Transcript stereotyping and prejudice - Arts & Sciences | Washington

Stereotyping and Prejudice
Some initial thoughts

It would be nice if human beings never used
stereotypes or prejudice
 It would be nice if social psychologists
could figure out a way of reducing or even
eliminating stereotypic/prejudicial behavior
 It would be nice if we could educate the
public about the falsehoods and
perniciousness of prejudice
Why I am a pessimist

People don’t stereotype (only) because they are stupid; they
sometimes have much to gain

Power (cf. System legitimization approaches (e.g., Jost,
Fitzsimons, & Kay (2004).
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Stereotypic beliefs often implicit: hard to control, often
unconscious (implicit), despite our best intentions
Stereotypes are often (although not always) linked to very
salient visual cues that are difficult to overlook
Ironic effects of stereotype suppression attempts
Exceptions are often subcategorized, leaving the original
category-based beliefs unchanged.
Evidence for stereotype change in the laboratory may or may
not be long-lasting. (rubber band metaphor).
Well-meaning “consciousness raising” programs to curb
prejudice are often “preaching to the choir”.
Stereotyping:
inappropriate bias, or rational
thinking?
 Are
there cases in which that “it’s ok”
to use stereotypes?
Crandall (1999):
Subjective appropriateness of
stereotyping
Rating scale:
0 = NOT OK to feel negatively toward these people
1 = MAYBE OK to feel….
2 = OK to feel…..
1. Blind people (.047)
2. Deaf people (.053)
3. Mentally retarded people
(.053)
4. Members of a bowling
league (.113)
5. Black Americans (.12O)
6. Jews (.120)
7. Hispanics (.141)
8. Asian Americans (.147)
9. Canadians (.148)
10. Ugly People (.193)
11. Cat owners (.220)
12. High School cheerleaders
(.227)
13. People with AIDS (.227)
14. Fat People (.228)
15. Rap music fans
(.275)
16.Traveling salesmen
(.313)
17. Hare Krishnas
(.407)
18. People who like
country music (.430)
19. Lawyers (.460)
20. Gay soldiers (.520)
21. People who call the
“Psychic Hotline” (.560)
22. Welfare Recipients
(.620)
23. Feminists (.733)
24. Gamblers (.733)
33. People who cheat
on their spouses (1.64)
25. People who go to Kansas
State University (.653)
34. Drunk drivers (1.82)
26. People who smell bad (.764)
27. Porn stars (.967)
32. Wife beaters (1.93)
33. Rapists (1.97)
28. Ex-convicts (.980)
29. People who cut in line (1.14)
30. People who litter (1.18)
31. Female prostitutes (1.24)
32. People who cheat on exams
(1.25)
What’s
determining this
rank ordering?
Big caveat
Just because people say it’s inappropriate to dislike
people on the basis of their membership in certain
categories, doesn’t mean they’re not actually doing
this all of the time.
 Important factor: Activation and use of stereotypes/
prejudice is often at the implicit (unaware) level
 So in terms of predicting behavior, these explicit
appropriateness ratings could have limited validity

The “categorization” approach
to stereotyping
•“least effort principle”
•“cognitive miser” view
The Nature of Prejudice (Allport, 1954)
“The human mind must think with the aid of
categories….once formed, categories are the
basis for normal prejudgment. We cannot
possibly avoid this process. Orderly living
depends on it.”
This perspective suggests that
stereotyping may be…
“natural” (or at least not completely
unnatural)
 not necessarily dysfunctional or even
immoral
 But validity is the bottom line

“hits” and misses
expectations
“dangerous”
“dangerous”
“Not dangerous”
Incorrect
correct
(“miss”)
reality
“not
dangerous”
Incorrect
(false alarm)
correct
Amidou
Diallo
More on Allport’s “least effort
principle”
Derivation from Allport’s perspective:
The “cognitive effort” hypothesis

Cognitive load studies
 “Circadian Rhythm” study (Bodenhausen,
1990)
Morning People
Morning
Target race
White
Hispanic
Afternoon
Afternoon People
Morning
Afternoon
(alert)
(tired)
(tired)
(alert)
+
+
+
+
+
-
-
+
Strengths
– Parsimonious; easily tested, supported
Weaknesses
– 1.
– 2.
individual differences?
“kind” of categories?
3. Motivation?
4. Can’t explain everything.
The “unconscious” becomes
respectable again
Abstracts
70
60
50
stereotype/prejudice
+ implicit
stereotype/preudice
+ unconscious
40
30
20
10
0
19601971
19701981
19801991
19902001
Similarities/differences compared
to Freudian unconscious
Extremely important study:
Devine (1989)
“Jewish people”
“Jewish people”
S (-)
P (+)
“Replacement” view
S (-)
“Fading” view
Dual representation view
“Jewish people”
S (-)
P (+)
P (+)
Reaction to Devine (1989)
Some
qualifications
Larger implications
On the explosion of interest in
implicit tests
Relies heavily on the priming literature
 Facilitation vs. inhibition

– The Stroop (1935) effect
The Stroop (1935) Effect

Some modern implicit tests, especially the
IAT (Greenwald et al. 1995) rely heavily on
the logic of the Stroop task.
Extension to stereotyping and
prejudice
hostile
hostile
hostile
pleasant words
unpleasant words
“White names”
“Black names”
e.g., birthday
e.g., hatred
e.g. Kristina
e.g. Latonya
1.
2.
C
3.
4.
I
5.
Pleasant (l) vs. unpleasant (r)
White (l) vs. Black (r)
Pleasant or White (l) vs. Unpleasant or Black (r)
Unpleasant (l) vs. pleasant (r)
Unpleasant or White (l) vs. pleasant or Black (r)
IAT SCORE = I- C
birthday
Pleasant
or White
Unpleasant
or Black
CONGRUENT TRIALS
Fast
birthday
Pleasant
or Black
Unpleasant
or White
INCONGRUENT TRIALS
Slow
Current issues/controversies

Relationship to explicit measures?
– Often low or non-existent
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Two views of the IAT
– “endorsement” model
– environmental association model
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Malleability?
 Responses by minority participants?
Ingroups and outgroups
Ingroup favoritism effect:
IG > OG

But WHY?
– Resource competition?
– Historical events?
– Rewards for self?

Commonality of effect suggests basic
need
"Because people typically want to maintain positive selfregard, they are motivated to have favorable evaluations
of the groups to which they belong. But there is no
objective yardstick for gauging the desirability of any
particular social group: such comparisons are inherently
subjective.
Therefore, people enhance their own group's favorability
by psychologically establishing its relative superiority in
comparison with some out-group. Thus, people are
motivated to accentuate the evaluative difference between
the ingroup and outgroup."
(Hamilton and Sherman, 1994)
Henri Tajfel’s classic insight:
mere categorization may be sufficient
Mere, “arbitrary” categorization 
 Division into IG and OG
 Drive for self-esteem, resulting in…
 IGF
 Referred to as “minimal group” paradigm
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“minimal group” paradigm
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Similarity to heuristics (cognitive efficiency) view:
–
–
–
–
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commonality of prejudice
“naturalness”
avoids “bad person” perspective
reductionist view
Dissimilarity
– more motivational
– Emphasizes own membership (ingroup/outgroup)
– Reflects “European” perspective
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Inter-personal/group dynamics
Historical perspective
search for “minimal” conditions needed to
produce IGF
 "Eye of the storm”
 formal evidence?
 Social categorization theory (Henri Tajfel)

Experimental Evidence
• Oakes and Turner (1980)
• Minimal group manipulation
• Klee vs. Kadinsky
• Point allocation (direct self interest held constant)
• Control participants: filler task
• Results:
• IGF
• Higher self esteem, but ONLY after “biasing”
process of point allocation
Howard & Rothbart (1980)
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Minimal group manipulation
– Under vs. over-estimators
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Results:
– Phase I: direct trait ratings
– Phase II: memory task
 Ingroup: superior recall for positive
 Outgroup: reverse
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Fairly subtle test