Chapter 11: Stereotyping,

Prejudice, and Discrimination

Social Psychology by
Tom Giliovich, Dacher
Keltner, and Richard
Nisbett
Characterizing Intergroup Bias
Stereotypes - beliefs about attributes that are thought to
be characteristic of members of particular groups

Prejudice - a negative attitude or affective response

toward a certain group and its individual members

Discrimination - unfair treatment of members of a

particular group based on their membership in that
group
Sources of Prejudice

 Social Sources
– Unequal Status
– Social Identity
 Cognitive Sources
– Stereotypes
– Perceived Similarities and Differences
– Illusory Correlation
Social Sources of Prejudice

 Unequal Status
– realistic conflict theory - direct competition between
groups over valued resources (jobs, schools)
 Robber’s Cave Experiment
 Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
 Racial Violence and Economic Conditions
250
210 201
200
Number of Lynchings

150 127
114
100
100
64 64
50 38
11 21
0
1882 1884 1890 1893 1906 1908 1917 1921 1927 1930
Years
 Frustration During Exercise
Mammal Bird Fish
7

6 4.75

5
Frustration

3.33
4

3
1.33
2

1
Back
Social Sources of Prejudice

 Social Identity
– social categorization- divide world into in-group
(“us”) and out-group (“them”)
 in-group bias- view own group more favorably
– Bele: You're finished Lokai. Oh, we got your kind penned in
on Cheron in a little district. And it's not going to change.
You half-white.
Lokai: You half-black.
In-Group Bias from Exercise

5 Mammals Birds Fish

3.87
4 3.65 3.75
3.33
Positivity

2.90
3
2.4 2.4

1.77
2 1.6

1
Mammals Birds Fish
Raters
 Cognitive Sources of Prejudice

“prejudice is by-product of our thinking processes”

stereotypes- sweeping generalizations of social groups
 influence social thought by:
– process information consistent with stereotype quicker
– focus on information consistent with stereotype
– use tacit inferences to make inconsistent information appear
consistent
 Cognitive Sources of Prejudice

 out-group homogeneity
– out-group members seen as more alike
 in-group differentiation
– in-group members seen as more diverse
(heterogeneous)
 illusory correlations
– overestimating rates of negative behavior in minority
groups
 Out-Group Homogeneity

Mammal Bird Fish

2

1.3
Variation if Positivity
Ratings of Mammals

1.5
0.94 0.99
1

0.5

0
Discrimination

Discrimination- negative behaviors directed

toward members of some social group
 subtle forms
– tokenism- perform trivial actions for minorities
– reverse discrimination- leaning over backwards to
treat targets of prejudice favorably
– “modern” racism
Characterizing Intergroup Bias

1. Modern Racism and Sexism

Modern racism - prejudice directed at other racial
groups that exists alongside a rejection of
explicitly racist beliefs
a. Benevolent Racism and Sexism
Characterizing Intergroup Bias

2. Measures to Assess True Attitudes

a. Implicit Association Test (IAT)
technique for revealing unconscious prejudices
toward particular groups
b. Priming and Implicit Prejudice

Priming - procedure used to increase the accessibility of a

concept or schema (for example, a stereotype)
Implicit Attitudes

 Are automatically activated evaluations

outside of a person’s awareness
(unconscious)
– Formed slowly through experience
– Very resistant to extinction
 Changing implicit attitudes
– Can be changed without subject’s conscious
awareness
 Prime subjects with counterstereotypes
Being a Member of a Stigmatized
Group

1. Attributional Ambiguity
2. Stereotype Threat
- fear that one will confirm the stereotypes that
others have regarding some salient group of
which one is a member
Reducing Prejudice

 Social Learning
– teach parents to socialize children to be tolerant
 Increase intergroup contact
– contact must involve cooperation and interdependence
– norms favoring group equality must exist
– focus on individual-based (vs. category) processing
 Extended Contact Hypothesis
– knowing that members of in-group have formed friendships with
out-group members may reduce prejudice
 Reducing Prejudice (con’t)

 Have groups work on superordinate goals

 Focus on similarities between in-group and
nonthreatening out-group
 Recategorization
– reset boundaries between “us” and “them”, so former
out-group is now included in in-group
 Focus on others’ specific traits and outcomes
(attribute-driven processing) rather than on group
stereotypes (category-driven processing)
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