C82SAD Prejudice and Discrimination
Jan 01, 2016
C82SAD Prejudice and Discrimination
What is Prejudice?
• Prejudice: An unfavorable attitude towards a social group and its members
• Discrimination: Singling out members of a social group for prejudice based on attributes of their group membership
• Dehumanisation: Stripping people of their dignity and humanity
Prejudice and the Bystander Effect
0102030405060708090
100
White Black
Race of victim
No otherpotentialhelpersTwo otherpotentialhelpers
Per
cen
tag
e o
f p
arti
cip
ants
off
erin
g t
oai
d a
pp
aren
t vi
ctim
Source: Gaertner and Dovidio (1977)
Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination
• Sex stereotyping – social stereotypes of women as “nice and incompetent and men as competent but not so nice” prevail across cultures and in both genders! (Fiske, 1998)
• But research suggests that people do not actually describe themselves in terms of this sex stereotype (Martin, 1987) (e.g., women and sex-discrimination)
• People actually represent the sexes as ‘subtypes’: Housewife Businessman Sexy woman Macho man Career woman Feminist/athlete/lesbian
Men and women generally see women as more homogenous than men (Lorenzi-Cioldi et al., 1995)
Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination• Why are there these differential stereotypes
which prevail across genders?• Sex roles: Behaviour viewed as sex-
stereotypically appropriate• Socialisation into sex roles – so do sex
stereotypes reflect actual differences in psychological factors or role assignment?
• Very few differences on psychological dimensions, but large differences in terms of perceptions of sex roles
• Therefore certain roles are ‘sex typed’ (Eagly & Steffen, 1984)
• E.g. role assignment in jobs
Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination
Women Men
Restaurant servers Lawyers
Telephone operators Dentists
Secretaries Lorry drivers
Nurses Accountants
Babysitters Business executives
Dental hygienists Engineers
Librarian
Nursery school teachers
Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Female Male
Sex of Target
Homemaker
Employee
No information
Ra
tin
gs
of
Ta
rge
t
Morefeminine
Moremasculine
Source: Eagly and Steffen (1984)
Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination
• Glass-ceiling effect: Stereotypes prevent promotion due to competence perceptions e.g. female in upper management, males in flight attendants
• Maintaining sex stereotypes: Media largely responsible – unsubtle vs. subtle
• Face-ism: Media depiction gives greater prominence to the head and less prominence to the body for men, but vice-versa for women (Archer et al., 1983)
Sex Stereotypes and Attributions
Successful task performance By a
WOMAN attributed to luck or an easy task
By a MAN attributed to ability or high level of effort
Performance viewed as less deserving of reward or recognition
Performance viewed as more deserving of reward or recognition
6
7
8
9
10
Masculine Feminine
Task
Female actor
Male actor
Sex Stereotypes and AttributionR
ati
ng
s o
f T
arg
et
More toability
More toluck
Source: Deaux and Emswiller (1974)
Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination
• Illegality of sexism means sex stereotypes are more subtle (Glick & Fiske, 1996)
• Ambivalent sexism inventory. Sexists hold benevolent and hostile attitudes towards different ‘subtypes’
• Benevolent attitudes towards traditional women• Hostile attitudes towards non-traditional women
• Recent reviews suggest that there are no longer tendencies to devalue women’s work and a positive female stereotype is emerging (Eagly & Mladinic, 1994)
Racism
• Racism: Prejudice and discrimination against people based on ethnicity or race
• Much research focused on anti-black attitudes among whites in the United States
• Dramatic reduction in unfavorable attitudes since 1930’s
• Similar reduction toward ethnic minorities in Britain and Western Europe
Racism
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1933 1951 1967 1982 1993
Year
‘Superstitious’
‘Lazy’
‘Ignorant’
Perc
en
tag
e o
f w
hit
e r
esp
on
den
ts s
ele
ctin
g t
rait
Source: Dovidio et al. (1996)
‘New’ Racism• Racial stereotypes have not gone away but changed• Devine and Elliot (1995): 45% of white Americans
perceived African-Americans as lazy and 25% characterised the group as athletic, rhythmic, low intelligence, criminal, hostile, and loud
• Theories of new racism suggest that people experience conflict between prejudiced attitudes and modern egalitarian values
• E.g. Gaertner and Dovidio’s (1986) notion of aversive racism suggests that racist attitudes are expressed when egalitarian values are weak and people are in homogenous groups where prejudiced values are accepted
‘New’ Racism
500
550
600650
700
750
800
850
900950
1000
Negative Positive
Words
Black targetWhite target
Reacti
on
tim
e (
mil
lise
con
ds)
Source: Gaertner and McLaughlin (1983)
Forms of Discrimination
• Reluctance to help: passively or actively declining to help other groups improve their position in society (e.g., Gaertner & Dovidio, 1977)
• Tokenism: Practice of publicly making small concessions to a minority group to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination
• Reverse discrimination: Practice of publicly being prejudiced in favour of a minority in order to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination
Tokenism
70
75
80
85
90
95
Organisationalcommitment
Jobsatisfaction
Dependent measure
Hired as tokenwomanHired on ability
Rep
ort
ed
com
mit
men
t/sa
tisf
acti
on
Source: Gaertner and McLaughlin (1983)
Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination
• Mere exposure effect: Zajonc (1968)• People’s attitudes towards other improve with
direct contact and familiarity (Perlman & Oskamp, 1971)
• Tajfel (1981) believes this is not the case and that prejudices are learned early in life before exposure
• Barrett and Short (1992) found that children had clear preferences for European nations despite not having contact with anyone from those cultures
• Parental modeling, instrumental/operant conditioning and classical conditioning may be responsible for these learned predjudices
Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination
• Frustration aggression hypothesis: Dollard et al. (1939)
• All frustration leads to aggression and all aggression arises from frustration
• Catharsis was the reason why people performed psychological activities and if frustrated these had to be vented elsewhere e.g. frustrationaggression
• Target of aggression usually source of frustration but if unavailable a specific ‘scapegoat’ is targeted – process known as displacement
• Research is inconclusive as to whether displacement always occurs, as some research has shown a generalisation response – direction of anger towards irrelevant other stimuli (Horowitz, 1973)
• Critics of frustration-aggression hypothesis suggest that it does not take into account interpersonal communication – people are passive victims of individual frustration and anger
Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination
• The authoritarian personality: Adorno et al. (1950)• Some people had ‘prejudiced’ or authoritarian personalities that
caused discrimination• Characteristics:
– Respect for authority– Obsession with rank and status– Tendency to displace anger and resentment onto weaker
groups– Intolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity– Need for a rigidly defined world– Problems achieving intimacy
• Developed through excessively harsh and disciplinarian practices to secure emotional dependence
• While it has attracted a lot of research, research has shown few differences between prejudiced and non-prejudiced people on authoritarian personality traits (Pettigrew, 1958; Minard, 1952)
• Fails to account for situational factors – cultures of prejudice, relative deprivation
Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination
• Dogmatism and closed-mindedness: Rokeach (1948, 1960)
• A more generalised ‘syndrome of intolerance’ – cognitive style rather than traits per se called dogmatism or closed-mindedness
• Characterised by being rigid and intolerant and predisposes people to be prejudiced
• Correlates well with authoritarianism and therefore suffers from same limitations – ignores situational and contextual factors (Billig, 1976)
Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination
• Belief congruence theory: Rokeach (1960)• Similar beliefs promote liking and social harmony among
people while dissimilar beliefs promote dislike and prejudice• “Belief is more important than ethnic or racial membership
as a determinant of social discrimination” (Rokeach, 1960, p. 135)
• Research requiring people to report attitudes toward people of different race and similar or dissimilar beliefs support this hypothesis (e.g., Rokeach & Mezei, 1966)
• But states that in situations of ‘institutionalised’ prejudice belief congruence plays no part
• Rokeach’s (1960) research designs might blur the boundaries between beliefs and race – no clear consistency
Belief Congruence Theory
Institutionalised or socially sanctioned prejudice?
Interpersonal assessment of belief dominance
Negative attitude, dislike
Positive attitude, attraction
Friendly relations
Yes
No
Prejudice
Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination
• Social dominance theory: Pratto (1999)• Prejudice is attributed to an individual’s
acceptance of a ideology that legitimises ingroup-serving hierarchy and domination, and rejects egalitarian ideologies
• An ‘individual differences’ explanations – people tend to desire their own group to be dominant and therefore have a high ‘social dominance orientation’
• This legitimises prejudice towards outgroups as the ingroup is perceived as dominant