Prejudice and Discrimination

Prejudice

Literally means ‘prejudgment’

Unfavourable attitude towards a social group and its members

Discrimination

Harmful ACTIONS directed toward the persons or groups who are targets of prejudice

LaPiere (1934)

Chinese American couple visited 250 hotels, caravan parks, tourist homes and restaurants.

Refused service in only one Little prejudice? After returning home, 128 of the

establishments were asked “Will you accept members of the Chinese race as guests in your establishment?”

92% No, 7% Uncertain, depends on circumstances, 1% Yes

Types of prejudice Sexism: almost all research on

sexism focuses on prejudice and discrimination against women.

“The typical woman is seen as nice but incompetent, the typical man as competent but maybe not so nice” (Fiske, 1998)

Traditional sexism can sometimes be difficult to detect now that is now illegal and unacceptable.

Not in all countries: Taliban – women denied the right to an education, in Nigeria women have been sentenced to death by stoning for infidelity, and in many cultures there are restrictions placed on women's choices about their bodies and reproduction.

Klasen (1994): sex-selective abortions and infanticide have led to 76 million 'missing women'.

Racism

Discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity

Genocide is universal: in recent times it has been carried out in, for example, Germany, Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda

New Racism

Because explicit and blatant racism is illegal and thus socially censored, it is now more difficult to find.

New racism involves three components:

Denial – ‘there’s no racism anymore’ Antagonism to demands – ‘why

should the government apologise?’ Resentment about special favours –

‘why should there be affirmative action?’

Detecting New Racism

Unobtrusive measures – Social distance - how close, psychologically or

physically, people are willing to get to one another. Another context in which underlying prejudice can

emerge is when prejudiced behaviour does not obviously look like prejudice.

Rogers and Prentice-Dunn (1981) had White or Black confederates insult White participants (in Alabama), who then had an opportunity to administer a shock to the confederate. Angered Whites > Black confederate. In another condition where no insults were forthcoming, participants gave < shocks to the Black confederate than to the White confederate.

Prejudice can also surface inadvertently in people's relatively automatic cognition.

E.g. IAT. The general principle underlying this

procedure for detecting prejudice is automaticity

The notion of automaticity is related to the idea that categories and their stereotypical attributes are implicitly linked in memory.

Ageism Mitchell (2002) identifies four

distinct generational stereotypes Traditionalists (1925 and 1945),

are practical; patient, loyal and hard-working; respectful of authority; and rule followers.

Baby boomers (1946 and 1960), are optimistic; value teamwork and cooperation; are ambitious; and are workaholic.

Generation X (1961 and 1980) are skeptical, self-reliant risk-takers who balance work and personal life.

Millennials (1981 and the present) are hopeful; they value meaningful work, diversity and change; and are technologically savvy.

Discrimination against homosexuals In general, since the late 1960s

there has been a progressive liberalisation of attitudes towards homosexuals.

However, the AIDS epidemic has, since the mid-1980s, whipped up negative attitudes in some sections of society towards homosexuals

In California the existing right for same-sex couples to marry was actually overturned in 2008 –in which 52 per cent of Californians voted 'yes' on 'Proposition 8', actively denying homosexuals the same rights as heterosexuals.

Discrimination on the basis of physical or mental handicap Overt discrimination against people

on the basis of physical handicap is now illegal and socially unacceptable in most Western societies.

The improvement of attitudes over the past twenty-five years towards physical handicap has not extended to mental/psychological handicap.

Allport’s Scales of Prejudice

Scale 1 - Antilocution Scale 2 - Avoidance Scale 3 - Discrimination Scale 4 - Physical attack Scale 5 - Extermination

Antilocution

A majority group freely make jokes about a minority group.

Speech is in terms of negative stereotypes and negative images (hate speech).

Commonly seen as harmless by the majority, but it sets the stage for more severe outlets for prejudice

Avoidance

People in a minority group are actively avoided by members of the majority group. No direct harm may be intended but harm is done through isolation

Discrimination

Minority group is discriminated against by denying them opportunities and services.

Putting prejudice into action.

Physical Attack

Majority group vandalise minority group’s property and carry out violent attacks on individuals or groups.

Extermination

Majority group seeks extermination of the minority group and attempt to eliminate the entire group of people

Forms of discrimination

Three types of behaviour that do not look obviously like discrimination but nevertheless may conceal underlying prejudices: reluctance to help, tokenism and reverse discrimination.

Reluctance to help

Studies show that reluctance to help is manifested only in certain conditions: specifically, when such reluctance can be attributed to some factor other than prejudice.

Gaertner and Dovidio's (1977) found White participants were more reluctant to help a Black than a White confederate faced with an emergency, but only when they believed that other potential helpers were present.

Tokenism

Tokenism refers to a relatively small or trivial positive act, a token, towards members of a minority group.

Invoked to deflect accusations of prejudice and as a justification for declining to engage in larger and more meaningful positive acts or for subsequently engaging in discrimination.

Criticism of the token employment of minorities by organisations that then fail to take more fundamental and important steps towards equal opportunities.

Tokenism at this level can have damaging consequences for the self-esteem of those who are employed as token minorities

Reverse Discrimination

People with residual prejudiced attitudes may sometimes go out of their way to favour members of a group against which they are prejudiced more than members of other groups.

For the researcher, the challenge is to know when behaviour that goes out of its way to favour a minority is reverse discrimination or is actually a genuine attempt to rectify disadvantage

Stereotype threat

Awareness of judgments from others and treated stereotypically on tasks that really matter to them. Thus, worried that through their behaviour they may confirm the stereotypes.

Self fulfilling prophecies

Expectations and assumptions about a person that influence our interaction with that person and eventually change their behaviour in line with our expectations

The most famous study of self-fulfilling prophecy is Rosenthal and Jacobson's (1968) classic experiment on teachers' expectations in the classroom.

Explanations of Prejudice and Discrimination Mere exposure effect Frustration-aggression hypothesis Authoritarian personality (Adorno) Social dominance Belief congruence