20-Apr-21

PREJUDICE:
CAUSES,
CONSEQUENCES,
AND CURES

Social Psychology II
Işıl Çoklar Okutkan

The Need to • All human beings • Short periods of isolation

“have a pervasive can be rejuvenating, but
Belong drive to form and most people find
prolonged (and
maintain at least a unwanted) isolation
minimum quantity disturbing.
of lasting, positive, • Isolation from others can
and impactful lead to loneliness
interpersonal • Two types of loneliness:
relationships.” -- social and emotional.
Roy Baumeister &
Mark Leary (1995,
p. 497).

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Humans have a natural tendency to seek and thrive in

The intimate, coherent, and meaningful relationships
(Baumeister & Leary, 1995)
Fundemental
Need to
Belong Self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000) also
posits that people have a basic universal psychological
need for relatedness (the need to feel connected, i.e., to
care for and be cared for by significant others) that must
be satisfied to function optimally.

Inclusion and Exclusion

THE INCLUSION-EXCLUSION CONTINUUM

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Inclusion
and
Exclusion
Ostracism: Excluding one or more individuals from a group
by reducing or eliminating contact with the person, usually
by ignoring, shunning, or explicitly banishing them.

Ostracism

Research had shown that

ostracism evokes a variety
of negative emotions such
as sadness, anger and
hostility as well as the
experience of social pain

(Chow, Tiedens & Govan,2008; DeWall

et al., 2009; Eisenberger, Lieberman &
Willams, 2003; Twenge et al., 2007).

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Need Threat According to Need Threat Model (Williams, 1997);

ostracism threatenes four fundamental needs;

Model • self-esteem,
• belongingness,
(Williams, • perceived control

1997) • meaningful existence

• Fight-or-Flight Response
Inclusion • Withdrawal and freezing
• Aggressive, combative orientation
and
Exclusion: • Tend-and-Befriend Response
• Attention to social cues
Reactions to • Increased motivation
Exclusion • Prosocial orientation

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Need to Belong and Ostracism

The need to belong refers to the idea that humans have a fundamental motivation to be accepted into
relationships with others and to be a part of social groups.

Social rejection is at odds with belonging. The two experiences are inversely related.

Researchers have come to understand that social pain caused by ostracism can create a response in our
neural processing not so different from that caused by physical pain (Eisenberger, Lieberman, &
Williams, 2003). Neuroscientists now have research to support the notion that physical and social pain
are not that different from one another. Simply observing the social pain of others can give us painful
feelings.

Learning Objectives

13.1 Summarize the 13.3 Describe some 13.4 Summarize the

three components ways that prejudice conditions that can
of prejudice. affects its targets. reduce prejudice.

13.2 Explain how we 13.4 Describe three

measure prejudices aspects of social life
that people don’t that can cause
want to reveal—or prejudice.
that they don’t
know they hold.

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Defining
Prejudice
• Prejudice
• A hostile or negative
attitude toward
people in a
distinguishable group
based solely on their
membership in that
group
• Any group can be a target
of prejudice.

Bases of Discrimination
Nationality
Racial and
Physical state ethnic
identity

Appearance Gender

Sexual
Religion
orientation

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• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoobdRNNOMo

Three Components of Prejudice

Cognitive:
Stereotypes

Behavioral: Affective:
Discrimination Emotions

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The Cognitive Component: Stereotypes

• Stereotype
• A generalization about a group of people

The Affective Component: Emotions

• Negative emotions about groups are often ingrained.
• This makes such attitudes difficult to dispel.

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• Stereotypes also shape our emotional reactions to different

groups. Susan Fiske, Amy Cuddy, and Peter Glick (2007) argue
that all group stereotypes can be classified along two universal
dimensions of person perception: warmth and competence.

• For example, we tend to view rich people as competent but not

warm and the elderly as warm but not competent, and we feel
different emotions toward them as a result.

How warm and competent groups are

viewed predict people’s emotional
reactions to them.
Groups that are perceived as competent
but not warm are envied, whereas groups
that are warm but not competent are
pitied.
We admire groups that we consider to be
both warm and competent (e.g., the
Middle Class), and feel contempt toward
groups that we view as neither warm nor
competent (e.g., the homeless).

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The Behavioral Component:

Discrimination

• Discrimination
• An unjustified negative or
harmful action toward the
members of a group simply
because of their
membership in that group

The Cognitive Component: Stereotypes (1 of 5)

• Stereotype
• A generalization about a group of people
• Certain traits are assigned to virtually all members of the group,
regardless of actual variation among the members.
• Make sense of our social world by grouping people together

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The Cognitive Component: Stereotypes (2 of 5)

• From categories to stereotypes

• “the little pictures we carry around inside our heads”
• Think about the following:
• High school cheerleader
• Compassionate nurse
• Jewish computer scientist
• Black musician
• What did you come up with?

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The Cognitive Component:

Stereotypes (3 of 5)
• What is this woman’s occupation?
Most Western non-Muslims hold the
stereotype that Muslim women who
wear the full-length black niqab must
be repressed sexually as well as
politically. But Wedad Lootah, a
Muslim living in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates, is a marriage counselor and
sexual activist, and the author of a
best-selling Arabic sex manual.

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The Cognitive Component:

Stereotypes (4 of 5)
• Stereotyping:
• a cognitive process
• can be positive or negative
• technique we use to simplify our world
• “Cognitive misers” take shortcuts
and adopt rules of thumb to
understand people
• Better memory for
information consistent with
stereotypes

The Cognitive Component: Stereotypes (5 of 5)

• Stereotypes
• Adaptive: when accurately identifies attributes of a group well
• Maladaptive: blinds us to individual differences
• https://mediaplayer.pearsoncmg.com/assets/mypsychlab-
Race_and_Bike_Theft

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What’s Wrong with Positive

Stereotypes? (1 of 2)

• Example
• Sports, race, and attribution
• What’s wrong with the implication
that black men can jump?

What’s Wrong with Positive Stereotypes? (2 of 2)

• Denies individuality of person

• Ignores the fact that plenty of African American kids are not adept
at basketball and plenty of white kids are
• If we meet a young African American man and feel
astonished at his ineptitude on the basketball court, we are
denying him his individuality.
• https://mediaplayer.pearsoncmg.com/assets/mypsychlab-
2017-aronson10e_0134700651-survival_tips_hermes

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Stereotypes of Gender (1 of 2)
• Traditional stereotypes
• Women
• Caring and good cooks
• Men
• More dominant, controlling, and independent
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWu44AqF0iI

Stereotypes of Gender (2 of 2)
• Hostile sexism
• Stereotypical views of women that suggest that women are
inferior to men
• E.g., that they are less intelligent, less competent, and so on
• Benevolent sexism
• Stereotypical, positive views of women

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Sexism-Gender Discrimination

• Sexism : gender-based discrimination.

• Gender discrimination: unjust treatment based solely on one’s sex,
sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Ambivalent Sexism (Glick&Fiske, 2001)

• Ambivalent sexism theory: Theory proposing that gender relations are
characterized by both negative (hostile sexism) and seemingly positive
(benevolent sexism) attitudes toward women.
• Hostile sexism
• Stereotypical views of women that suggest that women are inferior to men
• E.g., that they are less intelligent, less competent, and so on
• Benevolent sexism (Korumacı cinsiyetçilik)
• Stereotypical, positive (!) views of women

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Benevolent Sexism-
Hostile Sexism
• Stereotypically positive feelings about a
group (as is true of benevolent sexists)
can be damaging to the target because it
is limiting. But benevolent sexism goes a
bit further.
• According to Glick and Fiske, underneath
it all, benevolent sexists (like hostile
sexists) assume that women are the
weaker sex.
• Benevolent sexists tend to idealize
women romantically, may admire them as
wonderful cooks and mothers, and want
to protect them when they do not need
protection.
• Thus in the final analysis, both hostile
sexism and benevolent sexism—for
different reasons—serve to justify
relegating women to traditional
stereotyped roles in society.

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Consequences of Sexist Attitudes

• Some research indicates that sexist

attitudes shape societal conditions
for women and men.
• Sexist attitudes held by both women
and men predict decreases in
women’s opportunities and status.
• Sexist attitudes can translate into
large-scale societal restrictions on
women’s opportunities.

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• Homophobia is "the irrational hatred, intolerance,

and fear" of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
(LGBTIQ+) people, and is a form of discrimination.
• The stressors of victimization (e.g., bullying and
threats) and discrimination (e.g., restricted
Gender Based opportunities and denial of services)
disproportionately affect LGBTIQ+ people.
Discrimination- • For LGBTIQ+ people, victimization sometimes occurs
Homophobia- at the hands of close family members, including
parents.
Transphobia • Sexual minority and gender-nonconforming youths
and adults who experience more victimization and
bullying also report more depressive symptoms,
suicidality, anxiety and PTSD symptoms, and
substance use disorders (Burton, Marshal, Chisolm,
Sucato, & Friedman, 2013; N. R. Eaton, 2014).

Gender Based Discrimination-

Homophobia-Transphobia

• Unlike racial and ethnic minorities,

LGBTIQ+ individuals often come
from families in which relatives do
not share their minority status.
• Accordingly, they experience a
heightened risk of being treated as
outcasts or rejected by parents or
family.
• The condition of double stigma—
being a member of more than one
stigmatized group—should be
doubly stressful.

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Toxic Masculinity
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=7kAqAFOHIxw
• Toxic masculinity defines manhood very narrowly in
terms of violence, sex, status and aggression.
• Rigid definitions of masculinity are toxic to men's
health. Even the World Health Organization (WHO)
has recognized that men's tendency to die at
younger ages may correlate to the harmful ways
that masculinity has been defined in society and the
ways that men have been conditioned to practice it.
• Risk taking behaviors
• Aggressive behaviors
• Lack of willingness to seek help….

Institutionalized Discrimination

• Discrimination in hiring
• Overweight-Disabled -- hired and promoted less often
• Perceptions of appropriateness
• Race
• Example: Blacks and whites not treated equally in the “war against drugs”.
African Americans disproportionately arrested, convicted, and incarcerated
for drug charges
• Example:

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ABLEISM
• Ableism assigns inferior worth to people who have developmental,
emotional, physical, or psychiatric disabilities by devaluing their
worth. This can limit their potential, particularly for the gatekeepers
to access supports and services.

• Ableism includes things like minimizing the need for mobility devices,
accessible parking cards, assistive technology, sign language
interpreters (can’t she just read lips?), the need to take medication,
frequent appointments, or any other challenges that students with
disabilities have to deal with that people without disabilities don’t
experience.

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Everyday Discrimination (1 of 2)

• Microaggressions
• “slights,” indignities, and put-downs
• Example: White professor compliments
Asian student for his “excellent English”

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Everyday Discrimination (2 of 2)

• Social Distance
• A person’s reluctance to get
“too close” to another group
• Unwilling to work with, marry,
or live next to members of a
particular group
• Example: Straight student not
wanting to sit next to gay
student

• One unobtrusive measure of social distance and “microaggressions” is

to notice how people respond, nonverbally, to people with
disabilities.

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The Activation of Prejudice

• Prejudices lurk just beneath the surface

• Once activated, it affects how we perceive and treat out-group members
• Behave more aggressively toward stereotyped target when:
• Stressed
• Angry
• Suffered blow to self-esteem
• Not in control of conscious intentions

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Figure 13.3 - The Unleashing of

Prejudice Against African Americans

Prejudices can be activated when

people feel angry or insulted. In this
experiment, white participants gave
less shock to a black “learner” than
to a white learner when they were
feeling fine. But once insulted, the
white students gave higher levels to
the black learner.

Manipulation:In the second condition

(insult condition) the students
overheard the learner making
deragotary comments about them
and became angry
(Adapted from Rogers & Prentice-Dunn, 1981)

Racism

• Prejudice and discrimination

based on a person’s racial
background, or institutional
and cultural practices that
promote the domination of
one group over another

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• At birth, newborns have no preference for faces of one race or

another, and if they repeatedly see faces of two or more races, they
continue to show no preference.

• Doll Experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkpUyB2xgTM

Facial Features and Prison

Sentences

• According to a study by Jill Viglione and

others (2011) of more than 12,000 adult black
women imprisoned in North Carolina, the
chances are good that if the two women
depicted here were each found guilty of a
crime, the woman on the left (whose face
would be considered more “stereotypically
black”) would receive a longer prison sentence
than the woman on the right.

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Errors Made in “Shooting” People in a Video Game

Participants played a video game in which they were supposed to “shoot” a man if he was
holding a gun and withhold fire if he was holding a harmless object such as a cell phone. As the
data graph shows, players were equally likely to “shoot” an armed white man, but much more
likely to “shoot” black men who were unarmed, like the man in the photo. (Adapted from
Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002)

Figure 13.2. Errors Made in “Shooting”

People in a Video Game

(Adapted from Correll et al., 2002)

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Detecting • People hide prejudice.

• When situation becomes “safe,” their
Hidden prejudice will be revealed.
• Example: Questioning President Obama’s
Prejudices Americanism, not his race per se

Suppressing Prejudices

• Suppress prejudices for two reasons:

• Sincere motivation to become less prejudiced
• Avoid being labeled a sexist, racist, etc.

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Ways of Identifying Suppressed Prejudices

• Most people don’t want to admit their prejudices, so unobtrusive measures are
necessary.
• Bogus pipeline
• Participants believed a “lie detector” could detect true attitudes
• More likely to express racist attitudes

Ways of Identifying Implicit Prejudices (1 of 2)

• Implicit biases: biases hidden from oneself

• Implicit Association Test (IAT)
• Measures speed of positive and negative reactions to target groups

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Ways of Identifying
Implicit Prejudices (2 of 2)

• IAT may be measuring bias OR…

• It measures a cultural bias or
stereotype, not a personally held bias

The Effects of Prejudice on the Victim

• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• People act in certain ways
because of what others expect
them to do
• Stereotype threat
• People feel evaluated as a
member of a group, rather than
as an individual
• May be evaluated on the basis
of a negative stereotype

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The Self-Fulfilling
Prophecy (1 of 3)
• Example 1
• White college students interviewed white and
African American job candidates (Word, Zanna, &
Cooper, 1974)
• White students displayed discomfort and lack
of interest when interviewing African American
candidates (e.g., sat farther away, ended
interview sooner)

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (2 of 3)

• Example 1
• In a second experiment, used confederates for interviewers who acted as the
white students did in the first experiment. The researchers videotaped the
proceedings and had the applicants rated by independent judges.
• Applicants who were interviewed the way African Americans had been
interviewed in the first experiment were judged to be far more nervous
and far less effective than those who were interviewed the way White
applicants had originally been interviewed.
• Their behavior, in short, reflected the interviewer’s expectations

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Figure 13.4 - An
Experiment
Demonstrating
Self-Fulfilling
Prophecies

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (3 of 3)

• Example 2
• If a society believes that a particular group is stupid, uneducable, it will act in
accordance with beliefs.
• Educational resources will not be provided to that group.
• The consequence: The group will not attain adequate education.
• The Result: The society’s original belief will be confirmed.

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Stereotype Threat

• Feeling evaluated as a member of a group, rather than as an individual

• Sports team or school, political affiliation
• Feeling evaluated negatively because of negative stereotypes

• It’s easy to assume that everyone from one group feels, acts, or
believes the same things.
• In this case, individuals are evaluated as members of that group,
rather than as individuals.

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Cultural Identity vs.

Stereotype

• Whether or not you feel “stereotype

threat” depends on what category you are
identifying with at the time.

• Asian women do worse on math tests

when they see themselves as “women”
(stereotype = poor at math) rather than as
“Asians” (stereotype = good at math)

Reversing the Effects of Stereotype Threat

• How can the effects of stereotype threat be reversed?

• Alternative mindset:
• “I’m a good student”
• Self-affirmation:
• Practice of reminding yourself of your good qualities

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Causes of Prejudice

Pressures to
Conform

Social Identity

Realistic Conflict

Pressure to Conform: Passing on Prejudice

Children often learn prejudice from

parents and grandparents. As
children, we want to please our
parents and older relatives.

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Normative Rules

• Institutional discrimination
• Practices that discriminate, legally or illegally, against a minority group by virtue of
its ethnicity, gender, culture, age, sexual orientation, or other target of societal or
company prejudice

When Prejudice Is Institutionalized

• Normative conformity
• The strong tendency to go along with the group in order to fulfill the group’s
expectations and gain acceptance

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Confronting Anti-Gay
Bias in South Carolina
• When the mayor of Latta, South Carolina, fired
20-year force veteran Crystal Moore (below) from
her position as police chief in 2014, he made little
secret of the fact that it was because of her
sexual orientation.

• But the citizens of Latta were outraged, rallying

behind Chief Moore and forcing a vote on a
referendum that allowed the town council to
reinstate her.

• By reacting vocally to examples of prejudice in

our immediate environment, we have the
potential to create norms that combat bias.

Social Identity Theory: Us versus Them (1 of 2)

• Social identity:
• Part of our identity that stems from our membership in groups

• Ethnocentrism:
• The belief that your own culture, nation, or religion is superior to all others

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Social Identity Theory

• According to social identity theory people strive to
enhance self-esteem, which has two components:
a personal identity and various social identities
that derive from the groups to which we belong.

• Thus, people may boost their self-esteem by

viewing their ingroups more favorably than
outgroups.

Social Identity Theory

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Social Identity Theory: Us versus Them (2 of 2)

• In-group bias:
• The tendency to favor members of one’s own group and give them special
preference over people who belong to other groups; the group can be temporary
and trivial as well as significant

In-Group Bias (1 of 3)

• The major underlying motive is self-esteem

• Individuals enhance self-esteem by identifying with specific social groups.
• Self-esteem is enhanced only if the individual sees these groups as superior to
other groups.

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In-Group Bias (2 of 3)

• Researchers have created entities that they refer to as minimal groups.

• Strangers are formed into groups using the most trivial criteria
• “overestimators” or “underestimators”

In-Group Bias (3 of 3)

• Even when reasons for differentiation are minimal:

• Favor in-group over out-group
• Allocate more rewards for in-group members
• https://mediaplayer.pearsoncmg.com/assets/mypsychlab-minimalist_groups

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Minimal Group Paradigm

Participants in an experiment were first asked to express their
opinions about artists they had never heard of and were then
randomly assigned to a group that appreciated either the “Klee
style” or the “Kandinsky style,” ostensibly due to their picture
preferences

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Wassily Kandinski, 1923 Paul Klee, 1922

Minimal Group Paradigm

(Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament, 1971)

Manipulation: researchers created a matrice for rewards

• Maximum Difference –choosing the largest possible

difference in reward between member of the different groups
(in favour of the in-group) would result in gaining relatively
small award.

First line:in-group award

Second line: outgoup award

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Minimal Group Paradigm

(Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament, 1971)

Results
1. In general, participants were fair, but …
2. There was a significant tendency to give more money to in-
group members than to out-group members (i.e., in-group
favouritism).
3. In-group favouritism occurred even when it meant giving in-
group members less than the maximum amount of money
(i.e., in-group bias).

In-Group Bias

• Despite being strangers before the experiment, group members

behaved as if those in the same group were friends or family.
• They rated members of their in-group as more likely to have
pleasant personalities and to have done better work than out-
group members.
• They allocated more rewards to those who shared their label.

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Out-Group Homogeneity

• In-group members perceive out-group members as being more

similar (homogeneous) than they really are
• If you know something about one out-group member, you are
more likely to feel you know something about all of them
• The belief that “They” are all alike

In-Groups and Out-Groups

• When times are tough and resources are scarce:

• In-group members will feel more threatened by the out-group.
• Incidents of prejudice, discrimination, and violence toward
out-group members will increase.

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Social Identity Theory_ Recap

• Most stereotypes are negative, and most prejudices depict outgroups as inferior or as
having bad traits.
• Outgroup members (“they”) are people who belong to a different group or category
than we do.
• Ingroup members (“we”) are people who belong to the same group or category as we
do.
• The outgroup homogeneity bias assumes that outgroup members are more similar to
one another than ingroup members are to one another

How We Assign Meaning

Attributional Bias

86

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• One reason stereotypes are so insidious and persistent

is the human tendency to make dispositional
attributions.

• Relying too heavily on dispositional attributions often

Dispositional leads us to make attributional mistakes.

Versus • Dispositional attributions—to leap to the conclusion

that a person’s behavior is due to some aspect of his or
her personality rather than to some aspect of the
Situational situation.

Explanations • Although attributing people’s behavior to their

dispositions is often accurate, human behavior is also
shaped by situational forces. Given that this process
operates on an individual level, you can only imagine
the problems and complications that arise when we
overzealously act out the fundamental attribution error
for a whole group of people—an out-group.

• Ultimate attribution error

• Our tendency to make dispositional
attributions about an individual’s
negative behavior to an entire group of
people.
Dispositional Example:

Versus In one study, college students, playing the role of

jurors in a mock trial, were more likely to find a
defendant guilty of a given crime simply if his name
Situational was Carlos Ramirez rather than Robert Johnson
(Bodenhausen, 1988).

Explanations Thus any situational information or extenuating

circumstances that might have explained the
defendant’s actions were ignored when the powerful
dispositional attribution was stereotypically
triggered—in this case, by the Hispanic name.

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Dispositional Versus
Situational
Explanations
When people conform to our stereotype, we tend to blind
ourselves to clues about why they might have behaved as
they did.

Instead, we assume that something about their character or

disposition, and not their situation or life circumstances,
caused their behavior.

In other words, when the fundamental attribution error

rears its ugly head, we make dispositional attributions
(based on our stereotypical beliefs about an ethnic or racial
group) and not situational ones.

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Blaming the Victim (1 of 2)

• When empathy is absent, it can be hard to avoid blaming the victim

• Blaming the victim
• The tendency to blame individuals (make dispositional attributions) for their
victimization, is typically motivated by a desire to see the world as a fair place
(just world belief)

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Blaming the Victim (2 of 2)

• Example: rape myths

• Must have “deserved it”
• Behaved inappropriately
• Dressed provocatively
• Blaming the victim serves a self-protective function
• Can’t happen to me, wouldn’t behave that way

Justifying Feelings of Entitlement and Superiority (1

of 2)

• Crandall and Eshleman’s (2003) model

• Struggle between urge to express prejudice and the need to maintain positive
self-concept (as a nonbigot)
• Requires energy to suppress prejudiced impulses

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Justifying Feelings of Entitlement and Superiority (2

of 2)

• To conserve energy, seek valid justification for holding a negative attitude toward a
particular out-group
• Can then act against that group and still feel like a nonbigot
• Avoids cognitive dissonance

• Realistic conflict theory

Realistic Conflict
• Limited resources leads to conflict among groups,
Theory (1 of 2) which leads to prejudice and discrimination

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Realistic Conflict
Theory (2 of 2)
• Prejudice increases when times are tense and
conflict exists over mutually exclusive goals.
• Example
• Economic recession and violence against
Latinos

(Krishnan, 2015)

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Reducing Prejudice
• Two ways to reduce prejudice
• Contact hypothesis
• Cooperation and Interdependence

Inner Processes

• Scapegoat theory proposes that people blame their problems and misfortunes on outgroups.
• Conflict and stress tend to bring out stereotypes and prejudice.
• People use their stereotypes more as hypotheses to be tested than as rules that can be
applied in all cases.
• The automatic system may often sustain prejudices, whereas the conscious system may strive
to overcome those prejudices and stereotypes.
• When people are accused of prejudice, they often exert themselves to prove the opposite.

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Scapegoating
• When frustrated or unhappy, people tend to
displace aggression onto groups that are disliked,
visible, and relatively powerless
• Form of aggression dependent on what
in-group approves of or allows

• Anger and Retaliation: The emotional mechanisms

described by the frustration aggression hypothesis and the
Intergroup general aggression model can trigger impulsive intergroup
Aggression aggression.

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• Scapegoating: If Group B cannot aggress against Group A, it

Intergroup may instead instigate conflict with another group (Group C).
Aggression

Post-9/11 Anti-Muslim Prejudice

After the attacks on the World

Trade Center and Pentagon on
9/11, scapegoating of Muslims
increased.

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The Contact Hypothesis

Mere contact between groups not sufficient to reduce prejudice

• Can create opportunities for conflict that may increase it

Prejudice will decrease when two conditions are met:

• Both groups are of equal status.

• Both share a common goal.

Figure 13.6
The Impact of Cross-Ethnic Friendships on
Minority Students’ Well-Being

• In a longitudinal study of minority black students at a

predominantly white university, many black students at first
felt dissatisfied and excluded from school life. But the more
white friends they made, the higher their sense of belonging
(blue bar) and satisfaction with the university (red bar).
• This finding was particularly significant for minority students
who had been the most sensitive to rejection and who had felt
the most anxious and insecure about being in a largely white
school.
• The study was later replicated with minority Latino students.

(Based on Mendoza-Denton & Page-Gould, 2008)

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When Contact Reduces Prejudice

(1 of 3)

• Sherif and colleagues (1961) found:

• Once hostility and distrust were established, simply removing a conflict and the
competition did not restore harmony.
• In fact, bringing two competing groups together in neutral situations actually
increased their hostility and distrust.

When Contact Reduces Prejudice

(2 of 3)

• Interdependence

• The need to depend on each other to accomplish a goal that is important to each
group

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When Contact Reduces Prejudice

(3 of 2)

Four Conditions
•Mutual interdependence
•Common goal
•Equal status
•Supported by social norms

The Robbers Cave Experiment

• In the Robbers Cave field experiment, 22 white, 11-
year-old boys were sent to a special remote summer
camp in Oklahoma, Robbers Cave State Park.
• The boys developed an attachment to their groups
throughout the first week of the camp by doing various
activities together like hiking, swimming, etc.
• The boys chose names for their groups, The Eagles and
The Rattlers.
• During a four-day series of competitions between the
groups prejudice began to become apparent between
the two groups (both physical and verbal).

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The Robbers Cave

Experiment
• During the subsequent two-day cooling off period, the boys listed features of the two groups. The boys
tended to characterize their own in-group in very favourable terms, and the other out-group in very
unfavourable terms.
• Sherif then attempted to reduce the prejudice, or inter-group conflict, shown by each group. However,
simply increasing the contact of the two groups only made the situation worse.
• Alternatively forcing the groups to work together to reach common goals, eased prejudice and tension
among the groups.
• This experiment confirmed Sherif's realistic conflict theory (also called realistic group conflict theory),
the idea that group conflict can result from competition over resources.

Robbers Cave Experiment

Phases
• Phase 1: in-group formation
• Each group, initially unaware of the other’s presence, had their own cabin and were independent,
camping out, cooking, improving swimming places, carrying canoes over rough terrain to water
and playing various games. They were assigned activities that held a common appeal for group
members and that depended on the collective effort of the group as a whole
• After a week the groups were made aware of each other. The researchers observed that in-
group/out-group terms began to be used. When they watched a film together, they sat in their
own distinct groups. The 2 groups were clearly discriminating against each other.
• Phase 2: friction
• The 2 groups wanted to play each other at baseball which enabled the researchers to introduce a
competition: a grand tournament comprising 10 sporting events, plus cabin cleanliness awards
and acting events.
• Phase 3: Reducing inter-group hostility
• Their prime strategy for this was to replace the competitive goals with goals that could only be
achieved by members of the 2 groups co-operating together.

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• https://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/society/prejudice-
discrimination/robbers-cave/
• Competition increased prejudice & discrimination, leading to clear
inter-group conflict. This finding led Sherif to develop Realistic
Conflict Theory. Working together towards common goals led to
much better relations and even something of a superordinate
identity.

Figure 13.7
How Cooperation Fosters Intergroup Relations

• When the Eagles and the Rattlers were in

competition, few of the boys in each group had
friends from the other side.

• Intergroup tensions were eased only after the

boys had to cooperate to get shared privileges and
the boys began to make friends across“enemy
lines.”

(Based on data in Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, & Sherif, 1961)

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• There are serious ethical issues with the Robber’s Case study.
• Children were manipulated into developing hostile attitudes towards other children,
their parents were not allowed fully-informed consent, the boys were not offered
the right to withdraw and they were caused stress (psychological harm). Some boys also
experienced pain (physical harm).
• Sherif and his team justified the study by the sheer amount of insight into the way inter-
group tensions develop.
• They also pointed out that none of the boys suffered any lasting damage, psychological
or physical.

Common Ingroup Identity Model

• Individuals in different groups who view themselves as members of a single social

entity will experience more positive contacts between themselves and intergroup
bias will be reduced.
• Recategorization
• Shifts in the boundary between an individual’s ingroup and various outgroups
cause persons formerly viewed as outgroup members now to be seen as
belonging to the ingroup
• Superordinate group
• E.g., praying together as observant Christians at a game
• Cross-cutting group
• E.g., members of different churches who belong to the same soccer team.

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Where Contact Went Wrong

• In a typical desegregated classroom:

• Students not of equal status
• Not pursuing common goal
• Traditional classrooms are very competitive

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Classroom setting designed to

reduce prejudice and raise the self-
esteem of children
Cooperation and • Placing children in small, desegregated
Interdependence: groups
The Jigsaw • Each child dependent on others to learn the
Classroom course material and do well

Reduces prejudice and promotes

integration

A Classroom That Works for All

When the classroom is structured so that students of various ethnic groups work together cooperatively, prejudice
decreases and self-esteem increases.

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Why does the jigsaw work?

• Breaks down perception of in-group and out-group, creates feeling of

“one-ness”
Jigsaw • People must do each other “favors” by sharing information
• Develop empathy for others
Classroom One of the most effective ways of improving race
relations, improving empathy, and improving instruction

https://mediaplayer.pearsoncmg.com/assets/mypsychlab-
Aronson_scientist_humanist

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What Is Your
Motivation to
Overcome
Prejudice?

What Makes Us Human?

• Although conflict between groups is not unique to humans, humans surround group
conflict with meanings, values, and other ideas.
• Humans are the only animals that deliberately pass social ideas on to their young.
• People may use prejudices and stereotypes to strengthen the bonds within their
group.
• Unlike other animals, humans can rise above their prejudices and feelings.

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