Chapter 13 Prejudice and intergroup relations

Prejudice
prejudice is derived from the Latin term for prejudging.
Prejudice: negative feeling toward an individual based solely on their membership in a particular group.

Racism: prejudiced attitudes toward a particular race.

Racism can take the form of overt, blanket statements of disliking and disapproving of certain groups.
In some settings, people are uncomfortable about their prejudices.
Aversive racism: simultaneously holding egalitarian values and negative feelings toward people of other races.
Aversive racists simultaneously hold egalitarian values and negative (aversive or unpleasant) feelings toward people of
other races. They believe in racial equality and equal opportunity, but they also feel uncomfortable around minorities
and try to avoid them when possible.

Discrimination:
prejudiced feelings sometimes lead people to discriminate against others.
Discrimination: unequal treatment of different people based on the groups or categories to which they belong.
Prejudice can exist without discrimination if people hold negative views but don’t act unfairly. and sometimes
discrimination can occur without prejudiced feelings.
Stereotypes:
Stereotypes: beliefs that associate groups of people with certain traits.
Subtype: categories that people use for individuals who do not fit a general stereotype.

Prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes are the ABCs of intergroup relationships:
A – the affective component is prejudice.
B – the behavioural component is discrimination.
C – cognitive component is stereotyping.

The human mind seems naturally inclined to sort objects into groups rather than thinking about each object
separately. this process of categorisation makes it much easier to make sense of a complicated world.
Categorisation: the natural tendency of humans to sort objects into groups.
The process of sorting people into groups on the basis of characteristics they have in common (such as race,
ethnicity, gender, age, religion, or sexual orientation) is called social categorisation.
Social categorization: the process of sorting people into groups on the basis of characteristics they have in common
(for example, race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation)
People tend to be “cognitive misers”, which means they generally think in easy, simple ways that minimise mental
effort.
Categorising people is an easy and efficient way of simplifying the world and reducing mental effort.
When people form an impression of a person, they typically use what personal information they have about the
Individual, but invoking stereotypes is a relatively easy way to fill in gaps in this knowledge.
People object to stereotyping and prejudice even if the stereotypes are reasonably accurate. the view that prejudice
and stereotyping are morally wrong is a product of modern western culture.
Biased judgements based on stereotypes and prejudices are not only unfair and immoral; in some cases, they can
have lethal consequences. (lethal = very harmful or destructive / sufficient to cause death.)
One big difference between sorting people and sorting things is the level of emotional involvement for example, when
sorting people into heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual categories, the sorter belongs to one of the categories and
feels emotionally attached to it.
In contrast, someone who sorts fruits into apples and oranges is probably not emotionally attached to these
categories.
Outgroup members: people who belong to a different group or category than we do (“them”)
Ingroup members: people who belong to the same group or category as we do (“us)
Most people assume that outgroup members are more similar to each other than ingroup members are to each other.
This false assumption, known as the outgroup homogeneity bias.
Outgroup homogeneity bias: the assumption that outgroup members are more similar to one another than ingroup
members are to one another.
Common Prejudice and Targets:
-prejudice is based on perceived differences among groups of people.
-some prejudices build on external characteristics that are readily visible, such as race, gender, weight, or clothing.
-the most widely discussed prejudice in South Africa is racial prejudice (racism), followed by gender prejudice (sexism).
-in South Africa, racial prejudice is an important social problem, partly because of the overt discrimination of our
apartheid past, but also because racism still affects the lives of people living here today.
-society has tried for decades to reduce or erase racial and gender prejudices.
-while people may at least attempt to conceal if not overcome their racial and gender prejudices, other prejudices are
often held with much less inner conflict or debate, such as against foreigners, people of other ethnic groups, people
with disabilities and LGBTQ+ individuals.
-discrimination has not been eliminated, but the display of prejudice has become subtler in nature. As a result, it is
becoming more difficult to identify, assess and eradicate discrimination.
Muslims
-the prejudice against Muslims exists in many Western countries, where Muslims are often regarded as terrorists.
-adherents of the religion of Islam are called Muslims.
-the word Muslim means “one who submits to Allah (God)”.
Religious minorities experience employment bias as measured by access to job interviews, entry wages and wait time
for call backs.
-Muslims may face challenges to employment that reflect a lack of acceptance of their religious identity.
-people of other religions also suffer from discrimination because of their religion, but Muslims, pagans and atheists
suffer the highest levels of discriminatory treatment from employers. Catholics experience moderate levels,
evangelical Christians encountered little, and Jews received no discernible discrimination.
Although a person’s religion may be the reason for discrimination, it can also be the source of comfort when a person
is being discriminated against.
Xenophobia:
The shift in political power has brought about a range of new discriminatory practices and one of them is xenophobia.
Xenophobia: defined as a hatred or fear of foreigners.
some recent trends of violence against foreigners include:
-indiscriminate mob violence.
-individual attacks.
-intimidation.
-specific looting campaigns targeting foreign-owned businesses.
-violent xenophobic attacks are characterised by indiscriminate mob violence when residents of an area initiate the
forceful removal of foreigners from the area & looting campaigns target foreigner’s businesses.
-in some cases, xenophobic attacks have developed from service delivery protests.
-local residents protested publicly about the lack of service delivery, but some protesters took the opportunity to
attack and loot foreign-owned shops in the area, leaving shops owned by South Africans untouched.
Albinism:
-albinism is a genetically inherited condition.
-people with albinism are reported to experience many physical, mental, emotional, and social challenges.
-in Africa, people with albinism have different life experiences compared to those whose majority population is
western.
-this is because people with albinism do not stand out as much as they do in countries where the majority of the
population is dark skinned.
-in some African countries, people with albinism experience violent discrimination: people have been persecuted, killed,
and dismembered.
-some African rituals and spiritual ideas about albinism have led to attacks on and murder of people, especially
children, with albinism.
People who are overweight:
-another highly visible characteristic of individuals subject to prejudicial attitudes is obesity. although some clothes
may be “revealing” or “slimming”, it is difficult to hide one’s weight.
-unlike racist and sexist attitudes, many people will openly admit and even act upon their negative attitudes toward
obese people.
Large “greedy” corporations and profits:
-many people hold negative stereotypes of large corporations and their profits.
-recent research found that the stereotyping extends to the profits themselves.
-people tend to assume that corporations that make greater profits are doing harm to society.
People stereotype non-profit organisations as morally good (although not especially competent), whereas for-profit
companies are stereotyped as immoral (although fairly competent).
-in particular, people readily believe that the pursuit of profit leads to unethical, exploitative, and dangerous practices.
-the positive side of profits is apparently difficult for most people to appreciate.
-this is ironic, because in their daily lives people enjoy the immense benefits from using products produced by large
corporations, such as cell phones, computers, medicines, cars, and entertainment, not to mention a considerable portion
of the food supply.
-people seem to lack the understanding that the primary way to make profits is to produce something that makes
the world better, in the sense that it improves the daily life of ordinary people.
-they recognise the incentive to lie and cheat in order to make profits, but not the incentive to make something that
people want to buy.
LGBTQ + individuals:
-although a person’s sexual orientation is not as readily visible as their race, gender, or weight, anti-LGBTQ+ prejudices
are often quite strong, even from family members.
-the initialism LGBTQ+ means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer or Questioning.
-the + at the end incorporates several other groups (intersex, asexual, pansexual, agender, gender queer, bigender,
gender variant, pangender).
-lesbians, in particular, in South Africa may be subject to the terrifying practice of “corrective rape” – a hate crime in
which a woman is raped because of her sexual orientation, supposedly in an attempt to get her to “turn” heterosexual.
-rape is a hate crime, not an act of passion, and there is no doubt that the perpetrators are acting because of their
extreme prejudice against LGBTQ+ people.
-people are especially likely to feel prejudice toward LGBTQ+ individuals if they believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle
choice rather than a biological predisposition.
-most people do not generally choose their sexual orientation.
-the same applies for gender identity.
-who would choose to be LGBTQ+ if it means being persecuted and rejected by society, peers and possibly even family
members?
Homophobia: is an excessive fear of LGBTQ+ individuals or behaviour that does not fit heteronormative standards.
-research shows that participants with homophobic attitudes are more aggressive against gay men. other research
shows that homophobic participants were more likely to believe negative stereotypes about LGBTQ+ individuals and
were less likely to believe positive stereotypes.
-despite the prejudice against same-sex couples, they seem to make great parents.
-children of lesbian parents were reported to be proud of their parents for “standing up for what they believed” and
believed that their parent’s relationship permitted them to also break with conventional gender roles if they desired.
-There are other potential targets of prejudice such as people with stigmas.
Stigmas: characteristics of individuals that are considered socially unacceptable being overweight, mentally ill, sick,
poor, or physically scarred)
-stigmas include characteristics of individuals that are considered socially unacceptable.
-besides obesity, other stigmas include mental illness, sickness, poverty, and physical blemishes.
Why prejudice exists:
-one view holds that prejudice is a product of a wicked culture.
-by this view, children start off innocent, trusting and accepting of all others, but they are taught through socialising
agents (including parents and the mass media) to dislike and reject certain groups.
-on the other hand, the tendency to hold stereotypes and prejudices may be innate.
-children do not turn out on close inspection to be sweet, accepting, and tolerant.
-even children as young as six months judge others based on race.
-children everywhere seem instantly ready to reject anyone who is different in any way.
there is even evidence that many primates naturally treat members of other groups as enemies.
-although the predisposition to categorise by stereotypes may be innate, the content of stereotypes is certainly
learned through socialisation.
-prejudice is natural.
-people automatically and normally know stereotypes and think of them, whereas they have to exert themselves to
override them.
-more important perhaps, prejudices are found all over the world; we know of no culture in which gender stereotypes
are unknown, or where members of rival groups view each other with only respect and admiration.
-that doesn’t make prejudice right or acceptable, but as social scientists we should not be surprised to find it.
the conclusion is that the tendency to align with similar others and prepare to fight with different others, including
forming negative stereotypes of them and discriminating against them, is deeply rooted in the human psyche.
-a European research team led by Henri Tajfel decided to conduct a programme of studies that would determine what
causes patterns of ingroup favouritism.
Ingroup favoritism: preferential treatment of, or more favorable attitudes toward, people in one’s own group.
-but the plan failed.
-it failed because the research team could never get to the starting point.
-they were unable to make a group that seemed so arbitrary or trivial that no ingroup favouritism was found.
-if the experimenters did nothing more than flip a coin to assign participants to a “red team” and a “blue team”, the
red team members soon began to think that the blue team members were stupid or obnoxious or immoral, and they
would favour other red team members if they could.
-this automatic preference for members of one’s own group even in the absence of pragmatic benefit or personal
relationship is called the minimal group effect.
Minimal group effect: the finding that people show favouritism toward ingroup members even when group
membership is randomly determined.
-these findings suggest that people are normally and naturally ready to go along with dividing the world up into “us”
and “them” and to adopt a negative stance toward “them”.
-prejudice and discrimination follow naturally from this tendency.
-the content of stereotypes may be learned, but the readiness to hold stereotypes is deeply rooted and not easily
overcome.
-nature has prepared human beings to divide the world into “us” and “them” and to hold prejudices against “them”.
-this mindset may have been very helpful in early human evolution, during which people survived by belonging to
groups that cooperated – and during which people in other groups were often dangerous.

-culture sometimes strives to teach people to overcome their prejudices.

-modern diverse cultures in particular struggle to get people to set aside their prejudices and treat each other with
fairness and tolerance, but the struggle is not an easy one, and total success has proven elusive.
-there has been some progress, such as in attitudes toward same-sex marriage becoming more accepting over time
in many parts of the world, including South Africa.
-in addition, more and more countries are legalising same-sex marriage around the world.
Us versus them: groups in competition.
Realistic conflict theory provides one explanation of prejudice.
Realistic conflict theory: the idea that competition over scarce resources leads to intergroup hostility and conflict.
-according to this theory, competition over scarce resources leads to intergroup hostility and conflict.
-a common example is a situation in which jobs are scarce and an established group blames immigrants for “taking
the food out of our children’s mouths”.
Competition: situation in which people can attain their goals only if others do not.
Cooperation – situation in which people must work together with others to help all of them achieve their goals.
-according to realistic conflict theory, groups should have the most negative attitudes toward their rivals, and these
attitudes should be strongest, when resources are scarce, and groups must compete for them.
-everyone needs food, water, and air to live, but few groups fight over air because there is plenty for everyone.
-in contrast, fighting over food has a long history, and some predictions are that as the world’s supply of fresh water
begins to run short over the course of this century, conflicts over water will increase.
-competition is not a part of every society.
-one could argue that realistic conflict theory is just frustration–aggression theory (chapter 10) applied to group
conflict.
-competition is a zero-sum game in which one side’s gain is the other side’s frustration.
-so, people form negative attitudes toward competing outgroups because they frustrate your own group’s efforts to
get what you want.
evolution may have had a hand in instilling the human readiness to form groups and hold prejudices against rival
groups.
hunter-gatherer groups lived under conditions of fairly scarce resources, which is why they roamed over large areas.
if two groups tried to spend the summer in the same area, there might not be enough food for both groups, so one
group would have to leave. the groups would therefore be natural enemies. if one group contained people who readily
formed prejudices against the others and acted quickly to drive the others out, whereas the other group failed to
develop such attitudes, the more prejudiced group would very likely win the competition for scarce resources.
Most discussions of prejudice and stereotyping today focus on unfavourable treatment of the outgroup, but that is
simply the other side of the coin of preferential or favourable treatment of the ingroup.
for example, if a wealthy black businessman gives a large sum of money to make scholarships available for black
students, is he discriminating against “non-blacks” (who are not eligible for his money) or helping members of his
own group?
both are correct.
Discontinuity effect: the finding that groups are more extreme, and often more hostile, than individuals.
-the discontinuity effect appears to be motivated by fear and greed.
-people don’t trust the members of other groups, so they grab as many resources.
-if the outgroup is cooperative, they will take advantage of it.
-however, intergroup competitiveness is not inevitable.
-making group members identifiable will also reduce intergroup competitiveness.
-when people become deindividuated (identities are concealed), they are more likely to perform antisocial actions.
-the crucial implication of the discontinuity effect is that groups won’t usually get along as well as individuals.
-the discontinuity effect holds that the two groups will be less likely to find a mutually agreeable compromise than
the two individuals.
ignorance? the contact hypothesis:
-another view is that prejudice stems from ignorance.
-according to this view, people who have very little contact with other groups have no information about them, so
they try to fill the gap by forming stereotypes.
-if people could resolve ignorance by having more interactions and getting more first-hand information about
outgroups, prejudice would diminish or even disappear.
Contact hypothesis: the idea that regular interaction between members of different groups reduce prejudice, providing
that it occurs under favourable conditions.
-according to this hypothesis, negative prejudices arise and survive because the two groups don’t have much contact
with each other.
-bringing conflicting groups together supposedly reduces prejudicial feelings as members of different groups come to
know and understand one another for example, integrating children of different racial backgrounds should reduce
prejudice, as these students interact with one another and learn more about each other.
-research has shown some support for the contact hypothesis, provided that the contact is pleasant and positive and
other conditions are met.
-when the contact is not mutually satisfying, the result can be an increase in hostility and prejudice.
-in line with the “bad is stronger than good” principle, negative contact seems to outweigh positive contact.
-when contact occurs under positive conditions, people feel good inside. this good feeling, in turn, leads to less
prejudice.
-contact can even work for common targets of prejudice, such as Muslims and gay and lesbian people.
rationalisation for oppression:
-some social psychologists have sought to explain prejudice and stereotyping on the basis of the political goals of the
powerful group.
-the fact that stereotypes can justify social inequality does not mean that stereotypes were deliberately invented as
part of a conspiracy to oppress certain people.
-rather, it suggests that people in positions of relative power and wealth find stereotypes to be an appealing way of
explaining their superiority.
stereotypes as heuristics:
-it is much easier to go through life prejudging people and assuming they will fit general stereotypes based on
quickly recognisable categories.
-such generalisations appeal to the lazy mind or cognitive miser.
-research has shown that stereotypes are energy-saving devices.
-when people were encouraged to use stereotypes, they actually had better memory for other.
-using stereotypes enabled people to process more information, consistent with the view that stereotypes are useful
tools that enable people to understand others more easily (and, in these cases, more accurately, too).
-in simple terms, people use stereotypes to simplify the process of thinking about other people.
-people use stereotypes when their ability to judge is diminished.
-people use stereotypes to conserve effort and energy.
-people learn the content of stereotypes mainly from other people in their group.
-that is because people spend much more time with ingroup members than with outgroup members.
people rely on other people for information about the world, rather than learn about the world through direct
experience.
-if you have a stereotype about people of a particular ethnic group, you probably learned it from other ethnic groups
rather than from direct observation of this particular ethnic group.
Prejudice and self-esteem:
-most stereotypes are negative and that most prejudices depict outgroups as inferior or as having bad traits.
-one simple motivational explanation for the negative tone of most stereotypes is that people use them to boost self-esteem.
-the basic idea is that most people want to have high self-esteem.
-high self-esteem feels good.
-applied to prejudice, the idea is that by regarding members of other groups as inferior, people enhance their self-esteem by virtue
of belonging to their own group.
-put another way, if all the other groups are inferior, then your own group must be superior – so you must be pretty good to
belong to it.
-in this way, prejudice can be self-affirming.
-by using stereotypes to justify and act on prejudices, people can claim for themselves a feeling of mastery and self-worth.
Explanations for why prejudice exists:
competition according to realistic conflict theory, competition over good housing commerce schools and jobs can lead
competition over scarce resources leads to to hostility towards outer group members.
intergroup hostility and conflict.
ignorance people who have very little contact with people who have little contact with Muslims may assume that they
other groups have no information about all support the jihad against the West.
them, and so they attempt to fill the gap
by forming stereotypes.
rationalization for to retain their status, powerful groups some feminists have suggested that men invented stereotypes of
oppression justify and rationalize prejudice against less women simply to rationalise continued oppression of women.
powerful groups.
stereotypes as heuristics to simplify their world, people often rely on rather than collect information about each African American
stereotypes as mental shortcuts or individually, it requires less mental effort to stereotype them all as
heuristics. good at music and sport.
prejudice boosts self people can feel better about themselves if people might feel better about themselves if they think that their
esteem they consider their own group superior and own religion is the only true one
all other groups inferior.

Content of prejudice and stereotypes:

Are stereotypes always wrong, mostly wrong, or mostly right?
Stereotypes are heuristics.
this has led some researchers to wonder whether some stereotypes have some element of accuracy.
-researchers have investigated gender stereotypes to see how big the core of truth was. the findings suggested that
people’s stereotypes are accurate in both content and degree.
-a thorough review of stereotype accuracy and inaccuracy found remarkable accuracy, with some notable exceptions.
-severe inaccuracies were not common.
-moreover, even the evidence of accuracy in general does not translate into everyone being correct.
-although the average level of accuracy was high, in every study there were plenty of individuals who expressed
wildly inaccurate stereotypes.
The high level of accuracy in modern stereotypes may also indicate that stereotyping has changed.
-decades ago, certain ethnic groups in South Africa were stereotyped as violent, dishonest, racist, untidy, and greedy.
black people were stereotyped as drunkards, conceited, stupid, lazy, and sexually immoral.
-this mistaken notion contributed to a violently discriminatory policy (apartheid) that continues to affect South
Africans today.
-even accurate stereotypes may be generalised unfairly and inaccurately for example, a stereotype that women are
shorter than men is accurate but may be wrong in many specific cases.
A more dangerous version of that kind of mistake was found in connection with hurricanes – hurricanes named
after women kill more people than hurricanes named after men. The most likely explanation is that female hurricanes
are no worse than male ones – but the names evoke the stereotypes that men are more violent and dangerous
than women, so people take fewer precautions when the approaching hurricane has a female rather than a male
name.
-another question regarding the accuracy of stereotypes is what happens when people judge a particular other
person.
-meta-analyses concluded that there is a genuine effect of stereotypes on judgement of individual persons, but it is a
pretty small one.
-in contrast, people rely quite heavily on information specific to the person when making judgements about that
person.
-in other words, when people meet someone and form an impression of that person, they mostly rely on whatever
they learn about that individual, and they may fill in the gaps with stereotypes to a small extent.
-this fits the view that stereotypes operate like heuristics; they are used to help make judgements when information
is lacking or uncertain.
prejudice has multiple roots:
to the extent that prejudices are held as a heuristic way in contrast, to the extent that people hold prejudices in
of understanding the social world, people may try to hold order to develop their own self-esteem at the expense of
fairly accurate stereotypes. others, or to rationalise the situation as it is and justify
their oppression of disadvantaged minorities, stereotypes
may be exaggerated or even entirely fabricated and
hence have little or no factual basis.
Are stereotypes always negative?
-no, of course not.
-one of the common stereotypes is that women are more nurturing than men. or that South Africans of Indian origin
are perceived to be good in maths and business; black people are perceived to be generous and forgiving.
-negative stereotypes generally present more of a cultural problem than positive ones, because they involve
prejudging a person as having faults.
-but positive stereotypes can also be harmful, although the harm may not be as readily apparent.
 Consider the difference between hostile sexism and benevolent sexism:
Hostile sexism Benevolent sexism
hostile sexism is demonstrated by what feminists benevolent sexism is demonstrated by chivalrous men
labelled as ‘male chauvinist pigs’ who view women in a who open doors for women and insist on paying for
derogatory manner. dinner.
-benevolent sexism seems to paint a favourable view of women, but it is also based in gender stereotypes.
-some researchers have argued that benevolent sexism is worse than hostile sexism for women’s cognitive
performance.
-in addition, women who have benevolent sexist attitudes are more likely to perceive safety restrictions (for example,
not driving alone on a long trip) as justified and for their own good.
-along the same lines, some researchers complain about benevolent sexism because they make women content with
the situation as it is.
Benevolent sexism may be a trade-off: it gives women some benefits but reinforces stereotypes.
Inner process:
-Inner processes (emotions) can also contribute to prejudice and stereotyping.
-stereotypes can form simply on the basis of salience.
Salience: a psychological term roughly meaning obvious or standing out.
-simply standing out can contribute to stereotyping.
-the research findings based on salience how stereotypes can form from purely cognitive (mental) processes, without
any influence of emotion or motivation.
-when motivation enters the picture, it can greatly increase the likelihood of prejudice.
-one classic formulation of motivated prejudice is scapegoat theory.
Scapegoat theory: the idea that blaming problems and misfortunes on outgroups contributes to negative attitudes
toward these outgroups.
This process is linked to attribution theory, which looks at how people infer the causes of events, and one theme
introduced there was the self-serving bias.
Self-serving bias: the tendency for people to take credit for success but refuse blame for problems and failures.
When times are bad, people prefer to blame others (scapegoats) rather than their own bad judgement or
incompetence.
 Research suggests that scapegoating can derive from two different motivational roots:
one is a quest for moral affirmation and superiority. the other motivation is a desire for control.
the person’s responsibility for bad outcomes is many negative events have complex causes that are
transferred onto the scapegoat, so guilt and other hard to fathom and even harder to control.
feelings of moral inferiority are reduced. in contrast, blaming a scapegoat is simple and
straightforward, and it restores the person’s sense of
having control.
Scapegoating creates friction in any diverse society.
The scapegoating of people from other African countries has been linked to competition for limited resources –
education, employment, healthcare, and housing.
Members of a society create a “frustration scapegoat” to blame for ongoing inequality and poverty.
Foreign nationals in Southern Africa are blamed for societal ills and frustrations, particularly in the area of
unemployment.
Research indicates that conflict and stress tend to bring out stereotypes.
Similar findings have been reported for racial stereotypes.
People are more likely to use racial stereotypes when there is a disagreement or conflict than when everyone agrees.
Emotional stress can activate stereotypes and lead to distortions in how people see the world.
how does prejudice operate?
One simple theory is that people simply prejudge others based on their assumptions.
Some stereotypes may operate that way, but social psychology research has suggested that the actual process is
often more subtle and complex.
Some research shows that people use their stereotypes more as hypotheses to be tested than as rules that can be
applied in all cases.
Confirmation bias: the tendency to focus more on evidence that supports one’s expectations than on evidence that
contradicts them.
Overcoming stereotypes, reducing prejudice:
-How prejudiced are South Africans today?
-one view that can be heard on many talk shows that focus on relations is that South Africa is a deeply prejudiced,
racist society.
On the other hand, we could consider that since 1994, the political and social landscape of South Africa has changed:
-people of all races now share the resources of the country and have equal rights to housing, health, and education,
among other resources.
-the South African government embraces economic policies aimed at encouraging free movement of international
trade and capital.
-South Africa is one of the countries in the world that has an international migration policy endorsed by the united
nations.
-this integration policy prioritises foreign nationals’ well-being.
-both views could be correct.
-it depends on what the standard is.
-compared to our South African ideals of full tolerance, there is still far too much prejudice, as the first characterisation
suggests.
-compared to most other societies in the history of the world, however, South Africa is remarkably tolerant and
supportive.
-it is undeniable that prejudice exists in South Africa today.
-the problem of racism exists although the country is largely governed by black people.
-to eliminate prejudice completely seems an impossible ideal.
-still, modern South Africans have come far in overcoming many prejudices and stereotypes.
-most people now believe that prejudices based on race and gender are unfair and even immoral, and if people do
know those stereotypes, they may try not to let them cloud their judgement of individuals.
-in most societies in world history, a person’s race and gender would steer the person toward one sort of life, with
one set of opportunities and no others, but modern South African society has made some progress in removing those
obstacles.
-although inequality is still rife in South African society, black students now have access to universities, women can
run for president, serve on the constitutional court, rise to the top of universities and corporations, represent their
country in international diplomacy, and in other ways have access to the best positions and rewards the culture has
to offer.
-in many cases the rules give preferential treatment to women and men who are not white through bee policies.
-none of this should be taken to imply that prejudice has been conquered or that cruel, immoral and sometimes
vicious acts of prejudice and discrimination have ceased.
-prejudice is still a force in South Africa; its influence ranges from hate crimes to demeaning ethnic jokes.
-the point is merely that South African society has made progress in fighting against some important kinds of
prejudice, especially those based on race and gender.
Conscious override:
If prejudice is natural, and culture sometimes wants to say “stop” to prejudice, those who hold prejudiced views must
consciously override the response.
 The battle against prejudice is fought between the two halves of the duplex mind:
the automatic system may often sustain prejudices, for the conscious system can strive to overcome those
many of the reasons we have already noted: prejudices and stereotypes so as to support equality
stereotypes simplify the world and help people make and avoid prejudging individuals.
snap judgements, so they appeal to the automatic
system (which is usually looking for ways to process
information quickly).
-numerous studies have shown that people have prejudiced attitudes toward particular social groups at the implicit or
unconscious level, even though they honestly report having no prejudiced attitudes at the explicit or conscious level.
-unconscious prejudiced attitude measures have been found to do a good job in predicting behaviour, especially
spontaneous behaviours.
-likewise, unconscious racist attitude measures have been shown to do a better job of predicting workplace
discrimination in hiring practices than explicitly stated, conscious attitude measures.
-implicit attitude measures about alcohol did a better job of predicting drinking behaviour than did explicit attitude
measures.
-because people are reluctant to admit that they have racist attitudes or drinking problems, what they say in
response to explicit questions is not always a good predictor of behaviour.
most implicit attitude measures compare prejudice toward black people relative to white people.
-thus, it is difficult to know whether racism is due to liking white people, disliking black people or both, but recent
research shows that these measures indicate disliking black people rather than liking white people.
-intriguing evidence about this inner struggle to overcome prejudice was provided in research examining the after-
effects of talking with someone of a different race.
-self-regulation operates like a muscle that gets tired after use.
-participants showed just such tiredness: they performed worse than other participants (who had spoken to someone
of their own race) on a standard test of self-regulation (the Stroop task, which requires people to override their first
impulse in order to give the correct response.
-the effect was strongest for participants who had the strongest prejudices.
-thus, when people talk to someone from another race, they have to carefully regulate themselves in order to
hide their prejudices and to make sure they do not say anything that could be interpreted as offensive or
biased.
-this extra effort takes its toll, leaving people less able to self-regulate afterward. people do exert themselves
consciously to overcome and hide their prejudices, even though the effort may be hard work.
-of course, in many cases the conscious mind is quite comfortable hanging onto its prejudices and does not try to
override the prejudicial reaction of the automatic system.
most South Africans regard racial prejudice as immoral in contrast, many people are content to think and
and will consciously strive to avoid thinking or express negative stereotypes of LGBTQ+ people; they
expressing negative stereotypes of black South do not consciously try to override the automatic
Africans. reaction (possibly unless they are talking to a LGBTQ+
person).
a) Mental Process of non-prejudiced:
-the view that overcoming prejudice is based on conflict between conscious and automatic responses emerged from
an important series of studies.
-this research sought to find which mental processes underlay prejudice by seeking to ascertain what was different
between prejudiced and non-prejudiced people.
-a questionnaire was used to classify people as either prejudiced or non-prejudiced, and people who were at both
extremes took part. a series of tests were used to see where the difference lies.
the first hypothesis was that the the second hypothesis was that the the third hypothesis, was that the
difference lies in knowledge of difference lies in whether the automatic system operates in
stereotypes: maybe non-prejudiced stereotype is activated (whether it similar ways in both prejudiced and
people are not familiar with the springs to mind) when one non-prejudiced people, but non-
stereotypes. encounters a member of the group. prejudiced people employ their
upon testing both groups, however, non-prejudiced people might know conscious processing to override the
the researcher found that they had the stereotypes around white stereotype and replace prejudiced
equal knowledge of the content of people, for example, but might not thoughts with thoughts more in line
stereotypes. think of the stereotype when they with their values of tolerance,
encounter a real person. fairness and equality.
this too proved to be wrong: both this hypothesis proved correct.
prejudiced and non-prejudiced people non-prejudiced people still know and
do think of the stereotype when think of stereotypes, but they
they encounter someone from the override them.
stereotyped group. this fits our theme that nature
this suggested that the automatic says go and culture says stop.
system was at work,
automatically retrieving the
prejudicial information when it
recognised a member of the
category.
 b) Discrimination in reverse:
-research has shown that when people are accused of prejudice, they often exert themselves to prove the opposite.
-people overcome prejudice by making conscious efforts to be fair and equal in how they treat others.
-many people try extra hard to avoid anything that could be interpreted as showing racism or sexism.
-people may not try as hard to overcome and override prejudices against LGBTQ+ people, obese people, and others.
-but the progress in overcoming racism and sexism shows the way toward possibly reducing these other prejudices
as well, so that Western society can live up to its ideals of judging each person as an individual rather than prejudging
them as a member of a group or category.
c) Motives for overcoming prejudice:
Two different reasons for wanting to overcome prejudice.
1. one is a possibly sincere dedication to equality and a corresponding belief that prejudice is morally wrong.
2. the other is an appreciation that expressing prejudice could elicit social disapproval.
for example, most white South Africans report that they do not want to respond with prejudice toward black South
Africans, but is this a sincere desire to promote equality or merely a strategic reluctance to say things that might
make some people angry?
Both motives are real, but different people may emphasise one or the other (or neither).
A measure has been developed that can help classify people’s responses according to these two motives:
the measure assesses internal motivation to respond it also assesses external motivation to respond without
without prejudice, which is understood as a motivation prejudice, which is essentially a sense that it is socially
based on a strong inner belief that prejudice is wrong. unwise to express opinions that others will regard as
socially undesirable or politically incorrect
-people’s source of motivation to respond without prejudice (the reason that they are motivated) has important
implications for behaviour for example, people who are only externally motivated to respond without prejudice report
low-prejudice attitudes and beliefs when they have to provide their responses out loud to an experimenter or another
person. However, if they are allowed to write their answers on a questionnaire in an anonymous setting, they report
attitudes that are more prejudiced. thus, they shift their answers across settings depending on whether others will be
able to see their responses.
In contrast, people who are internally motivated to respond without prejudice report low-prejudice attitudes and beliefs
regardless of how or to whom they provide their answers.
Those neither internally nor externally motivated report moderately prejudiced attitudes regardless of the setting.
Although externally motivated people shift their responses to comply with social pressure to respond without
prejudice, this public conformity comes at a price.
White people who are primarily externally motivated to respond without prejudice become angry when they feel
pressured to respond in a politically correct manner.
When they are released from such pressure (when they are no longer under the watchful eye of a nonprejudiced
audience), they respond with a backlash and actually express more prejudice than if they had not been pressured to
respond without prejudice.
Contact:
-prejudice can be reduced by contact.
-intergroup contact reduces the different types of prejudice, and it is particularly effective when it unfolds under
favourable conditions.
-such conditions include conditions of equality, cooperation, and institutional support.
-sometimes even vicarious contact can work, such as knowing that a good friend who is a member of your group
has a close relationship with an outgroup member.
-although overt expressions of prejudice can be reduced by direct educational and attitude-change techniques, more
covert expressions of prejudice, such as deliberate avoidance or mild harassment, can be reduced by intergroup contact.
Common goals:
-cooperating to achieve common goals is one powerful antidote to intergroup conflict.
-researchers found that when children play cooperative games, their aggressive behaviour decreases, and their
cooperative behaviour increases.
-in contrast, when they play competitive games, their aggressive behaviour increases, and their cooperative behaviour
decreases.
-one technique used to achieve a common goal is the jigsaw classroom.
Jigsaw classroom: a cooperative learning technique for reducing feelings of prejudice by having students interact and
cooperate to learn material.
-just as each piece of a jigsaw puzzle is necessary to complete the puzzle, some contribution from each student in a
jigsaw classroom is necessary to complete an assignment.
-research shows that participation in jigsaw classrooms decreases racial prejudice and increases academic
performance.
Impact of prejudice targets:
-no culture seems immune to stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.
-most cultures have stereotypes, at least of rival external groups.
-diverse cultures typically have to contend with the fact that members of different groups or categories have
stereotypes about the other groups.
-as one example, most democracies have different political parties, and the members of both parties hold prejudices
and stereotypes about the opposing parties.
-most common reaction is that people dislike being stereotyped; they want to be known and judged as individuals.
-being stereotyped in a negative manner is especially unpleasant.
-some targets of prejudice and discrimination even attempt or commit suicide or are murdered.
Self-fulfilling prophecies:
-once we accept the expectations of others, we tend to behave in a manner that is consistent with those
expectations, and as a result the expectations come true.
-this is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. a self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation about the future that tends to come
true partly because it is expected.
Self-fulfilling prophecy – a prediction that ensures, by the behaviour it generates, that it will come true.
a self-fulfilling prophecy involves three stages:
second, this expectation,
third, the expected
or prophecy, leads to a
first, a person believes event takes place (partly
new behaviour that the
that a certain event will as a result of the change
person would have not
happen in the future. in behaviour), and the
engaged in without the
prophecy is fulfilled.
expectation.

-the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy offers one way to predict the effects of stereotypes on their targets.
-people often live up or down to what is expected of them, especially if others treat them in certain ways based on
those expectations.
-applied to stereotypes, a self-fulfilling prophecy would mean that people would come to act like the stereotypes
others hold of them.
Stigma and self-protection:
What survived post-1994, after colonisation and apartheid had ended, was a general perception of black South Africans
as inferior to white people.
What are the consequences for black South African born in that new era?
Some suggested that black people have a low self-esteem as they have been “trained” to devalue themselves, their
hair texture and colour, their skin colour, their languages, their cultural practices, etc.
The low self-esteem could then perhaps explain some behavioural patterns that might be observed, from lower
occupational attainment to crime and violence.
-some individuals and groups are striving to help black South Africans to resist internalising the message.
-abstract research has offered three answers as to how people resist internalising the training to hate themselves,
each of which is rooted in cognitive strategies and processes.
the first involved social comparison.
Specifically, the choice of comparison targets.
To an animal living in the forest, success and failure can probably be measured directly in terms of getting something
to eat, but to cultural beings, success and failure are relative.
Your salary, for example, might be a measure of how well you are doing, but by itself it doesn’t mean much.
Salary is an index of success only in comparison to what other people are earning.
People compare themselves to those within their own group.
The self-esteem of a minority group might therefore not suffer from the fact that its members earn less than
members of other groups.
The earnings of other groups are regarded as irrelevant.
They mainly compare themselves against each other.
the second involves the criteria of self-worth.
People judge themselves by many criteria.
People often choose criteria on which they do well and avoid criteria that make them look bad. if you’re good at
braiding hair or training dogs, you may decide that those are important measures of self-worth, but if you are bad at
them, you may decide that they are trivial and irrelevant.
Groups can reject or discount the standards that make them look bad, focusing instead on the things they do well.
the third process involves attribution theory.
The self-serving bias can help explain the thinking and actions of people who hold stereotypes.
It may also help explain reactions to prejudice.
Some disadvantaged minority groups might protect their self-esteem by attributing their problems to other people’s
prejudices against them.
Assume that most people’s lives contain some successes and some failures, and that each individual’s self-esteem will
depend on how they add those up.
If you can use the self-serving bias to dismiss your failures as irrelevant to your worth, your self-esteem can be
higher than if you blame yourself for your failures.
Despite all its costs and harm, prejudice does offer one advantage to the target – an external attribution for failure.
Targets of prejudice can blame their failures and problems on prejudice. as a result, they can base their self-esteem
mainly on their successes, and their self-esteem will rise.

-research has shown that people are not just passive recipients of social influence.
-cultures tell some groups that they are inferior, but many members of those groups successfully reject such
messages.
-another form of self-protection against stigmas is to actively conceal them.
-researchers have long recognised the important difference between visible and invisible stigmas.
-a woman who is black and a lesbian, for example, must deal with the fact that everyone can immediately see that
she is black, whereas her homosexuality can be concealed.
-recent work suggests that people who conceal their stigmatised identities ‘internalise the closet’, which means that
they become adept at keeping some parts of their self-concept secret.
-there is an important distinction between public self and private self.
-gay people who keep their homosexuality secret learn to maintain a public identity, while also keeping a private
concept of self that contains plenty that is not shared with the world.
a) Competitive victimhood
−you might assume that nobody wants to be a victim.
-after all, being a victim is associated with being passive, with suffering mistreatment by others and with general
unhappiness.
-yet in recent years various scholars have argued that in modern society, various people and groups compete to claim
victim status.
-being a victim entitles a person to others’ sympathy and emotional support, possibly extending to financial and legal
entitlements.
-the victim’s role enjoys a kind of moral privilege.
-it is considered unacceptable in many circles to reproach victims for any sort of misbehaviour.
-no doubt this reflects the fact that many victims are innocent, and both need and deserve help, and blaming them
for their troubles could be seen as supporting the oppressors (who often blame their victims for sometimes
completely made-up misdeeds).
-yet other people may claim victim status precisely because of the moral, legal, or financial advantages inherent in
the role.
-social media is often used as a platform for competitive victimhood, with posts being shared as “proof” that one race,
for example, is being victimised.
-earlier work showed that claiming victim status reduces guilty feelings.
-claiming to be a victim – including based on events in the distant past – serves to reduce one’s guilt, even for
seemingly irrelevant acts.
Stereotype threat:
-people do not like being stereotyped and often strive extra hard to show that they do not fit negative stereotypes of
their group.
-sometimes stereotypes can even create self-defeating prophecies.
Self-defeating prophecies: a prediction that ensures, by the behaviour it generates, that it will not come true.
-when a stereotype might apply, people fear that their behaviour will confirm it.
-this fear is called stereotype threat.
Stereotype threat: the fear that one might confirm the stereotypes that others hold.
-when people fear that they will be negatively stereotyped, their performance suffers.
Stereotype threat may operate most powerfully when it is difficult to contradict:
if your group is stereotyped as liking greasy food, you in contrast, if your group is stereotyped as being bad at
can relatively easily show that it does not apply to you, singing, you would have to sing well in order to
simply by choosing healthier, non-greasy foods when contradict it and singing well (especially when you are
others are watching. nervous because of stereotype threat!) may be quite
difficult.
-regarding intellectual performance, girls score slightly lower than boys on maths tests, even when they are gifted
children.
-the difference seems to be due to mathematical reasoning because females can do simple arithmetical computations
better than males.
-similarly, Indian students score higher on many tests than black students.
-a meta-analytic review found that stereotype threat does impair test performance for women and minorities.
-confirming negative stereotypes makes people anxious, and the more anxious people are, the more their
performance suffers.
-when people become anxious, they try to calm down, but this takes a lot of effort and mental resource, which
depletes people of the mental resources they need to perform well on the test.
-indeed, people who experience a stereotype threat show activity in the part of their brain involved in emotional
processing rather than in the part of their brain involved in thinking and reasoning.
Are social psychologists biased?
-many social psychologists see their research as part of the battle against prejudice.
-this serves liberal ideals of fairness, justice, and equal opportunity, not to mention reducing hatred and violence.
-most social psychologists would declare themselves opposed to prejudice.
-that fact made the scientific community quite sensitive when some members began to suggest that the field of
social psychology is biased – specifically, biased against past injustices.
-at present, the field of social psychology is debating whether its so-called “liberal bias” is a problem and what should
be done about it.
-a liberal bias shapes how research questions are asked and how data are interpreted.
-editors may prefer to publish research findings that fit liberal rather than conservative views. in fact, liberals may
even prevent research from being conducted if they do not approve of the political overtones.