PSY 321
Dr. Sanchez
Stereotyping, Prejudice and
Discrimination:
Intergroup Bias
1
The Self-fulfilling Prophecy as a
Three-Step Process
2
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968)

Teachers were told that, on the basis of an IQ test,
a certain group of students was on the verge of an
intellectual spurt

This group of students was randomly chosen

Test was bogus
8 months later, this group of
 Students actually outperformed
 others on an IQ test

3
Racial Profiling as a Self-fulfilling Prophecy
4
What is the state of
intergroup bias in the U.S.?
“Not everybody’s life is what they
make it. Some people’s life is what
other people make it.”
- Alice Walker
5
Racism: Healthcare
• Black and Latino cardiac patients less likely to
receive appropriate heart medicine
• Less likely to undergo coronary bypass
surgery
• Less likely to receive dialysis or kidney
transplant
• Receive lower quality basic clinical services
6
Racism: Hiring
(Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2003)
– Sent 5000 phantom applications to job ads in
Boston & Chicago
– Resumes were identical, EXCEPT:
 RACE WAS VARIED by use of NAMES (Tamika vs
Kristin; Tyrone vs Brad)
– Results?
7
Racism: Mortgage Discrimination

White people are far more likely than Black
people to be granted mortgage loans

This effect cannot be “explained away”
statistically by differences
8
Sexism: Pay Inequity

In 2003, women who worked full-time made __
cents for every dollar a man made.
–
–
–
–
–

Asian women: 75 cents
White women: 70 cents
Black women: 63 cents
Native women: 57 cents
Latina women: 52 cents
These differences cannot be explained away….
9
What Is a Social Group?

Two or more people perceived as having
at least one of the following
characteristics:
– Direct interactions with each other over a
period of time.
– Joint membership in a social category based
on sex, race, or other attributes.
– A shared, common fate, identity, or set of
goals.
10
Defining Important Terms

Stereotypes: COGNITIONS/BELIEFS

Prejudice: AFFECT/EMOTIONS

Discrimination: BEHAVIORS
11
Perceiving Groups: Three Reactions
12
A CLASS DIVIDED
Social Categorization:
Jane Elliot’s Class Exercise
Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes
13
How Stereotypes Form:
In-groups vs. Out-groups
We have a strong tendency to divide
people into ingroups and outgroups.
 Benefits
 Consequences

– outgroup homogeneity effect
14
Why Are Out-groups Seen
As Homogeneous?
15
Social Categorization
Tajfel’s Minimal Group Paradigm

Minimal Groups = categorizing persons on the
basis of trivial info
– Ps watch a coin toss that randomly assigned
them to X or W
– “Overestimators” vs. “Underestimators”
16
Social Categorization
Tajfel’s Minimal Group Paradigm

General Findings
17
Social Identity Theory
18
Social Identity Theory
Basic Predictions:
 1) Threats to SE = need for ingroup
favoritism
 2) Ingroup favoritism = repairs SE

19
Stereotypes
20
Definitions

What is a stereotype?
e.g., professor
absent-minded reads books
drinks coffee wears glasses
– beliefs about characteristics of group
members
21
Stereotype Content

Warm-Competence
Women
Homeless
People
Rich
The Elderly
22
The Stereotype Content Model
(Fiske et al., 2002)
Two fundamental dimensions: warmth & competence
 Positive Stereotypes
 Negative Stereotypes
 MIXED:
– Paternalistic stereotypes (high warmth/low
competence)
 e.g., elderly, disabled people, some gender
stereotypes
– Envious stereotypes (low warmth/high
competence)
 Asians, Jews
 The 4 different combinations of warmth and
competence are associated with different intergroup

emotions
23
Stereotype Content Model
(Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 1999; 2002)
Low competence, Low warmth -> Contempt
 Low competence, High warmth -> Pity
 High competence, Low warmth -> Envy
 High competence, High warmth -> Pride

24
How Stereotypes Survive:

Illusory Correlations

– an overestimation of the association between
variables that are only slightly or not at all correlated
Confirmation Biases
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Attribution & Subtyping


25
Stereotype:
Black men are dangerous
Is it a weapon (Correll et al., 2002)?
 Subjects played video game (see p. 149 of
text for picture)
 IVs:

– Race of target
– Target is holding weapon or harmless object

DVs: Pushed “shoot” or “don’t shoot”
button
26
Stereotype:
Black men are dangerous

Results:

Subjects mistook harmless objects for
guns when held by black targets

In other words, subjects biases caused
them to “confirm” their expectations
27
“White men can’t jump”
Stone et al., 1997

Subjects listened to same basketball game

IV: Subjects were led to believe player
was black or white

DV: How athletic was the player? How
“court smart” was the player?
28
“White Men Can’t Jump”?
29
Stereotypes as
(Sometimes) Automatic

Devine (1989): We become highly aware
of the contents of many stereotypes
through sociocultural mechanisms.
– Automatic

Can influence behavior even when do not
consciously endorse the stereotype.
30
What Factors Can Influence
Stereotype Activation?

Cognitive Factors

Cultural Factors (e.g., media and norms)

Motivation (e.g., be egalitarian, restore SE)

Personal Factors (High in Prejudice)
31
Overcoming Stereotypes

Motivation to Control Prejudice for Internal
Reasons

Cognitive Resources (Energy & Control)
32
Prejudice:
The emotional component

Competition-based prejudice

Explicit vs. Implicit prejudice
33
Realistic Conflict Theory

The theory that hostility between groups is
caused by direct competition for limited
resources.
34
Competition for Limited Resources

Realistic Conflict Theory
– scarce resources -------
– People feel a sense of--– feeling threatened -------> prejudice and
discrimination
35
Realistic Conflict Theory

Example 1 (Hovland & Sears)
– cotton & lynchings in South (1882-1930)
– as cotton prices went down (i.e., scarce
resources), number of lynchings of Black
people increased

Example 2
– Jewish Holocaust
– As German economy worsened, Jewish people
were scapegoated, resented, killed.
36
Realistic Conflict Theory

Example 2 (Sherif & Colleagues)
37
Realistic Conflict Theory

Example 2 (Sherif & Colleagues)
–
–
–
–
–
Boy Scout Camp (Eagles vs Rattlers)
Strengthened cohesiveness w/in group in first week
Enhanced competition btw groups in second week
Resources were source of conflict
How was conflict restored????
38
Types of Racism

Modern Racism: A form of racism that
surfaces in subtle ways when it is safe,
socially acceptable, and easy to rationalize
– Calling strikes by umpires
– Establish “moral credentials”

Implicit Racism: Racism that operates
unconsciously and unintentionally

Explicit Attitudes

Implicit Attitudes
– Operate at conscious – Function in an
level
unconscious &
unintentional
– Best measured by
manner
traditional, selfreport measures
– How do we
measure??
40
How Can Implicit Racism Be
Detected and Measured?

Use reaction times to measure associations between
race and positive/negative words
– Fazio et al.’s (1995) bona fide pipeline measure.
 see face, then respond to good/bad words
– Greenwald et al.’s (1998) Implicit Association Test
(IAT)
 Pair faces with good/bad words
41
Facial Features and Prison
Sentences
Development of Explicit vs.
Implicit Racial Preferences
Sexism: Ambivalence and
Double Standards in Section
Two
Beyond Racism: Age,
Weight, Sexuality, and
Other Targets
Other types of discrimination
Being Stigmatized

Being persistently stereotyped, perceived
as deviant, and devalued in society
because of membership in a particular
social group or because of a particular
characteristic.
Gay Pride and Spare Change
Stereotype Threat
Stereotype threat is the fear that one will
be reduced to a stereotype in the eyes of
others.
 How can stereotype threat hamper
academic achievement?

Stereotype Threat and
Academic Performance
Stereotype Threat

General Features
– Threat is situational
– Domain connected
 Strength varies with…
– About social identity  applies to many
groups
Stereotypes and Multiple Identities
Not Good at Math
Good at Math
Multiple Identities
(Shih, Pittinsky, & Ambady,1999)
• Remind Asian-American women of
their
– Asian identity (questions about
languages spoken, race, etc.)
– Female identity (questions about coed housing)
– Neither identity (questions about
telephone service)
• Take a math test
Multiple Identities
(Shih, Pittinsky, & Ambady,1999)
Preventing Stereotype Threat
(Table 5.6)



Test as Nondiagnostic
Informing that Group does not perform worse
Think of intelligence as malleable v. fixed
54
Interracial Interactions- Why do all the White
and Black kids sit together?*

Whites
– Concern with being perceived as prejudiced
– White Ps high in implicit racism tend to experience
cognitive depletion in interracial interactions
– Concerns and tensions influence interracial interactions
and interest

Blacks
– Concern with being treated negatively because of
prejudice and being perceived stereotypically (MendozaDenton et al., 2002; Shelton, 2003)
– Concerns influence social judgments about and during
interracial contact
Interpersonal Concerns with Prejudice
• Whites and Blacks
– Harbor fear of rejection because of their
group memberships
– Fear that out-group members will perceive
them in a way that threatens their identity
(Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2003)
Pluralistic Ignorance
People observe others behaving
similarly to themselves but believe that
the same behaviors reflect different
feelings and beliefs (Miller &
McFarland, 1987, 1991)
Pluralistic Ignorance
• Own behavior
– Reflect fears of social exclusion
• Other person’s behavior
– Taken at face value
– Reflects the person’s true feelings
Divergent Attributions
You enter the dining hall for
dinner. You are alone because
your close friends are in a review
session. As you look around the
dining hall for a place to sit, you
notice several White (Black)
students who live near you sitting
together. These students also
notice you. However, neither of
you explicitly makes a move to sit
together.
Divergent Attributions
• Fear of Rejection
– How likely is that fear of being rejected because of
your race would inhibit you from sitting with these
students?
• Lack of Interest
– How likely is that your lack of interest in getting to
know these students would inhibit you from sitting
with them?
• Answered for self and other
(counterbalanced)
Black Participants Responses for
Self and Other in Interracial Contact
Same for White Participants Judgments
Black Participants with Black Partner
White Participants with White Partner
Divergent Attributions
• Blacks and Whites
– Make divergent attributions for own
and out-group members’ avoidance of
interracial contact
– Interpersonal Concerns with Prejudice
• I’m afraid of being rejected!
• They lack interest in interacting!
– Misunderstanding occurs even before
the interaction
What Can We Do?

Repeated Intergroup Contact that involves
Individuation
 Common In-Group Identity (reduce us v.
them)

Self-Esteem in U.S. Minority
Groups
From J. M. Twenge and J. Crocker, “Race and Self-Esteem: Meta-Analysis Comparing Whites, Blacks,
Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians,” Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 128, 2002, pp. 371-408.
Coping with Stigma
Stigma = having an attribute that is
viewed as inferior, deficient, etc.
 1) attributing negative feedback to
prejudice
 (2) comparing outcomes with those of
their ingroup
 (3)
