Prejudice

Course Instructor: Ms. Erum Kausar

BS-2
Social Psychology
Resources

• Myers pages 307-351

• Baron
Definitions of Prejudice, Discrimination &
Stereotyping

• What do you understand by these terms?

Make a news headline
for this boy

Which heading would

you place this under?

Prejudice? Discrimination?

Stereotype? Racism?
 Racism

An individual’s prejudicial
attitudes and discriminatory
behavior toward people of a
given race
 Stereotype

A belief about the personal attributes of a

group of people. Stereotypes are
sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate,
and resistant to new information (and
sometimes accurate). They may be
positive or negative
 Prejudice

A preconceived negative judgment of a

group and its individual members. An
irrational attitude based on group
membership. It is a pre judgment, and not
based on direct evidence.
 Discrimination

Unjustified negative behavior toward

a group or its members
What ideas do
workplaces carry
about obese
individuals?

Is it easy for
obese people to
find jobs?
Quick Q/A
1) Jones think that physically handicapped people are also
intellectually disabled
2) Jones meets a girl and thinks to himself ‘This girl has polio
and there are high chances she might also have mild
intellectual deficit’
3) Jones meet a mother and asks her ‘I notice she has polio,
does your daughter have mild intellectual deficit also?’
4) The girl is seated next to Jones, he starts to feel
uncomfortable and leaves his seat to sit elsewhere
Examples from book

• RELIGION
• Muslims not hired / paid well by managers (Park et al,
2009). What is this?
• Example of discrimination based on religion
• Muslims perceive Westerners as greedy and immoral
(Wike & Grim, 2007). What is this?
• Stereotype, generalizing Westerners as greedy.
OBESITY
• Overweight people marry less often, gain entry to less-
desirable jobs, and make less money (Swami & others,
2008).
• Weight discrimination, exceeds racial or gender
discrimination and occurs at every employment stage—
hiring, placement, promotion, compensation, discipline,
and discharge (Roehling, 2000).
• More often bullied as children, and as adults they are more
often depressed.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
• The U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health
revealed that gay and lesbian teens are much more likely
to be harshly punished by schools and courts than are
their straight peers, despite being less likely to engage in
serious wrongdoing (Himmelstein & Brückner, 2011)
• AGE
• People’s perceptions of the elderly—as generally kind but
frail, incompetent, unproductive— predispose patronizing
behavior, such as baby-talk speech that leads elderly
people to feel less competent and act less capably
(Bugental & Hehman, 2007).
• IMMIGRANTS
• Dislike of:
• Germans toward Turks,
• the French toward North Africans,
• the British toward West Indians and Pakistanis, and
• Americans toward Latin American immigrants (Pettigrew,
2006)
Important Additions

Definition of prejudice:
• Some prejudice definitions include positive judgments, but
nearly all uses of “prejudice” refer to negative ones—what
Gordon Allport termed in his classic book, The Nature of
Prejudice, “an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible
generalization” [1954].
Definition of stereotype:
They are beliefs, not prejudice. Stereotypes may support prejudice, yet
one might believe, without prejudice that men and women are different
yet equal
• Certain examples given in the book include

• Ms. and married women with surnames –assertive and ambitious

• Americans are outgoing
• Pakistanis are…?
• STEREOTYPES AND THE “GLASS CEILING”
Glass —a final barrier that prevents women, as a group, from
reaching top positions in the ceiling workplace.

• Glass Ceiling
Barriers based on attitudinal or organizational bias that prevent
qualified females from advancing to top-level positions.
• GENDER STEREOTYPES AND THE “GLASS CLIFF”
• When, then, are women most likely to gain access to
high-status positions—or break through the glass
ceiling?
• Definition of discrimination:
• Prejudice is a negative attitude; discrimination is
negative behavior. Discriminatory behavior often has its
source in prejudicial attitudes.
• Benevolent Sexism—suggests that women are
superior to men in various ways (e.g., they have
better taste) and are necessary for men’s happiness
• Women are more likely than men are to agree with these
ideas.
• Hostile Sexism—suggests that women are a threat to
men’s position (e.g., they are trying to seize power
from men which they are perceived as not deserving)
• Men report higher levels than women do
• Countries with greater gender inequality are likely to
have more of both forms of sexism
• Another result of stereotype use
• Out-group homogeneity—members of an out-group appear to
be “all alike” or more similar to each other than are members of
the in-group
• In-group differentiation—members of own group are more heterogeneous
• May be due to greater experience within one’s in-group and less experience
with members of other groups
• Its converse is the in-group homogeneity effect, which tends to occur most
commonly among minority group members who are uniting to respond to
perceived inequalities.
• Origins of Prejudice
• Generally, perceptions of threat are
involved.
• Threat to self-esteem or group interests
• Competition for scarce resources
• Self-categorization as a member of a group
and others as members of a different group
 Prejudice and Discrimination
• Role of social categorization: The us-versus-them effect
• People easily divide the social world into us (the in-group)
versus them (the out-group).
• People considered part of the ‘us’ category are thought of more
favorably than those in the ‘them’ category.
• This process affects the attributions people make.
• Ultimate Attribution Error—tendency to make more favorable
and flattering attributions about members of one’s own group
than about members of other groups, which is the self-serving
attribution bias at the group level
• How does social categorization result in prejudice?

• Social Identity Theory—concerned with the consequences of perceiving

the self as a member of a social group and identifying with it
• One consequence is that self-esteem is involved with this identification.
• A need to increase self-esteem can result in seeing other groups as inferior to
one’s own.
• When group members feel that their identity is being threatened (perhaps
because their identity is being combined with another group’s), they tend to
exhibit increased levels of prejudice toward the other group.
Why Prejudice Is Not Inevitable
• On Learning Not To Hate
• Social Learning View—prejudice is acquired
through direct and vicarious experiences in
much the same manner as other attitudes
• Children learn negative attitudes by hearing parents and
other significant others express them and then being
rewarded for adopting them.
• Direct experience with people of other groups also
influences attitudes.
• The Potential Benefits of Contact

• Contact Hypothesis—view that increased contact between

members of various social groups can be effective in
reducing prejudice between them
• Increased contact can decrease prejudice by increasing familiarity and
reducing anxiety.
• Positive contact that involves cooperation and interdependence between
groups can result in the adoption of egalitarian social norms and the
reduction of prejudice.
• In fact, simply learning that members of one’s in-group have formed friendships
with out-group members can decrease prejudice.
Origins of Prejudice
• Social inequalities
• The authoritarian personality
• Institutional supports and biases
• The scapegoat theory
• Social identity theory
• Categorization
• Group-serving bias
• The Just-World phenomenon
• Conformity
 Social Inequalities

• Unequal status breeds prejudice

• Whether this is in terms of wealth, race, gender or the
like
• Prejudice helps justify the economic and social
superiority of those who have wealth and power
• Stereotypes help rationalize the inferior status of a
group
• Many people thought blacks and women were mentally slow,
emotional and primitive and contended with their subordinate role.
Blacks were inferior, women were weak.

• Vescio and colleagues (2005) found that powerful men who

stereotype their female subordinates give them plenty of praise but
fewer resources, thus undermining their performance. This sort of
patronizing allows men to maintain their positions of power.
 The Authoritarian Personality
• What is this child learning?
• Do you think he takes out his anger and hostility else
where?
• The influence of family socialization appears in children’s
prejudices which often mirror those perceived in their
mothers.
• Children’s implicit racial attitudes reflect their parents’
explicit prejudice
 A personality that is disposed to favor obedience to
authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower
in status
With this another theory, social dominance orientation- a
motivation to have one’s group dominate other social
groups
Theodor Adorno & colleagues (1950), studied American
adults and discovered that hostility towards Jews often
coexisted with hostility towards other minorities
 The authoritarian personality is prone to engage in
prejudice and stereotyping , towards anyone who is
considered different

They submit to those they see above them and

dominate people they can. An authoritarian
personality likes strong, dominant leaders.

Aggression, hatred towards outgroup. People need a sense of

security and hence turn to strong leaders who promise to keep
them safe
 Institutional Supports and Biases
• Why do some kids go to these schools?
• Do schools care for the socio -economic status of their
students?
• Can it be stated that prejudice is reinforced by institutions?
• Social institutions e.g., schools, government, media, etc.
• Social institutions may boost prejudice through overt
policies
• Until 1970s in the US, many banks routinely denied
mortgages to unmarried women and minority applicants
The Scapegoat Theory
 A theory proposing that prejudice occurs because members of
dominant groups use discrimination against members of weak target
groups to vent frustration and disappointment
• When the cause of our frustration is intimidating or unknown, we often
redirect our hostility.
• Displaced aggression and hostility
• In earlier centuries, people vented their fear and hostility on witches by
burning or drowning them
• After 9/11, angry Americans expressed greater intolerance towards
immigrants and Middle Easterners
• Passions provoke prejudice
• Competition is a great source of frustration which can fuel
prejudice
• Realistic group conflict theory comes in stating that prejudice
arises from competition between groups for scarce resources.
• People voted for trump, because he would ban immigrants.
What do these immigrants do?
• When interests clash prejudice may be the result.
The Just World Phenomenon
• E.g. the situation of the security guard slapping the
woman at NADRA
• Was a slap alright in this situation?
• “The tendency of people to believe that the world is just
and that people therefore get what they deserve and
deserve what they get”.
Conformity and Prejudice (Myers Pg 322)
• Once established, prejudice is maintained largely by
inertia. If prejudice is socially accepted, many people will
follow the path of least resistance and conform to the
fashion. They will act not so much out of a need to hate as
out of a need to be liked and accepted
Sexist Humor and Sexism
• People become more likely to favor discrimination after hearing
someone else do so, and they are less supportive of women after
hearing sexist humor (Ford & others, 2008; Zitek & Hebl, 2007)
• Gender prejudice –nursery and kitchen are the natural sphere of
a woman. STEM studies for females?
• “… The acceptance of sexist humor leads men to believe that
sexist behavior falls within the bounds of social acceptability.”