Lecture 09 & 10 & 11

• Prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination are often used interchangeably, but have different meanings.
• Stereotypes: are associations with groups of people, with no valence (positive, negative, or neutral).
• Prejudice: a judgment (negative) of groups of people, with valence (Group X is bad).
• Differences between prejudice, discrimination, stereotypes
• Explicit vs Implicit bias
• Evolutionary roots of ingroup favoritism
• Ways to reduce prejudice
• Stereotype Threat
• Discrimination: behaviours or differential treatment of groups of people
• Ingroup is our group, Outgroup is any other group

  • might be ingroup with someone & outgroup with someone else
  • ex. a person ingroup on race can also be outgroup on gender
• Discrimination can occur based on any category people belong to, such as race, gender, religion, etc.
• Racism is not really about race, as our ancestors did not encounter individuals of other “races” rather "hunter/gatherer societies" and "outsiders" (mostly other tribes)

  • idea that we have extreme sensitivity to signals of outsideness
• Hunter/gatherer societies were slow moving and mostly stayed in the same area for many generations, making outsiders dangerous due to diseases, stealing resources, and killing men, taking women.
• Appearance-based signals of “outsiderness” are used to identify danger, otherness, and trigger own-group favoritism.
• Old Software (evolution from back then) suggests that hanging out with small groups of similar others was safe and a successful evolutionary strategy
• Modern times use visual signals, like skin color, to identify outsiders.
• Race is a social construct, with no biological basis for what we think of as race, meaning there is no cluster of genes/DNA common to all people of one race.
• Stereotypes can also be wrong because content changes, for example, the African-American stereotype was friendly and happy-go-lucky in the Jim Crow era, but is now criminal, dangerous, and aggressive.
• Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for and seek out confirmatory, but not disconfirming, information.
• Stereotypes are quick and convenient summaries of groups that have a basis in truth, but can be exaggerated and persist long after truth has changed.
• The nature of the relationship between implicit and self-report measures is not totally understood and is fiercely debated in the field.
• People overwhelmingly choose to maintain stereotypes of women instead of updating them.
• Implicit-based on reaction times, or means other than self-report, are supposedly less controllable and more automatic.
• Allport's subtyping theory suggests that when we see stereotype-confirming behavior, it's because the individual is Irish, and when we see stereotype-disconfirming behavior, it's because the individual is unique.
• Instead of changing/updating a stereotype, people will make na new sub-category to make sense of the situation - thus stereotypes persists

  • ex. making a new sub-category of "career women" which allows "women" stereotypes to remain the same.
• Outgroup homogeneity effect leads perceivers to overestimate differences between outgroups and underestimate differences within groups.
• Social categorization involves a lot of nuance and requires cognitive resources, making it easier to slice people up into groups to which broad information generally applies.
• Advantages of thinking about outgroups as homogenous include less contact with outgroups and less opportunity to get to know nuance.
• Modern Racism is characterized by statements like “Discrimination against Blacks is no longer a problem in North America” and “Blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights”.
• Hostility often breaks out during competitive tasks, leading to flag burning, messing up cabins, and food fights.
• Relative Deprivation Theory: suggests that individuals perceive themselves as worse off compared to others, leading to feelings of envy, injustice, and dissatisfaction

  • Involves physical resources but also considers group status as a resource - thinking someone has more than you causes jealousy/hostility
  • want our group to be the best and how favouritism to our group over others
• Rattlers and flags are symbols of identity.
• Groups ultimately became very friendly after integration.
• Explicit Prejudice is conscious and deliberate and is measured via self-report.
• Friction is made aware of other group and engage in competitive tasks such as tug of war, treasure hunt, football.
• Realistic Conflict Theory suggests that direct competition between groups for resources breeds hostility.
• “Spreading activation” is a concept that concepts are more tightly or loosely linked in our minds and this is functional and reflects how we organize information.
• Implicit Bias is automatic, difficult-to-control associations between groups and positivity/negativity and everyone tends to have it to some degree.
• Levels of bias decreased over time in the 70s and 80s, according to social scientists.
• Relative Deprivation Theory states that perceived resource disparities lead to conflict.