HPS204 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Institution Of Engineering And Technology, Game Theory, Subtyping
HPS204 WEEK 11
Prejudice and Intergroup Behaviour
Define the term ‘prejudice’;
Prejudice refers to an unfavourable attitude towards a social group and its members. The
three-component model (tripartite model) features cognitive components (beliefs about the
attitude object), affective components (strong feelings, usually negative, about the attitude
object and the qualities it is believed to possess), and conative components (intentions to
behave in certain ways toward the attitude object, NBV, conative component is not the
actual action). La Pierre’s study with the Chinese couple, described earlier, and Gaertner and
Dovido’s study both demonstrate prejudice and discrimination. In Gaertner and Dovido’s
study, participants had to choose whether or not to aid a woman in distress. The distressed
woman was either Caucasian or African-American. This revealed discrimination against the
African- American distressed woman, as the bystander effect increased dramatically in this
condition.
Describe the relationship between prejudice and discrimination;
Prejudice is a negative attitude toward a social group, which may lead to discrimination,
which is the unjust treatment of a social group on the grounds of their category
membership, e.g. race, sex, age, disability etc.
Describe subtle forms of discrimination such as reluctance to help, tokenism and reverse
discrimination;
Reluctance to help by passively or actively failing to assist others in their efforts is one way
to ensure that they remain disadvantaged. Examples of this include not wanting to rent
properties to individuals of particular ethnicities, not accommodating employees in
wheelchairs, or not passing legislation to allow for adequate maternity leave: this shows
discrimination at the individual, organisational, and societal levels respectively. Tokenism is
the practice of publicly making small concessions to a minority group in order to deflect
accusations of prejudice or discrimination. For example, hiring one employee who is of an
ethnic minority, to deflect claims of racism in the hiring process, and to demonstrate
supposed social inclusiveness. Those who are the product of tokenism, for example in the
workplace, may feel less committed and less satisfied. Reverse discrimination is the practice
of publicly being prejudiced in favour of a minority group in order to deflect accusations of
prejudice and discrimination against that group. For example, Chidester (1986) had
participants get acquainted over the phone with either an ostensibly Caucasian, or African-
American confederate. Afterwards, when rating the confederate, African-Americans were
rated more favourably. This is seen to be in attempt to rectify the general disadvantage that
these minorities face. In the short-term, reverse discrimination may heighten self-esteem,
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but in the long-run, individuals may develop unrealistic opinions of abilities and future
prospects, resulting in severe damage to the self-esteem when these are not met.
Discuss some of the effects of prejudice and discrimination; Controllable stigmas are those
that people believe are chosen rather than assigned. These include obesity, smoking, and
homosexuality. People who believe that they have controllable stigmas often make
futile attempts to conceal them, leading to profound feelings of failure and
inadequacy, in addition to the negativity of the stigma itself. Uncontrollable
sigmas are those that people are thought to have little choice in possessing.
These include race, gender, and some illnesses.
Another effect of prejudice and discrimination is stereotype threat: the
feeling that we will be judged and treated in terms of negative stereotypes of
our group, and that we will inadvertently confirm these stereotypes through
our behaviour. For example, a woman in a science class may fear answering
questions publicly, for fear of getting the answer wrong. She may fear that
this confirms the stereotype that women are incompetent in science.
Stereotype threat may also lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example,
African-American students who are anxious about academic performance
may reduce their efforts and ambitions, and may drop out of school
altogether, thus living up to the perceived stereotype of African American
students being no good at school, and not progressing.
Victims of prejudice may develop a sense of failure. Because they are denied
access to those resources that society makes available for people to thrive and
succeed, for example, education, health, housing, and employment,
discriminated individuals may become chronically apathetic and
unmotivated, because they give up due to the impossibility to succeed.
Attributional ambiguity, the uncertainty of whether something happened
because of race or not, has damaging effects on self-esteem. For example, an
African-American may wonder if they didn’t get served at the bar because of
their race, or because they were simply unnoticed. This can lead to mistrust
and suspicion of others, and individuals may attribute their successes
externally. They may also under-attribute the negative reactions from others
to prejudice.
Self-fulfilling prophecies are expectations and assumptions about a person
that influence our interaction with that person and eventually change their
behaviour in line with our expectations. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968)
study showed this, by telling teachers that some students were ‘bloomers’,
and others ‘non-bloomers’, following an IQ test, whereby there was no actual
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measurable difference between the two groups. The teachers then nurtured
the ‘bloomers’, and found the ‘non-bloomers’ to be more disengaged. Word
et al (1974) had Caucasian participants interview African-Americans. They
found them to be less engaging, have more speech errors, and conduct shorter
interviews. This method was then trained to other Caucasians interviewing
Caucasians. By using this method, the interviewer considered the applicant to
be more nervous and perform more poorly.
Briefly describe the role of learning and the mere exposure effect in the
development of prejudiced attitudes;
The mere exposure effect proposes that repeated exposure to an object
results in greater attraction to that object. This relates to prejudice in that
there in some evidence that humans have an inherent fear of the unfamiliar
and unusual, thus we may act negatively toward minority groups.
Children may learn to discriminate through their parents’ modelling: a parent
may scold a particular ethnic race, or scold child for associating with other
children of the ethnicity. Racial preferences are demonstrated as young as 4
to 5 years old, and are crystallised after age 10.
Explain and critically evaluate the following theories of prejudice:
frustration-aggression hypothesis; authoritarian personality; dogmatism
and closed-mindedness; and belief congruence;
The frustration-aggression hypothesis is a theory that states that all
frustration leads to aggression, and all aggression comes from frustration. It
is used to explain prejudice in intergroup aggression. If the anger cannot be
taken out on the target, a scapegoat may be used (new target for anger and
frustration caused by a different individual or group or other set of
circumstances), and may be totally different to the original anguishing target,
or displacement may occur (transfer of negative feelings on to an individual
or group other than that which originally caused the negative feelings), and
may be similar to the initial anguishing target. The major limitations of this
theory are that aggression can occur in the absence of frustration, and
frustration can occur in the absence of frustration. In attempt to salvage the
hypothesis, Berkowitz (1962) proposed the following changes: (1) the
probability of frustration-induced aggression actually being vented is
increased by the presence of situational cues to aggression, including past or
present associations of a specific group (scapegoat) with conflict or dislike,
(2) it is not objective frustration that instigates aggression, but the subjective
(cognitive) feeling of being frustrated, and (3) frustration is only one of a
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Document Summary
Prejudice refers to an unfavourable attitude towards a social group and its members. La pierre"s study with the chinese couple, described earlier, and gaertner and. In gaertner and dovido"s study, participants had to choose whether or not to aid a woman in distress. The distressed woman was either caucasian or african-american. African- american distressed woman, as the bystander effect increased dramatically in this condition. Prejudice is a negative attitude toward a social group, which may lead to discrimination, which is the unjust treatment of a social group on the grounds of their category membership, e. g. race, sex, age, disability etc. Describe subtle forms of discrimination such as reluctance to help, tokenism and reverse discrimination; Reluctance to help by passively or actively failing to assist others in their efforts is one way to ensure that they remain disadvantaged. Tokenism is the practice of publicly making small concessions to a minority group in order to deflect accusations of prejudice or discrimination.
