Article Summary 2: Prejudice as Self-Image Maintenance: Affirming the Self Through Derogating Others

The main motivation of this article to reveal whether many manifestations of prejudice stem from
maintaining a better self-worth or protecting the self-esteem. When people engage in negative
evaluations of others, they become feeling better about themselves, thus prejudice can be self-affirming.

In study 1, participants were either self-affirmed or not by either circling a value that is important to
them and writing a paragraph or circling a value that is least important to them and writing a paragraph
why that value is important to someone else. Then, they were asked to evaluate a job candidate. In one
group, the job candidate was a member stereotyped group who is a Jewish American woman. It was
implied via her name, an extracurricular activity, her sorority and her wearing a religious necklace.
Afterwards, participants rated the candidate in terms of both personality and job qualifications. Results
have revealed a significant main effect of apparent ethnicity, but not a main effect of the affirmation
manipulation. As predicted before, not affirmed participants evaluated both dependent measures more
negatively when the candidate was Jewish. This study is replicated when the mood measurement
involved as well, and it has been found that the mood of participants was unrelated to their evaluations.

In study 2, participants first completed an intelligence test, but one group was told afterwards that the
scores were bogus. Whereas the other group was made to believe that the scores were real, and they
received negative feedback about their performances. Then, all of them read a story about a guy named
Greg. One group again was made to think that Greg is gay whereas the other is not. Then, they are asked
to rate Greg’s personality on 10 dimensions such as sensitivity, intelligence or
assertiveness/aggressiveness. The results have shown that participants in the negative feedback and in
Greg being gay condition rated him more stereotypically. Moreover, the interaction between these two
conditions revealed the most stereotypical judgment upon Greg than any other condition. Thus, this
study showed that threat to self-image increase the effects of stereotyping or prejudice.

In study 3, participants were made to complete an intelligence test as well, but this time all were told
that the scores were real. They had to complete a questionnaire about their perception of their own self-
esteem, one after the test and one after they evaluate a woman who is given either as Jewish or Italian.
Lastly, they were again asked to rate the personality qualifications of the woman. Researchers this time
predicted as follows: “(a) participants who received negative feedback would have lower state self-
esteem than participants who received positive feedback, (b) participants who received negative
feedback and evaluated the Jewish target would rate the target more negatively than would the
participants in the other conditions, (c) participants who received negative feedback and evaluated the
Jewish target would exhibit a greater increase in state self-esteem than would participants in the other
conditions, and (d) this increase in state self-esteem would be mediated by their evaluations of the
target.” As predicted, participants who got negative feedback and who encountered the Jewish woman
evaluated her more negatively. The interaction also revealed the most boosted self-esteem among other
group of participants. The last prediction (d) predicted that received negative feedback caused increased
derogation of the Jewish woman and this helped to increase participants to boost their own self-esteem.

This study brought important aspect in comparison to frustration-aggression theory, social identity
theory, and downward social comparison theory. This is because briefly it showed that engaging in
stereotyping and prejudice is an attractive way to feel better about ourselves in the absence of more
readily available situations of welcoming self-image threats, affirming ourselves, showing aggression, and
protecting or belonging a group.