Stereotyping

Stereotyping refers to overgeneralization.

attributing identical characteristics to everyone in a group

e.g. natural rhythm - blacks, Jews - good businessmen, Italians - talk with their hands, Asians - good at math and science; just like any form of categorization, stereotypes are a form of cognitive economy (Cognitive busyness - when we are busy doing other things our stereotypes may be activated automatically, without our awareness)- they fulfill the Object Appraisal function of attitudes (non-criterial beliefs). On the one hand, stereotypes are adaptive shorthand (heuristics - representative), on the other they blind us to individual differences and can be maladaptive and dangerous.

Stereotype is a fixed impression which may conform little with facts or an exaggerated belief associated with a category through which we organize our experiences; not modified in the face of new information; based on hearsay, rumor, anecdotal evidence (availability heuristic) ; maintains simplicity in thinking

Typical characteristics

a. exaggerated homogeneity within groups (in-out grp bias)(biased perceptions)

b. exaggerated differences between groups (social adjustment function)

c. erroneous causal perception (neg. attributions) (selectivity)

d. situation can affect (history, media portrayals) (representative heuristic, illusory correlations)

e. rigid in the face of new inf.( Automatic)

Katz & Braly (1930's) Princeton students ; list traits most characteristic of 10 ethnic groups (Negroes, Italians, Germans, Jews, Chinese, Irish; Ss choose from a list of 84 traits (cheerful, shrewd, rhythmic, lazy, dirty, sophisticated, sportsmanlike, happy-go-lucky; intelligent, ignorant, lying, industrious, deceitful, loud, careful, etc.

Findings: ?

Of course, this technique forces Ss to think in terms of stereotypes and categories

How would you fit this into schema theory (implicit personality theory)? Gaertner & McLaughlin (1983

PREJUDICE

Prejudice is a hostile feeling toward a person who belongs to a group simply because he/she belongs to the group; the effect is placing the object of prejudice at a disadvantage; an inference based on faulty and inflexible generalization

Wax - a Canadian social scientist sent identical letters to several resorts requesting accommodations - signed Mr. Lockwood or Mr. Greenberg. Findings: Mr. Lockwood accommodated ---% of time; Mr. Greenberg - ---%

This example demonstrates 2 essential ingredients of prejudice: 1) hostility and rejection; 2) the basis of the rejection was categorical

(Racial bias in employment - affirmative action)

Prejudice is only prejudice if it is not altered in the face of new information

Acting out prejudice

What people do in relation to a group they do not like is not always related to their feelings about others (attitude-behavior relationship)

Antilocution talking about prejudices; joke telling; antagonistic talk

Avoidance avoiding members of the disliked group; taking the burden of accommodation upon yourself

Discrimination deny the equality of treatment

Segregation an institutionalized form of discrimination, legally or by common custom

Physical attack acts of violence; evictions, threats, desecration of religious places

Extermination lynching, pogroms, massacres, genocide

Causes

Separatism (ethnocentrism) automatic cohesion to our own groups; in-grp/out-grp bias; ghetto attitude ;familiarity breeds comfort; attributional error - we are good (in group bias), they are bad (out group homogeneity effect);(mere exposure)

Categorization Cognitive sources: a) kernel of truth - there is some truth to the stereotype therefore we believe it; admitting exceptions allows us to maintain our stereos and prejudices (he's a credit to his race); b) organizing info into categories creates cognitive economy - cognitive busyness - when pressed for time or when distracted fall back on automatic stereotypes leading to schema based errors such as in-group bias (outgroup homogeneity effect - they are all alike and different from us - we generally like similar others and are cautious about dissimilar others leading to in-group bias; automatic vigilance); selectivity - distinctive people draw our attention - facial scar study (Kleck & Strenta, 1980) lead to the availability heuristic; the ultimate attribution error when explaining the actions of one's own group we give them the benefit of the doubt but when explaining the actions of another group we make internal attributions for bad behaviors - admit exceptions; the just world hypothesis seeing someone being a victim leads to denigrating the victim thus if we constantly see Indians being victimized don't we start to view them as somehow responsible? Carli (89, 90) rape victims; welfare recipients

Scapegoating frustration leads to aggression displacement; frustration may lead to aggression being displaced onto a less threatening object which is in no way responsible for the frustration

Miller and Bulgelski (1948) CCC men were expecting to go to town; expectations were frustrated; given attitude scales; poor attitudes toward Mexicans (non-frust. Ss did not show this attitude)

1940 - negative correlation between number of lynching in the south and the prices of cotton

1954 - negative correlation between job satisfaction and anti-Semitism

1980-90’s - immigrants in the US today

Berkowitz (1962) 4 characteristics that may play a role in determining which group will be the target of scapegoating:

1) safeness - the group is weak;

2) visibility - distinctiveness;

3) strangeness - the unknown - xenophobia;

4) prior dislike for the group

Prejudice as a learned response operant and classical conditioning/ socialization/ modeling. In 1952 Bird et al. found that almost half of the white families instructed their children not to play with blacks. Socialization - we are products of our environments. We learn directly and indirectly through modeling to stereotype and to be prejudiced.

Conformity we observe the attitudes and behaviors (modeling) of our peers or our families and these shape our own attitudes (social norms)

Intergroup Conflict competitive interactions; when a minority group attempts to improve its status it runs into majority opposition; repealing affirmative action laws

Sherif - Robbers Cave experiment; 12 yr old boys assigned to different bunking quarters; given pleasant within group activities and competitive between group activities. Boys began describing their own group members positively and the others negatively; later, attempts were made to reduce the hostility - interact to achieve a common goal

Motive for belief in effective control - the poor are poor because they do not work

Cognitive reasons heuristics, organizing and encoding information into categories, cognitive economy, schema based errors; our perceptions of the world create our prejudices (phenomenological)

Personality Freud - externalization, projection and displacement. We tend to project onto others our own undesirable impulses (rape - is there such a thing?) The authoritarian personality.

Historical social consensus/ earned reputation; shared definitions of group behavior. General agreement that he belongs to a group (Octoroon).

How do we reduce or eliminate prejudice and stereotyping?

If familiarity breeds comfort then get the people together? Does this work? Busing, school desegregation? Any problems?

Jig-Saw technique (Aronson) – cooperation toward a common goal; making the people interdependent on an equal basis