L24 Prejudice and Stigmatisation

• Basic principles of the human mind:

  • our mind loves to categorise because this allows recognition, comparison, predictions.
  • However, categorisation is simplification and generalisation, hence resulting in an incomplete picture about a person.
• Social categorisation:

  • Prejudice (Affect) = feelings towards individuals based on knowledge of their group membership.
• Social categorisation:

  • Discrimination (Behaviour): actions towards individuals based on knowledge of thier group membership.
• Social categorisation:

  Stereotype (Cognition): beliefs about individuals based on knowledge of their group membership.
• Types of sexism:

  • Hostile sexism = negative attitudes towards women e.g less competent, less ambitious
  • Benevolent sexism = positive attitudes towards women
  • (Glick & Fiske) ambivalent sexism = being high in both HS and BS is common
• Study - discrimination:

  • Researchers send out same CV but with male or female name
  • Male and female faculties at different US universities rated the male applicant as more competent and hireable than the female applicant, and offered a higher starting salary and more career mentoring.
• Common sources of prejudiced attitudes:

  • Personality-based preparedness
  • Cognitive biases
  • Motivational biases
  • Cultural transfer
• Personality:

  • Ardono - authoritarian personality
  • Limitations:
  • Underestimates normality of prejudice and stereotyping
  • Underestimates cultural and situational determinants of prejudice
  • Unable to explain sudden changes in group-based attitudes
• Cognitive bias

  Accentuation bias = people consider others who belong to the same group as more similar
• Cognitive bias:

  Correspondence bias = humans tend to see others’ behaviour as reflecting their inner dispositions (rather than social roles/ situational pressures)
• Cognitive bias:

  Illusory correlations = humans are inclined to associate members of minority groups with uncommon attributes and members of majority groups with common attributes.
• Motivational biases:

  Need for distinctiveness = people aspire to an optimal balance of inclusion and distinctiveness
• Motivational biases:

  need to belong = humans aspire to belong by forming groups
• Motivational biases:

  Need for self-enhancement = humans are motivated to perceive themselves positively and better than others, and are easily inclined to attribute positive qualities to ingroups and negative qualities to outgroups.
• Role of cultural transfer:

  • Is passed on from one generation to the next through communication, observation, imitation
• tokenism = when people make concessions to members of certain social groups in order to deflect accusations of prejudice and discrimination
• Consequences for perpetrators: psychological benefits

  • Cognitive economy - simplifies social world
  • uncertainty reduction - induces feelings of predictability
  • self-esteem regulation - protects positive self-image, (e.g. black prof gives praise - focus on professional role, gives criticism - focuses on race)
  • System justification - justifies unequal distribution of resources
  • Kernel of truth - occasionally facilitates understanding of real-world differences
  • creation of self-fulfilling prophecies
• consequence for society

  • Continuous debate of what is just/ unjust prejudice/discrimination
• Strategies:

  1. Attempts to interrupt/reduce cultural transfer in order to change stereotypic beliefs about pivotal social groups
  2. Facilitate contact between people across group boundaries in order to induce person individuation rather than person categorisation
• The Robbers Cave experiment (Sherif)

  • In 1954, 24 white American boys recruited for a field experiment
  • at a summer camp randomly assigned to two groups
  • engaged in competitive activities for several days
  • boys were given difficult tasks that required cooperation between the groups
  • Reduction of negativity, creation of intergroup friendships