Chapter 11

Prejudice

What is the nature and power of

prejudice?
What are the social sources of prejudice?
What are the motivational sources of
prejudice?
What are the cognitive sources of
prejudice?
What are the consequences of prejudice?
NATURE AND POWER OF PREJUDICE

PREJUDICE
negative prejudgment of a group and its individual
members
unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of
hostile nature regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious
group
supported by stereotypes
Explicit: conscious (central channel)
Implicit: unconscious (peripheral channel)

ATTITUDE COMPONENTS
Prejudice (affect): negative or positive
Stereotype (belief): accurate of inaccurate
Discrimination (behavior): unjustifiable negative behavior
NATURE AND POWER OF PREJUDICE

FORMS OF PREJUDICE
Racial prejudice (Racism)- systems, policies, actions, and
attitudes create inequitable outcome for people based on
race
prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward
people of a given race
Gender prejudice (Sexism)- a person is denied an
opportunity or misjudged solely on the basis of their sex
LGBT prejudice- negative attitude against the social group

Discrimination: unjustified negative behavior towards a group

or its members
NATURE AND POWER OF PREJUDICE

SUBTLE RACIAL PREJUDICE

Employment discrimination
Favoritism galore
Traffic stops (pulling over)
Patronization

GENDER PREJUDICE
strong gender stereotypes exist
benevolent sexism and hostile sexism

LGBTQIA+ PREJUDICE
same-sex relationship as a criminal offense in countries
endures: job discrimination, harassment, and rejection
SOCIAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

(1) SOCIAL INEQUALITIES: UNEQUAL STATUS & PREJUDICE

unequal status breeds prejudice
upper-class people see poverty as a deserved outcome
prejudice in workplaces and gender stereotypes

Social Dominance Orientation: motivation to have your own

group be dominant over other social groups

(2) SOCIALIZATION: THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

Ethnocentric: belief in the superiority of own ethnic and
cultural group + disdain for other groups
Authoritarian Personality: disposed to favor obedience to
authority and intolerance of outgroups and those in lower
status
SOCIAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

(2.1) SOCIALIZATION: RELIGION AND PREJUDICE

religion as a pretense by people who benefit from social
inequalities to justify their prejudice

Correlation between religion and prejudice:

1. There might be no causal connection
2. Perhaps prejudice causes religion
3. Perhaps religion causes prejudice

Religiosity and Prejudice

Faithful attendees are less prejudiced
Clergy are less prejudiced
Intrinsically religious are less prejudiced
SOCIAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

(2.2) SOCIALIZATION: CONFORMITY

those who conformed most to other social norms were also
most prejudiced

(3) INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORTS

social institutions may bolster prejudice through overt
policies (segregation, status quo reinforcement)
media may strengthen harmful stereotypes
MOTIVATIONAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

FRUSTRATION AND AGGRESSION: THE SCAPEGOAT THEORY

tendency to blame someone else for one's own problems
scapegoating: opportunity to explain failure of misdeeds,
while maintaining one's positive self-image

REALISTIC GROUP CONFLICT THEORY

prejudice arises when groups compete for scarce resources

Pain and frustration often evoke hostility

Passions provoke prejudice
Competition fuel prejudice
MOTIVATIONAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY: FEELING SUPERIOR TO OTHERS

In-group: "us"; group of people who share a sense of
belonging, a feeling of common identity
Out-group: "them"; groups people perceive as distinctively
different from or apart from their in-group

We categorize We identify We compare

MOTIVATIONAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE
MOTIVATIONAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

IN-GROUP BIAS
tendency to favor one's own group
(1) expresses and supports a positive self-concept; (2) feeds
favoritism; and (3) may foster out-group disliking

NEED FOR STATUS, SELF-REGARD, AND BELONGING

Status is relative. To perceive ourselves as having status, we

need people below us. Thus one psychological benefit of
prejudice, or of any status system, is a feeling of superiority.

Terror Management: self-protective emotional and cognitive

responses (e.g., strongly holding cultural worldviews and
prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality.
MOTIVATIONAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

MOTIVATION TO AVOID PREJUDICE

can lead people to modify their thoughts and actions
self-conscious people will feel guilt and try to inhibit their
prejudicial response
COGNITIVE SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

CATEGORIZATION: CLASSIFYING PEOPLE INTO GROUPS

organize the world by clustering objects into groups

Stereotypes represent cognitive efficiency. Making speedy

judgements and predicting how others will think and act.

SPONTANOEOUS CATEGORIZATION
We find it easy and efficient to rely on stereotypes when:
pressed for time
preoccupied
tired
emotionally aroused
COGNITIVE SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

PERCEIVED SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

Out-group homogeneity effect: "they are all alike" and
different from us and our group
Own-race bias: tendency to more accurately recognize
faces of own race
Own-age bias: tendency to more accurately identify faces
from own age group

DISTINCTIVENESS: PERCEIVING PEOPLE WHO STAND OUT

Distinctive people: have exaggerated good and bad
qualities
feeds on self-consciousness: being different affects how we
interpret others' behavior
Meta-stereotypes: how minorities stereotype them
COGNITIVE SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

STIGMA CONSCIOUSNESS
expectation of being victimized by prejudice or
discrimination

VIVID CASES
our minds use distinctive cases as shortcut to judge group
distorts judgments and create stereotypes

Distinctive events foster illusory correlation. Stereotypes

assume a correlation between group membership and
individuals’ presumed characteristics
COGNITIVE SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

ATTRIBUTION ERROR
attribute others' behavior so much on their inner
dispositions

Group-serving bias. Attributing negative behavior to

outgroup's dispositions

Just-world phenomenon. Tendency to believe that the world is

just and that of people; get what they deserve and deserve
what they jet
COGNITIVE SOURCES OF PREJUDICE
COGNITIVE SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

SELF-PERPETUATING STEREOTYPES

Prejudgments guide our attention and memories. After we

judge an item as belonging to a category such as a particular
race or sex, our memory for it later shifts toward the features
we associate with that category.

Prejudgments are self-perpetuating. When a member of a

group behaves inconsistently with our expectation, we may
interpret or explain away the behavior as due to special
circumstances.
STEREOTYPES CREATE REALITY

Why people do not change their stereotypes in face of

disconfirming information:

Subtyping- accommodating individuals who deviate from

one's stereotype by thinking them as a special category
("exception to the rule") of people with different properties.

Subgrouping- accommodating individuals who deviate from

one’s stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset
of the group.

Subtypes are exceptions to the group; subgroups are

acknowledged as a part of the overall diverse group.
STEREOTYPES CREATE REALITY

DISCRIMINATION'S IMPACT: THE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

Attitudes may coincide with the social hierarchy not only as a
rationalization for it but also because discrimination affects its
victims

In The Nature of Prejudice, Gordon Allport (1954) catalogued 15

possible effects of victimization. 2 Basic types are:
Blaming oneself (withdrawal, self-hate, aggression against
one's own group)
Blaming external causes (fighting back, suspiciousness,
increased group pride)

Social belief can be self-confirming.

STEREOTYPES CREATE REALITY

HOW PREJUDICE IMPEDES PERFORMANCE

Stereotype threat. Self-confirming apprehension that one will

be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. Placed in a
situation where others expect you to perform poorly, your
anxiety may also cause you to confirm the belief.
STEREOTYPES CREATE REALITY

Values affirmation: getting people to affirm who they are.

How the stereotype threat undermines performance

Stress- stress of the stereotype threat impairs brain activity
associated with mathematical processing and increase
activity in areas associated with emotion processing
Self-monitoring- worrying about making mistakes disrupts
focused attention
Suppressing unwanted thoughts and emotions- effort
required to regulate one's thinking takes energy and
disrupts working memory
STEREOTYPES CREATE REALITY

Positive stereotypes enhance performance

Shih et al. (1999) confirmed this possibility
positive stereotypes seem to facilitate performance

Stereotypes bias judgments

Our stereotypes mostly reflect reality
“Stereotype accuracy is one of the largest effects in all of
social psychology”
People often evaluate individuals more positively than the
individuals’ groups
People often believe stereotypes, yet ignore them when
given personal, anecdotal information
STEREOTYPES CREATE REALITY

Strong stereotypes matter. It colors our judgment of

individuals.

Stereotypes bias interpretations. It colors how we interpret

events. We evaluate people more extremely when their
behavior violates our stereotypes.