Stereotyping and Prejudice II
• Conditions for reducing prejudice
• Three types of prejudice
– Old-fashioned
– Modern
– Implicit
What are the conditions necessary for
reducing prejudice?
•
•
•
•
Last time we discussed:
1. Equal status
2. Personal, informal contact
3. Contact w/ multiple group members
to breakdown stereotypes.
• 4. Mutual interdependence and 5.
Common goals
• 6. Existing norms must favor group
equality
– Not true during desegregation – in fact, much
resistance.
Jigsaw technique
• Jigsaw technique (Eliot Aronson): A jigsaw
classroom is a classroom setting designed
to reduce prejudice and raise the self-esteem
of children by placing them in small
desegregated groups and making each child
dependent on the other children in the group
to learn the course material and do well in
the class.
Jigsaw technique
• 6 person learning groups
• Day’s lesson divided into 6 parts
• Each student responsible for 1 part and each
piece of info is important (jigsaw piece)
• Must teach material to others (expert role)
• Must do work, and listen and work w/others
Results of jigsaw studies
• Children in jigsaw classrooms:
– Liked each other more
– Showed less prejudice
– Liked school more
– Had higher self-esteem
Why does the “jigsaw” work?
• How does the jigsaw establish each of the
conditions for reducing prejudice?
• What happens when these conditions are
established?
Three Types of Prejudice
• Old fashioned prejudice/racism
– Blatant negative stereotypes
– Open opposition to racial equality
• Modern prejudice/racism
– Outwardly acting unprejudiced while inwardly
maintaining prejudiced attitudes
• Implicit prejudice/racism
– Hold automatic biases, often without
conscious awareness
Old-fashioned racism
• On the decline
• Survey responses show shift from
1950’s/1960’s to more recent years
– Majority of white/Caucasian people show less
blatantly prejudiced responses
• Ex: 78% (1996) say they would not move if
Black/African-Amer people moved into their
neighborhood vs. only 25% (1960)
Other survey responses by White
participants (not on outline)
Report willing to admit Blacks to:
1949 1968
• Employment in
my occupation
78% 98%
Club as personal
friends
51% 97%
Close kinship by
marriage
0% 66%
1992
99%
96%
74%
How can we interpret this change
in survey responses over time?
How can we study modern
prejudice/racism?
• Issues to address
– May not express because________________
– May truly believe _________, but still
__________________
– May be _________________
• Automatic processing
– Everyone knows cultural stereotypes for different groups,
even if they don’t endorse them
– Cultural stereotype can be automatically activated when
encounter a group member or stereotypical statement.
How can we measure more covert
prejudice?
• Bogus pipeline: A fake lie detector test
where participants are wired with
electrodes that supposedly record their
true feelings.
– White students express more negative views
of Black students when the bogus pipeline is
used.
How can we measure more covert
prejudice?
•
•
•
•
Assess behavior (Rogers & Prentice-Dunn,1981)
IV1: Confederate: Insulted or did not insult
IV2: Confed: Caucasian or African-American
DV: Strength and duration of shocks participants thought they were
administering to the confederate (as part of a “biofeedback experiment”)
• Results:
• Insulting confederate: Ps gave ______intense shocks when
he was ______than when he was _____.
• Non-insulting confederate: Ps gave _____ intense shocks
when he was _____ than when he was ______.
Modern racism
• Supports theories of modern racism which
suggest that discrimination against
minorities/underrepresented groups is
especially likely to surface when it seems
safe, socially acceptable, and easy to
rationalize.
Implicit Association Test
• Greenwald & Banaji, 1995
– Class exercise
IAT
• https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
If people are unaware of their prejudices,
are they unable to control their behavior?
– It depends.
• Under what conditions will people be able to ignore
cultural stereotypes?
– Controlled processing: Occurs with your awareness – for
example, when you choose to ignore or counter
stereotypes that have been brought to mind. More likely
when:
» we are _______________________________
» we make judgments based on the
_________________________rather than their
_______________.
Under what conditions are people not able
to ignore an activated stereotype?
• Ironic processes – tired, multiple tasks,
time pressure (automatic processing)
Stereotype suppression and the “rebound” effect
Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, & Jetten, 1994
• IV: Warned perceptions often biased by stereotypes and
asked to inhibit bias (suppression instruction) or did not
receive these instructions
• Dv: Negativity/positivity of paragraph description after
seeing the 1st photo of male skinhead and then after
seeing a new photo of a 2nd male skinhead
• Results:
1. After 1st photo, less stereotyping by those _______
than __________.
2. After 2nd photo, previously warned group
____________________. (rebound effect)
Rebound effect
• Conscious efforts to suppress a
stereotype may backfire; instead, focus
on the unique characteristics of the
person.
How do cultural stereotypes affect perceptions
of members of the stereotyped group?
– Stereotype threat (Claude Steele, 1997):
“the predicament where one's actions can
be interpreted, either by others or the self,
in a way that confirms a negative cultural
stereotype. "
• Intellectual settings: “a threat in the air”
Stereotype threat
• Why might African-American students drop
out of college at a much higher rate (70%)
than Caucasian students (42%)?
• Standard explanations
– Socioeconomic disadvantage, segregation, and
discrimination
• Steele’s explanation
– Above not adequate because drop out rate is true for
students at all levels of achievement (i.e., those who
enter college w/high SAT scores and high GPA)
Stereotype threat
• Steele & Aronson, 1995
• Iv: E says test will measure general intellectual
ability (stereotype threat) or it is a problem-solving
task not related to general intellectual ability (no
threat)
• Quasi-Iv: Black/Af-Am or White/Cauc. Students
• DV: Performance on a difficult test
• Results:
– Stereotype threat: African-American/Black students in the
stereotype threat condition scored ____________than
Caucasian/White students.
– No stereotype threat: _______________________
Stereotype Threat
• Applies to gender too
• Similar paradigm
• IV: Stereotype threat or not (Ps told that
math test designed to show differences
between m and f (threat) or that test
performance was unrelated to gender (no
threat).
• Results:
How can we apply these findings to
educational settings?
• "Wise" educational environments (Steele) applied in
Univ. of Michigan program:
– positive student-teacher relationships
– feedback that is clear but affirming (“Look, we’re using high
standards in evaluating this work. But, I have looked at your
work, and I think you can meet those standards.”
– challenge, not remediation
– stressing intelligence's expandability
– group study
– leadership of university clearly expresses (and supports)
the value of diversity
•
(Recommended video: “Stand & Deliver” Jaime
Escalante)