AP Psychology: Unit 14 - Social Psychology

Mod.77: Prejudice & Discrimination:

Prejudice. What is prejudice? What are its social & emotional roots?

I. Prejudice:

A. Prejudice- “prejudgment”; unjustifiable & usually negative attitude toward a group – often a different cultural, ethnic,

or gender group;

1. An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group & its members; generally involves stereotyped

beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action

2. Prejudice is a negative attitude. 3. Prejudice is a learned prejudgment directed toward people solely because of their membership in a specific

social group. 4. Prejudice can be both positive and negative. However, most research focuses on the causes & consequences of

negative forms of prejudice.

B. Like all attitudes, prejudice is a 3 part mix: 1. Beliefs – (in the case of prejudice, the beliefs are called stereotypes) 2. Emotions – (i.e. hostility, fear) 3. Predispositions to action (to discriminate)

C. Social Factors that contribute to prejudice:

1. Social divisions based upon in-groups and out-groups promote negative stereotypes and prejudice a. In-groups: a group a person identifies with and feels that he/she belongs to; refers to the people and

group w/whom we share a common identity.

In-group bias: tendency to judge the behavior of in-group members favorably and out-group members unfavorably

In-group bias can hinder the efforts of outsiders to join a new group. In-group members would perceive the new person as different and would not make him or her feel welcome

b. Out-groups: a group with which a person does not identify and does not feel as if he or she belongs; refers to the people and groups that are excluded from our in-groups

Out-group homogeneity effect: tendency to see members of the out-group as very similar to one another

2. Inequalities between “haves” (who possess wealth, power, & prestige) and “have nots” (who lack status) promote prejudice

D. Emotional factors that contribute to prejudice: 1. Psychological studies & historical examples both indicate that frustration intensifies prejudice.

a. Frustration is often directed toward an innocent target knowns as a scapegoat

Christians served as scapegoats for Rome’s military defeats in the 3rd century

Jews served as scapegoats for Germany’s defeat in WWI

African Americans served as scapegoats for the South’s defeat in the Civil War b. Scapegoat Theory of Prejudice- when people are frustrated or angry, blaming another individual or group

may provide an outlet for their anger. (prejudice provides an outlet for anger by finding someone to

blame)

2. Prejudice is often directed at groups perceived as threatening important cultural values a. Ex: Prejudice directed at gays & lesbians is incited by the belief that these groups “threaten important

family values”

E. Ethnocentrism – assuming the superiority of one’s ethnic group – is an example of a prejudice 1. To believe that a person of another ethnicity is somehow inferior or threatening, to feel dislike for that person,

and to be hesitant to hire or date that person is to be prejudiced. 2. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to consider other cultures, customs, & values as inferior to one’s own 3. Example: European explorers & Native Americans frequently expressed ethnocentric judgments toward each

other’s cultures: Amerigo Vespucci insisted that the Native Americans’ “manner of living is very barbarous b/c they do not eat at fixed times, but as often as they please”

4. Ethnocentrism & Groupthink can lead to inaccurate perceptions & conclusions.

F. Stereotypes – beliefs; a generalized-sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized-belief about a group of people 1. A stereotype is a mental image of members of a group that exaggerates or oversimplifies their characteristics 2. The famous journalist Walter Lippman coined the term “stereotype” to refer to “pictures in our heads” that

accompany a category of people. 3. Stereotypes can be either positive or negative – what mental images do you associate with football linemen or

beauty queens?

G. Discrimination – unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members 1. Discrimination is a negative behavior 2. Discrimination refers to differential treatment, usually negative, directed at members of a group 3. Prejudice refers to an attitude! Discrimination refers to an action!

Factors that lead to Prejudice:

o People who have money, power, and prestige may become prejudiced toward those less fortunate in order to rationalize social inequalities.

o The reactions provoked in victims of discrimination may further increase prejudice.

o Ingroup Bias- tendency to favor one’s own group

o Tendency to blame victims for their plight (struggle) may also lead to prejudice.

Concept Connections:

Link stereotyping to Jean Piaget’s concept of schema:

As children, we categorize the world around us into schemas, we form schemas for everything, from

people to animals to plants.

When we learn something new, we assimilate that information into our existing schemas.

When what we learn conflicts with a schema, we will need to adjust our schemas through a process

called accommodation.

Hopefully, prejudiced schemas are accommodated quickly when we learn positive qualities about

a person or group of people!

Prejudice & Discrimination are related, but they are NOT the same!

Prejudice:

Prejudice is COGNTIVE (mental process) Prejudice is an ATTITUDE

Discrimination:

Discrimination is BEHAVIOR motivated by a prejudice

II. How Prejudiced Are People? A. To assess prejudice, we observe what people say & what they do

1. Americans’ gender & racial attitudes have changed dramatically in the last 50 years: a. Would you vote for a woman? 1937: 33%; 2007: 89% b. Most agree that women & men should receive the same pay for the same job & that children of all races

should attend the same schools

2. Support for all kinds of racial contact has increased: interracial dating, etc. a. 9/10 Americans b/w ages 18-29 say they would be fine w/a family member marrying a different race.

3. Obvious, overt prejudice wanes/declines, but the not so obvious, subtle prejudice lingers/remains

a. Despite increased verbal support for interracial marriage, many admit that in socially intimate settings (dating, dancing, marrying) they would feel uncomfortable with someone of another race

b. Many who say they would feel upset w/someone making a racist slur, actually when hearing such racism, respond indifferently

c. “modern prejudice” – rejecting immigrant minorities as job applicants for supposedly nonracial reasons – has been replacing “blatant prejudice”

d. Prejudice can be subtle, automatic, and unconscious

4. In most of the world, gays & lesbians cannot comfortably acknowledge who they are & whom they love.

Concept Connections:

Link the discussion of prejudice to framing:

Prejudice – an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group & its members; generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action

Framing – the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments

People will respond in a prejudiced fashion or not, depending on how the situation is framed.

If we are aware of the effects of framing, we are less likely to succumb to it.

B. Gender prejudice & discrimination persists: 1. Despite gender equality in intelligence scores, people have tended to perceive their fathers as more intelligent

than their mothers 2. Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive 3. In America, we pay more to those who care for our streets (usually men), than those who care for our children

(usually women) 4. Worldwide, women are more likely to live in poverty & 2/3rds of illiterate adults are women 5. Natural female mortality rates and the normal male-to-female newborn ratio cannot explain the estimated

163 million “missing women” worldwide

6. Many places, sons are valued more than daughters & Asian countries, w/sex-selective abortions have led to a shortfall in female births;

a. China has declared that sex-selective abortion = gender genocide, a criminal offense – but China’s newborn sex ratio is still 118 boys for every 100 girls

b. 95% of children in Chinese orphanages are girls

c. Males under the age of 20 exceeds females by 32 million! – Good luck to Chinese bachelors looking

for dates!

C. Most people feel more positively about women in general than they do about men 1. People see women as having some traits (nurturance, sensitivity, and less aggressiveness) that most people

prefer 2. Women tend to like women more than men like men 3. People prefer slightly feminized computer-generated faces - men’s and women’s - to slightly masculinized faces

Normal/Masculine Features: Feminized Features: Associated w/promiscuous dads Likeable

Associated w/committed dads

66% women picked this computer

generated feminine face for BOTH Q’s:

1- “Who do you like best?” & “Who is looking for a special lady to love & cherish forever?”

III. Close Up: Automatic Prejudice (p.782)

A. Human mind processes thoughts, memories, & attitudes on 2 different tracks: 1. Explicit – processing on the radar screen of our awareness; 2. Implicit – processing below the radar; happens to an even greater extent; leaves us unaware of how our

attitudes are influencing our behavior a. Modern studies show that prejudice is often implicit – an automatic attitude that is an unthinking knee-

jerk response

B. Implicit Racial Associations: 1. Implicit Association Tests: even people who deny harboring racial prejudice carry negative associates:

a. 9/10 white people took longer to identify pleasant words (peace, paradise) as “good” when presented w/”black-sounding” names (Latisha, Darnell);

b. People who quickly associate good things w/ white names or faces also are quickest to perceive anger & apparent threat in black faces

c. Useful for studying automatic prejudice; do not assess or label people. 2. Implicit biases predict behaviors

a. 2008 Pres Election: Implicit & explicit prejudice predicted voters’ support for Obama – the election reduced implicit prejudice! Thanks Obama!

C. Unconscious Patronization: 1. “Flawed essay” said to be written by a black student- White women evaluated it w/ higher ratings & never

expressed the harsh criticisms they assigned to the “flawed essay” supposedly written by white students – the white women gave the essay better grades when they thought a black student wrote it…. !!!!

2. Low expectations & the resulting “inflated praise & insufficient criticism” can hinder (hurt) minority student achievement! - to preclude (prevent) such bias, teachers read essays while “blind” to their authors

D. Race-Influenced Perceptions: 1. Our expectations influence our perceptions

a. 1999- Amadou Diallo – accosted (stopped/detained) by police looking for a rapist as he approached his apt house doorway; when he pulled out his wallet, the officers perceived a gun & riddled his body w/19 bullets & 41 shots – killing the unarmed man.

b. Researchers investigated the situation: Race Primes Perceptions:

They asked viewers to press buttons quickly to “shoot” or “not shoot” men who suddenly appeared on screen.

Some of the on-screen men held a gun; others held harmless object (flashlight, bottle)

People (BOTH BLACKS & WHITES!!!) – more often shot Black men holding the harmless objects!

Priming people w/ a flashed Black rather than White face- makes them more likely to misperceive a flashed tool as a gun.

E. Reflexive Bodily Responses: (Reflex = Automatic)

1. Neuroscientists detect signals of prejudice in bodily responses when people look at white & black faces: a. Even people who consciously express little prejudice give off telltale signals as their body responds

selectively to another’s race b. Implicit prejudice may show up in facial-muscle responses & activation of emotion-

processing amygdala

2. If your own gut check reveals you sometimes have feelings you would

rather not have about other people, remember this:

a. It is what we DO with our feelings that matters.

b. By monitoring our feelings & actions, and by replacing old habits

w/new ones based on new friendships, we can work to free

ourselves from prejudice.

AP Exam MAJOR CONCEPT Review:

Dual Processing: The 2-Track Mind: (Unit 3- Biological Bases of Behavior, p.119-120)

Dual Processing – principle that info is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious s& unconscious

track; Perception, memory, thinking, language, & attitudes all operate on 2 levels:

o 1- Conscious, deliberate, “high road”, We’re aware of what’s “on the screen” of our consciousness

o 2- Unconscious, automatic “low road”; beneath the surface, unconscious info processing occurs

simultaneously on parallel tracks. Much of our brain works occurs off stage, out of sight

o Ex: Look at a bird flying. We’re consciously aware of cognitive processing “It’s a hummingbird!”, but not

aware of sub-processing/unconscious processing: bird’s color, movement, distant, etc.

Info Processing: Computer v. Brain:

o Computers: cannot process more than 1 piece of info at a time; serial processing -1 task is accomplished

before another is tackled

o Brans: run on parallel processing – several tasks can be tackled at same time; ability of brain to process

multiple pieces of info at once makes it superior to computers!

We process new info explicitly & implicitly – these 2 ways of remembering info are stored in different parts of

the brain

This is NOT Multitasking!

Some info processing is automatic (unconscious/ no effort), some info processing is effortful (requires attention

& effort!)

This is NOT Freud’s Unconscious!

Research on dual processing & the 2-track mind suggests that some of Freud’s ideas about the influence of

the unconscious on behavior & mental process are valid – the research does NOT validate Freud’s claims about

what the unconscious contains or the meaning of the unconscious thoughts & feelings – but it DOES indicate

that the unconscious is more influential than we realize

IV. Social Roots of Prejudice:

Why does prejudice arise? Social inequalities & divisions are partly responsible. A. Social Inequalities:

1. Inequalities between “haves” (who possess money, wealth, power, & prestige) and “have nots” (who lack status) – the “haves” usually develop attitudes that justify things as they are

2. Just-World Phenomenon - good is rewarded & bad is punished; tendency for people to believe the world is just & that people therefore get what they deserve & deserve what they get;

a. Those who succeed must be good, and those who suffer must be bad b. Enables the rich to see their own wealth & the poor’s misfortune as justly deserved.

3. Stereotypes Rationalize Inequalities: a. Women are commonly perceived as naturally unassertive & sensitive – suggesting that women are better

suited for caretaking tasks they have traditionally performed b. Slave “owners” perceived slaves as innately lazy, ignorant, & irresponsible – having traits that justified

enslaving them. 4. Victims of discrimination react w/ self-blame or anger.

a. Either reaction feeds prejudice through the blame-the-victim dynamic b. Do the circumstances of poverty breed a higher crime rate? If so, that higher crime rate can be used to

justify discrimination against those who live in poverty.

B. Us & Them: Ingroup & Outgroup: 1. Dividing the world into “us” & “them” entails racism & war, but also provides benefits of communal solidarity:

we cheer for our groups, kill for them, die for them.

2. Social identities – we define who we are partly in terms of our groups; we associate ourselves with certain groups and contrast ourselves w/others;

a. Having a group identity is sometimes desirable – sports teams, performing groups like choir or band would be less effective if everyone dint dress the same or bond on a personal level

3. Evolution: Evolution prepared us to make instant judgments when encountering strangers: a. In-group – “us”- people w/whom we share a common identity; people from our group – look like us,

sound like us, accents like our own – we instantly like them; mentally drawing a circle defines “us”; social definition of who you are; stats who you are & who you are not

b. Out-group – “them” – those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup; people outside the “us” circle are “them”;

4. In-group Bias – tendency to favor our own group; favoring of our own group follows soon after the mental circle of “us” & “them” is drawn; d

Creating “us”/ “them” groups w/ a coin toss creates bias!

People favor their own group when dividing any rewards

Believing your school is better than other schools

High school students form cliques – jocks, gamers, stoners, theater types, LGBT supporters – and disparage (belittle/ mock) those outside their own group

5. Even chimps show in-group bias & ingroup empathy! a. Ingroup Bias: Chimps have been seen to wipe clean the spot where they where they were touched by a

chimp form another group

b. Ingroup Empathy: Yawning more after seeing ingroup (rather than outgroup) members yawn

6. Ingroup Bias explains cognitive power of partisanship: a. USA 1980s: most Democrats believed inflation had risen under Republican

Ronald Reagan (it had dropped!) b. USA 2010: most Republicans believed taxes increased under Democrat Obama

(for most, they had decreased!)

V. Emotional Roots of Prejudice:

A. Scapegoat theory – theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame;

1. Scapegoat theory – when things go wrong, finding someone to blame can provide a target for anger;

a. After 9/11 outraged people lashed out at innocent Arab-Americans 2. High prejudice levels among economical frustrated people 3. Temporary frustration intensifies prejudice 4. Students who experience failure or are made to feel insecure often restore their self-

esteem by disparaging a rival school or another person 5. Denigrating (vilify/degrade) others boosts our own sense of status: a rivals misfortune

gives us pleasure; 6. Those made to feel loved & supported become more open to and accepting

of others who differ

B. Philip Zimbardo: “Fear & anger create aggression, and aggression against citizens of different ethnicity or race creates racism and, in turn, new forms of terrorism”

C. Negative emotions nourish prejudice: 1. People cling more to ingroup & friends when facing death, fearing threats, experiencing frustration 2. Terror of death: heightens patriotism; produces loathing & aggression towards “them” –those who threaten our

world D. People who lack fear & it’s associated amygdala activity – also lack racial stereotypes & prejudices

1. Williams Syndrome – genetic disorder; children lack fear & activity in the amygdala, display notable lack of racial stereotypes & prejudice’s

Diversity Connection: Scapegoat – term derived from Hebrew tradition of Yom Kippur:

According to the Torah, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for the

people of Israel, the high priest designated a goat that would symbolically

bear the sins of the entire nation.

This goat would then be sent out into the wilderness to fend for itself,

carrying away the sins of the people for another year.

VI. Cognitive Roots of Prejudice:

Prejudice spring from a: culture’s divisions, the heart’s passions, & the mind’s natural workings Stereotyped beliefs are a byproduct of how we cognitively simplify the world

A. Forming Categories:

1. One way we simplify our world is to categorize it 2. People categorize others by race: assign mixed-race people to their minority identity

a. Obama (mixed-race) has been perceived by Whites as Black. b. After learning the features of a familiar racial group, the observer’s selective attention is drawn to the

distinctive features of the less-familiar minority learned-association effect

3. Categorizing mixed-race people: New Zealanders quickly classified photos by race: a. New Zealanders of European descent classified the ambiguous middle two photos below as Chinese;

more often than the New Zealanders of Chinese descent did

4. Outgroup Homogeneity: a. Examples/ Also called: Other Race Effect; Cross-race Effect; Own-Race Bias b. Outgroup Homogeneity – in categorizing people into groups, we often stereotype them; we recognize

how greatly we differ from the other people in our groups.

We overestimate the homogeneity of other groups (similarity/sameness of “those” people): “They” – the members of some other group – seem to look & act alike

“We” are more diverse c. Other-Race Effect - (aka: cross-race effect or own-race bias) – tendency to recall faces of one’s own race

more accurately than faces of other races; our greater recognition for faces of our own race emerges during infancy, b/w 3-9 mos.,

To those in one ethnic group, members of another often seem more alike than they really are in attitudes, personality, and appearance.

d. Other-race effect (or outgroup homogeneity) comes into play when people offer descriptions of people from other races; people tend to focus on the traits that typically differentiate people within their own race:

White people tend to focus on traits like hair & eye color when describing others – which can be meaningless when describing Blacks or Asians, most of whom share similar hair & eye color

B. Remembering Vivid Cases:

1. Availability heuristic – we often judge the frequency of events by instance that readily come to mind; vivid cases are more readily available to our memory & feed our stereotypes;

a. Researchers showed 2 groups lists containing info about 50 men:

Group 1 – list of 50 men, including 10 men arrested for nonviolent crimes (forgery)

Group 2 – list of 50 men, including 10 men arrested for violent crimes (assault)

Asked both groups ‘how many men on their lists had committed any sort of crime?’ - Group 2 (w/10 violent crimes) overestimated the number! Vivid (violent) cases are more readily available to our memory!

AP EXAM REVIEW:

Heuristic – rules of thumb; simple thinking

strategy that often allows us to make judgments

& solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but

also more error-prone than algorithms

Availability heuristic – term for making

judgements based on vivid cases; estimating the

likelihood of events based on their availability in

memory; if instances com readily to mind, perhaps

b/c of their vividness, we presume such events are

common

Representative heuristic – judging the likelihood

of things in terms of how well they seem to

represent, or match, particular prototypes; may

lead us to ignore other relevant information

C. Believing the World is Just: 1. People often justify their prejudiced by blaming victims; if the world is just “people must get whey they deserve”

German citizen visiting a concentration camp after WWII, “what terrible criminals these prisoners must have been to receive such treatment”

2. Hindsight Bias – tendency to believe after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it; I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon

a. Examples:

Have you heard people say that rape victims, abused spouses, or people with AIDS ‘got what they deserved’?

In some countries, like Pakistan, women who have been raped have been sentenced to severe punishment for having violated a law against adultery

3. Blame-the-Victim Phenomenon: a. Experiment: People were given a detailed account of a date that ended

w/the woman being raped:

They perceived the woman’s behavior as at least partly to blame, and in hindsight, they thought, “She should have known better” - Blaming the victim also serves to reassure people that it couldn’t happen to them.

Another group – given the same story but this time without the rape at the end; others, given the same account with the rape ending deleted- did NOT perceive the woman’s behavior as inviting rape.

b. Blaming the victim also serves to reassure people that it couldn’t happen to them.

4. “System justification” - People have a tendency to justify their culture’s social systems:

a. We’re inclined to see the way things are, as the way things ought to be b. This natural conservatism makes it difficult to legislate major social changes (health care, climate-change

policies) c. Once such policies are in place, our “system justification” tends to preserve them