[Myers's] Personal Postscript:

Can we reduce prejudice?

Weblinks:
• http://jendelapemikiran.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/peran-
psikologi-positif-mengatasi-prasangka-sosial-dalam-masyarak
at-multikultural/
• http://solehamini.blogspot.com/2011/11/prasangka-sosial.h
tml
• http://kajianpsikologi.blogspot.com/2011/12/prasangka.html
• Understanding Prejudice
http://www.understandingprejudice.org/
• The Prejudice Institutehttp://www.prejudiceinstitute.org/
 Prejudice: Disliking Others
THE NATURE AND POWER OF PREJUDICE
Definitions:
STEREOTYPE
• an overgeneralized belief about the personal attributes of a
group of people, ex: "Americans are outgoing" , “Javanese is
friendly and helping”, “Chinese is stingy”.

PREJUDICE
• a negative prejudgment of a group and its individual members
(an attitude, consisting of affect, behavior, and cognition),
examples: racism; sexism; ageism)

DISCRIMINATION
• unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its
members, ex: prevent bank lending in poor areas of cities
RACIAL PREJUDICE
• Is racial prejudice disappearing?
• greatest prejudice in the most intimate social realms
• subtle forms of prejudice
reveals prejudice hidden with blatant measures
• automatic prejudice
Implicit association tests can be used to measure prejudice (stereotypes).

Racial Discrimination: prejudicial attitudes leading to discriminatory

behavior toward people of a given race, ex: negative attitudes against
Hispanics, and discrimination against them in employment and
immigration (institutional); educational curricula that ignore the
achievements of Hispanics and individualistic practices that impede
support of Hispanic families (e.g., limitations on hospital visitors)
HOW PERVASIVE IS PREJUDICE?
 
Sexual Discrimination: an individual's prejudicial attitudes and
discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex, ex: prejudice
against women as inferior and unmotivated, and discrimination against
them in job promotion sexism, educational curricula that ignore the
achievements of women and scheduling that makes child care difficult

GENDER PREJUDICE
Gender stereotypes
• emotional
• "head of the table"
• stereotypes exaggerate differences (males: assertive, dominant;
females: tender, compassionate)
Notice the various public images of women.
• image: needs protection (slogans, motto, governmental messages)
• image: seductive and object of pleasure (advertisements)
SOCIAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE
 
SOCIAL INEQUALITIES: Unequal Status and Prejudice
• stereotypes justify division of labor
• "hostile" and "benevolent" sexism (Glick & Fiske)

SOCIALIZATION
The Authoritarian Personality
• ethnocentrism: belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic and cultural group, and a corresponding
disdain for all other groups
• bigotry such as that portrayed by Donald Trump on television
Religion and Prejudice
• justification for war
• prejudice and religious fundamentalism
• deep religious beliefs, low prejudice
• mere religious membership, high prejudice
Do you think, overall, religion has helped women or hurt them?
• How?
• What aspects of religion?
Conformity
• Pettigrew's observations about racial prejudice
 
INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORTS
• children's readers (gender stereotyping)
• "face-ism" in magazine photos (which portray men's faces, women's bodies)
• stereotyped media presentations
MOTIVATIONAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE
 
FRUSTRATION AND AGGRESSION: THE SCAPEGOAT THEORY
• realistic group conflict theory
• Should tax dollars be spent on social programs, or should tax incentives be offered to
stimulate business investment? (realistic group conflict)

SOCIAL IDENTITY
• the "we" aspect of our self-concept. The part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from
our group memberships, ex: "I am Australian.", "I am Catholic."

INGROUP
• "us"--a group of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity, ex:
we Americans; we Eastern society.

OUTGROUP
• "them"--a group that people perceive as distinctively different from or apart from their
ingroup, ex: those RPI men; those members of another ethnic group

Ingroup Bias
• the tendency to favor one's own group
• What ingroup/outgroup issues in the past?
• What ingroup and outgroup examples are particularly significant today?

Need for status, self-regard and belonging

• insecurity increases prejudice
COGNITIVE SOURCES OF PREJUDICE
CATEGORIZATION
Perceived similarities and differences
• OUTGROUP HOMOGENEITY EFFECT
• perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than
are ingroup members. ex: "They are alike; we are diverse." (where
"they" is a particular outgroup)
• "All Caucasians look alike." (quoted from a Chinese man who was
mugged, trying to describe his assailants to the police, in the movie
Flower Drum Song.)
DISTINCTIVENESS
Distinctive people
• draw attention
Vivid cases
Distinctive events
• produce illusory correlations
ATTRIBUTION: IS IT A JUST WORLD?
Group-serving bias
• explaining away outgroup members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative
behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one's own
group)
• ex: "They" only helped because there was something in it for them; we help
because we are good people.

The just-world phenomenon

• blame the victim (Lerner)
• the tendency of people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get
what they deserve and deserve what they get, ex: poor people don't deserve
money; rich people have worked hard and should get to keep what they have
• other examples
• What are other examples of the "just-world phenomenon"?
• How do these examples influence the laws that people support?
• for discussion: A few years ago, as reported in the national news, two black
students were suspended, for two years, from a Midwestern high school,
because they were involved in a fistfight at an athletic event, in the stands. Was
this "just"? Or did it illustrate racial discrimination? What opinions would you
expect, based on the just world phenomenon?
 CONSEQUENCES OF STEREOTYPES
Self-perpetuating stereotypes
• subtyping and subgrouping as ways of maintaining stereotypes (Myers,
2005, p. 370)
• accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by splitting
off a subgroup stereotype (such as "middle class Blacks" or "feminist
women"), or by seeing them as exceptions (subtypes).

Discrimination's Impact: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Stereotype Threat
• a disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will verify
the stereotype. ex: worrying that you will do poorly at math, as expected for
a female, or on an IQ test, as expected for a minority
• impact of stereotype threat on job applicants and math tests
• problem with minority support programs (Myers, 2005, p. 372)

Do stereotypes bias judgments of individuals?

• yes, but … individuals are evaluated more positively than their groups
• Strong stereotypes matter
• Stereotypes bias interpretations and memories