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Chapter 9 Prejudice: David Myers 11e
Chapter 9 Prejudice: David Myers 11e
Chapter 9 Prejudice: David Myers 11e
11e
Chapter 9 Prejudice
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Racism / Racist (definition)
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among
the various human racial groups determine cultural or
individual achievement, usually involving the idea that
one's own race is superior and has the right to
dominate others or that a particular racial group is
inferior to the others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or
fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3.hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
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Discrimination (defined)
1. an act or instance of discriminating, or of making a
distinction.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a
distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing
based on the group, class, or category to which that
person or thing belongs rather than on individual
merit: racial and religious intolerance and
discrimination.
3. the power of making fine distinctions;
discriminating judgment:
She chose the colors with great discrimination.
4. Archaic. something that serves to differentiate.
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Chapter Nine
Prejudice: Disliking Others
Defined:
1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed
beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or
reason.
2. any preconceived opinion or feeling, either
favorable or unfavorable.
3. unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes,
especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic,
racial, social, or religious group
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What Is the Nature and Power of
Prejudice?
Defining Prejudice
Discrimination
Unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members
Racism (definition changes over time)
Prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward
people of a given race
Sexism
Prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward
people of a given sex
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What Is the Nature and Power of Prejudice?
(an attitude)
Defining Prejudice
Preconceived negative judgment of a group and its
individual members
Supported by stereotypes
Beliefs about the personal attributes of a group of people
Why?
“accuracy dominates bias” (90 % correct)
Discrimination – behavior –acting on a belief/affect
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What Is the Nature and Power of
Prejudice?
Prejudice: Implicit and Explicit
Dual attitude system
Explicit
Conscious (central channel)
Implicit
Automatic (peripheral channel)
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What Is the Nature and Power of
Prejudice?
Racial Prejudice
Is racial prejudice
disappearing?
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Racial prejudice
Is there a difference between?
A preference for
Will always vote for
A preference not for
Will always vote against
What percent of Blacks voted for Obama in 2012?
95% - report most exit polls
What percent of women will vote for Hillary?
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What Is the Nature and Power of
Prejudice?
Racial Prejudice and discrimination
Subtle forms of prejudice
Labor market discrimination
Patronization
Avoiding criticisms
Overpraising accomplishments
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What Is the Nature and Power of
Prejudice?
Racial Prejudice
Automatic prejudice
Involves primitive regions of the brain associated with fear
(amygdala)
Critics note that unconscious associations may only indicate
cultural assumptions, perhaps without prejudice
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What Is the Nature and Power of
Prejudice?
Gender Prejudice
Gender stereotypes
Strong gender stereotypes exist
Members of the stereotyped group accept the stereotypes
Most believe that men and women are different yet equal
Over time prejudice toward women has decreased as much as
with blacks
A favorable stereotype (most people like women more)
Women’s work is not devalued
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What Is the Nature and Power of
Prejudice?
Gender Prejudice
Sexism: Benevolent and hostile
Attitudes toward women have changed rapidly
Most see women as understanding, kind, and helpful
Gender discrimination
Disappearing in democratic Western countries
Non-Western countries gender bias is still strong
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What Are the Social Sources of
Prejudice?
Social Inequalities: Unequal Status and Prejudice
Social dominance orientation
Motivation to have one’s group dominate other social groups
Being in a dominant high-status position tends to promote
this orientation and justification
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What Are the Social Sources of
Prejudice?
Socialization
Authoritarian personality
Personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority
and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status
Ethnocentricity
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What Are the Social Sources of
Prejudice?
Socialization
Religion and prejudice
In almost every country, leaders invoke religion to sanctify the
present order
Use of religion to support injustice helps explain a pair of
findings concerning North American Christianity
White church members express more racial prejudice than
nonmembers
Those professing traditional or fundamentalist Christian
beliefs express more prejudice than those professing more
progressive beliefs
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What Are the Social Sources of
Prejudice?
Socialization
Conformity
If prejudice is socially accepted, many people will follow the
path of least resistance and conform to the fashion
If prejudice is not deeply ingrained in personality, then as
fashions change and new norms evolve, prejudice can
diminish
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What Are the Social Sources of
Prejudice?
Institutional Supports
Government
Schools
Magazines and newspapers
Face-ism v. bodyism?
Films and television
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What Are the Motivational Sources of
Prejudice?
Frustration and Aggression: The Scapegoat Theory
Displaced aggression
Hate crimes
Realistic group conflict theory
Prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce
resources
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What Are the Motivational Sources
of Prejudice?
Social Identity Theory (Tajfel): Feeling Superior to Others
The “we” aspect of our self-concept; the part of our
answer to “Who am I?” that comes from our group
memberships
We categorize
We identify
We compare
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What Are the Motivational Sources
of Prejudice?
Social Identity Theory: Feeling Superior to Others
Ingroup bias
Tendency to favor one’s own group
Because of our social identifications, we conform to our group
norms
When our group succeeds, we feel better by identifying
strongly with it
More ingroup bias if part of a small group
What does this say about school integration
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What Are the Motivational Sources
of Prejudice?
Social Identity Theory: Feeling Superior to Others
Need for status, self-regard, and belonging
Terror management
People’s self-protective emotional and cognitive responses
when confronted with reminders of their mortality
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What Are the Motivational Sources
of Prejudice?
Motivation to Avoid Prejudice
Motivation to avoid prejudice can lead people to modify
their thoughts an actions
Self-conscious people will feel guilt and try to inhibit their
prejudicial response
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What Are the Cognitive Sources of
Prejudice?
Categorization: Classifying People into Groups
Spontaneous categorization
Social identity theory implies that those who feel their social
identity keenly will concern themselves with correctly
categorizing people as us or them
Necessary for prejudice
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What Are the Cognitive Sources of
Prejudice?
Categorization: Classifying People into Groups
Perceived similarities and differences
Outgroup homogeneity effect
Perception of outgroup members as more similar to one
another than are ingroup members
Own-race bias
Tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their
own race
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What Are the Cognitive Sources of Prejudice?
Distinctiveness: Perceiving People Who Stand Out
Distinctive people
Feeds on self-consciousness
Dartmouth women with “disfigured faces”
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What Are the Cognitive Sources of
Prejudice?
Distinctiveness: Perceiving People Who Stand Out
Distinctive events foster illusory correlations
Stereotypes assume a correlation between group membership
and individuals’ presumed characteristics
Attentiveness to unusual occurrences can create illusory
correlations
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What Are the Cognitive Sources of
Prejudice?
Attribution: Is It a Just World?
Group-serving bias
Explaining away outgroup members’ positive behaviors; also
attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions
Just-world phenomenon
Tendency of people to believe that the world is just and that
people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they
get
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What Are the Consequences of
Prejudice?
Self-Perpetuating Prejudgments
Whenever a member of a group behaves as expected, we
duly note the fact; our prior belief is confirmed
When a member of a group behaves inconsistently with
our expectation, we may interpret or explain away the
behavior as due to special circumstances
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What Are the Consequences of
Prejudice?
Self-Perpetuating Prejudgments
Subtyping
Accommodating individuals who deviate from one’s
stereotype by thinking of them as “exceptions to the rule”
Subgrouping
Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's
stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of
the group
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What Are the Consequences of
Prejudice?
Discrimination’s Impact: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Social beliefs can be self-confirming
Prejudice affects its targets
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What Are the Consequences of
Prejudice?
Stereotype Threat
Disruptive concern,
when facing a negative
stereotype, that one will
be evaluated based on a
negative stereotype
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What Are the Consequences of
Prejudice?
Do Stereotypes Bias Judgments of Individuals?
Yes, but people often evaluate individuals more
positively than the groups they compose
Strong Stereotypes Matter
Stereotypes Bias Interpretations
Affect how events are interpreted
We evaluate people more extremely when their behavior
violates our stereotypes
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