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Stereotypes (Intergroup emotions (Most explanations of intergroup…
Stereotypes
Intergroup emotions
Most explanations of intergroup antipathy tend to be insufficiently passionate compared to ways groups actually treat each other
- Intergroup emotions theory (IET; Smith, 1993) – emphasis on role of emotions in intergroup relations= Intergroup behaviour is driven by uniquely social emotions, generated by belonging to and by deriving identity from one social group rather than another
- IE direct IB: anger, anxiety, pride and guilt that other groups evoke in our own drive social, political and physical responses
- IB can only change by changing such emotions they evoke
Self-categorisation = shifting from seeing oneself as a unique individual to seeing oneself in terms of a salient group membership
- leads to thinking of self as less like unique individuals, but rather acting in accordance to the group and how they think the group should act (self-stereotyping)
- some groups more central, important, emotionally sig. = more important to self --> more identity is derived from it
- According to this model, self-categorisation determines emotional experience
- Why does this happen?
1) leads individuals to interpret the world with the ingroup’s outcomes in mind, so that they evaluate outcomes or events in terms of what is good or bad for the ingroup, regardless of their consequences for the individual (or for any other group)
2) When people see themselves in group terms, they also come to see themselves as having characteristics typical of the group. This leads people to experience general emotions, or emotional reactions to events that are typical of/associated with the group.
- Smith et al. (2007) asked p's to think of themselves as unique individuals and tell emotions (e.g how happy, sad etc.). Then asked to think in terms of members of different groups (e.g. American, student, Republican/Democrat), and asked emotions. Found, 1) people tend to report feeling different emotions as part of each group, and those differ from experience as individuals (e.g. high pride as student, not for Republican), 2) Responses as part of a group are shared with other group members (e.g. thinking about self as American=feeling same emotions as others thinking of themselves as Americans), 3) if group more central, reported emotions are more intense (e.g. if group is angry, these members report feeling angrier than less identified members do). Exception if emotions reflect badly on group (e.g. guilt) = highly identified members less likely to share these emotions. Thought to be because don't want to accept negative implications
= self-categorisation influences which group membership is salient and dictates emotions, members of groups converge in their emotional responses
- Categorisation influences reactions to other groups e.g. Ray et al. (2008) P's categorized as students react to Muslims with less anger and more respect than do those same individuals when categorized as Americans, even though both students and Americans see Muslims as outgroup members
Consequences for behaviour?
- If intergroup emotions same as individual ones = physiological arousal in response to emotions such as anger
- alike with individual anger, insults can be dissipated by attributing the upset/anxiety to another source (Rydell et al, 2008) = physiological arousal is an inherent component of group-based anger just like individual anger
- Rydell et al. (2008) People experiencing intergroup anger both fail to carefully analyze the content of a persuasive message and opt for more risky solutions to dilemmas than do people not so affected --> just like individual anger where people don't process info in environment carefully and confidence = greater risk taking
- Unlikely that group members just report experiencing emotions on behalf of their group to please other group members/experimenter because anger at group insult leaves people aroused, detracts from their info processing and prompts them to take risks, which is hard to fake (Robinson & Clore, 2002)
Particular emotions are associated with motivation to act:
- Reports that anger and disgust toward an outgroup predict both unwillingness to engage in contact with the group (Esses & Dovidio, 2002) and desire to attack that group (Mackie et al., 2000)
- Intergroup fear uniquely motivates desire to move away from an outgroup and reduces desire to confront or attack the offending outgroup. Dumont et al. (2003) study with p's from Netherlands and Belgium week after 9/11, focusing p's attention on the identity that included American victims as an ingroup = more fear related behaviours than when victims characterised as outgroup members.
- Intergroup guilt, guilt suffered because of an ingroup’s historically exploitative actions, increases the desire for the ingroup to apologize to the outgroup (McGarty et al., 2005)
- If groups feel satisfaction rather than guilt after acting aggressively, support for similar aggression goes up: Maitner et al (2007) p's read about real acts of aggression committed by an ingroup and reported how those actions made them feel and how much they would support similar aggression in the future. Found satisfaction increased support for similar aggression, whereas experiencing intergroup guilt decreased support. Ingroup identification increased justification appraisals, which increased satisfaction and decreased guilt
Practical importance: reducing intergroup conflict
- Must change people's emotions in response to the outgroups, done by changing social environment and salient comparative context
- Miller et al. (2004) Increased contact with members of outgroups decreases prejudice against them --> feeling the right emotions about the outgroup (warmth, pride) and not feeling the wrong ones (anger, irritation, anxiety) that makes the ingroup start to tolerate and like them, and only the kind of contact that produces those emotions will make that difference.
- Focusing on alternative group memberships that ingroup members and outgroup members have in common reduces mutual aversion --> e.g. Crisp & Hewstone (2007) antagonism between Muslim and Christians is moderated because Christian women feel positively towards Muslim women. Shared gender provides common ground despite the remaining difference in religious views
Outgroup threats
Outgroup poses a range of threats to the ingroup and prejudice and discrimination form ways of copying with these threats
Terror management theory (Greenberg et al., 1997):
- people have a need for self-preservation, and this need is frustrated by their awareness of the inevitability of their own death
- to deal with the prospect of their own mortality, people adopt a cultural worldview that imbues subjective reality with stability and permanence (and hence the possibility of immortality) and provides standards of value against which judgments of self-esteem can be made.
- People with high self-esteem feel that they are meeting the values linked to their cultural worldview, and therefore feel more confident in attaining some form of immortality --> cultural worldviews and, more specifically, self-esteem provide buffers against the anxiety caused by the awareness of death.
- ingroup members support worldview, thus evaluated positively; outgroup negatively evaluated because dissimilar others are assumed to threaten their worldview
- BUT, distal motivator= less directly relate to the behaviour in question. Means lose explanatory power, too abstract to relate coherently to specific behaviours and may oversimplify
- Evidence: Faulkner et al. (2004) p's viewed threat of disease then read description of group seeking to immigrate to Vancouver. Attitudes to unfamiliar group (Nigerian) more hostile than familiar outgroup (Scots) --> more likely bring health problems, rated less sanitary, clean, open-minded and poorer
- BUT: effects of mortality salience can be reinterpreted as the effects of self-relevant threats in general = motivational effects of mortality salience on intergroup bias can be reinterpreted as being consistent with consequence 2 of the self-esteem hypothesis
Integrated threat theory (Stephan et al. 2000):
- Threat to values or principles central to ingroup identity e.g. radical Islam to Christian Western world
- Fear that other cultures override the ingroup’s way of life --> more ideological (symbolic threat) than physical
- e.g. Gonzalez et al. (2008) Dutch adolescents prejudice towards muslims. Found 1 out of 2 p's had negative feelings --> these were based on symbolic threats rather than realistic ones- threats to Dutch identity, norms and culture.
- Iyer et al. (2007) ratings of American and British citizens anger, guilt and shame responses to perceived harm caused by their country's occupation of Iraq. Perceived threat to country's image increased shame but not guilt. In turn, shame predicted intentions to advocate withdrawal from Iraq. Guilt didn't predict any political action tendencies.
Shooter bias: showing faster shoot response for outgroup than ingroup members
- Essien et al. (2017) replicated original shooter bias effect with Arab-Muslim and white targets --> p's faster to shoot Arab targets over white ones in shooter task.
Investigated whether generalises to other threat related behaviour: ‘avoidance task’ with Turkish and White German targets, participants ‘avoid’ armed targets carrying knives and ‘approach’ unarmed targets carrying innocuous objects. Saw effect that was twice as large- "avoidance bias". Reactions fastest for armed Turkish targets.
Social identity
Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986):
- successful intergroup bias creates or protects relatively high in-group status, thereby providing a positive social identity for in-group members and satisfying their need for positive self-esteem
- 2 consequences from this hypothesis:
1) successful intergroup bias enhances self-esteem
2) depressed or threatened self-esteem motivates intergroup bias
- Aberson et al. (2000) meta analysis of over 50 studies supports 1) but suggests little evidence for 2).
- Tajfel & Turner (1979) Need for self esteem is thought to:
-motivate intergroup bias designed to bring about social change (social competition)
-only thought to motivate intergroup bias among people who identify with their in-group
- Turner & Reynolds (2001)
-Only specific social state self-esteem is thought to be related to this type of intergroup bias
-Only intergroup bias that is perceived to be successful in bringing about social change is thought to increase self-esteem
- Positive differentiation = Seek to differentiate own group positively from other groups. Provides a positive social identity & sense of group worth.
- Positivity associated with the achievement of the group extends to the self = relationship with self-esteem
- Hunter et al. (1996) looked at self-esteem and ingroup ratings of Catholic and Protestant school pupils in Northern Ireland. Found p's generally rated their ingroup higher on all dimensions (ingroup bias). Self-esteem increased on specific dimensions (honesty, academic & verbal ability, physical appearance) only after in/outgroup rating.
Displace aggression:
- Prejudice as a form of self-image maintenance (i.e. get positive self-esteem back by making others appear worse than you are).
- Take it out on minority groups- when we can't lash out at the true source of frustration, displace aggression on a vulnerable target
Minimal conditions for creating discrimination/ingroup bias:
- Tajfel et al. (1991)
-No face-to-face interaction within of between groups
-Complete anonymity
-Respondents should not personally gain from their responses
-Strategy designed to differentiate between groups
-Responses should be made as important and real as possible
- Tajfel et al. (1971): Situ where neither individual interest or previous attitudes of hostility could have determined discriminative behaviour against an outgroup.
1st expt, found p's favoured their own group in distribution of rewards and penalties = ingroup favouritism
2nd expt, members try to maximise difference in rewards between ingroup and outgroup, even at cost to the ingroup = outgroup derogation
- BUT, not same results when giving penalties/punishments --> see more ingroup bias when allocating positive rewards than punishments (positive-negative asymmetry) e.g. less likely to allocate punishments to outgroups because people still don't want to give things like shocks anyway.
- Age dependent?? Buttlemann & Boehm (2014) 6 & 8 yr olds assigned to yellow/green group and had t give +ve/-ve resources to either group or neutral box. Mostly all allocate +ve to ingroup. For -ve, difference between age: sig. difference providing -ve resources to outgroup than neutral box for 8yr not 6yr = 8yr more likely to do outgroup derogation
Dehumanisation
Fiske et al. (2002) Stereotype content model:
- 2 primary dimensions are competence and warmth, with mixed clusters combining high/low warmth and high/low competence. Distinct emotions differentiate the 4 combinations. Status predicts high competence and competition predicts warmth.
- Low warmth, low competence = Contemptuous prejudice with low status, competitive and feelings of disgust and anger (e.g. the homeless)
- Low warmth, high competence = Envious prejudice, with high status, competition and feelings of envy/jealousy (e.g. Jews, bankers)
Contemptuous prejudice = animalistic dehumanisation (Haslam, 2006)
- people seen and treated as non-human, deprive outgroups of their human value = denial of uniquely human characteristics that distinguish from animals
- Uniquely human attributes = civility, refinement, moral sensibility, higher cognition and maturity. People who are believed to lack these uniquely human characteristics should be seen as uncultured, coarse, lacking in self-control, unintelligent or irrational, and childlike, immature, or backward. Their behaviour should be seen as less cognitively mediated that the behaviour of others, and consequently more driven by motives, wants, appetites, and instincts. → this form of dehumanisation is animalistic
- e.g. comparison of black people to apes: Goff et al. (2008) mental association between blacks and apes remains --> Subliminal exposure (30ms) to color photographs of Black or White faces or neutral no-prime images (control). Then shown Image sequences of animals (non-apes, apes) from degraded to clear. Measured how many frames needed to identify the image --> sig. less for ape image if black face prime. Also found that closer association = increased endorsement of violence against blacks
- Zavala et al. (2014) homosexuals still elicit contamination concerns: p's who imagined borrowing a phone from a gay man as opposed to straight chose disinfectant wipes over yellow pencil as a prize, and preferred specific hand and mouth cleansing products
Envious prejudice = mechanistic dehumanisation:
- respect for competence but dislike for seeming cold: denial of human nature characteristics e.g. seen as inert, cold, rigid, and lacking depth, emotion, desire, vitality
- Because they are denied characteristics that are understood to be deep and essential (e.g. emotionality, warmth, openness, agency), people denied human nature should be seen as shallow or superficial = perceived as machine/robot like
- e.g. attitude towards Asian people: Bain et al. (2009) White Australian p's associated East Asian faces more with machine-related words and less with human nature traits
- Loughnan & Haslam (2007) Go/No go association task (GNAT) used – artists more strongly associated with human nature and business people with human uniqueness; and in opposition, artists less strongly associated with automata (robots) and business people with animals = social groups that are not usually objects of prejudice may be subtly dehumanized in relation to animal or machines
- More likely to give electric shocks to groups they were envious of and felt less bad at their misfortunes (Cikara & Fiske, 2011)
Economic approach
1. Realistic group conflict theory (Sherif et al. 1961):
- Conflict, prejudice and discrimination occur between groups of people who are in competition for resources (e.g. money, power, status, protection)
- resentment can arise in the situation that the groups see the competition over resources as having a zero-sums fate --> where only one group is the winner and the other loses
- length and severity of the conflict is based upon the perceived value and shortage of the given resource
- positive relations can only be restored if superordinate goals are in place e.g. integration of different racial groups in the military
- Demonstrated by Sherif's Robbers cave study: 22 boys who had never previously met in summer camp for 3 weeks. Split into 2 groups and had to enter into competition in various games for rewards --> led to hostility. Tensions reduced through teamwork-driven tasks that required intergroup cooperation
- Support by Esses et al. (1998) cross-cultural studies determined that violence between different groups escalates in relationship to shortages in resources. When a group have a notion that resources are limited and only available for possession by one group = attempts to remove the source of competition. Groups can attempt to remove their competition by increasing their groups capabilities (e.g. skill training), decreasing the abilities of the outgroups competition (e.g. expressing negative attitudes or applying punitive tariffs), or by decreasing proximity to the outgroup (e.g. denying immigrant access).
2. Relative deprivation theory (Runciman, 1966):
- there are 4 preconditions of relative deprivation: Person A does not have X, A knows of persons who have X, A wants X, A thinks obtaining X is realistic
- based on subjective not just objective circumstances
- absolute deprivation is people's actual negative condition; relative deprivation is what people think they should have relative to what others have, or even compared with their own past or perceived future.
- if think others are doing better than us = resentful feeling that the ingroup is worse off, leads to realistic conflict over resources
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Intro
Stereotypes = people's beliefs about other groups
Prejudice = their affective reactions towards other groups
Discrimination = their behaviour towards other groups
- These may not be consistent
- Talks about economic and motivational (social identity, outgroup threats, intergroup emotions) approaches