Stereotypes,

Prejudice, and
Discrimination
Chapter 5
Game Plan
• The Nature of the Problem
• Causes of the Problem
• Reducing the Problem
The Nature of the Problem
Persistence and Change
 Defining Our Terms
• Stereotypes
• Beliefs that associate a whole group of people with certain traits
• Prejudice
• Negative feelings about others because of their connection with a
social group
• Discrimination
• Negative behaviors directed against persons because of their
membership in a particular group
 Defining Our Terms
• Racism
• Prejudice and discrimination based on a person’s racial background, or
institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one
group over another
• Sexism
• Prejudice and discrimination based on a person’s gender, or institutional or
cultural practices that promote the domination of one gender over another
 Group Activity
• In groups of 3
• Think about one form of prejudice prevalent in our society (an “ism”)
• On a Google/Word doc, please think of the following
• Describe this form of prejudice– how prevalent is it in our society?
• What stereotypes underlie this form of prejudice?
• What discriminatory behaviors emerge from this form of prejudice?
• You have 10 minutes
• Please write your names on the documents and share with me (via email)
• We will discuss together
 Racism
• Although most research on racism is conducted in the United States (and
other Western European countries), racism is not a U.S. phenomenon
• How does racism manifest in our context/culture?
• What groups can you think of that face racism in Lebanese society?
Racism: Shift in Attitudes?
 Modern, Aversive, and Implicit Racism
• Modern Racism
• A subtle form of prejudice that tends to surface when it is safe, socially
acceptable, or easy to rationalize
• Stems from ambivalence
• Wanting to see self as fair
• Harboring feelings of anxiety and discomfort about other racial groups
• Aversive Racism
• Ambivalence between fair-minded attitudes and beliefs and unconscious
and unrecognized prejudicial feelings and beliefs
 Modern, Aversive, and Implicit Racism
• Implicit Racism
• Racism that operates unconsciously and unintentionally*
• How can we measure how implicitly biased someone is?
• The Implicit Association Test
 Modern, Aversive, and Implicit Racism
• The Implicit Association Test
 Sexism: Gender Stereotypes
• Gender Stereotypes
• Prescriptive (rather than descriptive)
• Indicate what people believe women and men should be like
• How would you describe the ‘typical’ woman? Man?
• Women as nurturing/caring, Men as agentic/competent
• Beliefs about females/males influence adult behavior since the moment of
birth
 Sexism: Ambivalence
• Stereotypes of women tend to be more positive than those of men
• Positive traits of women (e.g., nurturance) less valued in important domains
such as work
• Some women loved and revered, others hated and reviled
 Sexism: Ambivalence
• Ambivalent Sexism
• Hostile Sexism: Negative, resentful feelings about women’s abilities,
value, and challenge to men’s power
• “Women seek special favors under the guise of equality”
• Benevolent Sexism: Affectionate, chivalrous feelings founded on the
potentially patronizing belief that women need and deserve protection
• “Women should be cherished and protected by men”
• Seems ok on the surface
• BUT associated with negative reactions toward women who defy
traditional gender roles
 Sexism: Ambivalence
• Ambivalent Sexism
• Hostile and benevolent sexism are positively correlated
• Both associated with supporting gender inequality
• Both predict discriminatory behaviors and negative consequences for
women
• Prevalent across the world
 Sexism: Objectification
• Objectification of Women
• Viewing or treating women more as mere bodies or objects and less than
fully functioning human beings
• Prevalent in advertising industry + popular media
• Negative effects of objectification on women
• Mental health
• Physical health
• Academic performance
• Social interactions
 Sexism: Sex Discrimination
• People often devalue the performance of women who take on tasks usually
reserved for men
• People attribute women’s achievements to luck rather than ability
• Sex differences in occupational choice, why?
• Sex discrimination during early school years  diverging career paths in
adulthood
• When equally qualified women and men compete for job  Men favored
for “masculine” jobs and women for “feminine” jobs
• Even when women and men have comparable jobs, women paid less +
face greater hurdles to rise in positions of power
 Others “isms”: Age, Weight, Sexuality, etc.
• Ageism
• Prejudice and discrimination targeting the elderly
• Prejudice toward the LGBTQIA+ community
• Still blatant
• Includes hate crimes
• Weight-based prejudice and discrimination
• Towards overweight individuals
• Classism
• Prejudice and discrimination toward working class and people experiencing
poverty
• Context-specific “isms”?
 Being Stigmatized
• Stigmatized Individuals
• Individuals who are targets of negative stereotypes, perceived as
deviant, and devalued in a society because of their group membership
• Stigma has serious effects on targets
• Perceiving prejudice  Negative effects on self-esteem, depression,
anxiety, and life satisfaction
• Increased risk for serious and long-term physical and psychological
problems
 Stereotype Threat
• Stereotype Threat
• The experience of concern about being evaluated based on negative
stereotypes about one’s group
• Stereotype of lower intellectual ability among Black individuals
• Stereotype of women being bad at math
• Negatively influences performance
Stereotype Threat
Causes of the Problem
Intergroup, Motivational, Cognitive, and Cultural Factors
 Social Categories and Intergroup Conflict
• Social Categorization: Us vs. Them
• The classification of persons into groups based on common attributes
• Ingroups (Us) = Groups with which we feel a sense of membership,
belonging, and identity
• Outgroups (Them) = Groups with which we do NOT feel a sense of
membership, belonging, and identity
• Outgroup Homogeneity Effect
• Our tendency to assume that there is greater similarity among
members of outgroups than among members of ingroups
 Social Categories and Intergroup Conflict
• Dehumanizing Outgroups
• Dehumanization = The process of depriving certain people from uniquely
human qualities
• Considering them akin to animals or objects
• Nazi propaganda:
• Jews as disease-spreading rats
• Black people as half-apes
• Can be conscious (explicit) or unconscious (implicit)
• Profound consequences
• Police using force against black children
• Men sexually harassing or raping women
• Less likely to help outgroups after natural disasters
The Neuroscience of Ingroups and Outgroups
 Motives Concerning Intergroup Status and
Dominance
• Social Dominance Orientation
• A desire to see one’s ingroup as dominant over other groups and the
willingness to adopt cultural values the contribute to the oppression of
other groups
• Endorsement of group-based hierarchies in society
• Endorse statements like “If certain groups stayed in their place, we
would have fewer problems”
• Disagree with statements like “Group equality should be our ideal”
 Motives Concerning Intergroup Status and
Dominance
• System Justification Theory
• People are motivated to defend and justify existing social, political, and
economic condition
• System justifying beliefs protect the status quo
• Beliefs exist among both advantaged and disadvantaged group
members
 Stereotype Content Model
• Many group stereotypes vary along two dimensions:
• Warmth
• Competence
Stereotype Content Model
Robbers Cave Experiment: Field Study in
Intergroup Conflict
 Robbers Cave Experiment: Field Study in
Intergroup Conflict
• Realistic Conflict Theory
• The view that direct competition for valuable but limited resources
breeds hostility between groups
• What worked to reduce hostilities?
• Superordinate goals
• Mutual goals that could be achieved only through cooperation
between the groups
• Replication in Lebanon? Diab (1970)
Realistic Conflict Theory vs. Relative Deprivation
• More to prejudice than “real” competition
• “Realistic” competition for resources may be imagined
• Relative Deprivation
• Feelings of discontent aroused by the belief that one fares poorly
compared to others
• Results in prejudice
 Social Identity Theory
• Social Identity Theory
• The theory that people favor ingroups over outgroups in order to enhance
their self-esteem
• Ingroup Favoritism
• The tendency to discriminate in favor of ingroups over outgroups
• Happens in meaningless groups too (minimal group paradigm)
• Two basic predictions
(1) Threats to one’s self-esteem heighten the need for ingroup favoritism
(2) Expressions of ingroup favoritism enhance one’s self-esteem
Social Identity Theory
Social Identity Theory
 Culture and Socialization
• Cultural Stereotypes
• U.S. Americans are loud
• Math majors are geeks
• Athletes are dumb
• Blondes are stupid
• Salespersons can’t be trusted
• Socialization
• The processes by which people learn the norms, rules, and information
of a culture or group
• We learn a lot of stereotypes via socialization
 Gender Stereotypes
• Gender Stereotypes: Blue for Boys, Pink
for Girls
• Newborns– blue or pink
• Gender-conforming names
• Gender-appropriate gifts
• Different toys
• Boys: Guns, tools, chemistry sets
• Girls: dolls, stuffed animals,
kitchen and tea sets
 Social Role Theory
• Although the perception of sex differences may be based on some real
differences, it is magnified by the unequal roles men and women occupy
 Gender Stereotypes: Media Effects
• Stereotyping persists in media depictions of women and men
• Media depictions influence viewers
• Beauty standards for women  Eating disorders + anxiety over
physical appearance
• Similar effects in men
 How Stereotypes Distort Perception and
Resist Change
1. Confirmation Biases and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Stereotypes of groups influence people’s perceptions and
interpretations of the behaviors of group members
• Especially likely when a target of a stereotype behaves in an
ambiguous way
• Interpret in way consistent with stereotype
• Confirmation bias
 How Stereotypes Distort Perception and
Resist Change
1. Confirmation Biases and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Illusory Correlation
• Tendency for people to overestimate the link between variables
that are only slightly or not at all correlated
• Overestimating the association between variables that are
relatively rare
• E.g., Overestimating the association between minority group status
(a relatively rare group) and criminal behavior (a relatively rare
behavior)
 How Stereotypes Distort Perception and
Resist Change
1. Confirmation Biases and Self-Fulfilling
Prophecies
• Stereotypes are held by many people
within a culture, and often
perpetuated through repeated
communications
• Stereotype confirmation via
communication
 How Stereotypes Distort Perception and
Resist Change
1. Confirmation Biases and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Sometimes stereotyped group members are led to behave in
stereotype-confirming ways
• Stereotypes can create self-fulfilling prophecies
• E.g., Interviewing and Race
 How Stereotypes Distort Perception and
Resist Change
2. Attributions and Subtyping
• People maintain their stereotypes through how they explain the
behaviors of others
• Fundamental Attribution Error
• Don’t take into account the situational effect of the stereotype!
• When we see others acting in ways that seem to contradict a
stereotype, we are more likely to think about situational factors in
order to explain the surprising behavior
 How Stereotypes Distort Perception and
Resist Change
2. Attributions and Subtyping
• If we encounter someone’s behavior that clearly contradicts stereotype
and can’t easily explain it
• We consider the person to be the exception to the rule
• Subtyping
• Preserves that stereotype!
 Automatic Stereotype Activation
• Stereotypes can bias our perceptions and responses even if we don’t agree
with them
• Stereotypes can be activated without our awareness
• Implicitly and automatically
• Influence subsequent thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, even among
those relatively low in prejudice
• Priming: Activating one stimulus facilitates the subsequent processing of
another related stimulus  Spreading activation
 The Shooter Bias
• On February 4, 1999, New York police shot Amadou Diallo 41 times. He
was hit 19 times and killed.
• The police ‘supposedly’ mistakenly identified the wallet in his hand as a
gun. He did not have a weapon.
• Evidence from research suggests that
• Stereotypes can alter perceptions about presence of weapons and
decision to shoot
• Racial bias in decision to shoot is not related to participants’ levels of
explicit racial prejudice
Shoot or Not?
Reducing the Problem
Social Psychological Solutions
 Intergroup Contact
• Contact Hypothesis
• Direct contact between hostile groups will reduce intergroup prejudice
under certain conditions
• Contact alone does not necessarily lead to a reduction in stereotyping,
prejudice, and discrimination
• Why?
 Intergroup Contact
• Four conditions are deemed ideal for intergroup contact to serve as a
treatment
• The contact should occur in circumstances that place
Equal Status the two groups in equal status

• The contact should involve one-on-one interactions

Personal Interaction among individual members of the two groups

• Members of the two groups should join together in an

Cooperative Activities effort to achieve superordinate goals

• Social norms, defined in part by relevant authorities,

Social Norms should favor intergroup contact
Intergroup Friendships and Extended Contact
• Developing friendships across groups is one of the best ways to experience the
necessary conditions
• Cross-group friendships are associated with more positive attitudes and
behaviors toward outgroup members
• Extended Contact Effect (aka indirect contact)
• Knowing that an ingroup friend has a good and close relationship with a member
of an outgroup
• Can produce positive intergroup benefits similar to direct contact
• Why?
• Reduces ignorance and anxiety about outgroup members
• Provides positive examples of outgroup members
 Shared Identities
• Common Ingroup Identity Model
• Decatogrization
• Pay less attention to categories and intergroup boundaries
• More likely to perceive the diversity within outgroups and see group
members as individuals
• Recategorization
• Changing conceptions of the group so that we have a more inclusive,
diverse sense of our own in-group
• Superordinate identity
• “They” become “We”
Shared Identities
 Next Week (October 3, 5, 7)
• Please read:
• Chapter 6: Attitudes

• Reminder!
• Social media PSA topics due by Friday, October 7th, 11:59PM.