1. C82SAD Prejudice and Discrimination

2. 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

3. Prejudice and the Bystander Effect
Percentage of participants offering to
aid apparent victim
Source: Gaertner and Dovidio (1977)

4. 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)

5. 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

6. 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

7. Sex Stereotypes and Discrimination
More
masculine
Ratings of Target
More
feminine
Source: Eagly and Steffen (1984)

8. 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)

9. Sex Stereotypes and Attributions
By a MAN attributed to ability or high level of effort
Performance viewed as more deserving of reward or recognition
Successful task performance
By a WOMAN attributed to luck or an easy task
Performance viewed as less deserving of reward or recognition

10. Sex Stereotypes and Attribution
More to
luck
Ratings of Target
More to
ability
Source: Deaux and Emswiller (1974)

11. 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)

12. 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

13. Racism Percentage of white respondents selecting trait ‘Superstitious’
‘Lazy’
Percentage of white respondents selecting trait
‘Ignorant’
Source: Dovidio et al. (1996)

14. ‘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

15. ‘New’ Racism Reaction time (milliseconds)
Source: Gaertner and McLaughlin (1983)

16. 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

17. Tokenism Reported commitment/satisfaction
Source: Gaertner and McLaughlin (1983)

18. 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

19. 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. frustrationaggression
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

20. 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

21. 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)

22. 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

23. Belief Congruence Theory
Institutionalised or socially sanctioned prejudice?
Interpersonal assessment of belief dominance No
Yes
Negative attitude, dislike
Positive attitude, attraction
Prejudice
Friendly relations

24. 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