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Factors contributing to the development of prejudice
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Factors that may reduce prejudice

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Ingroups
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Outgroups
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Intergroup conflict

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Attribution is the process of trying to explain observed behaviour in terms of a particular cause.
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Attribution can be either the person) or environment) internal (from within external (from the

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If we attribute behaviour to internal factors, we tend to blame one or more characteristics of that person for causing the behaviour.
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If we attribute behavoiur to external factors, we tend to blame the situation or circumstance as the cause.

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◦
His reckless driving
Internal attribution – why??
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The slippery road conditions
◦ External attribution
– why??

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Occurs when people overestimate the influence personal characteristics and underestimate the influence of the situation they are in when explaining a person’s behaviour.
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For example: you met a blonde girl on the weekend who had never heard of Tony Abbott so you might conclude that all blondes are naïve and do not care about politics. You might not consider that she has been out of the country for 2 years and this is her first weekend back!

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Is the tendency for individuals to believe that they live in a world where people generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
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For example: this explains why so many people believed Carl
Williams ‘deserved’ to be sentenced to life imprisonment
- the victim is blamed.

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Intergroup contact
◦ Sustained contact
◦ Mutual interdependence
◦ Superordinate goals
◦ Equality of status
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Cognitive interventions

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Sustained contact: it has been suggested that direct contact between members of different groups can reduce intergroup stereotyping prejudice. This is called the contact
◦ hypothesis.
However, there are exceptions to this. Can you think of any groups that are still discriminated against today, despite sustained contact?
Males and females
Europeans and
Aboriginals
Older people and younger people
Muslims and
Christians

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In order for sustained contact to be effective in reducing prejudice, one condition which must be present is:
 mutual interdependence. This means that the two different groups must have contact which makes them dependent on each other.
◦ Tug of war example – two groups who may not have like one another need each other if they are going to win.

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3 main stages:
◦ Promote development of cohesion between the group (got the group to ‘bond’)
◦ Intergroup competition (tug of war competition)
◦ Aimed to improve relations by increasing contact through intergroup cooperation in non-competitive situations (provided social interactions between the two ‘rival’ groups) – but this didn’t work!
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In order to overcome rivalry and negative attitudes, made the groups mutually interdependent on each other (created situations where members of one group alone could not accomplish the task)
(superordinate goals)

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Create a flowchart or a comic strip of this experiment including:
◦ the main stages of the experiment
◦ the results obtained by Sherif
◦ The way rivalry and negative attitudes were overcome
◦ Make sure you include the key terms and concepts!
◦ Make it pretty because you will presenting this to the class!
 (Pg. 351-354)

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Create a cartoon flowchart of this experiment including the main stages of the experiment and the results obtained by Sherif.
Stage 1
•Promote development of cohesion between the group
•Provide ‘bonding’ sessions for
Stage 2 •Intergroup competition
•Tug of war competitions
Stage 3
Mutual interdependence
•Improve relations by increasing contact through intergroup cooperation in noncompetitive situations
•Hiring and watching movies together
•Overcome rivalry and negative attitudes by making the groups mutually interdependent on each other
•Water tank and car problems – could not be solved by one group alone

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Superordinate goals are goals which cannot be achieved by any one group alone and overrides other existing goals which each group might have.
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For example, you may have two groups of people who seriously dislike each other and place them in the bush. The only way they can find their way out is to work together – this would be their superordinate goal!

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Another example is the film, ‘Remember the
Titans’
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This breaks down barriers, encourages people to see each other as just people and not as part of "that other group that we dislike", and can help overcome differences between the groups.

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Equality of status is another condition of the contact hypothesis. in order for prejudice to be reduced, each group must have equal status in the contact situation.
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When status between two groups is not equal, the group members tend to view the other group members differently, and may also treat them differently.

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Cognitive intervention involves changing the way in which someone thinks about prejudice.
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If people can be encouraged to understand others based on their individual characteristics rather than generalising some of their characteristics to stereotype them, then prejudice may be lessened.

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Questions 3, 4 & 5
◦ These need to be completed for homework by next lesson (Thursday Pd. 5 & 6)