Prejudice

• Intergroup contact refers to interactions between people from different social groups such as racial, ethnic or religious groups (Allport, 1954)
• Prejudice: hostile or negative attitudes toward people in a distinguishable group based solely on their membership of that group
• 3 components of prejudice: affective (emotions), behavioural (discrimination) and cognitive (stereotypes)
• Stereotypes lead to illusory correlation between the group and behaviour we encounter
• Discrimination: unjustified negative or harmful action toward members of a group simply because of their membership of that group
• Correll et al. (2002) did a study where pps played video game where they had to shoot a man if he held a gun
• People playing video game were more likely to shoot unarmed black men (Correll et al., 2002)
• Social identity threat: the fear of being judged by others based on their perception of your identity
• Self-affirmation can reverse the effects of stererotype threat
• Ingroup bias: tendency to favour members of one's own group and give them special preference over people who belong to other groups
• Individuals enhance self-esteem by identifying with specific social groups
• Self-esteem is enhanced when individual sees these groups as superior to other groups
• Outgroup homogeneity: perceiving outgroup members as being more similar to each other than they really are e.g. "They are all alike"
• Realistic conflict theory: limited resources lead to conflict among groups, which leads to prejudice and discrimination
• When there are scarce resources, ingroup members will feel more threatened by outgroups
• Scapegoating: when frustrated/unhappy, people tend to displace aggression to outgroups who are disliked or weaker
• Contact Hypothesis: mere contact between group members can lead to attitude change towards each other
• Sherif et al. (1961) found that putting two groups of boys into situation where they are rivals, once hostility and distrust were established, removing competition will not restore harmony
• Bring two groups together in neutral sitautions when originally there was dislike leads to increased hostility (Sherif et al., 1961)
• Jigsaw Classroom: classroom setting designed to reduce prejudice among children who are put into small groups and asked to work together to solve a puzzle
• Jigsaw Classroom works as it breaks down perceptions of ingroup and outgroups, creating feelings of unity