion
and tensions.
White may be concerned about not wanting to appear racist and may try to regulate their
behaviours. Because of this, interactions can become awkward and exhausting, which can affect their
partner’s perceptions, leading to appearing to be racist.
➢ Researchers found that white participants high in implicit racism are more likely to perform
worse on a simple cognitive task after interacting with a black than a white confederate,
which is evidence that the interaction was cognitively draining for them.
Being Stigmatized
We are all target of other people’s stereotypes and prejudices → none of us is immune. But, for the
targets of some stereotypes and prejudices, these concerns are more relentless and profound:
➢ Social psychologists often refer to these targets as stigmatized: Individuals who are targets of
negative stereotypes, perceived as deviant, and devalued in society because they are
members of a particular social group or because they have a particular characteristic.
What are some of the effects of being stigmatized by stereotypes and prejudice?
The targets of stigmatizing stereotypes frequently wonder whether and to what extent others’
impressions of them are distorted through the lens of social categorization. On some occasions these
suspicions can actually serve a self-protective function. EG: A study found that black students who
receive negative interpersonal feedback from a white student suffered less of blow to their self-
esteem if they could easily attribute the negative reaction to racism. On the other hand, their self-
esteem was reduced by positive feedback from a white student if they could suspect that this
feedback may have been due to their race.
It can also make people feel as if they have less personal control over their lives, especially when they
have reason to think that the discrimination against them could persist over time → may lead to a
variety of negative outcomes → increased risk for serious and long-term physical and psychological
problems. EG: Increased blood pressure, depression, breast cancer rates.
Stereotype Treat: A Threat in the Air
In situations where a negative stereotype can apply to certain groups, members of these groups can
fear being seen through the lens of diminishing stereotypes and low expectations, called stereotype
threat. There are negative feelings of worry and anxiety what leads to self-fulfilling prophecy.
According to Steele’s theory, stereotype threat can hinder achievement in academic domains in 2
ways:
- Reactions to the ‘threat in the air’ can directly interfere with performance.
- If this stereotype threat is chronic in the academic domain, it can cause individuals to
disidentify from that domain.
The Original Experiments
Steele and others conducted a series of experiments in which they manipulated factors likely to
increase or decrease stereotype threat as students took academic tests. One of those was:
- Study 3: Some students were told that the test generally showed no gender differences and
to some students were told is does. Women performed worse than men on a math test
when they were told that the test typically produced gender differences, but they performed
as well as men when they were told that the test typically did not produce gender
differences.
The Prevalence and Diversity of Threats
, Individuals can be affected by stereotype threat even if they do not believe in the stereotype. The
performance of people who have had success at something and who care the most may be most
affected by threat effects → just knowing seems enough → particularly if the individual identifies
strongly with the targeted group and cares about performance well.
Some examples of groups whose performance was hurt by stereotype threat:
- Low SES students in France and the US on a verbal test when the test was said to be
diagnostic of intellectual ability.
- Individuals with a history of mental illness on a test of reasoning ability when asked about
their illness before taking the test.
- Women driving after being reminded of demeaning stereotypes about female drivers.
Causes of Stereotype Threat Effects
Stereotypes triggers physiological arousal and stress, drains cognitive resources, causes a loss of
focus to the task at hand because of attempts to suppress thoughts about the relevant stereotype,
impairs working memory, activated negative thoughts, worry, feelings of dejection, and concerns
about trying to avoid failure than trying to achieve success.
Causes of the Problem: Intergroup, Motivational, Cognitive, and Cultural Factors
They are caused by more than just a few factors.
Social Categories and Intergroup Conflict
The classification of our social world into groups on the basis of gender, race, and other attributes in
a process called social categorization, which is in some ways natural and adaptive. It allows us to
form impressions quickly and use experience to guide new interaction. This leads us to overestimate
differences between groups and underestimate differences within groups.
The distinctions between some of these social categories may be seen as more rigid, even more
biologically rooted, than they actually are. There is more genetic variation within races than between
them and that race is more of a social conception than a genetic reality. How societies make
distinctions between races can change dramatically as a function of historical contexts (e.g. Irish
Americans were seen as distinct from whites). Whether individuals think of various social categories
as fixed and biologically rooted or not can be important. People who tend to think of race as a stable,
biologically determined entity are less likely to interact with racial outgroup members and are more
likely to accept racial inequalities than are people who see race as more socially determined.
Ingroup Versus Outgroup
When it comes to social categorization, perceivers themselves are members or non-members of the
categories they use → ingroups vs outgroups. Consequences of this are:
❖ We exaggerate the differences between our ingroup and outgroups, and this helps to form
and reinforce stereotypes.
❖ Outgroup homogeneity effect: Perceivers assume a greater similarity among members of
outgroups than among members of one’s own group. EG: Westerners see people from China,
Korea, and Taiwan all as Asians, whereas these people see themselves as quite distinct. This
may be because people tend to have less personal contact and familiarity with individual
members of outgroups, so they do not encounter a representative sample of outgroup
members.
Dehumanizing Outgroups
Perceivers can sometimes process outgroup faces more like objects/animals than like fellow human
beings. They found no activation of the medial prefrontal context (necessary for social cognition), in
response to images of either nonhuman objects or people for psychologically distant outgroups, such
as addicts. EG in history: Nazi’s and Jews.
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