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Intergroup relations (Y1) - Coggle Diagram
Intergroup relations (Y1)
Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination
Stereotypes - association of social group with specific characteristics
Association of a social group with specific characteristics
A schema about a social group
Can be negative, positive or mixed
Stereotypes are often associated with different emotions and behavioural tendencies
Not necessarily based on experience
Often formed in childhood
Slow to change
Prejudice - unfavourable attitude towards a social group and its members
Latin (prae) - pre and judicium (judgement)
Unfavourable attitude towards a social group and its members
Three component attitude model -
-> Cognitive - beliefs
-> Affective - strong feelings (usually negative)
-> Conative - behavioural intention
Different kinds
Can be implicit / old-fashioned / modern
Implicit bias - bias we are unaware of that impacts our behaviour towards prejudicied out groups; dual process of automatic and controlled
Discrimination - a behavioural expression of prejudice
A behavioural expression of prejudice
Individual v institutional
Subtle forms -
-> Failure to help
-> Tokenism
-> Reverse discrimination
Effects of prejudice
Stigma -
Crocker, Major and Steele (1998) - stigmatised individuals possess, or are believed to possess, some attribute or characterise that conveys a social identity tat is devalued in a particular social context
Important variables - control and variability
Self-esteem, self worth and wellbeing
-> stigmatised groups are devalued by society
-> They find the difficult to avoid society's negative evaluation of them
-> Evaluations may be internalised, damaging self worth, self esteem and wellbeing
Stereotype threat -
Stigmatised groups are aware of negative stereotypes (even if they personally do not believe in them)
Stereotype threat - the fear that you’ll confirm a negative stereotype about a group that you belong to (Steele and Aronson, 1995)
When faced with stereotype threat, often people get so nervous that they perform worse, confirming the stereotype
Causes - anxiety, distraction, reduced effort
Less than human -
-> Severe prejudices reduce the target to less than human - dogs, pigs, rats, parasites or insects - barbarians who lack culture, self-restraint, moral sensibility and cognitive capacity (Jahoda, 1999)
-> Immigration
-> Genocides - killing of indigenous populations by colonisers, Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Genocide, Holocaust, Rwanadan Genocide, Bosnian Genocide, Rohingya Genocide, Uyghur Genocide, Darfur Genocide
Dehumanisation - two forms -
Animalistic (human uniqueness) v mechanistic (human nature)
In postmodern society, humans can be reduced to machines (Haslam, 2006)
-> Cold, robotic, passive and lacking in depth
-> Lacking in emotionality, warmth, cognitive openness, individual agency
How media influences prejudice online -
Newspapers - terror being associated with being a Muslim more than Neo-Nazi's or White Supremacists
The media does not associate white supremacists who do terror attacks against a minority as terrorism
When two races have committed the same crimes, the media shows them differently - white people in a suit / school uniform, professional picture, whereas black people are given a mug shot, non-professional picture, messy hair and beaten / bruised
Explanations for prejudice
History -
1920-1950 - prejudice as psychopathology,
1950-1990 - normal processes fuel prejudice - contemporary forms developed because of social norms
Mid 1990-present - prejudice is multidimensional, new methods to compare implicit and explicit, new conceptual perspectives
Social norms and internalisation - Crandall, Eshleman and O'Brien, 2002 -
The more appropriate it is to have prejudice, the higher the level of reported prejudice
If social norms support an opinion, they internalise the prejudice that is normal so as not to be ousted by equally as it is seen as a normal opinion
Theories of prejudice -
Frustration-aggression (scapegoating)
Authoritarian personality - Adorno et al, 1950
Social cognitive explanations - schemas
Realistic conflict theory - expected conflict leads to stereotyping
Right wing authoritarianism -
People high in RWA have been found to be prejudiced against African-Americans (Altemeyer, 1998), Native Americans (Altemeyer, 1998), Women (Duncan, Peterson and Winter, 1997), lesbians and gay men (Whitley and Lee, 2000), disabled people (Noonan, Barry and Davis, 1970) and people with AIDS (Peterson, Doty and Winter, 1993)
Authoritarians protect their value system by degrading outgroups
High authoritarians see themselves as more moral, and therefore they feel justified in looking down on anyone defined by authority figures as less moral
Consistently been associated with prejudice, discrimination and hostility against outgroup members
Social dominance theory - Sidanius and Pratto, 1999 -
Society contains ideologies that either promote or attenuate intergroup hierarchies
Individual differences in the extent to which these competing ideologies are accepted
SDO correlates positively with non-egalitarian political and social attitudes - including sexism, racism, chauvinism, patriotism and nationalism
Men have stronger SDO than women, and tend to show greater intergroup bias than women (Sidanius et al, 2000)
Social identity theory -
Minimal group paradigm - Tajfel and Turner, 1979 -
-> Tajfel et al, 1971 - mere categorisation - assignment to random groups lead to intergroup favouritism and outgroup derogation
-> Behaviour cannot be explained in terms of relative deprivation, frustration or competition for limited resources (e.g. Realistic conflict theory, Sherif 1966)
Interpersonal-intergroup continuum - interaction ranges on spectrum from purely interpersonal (individuals) to purely intergroup (group)
Categorisation changes how people see each other, making an us and a them salient - people enhance similarities within the group and differences between groups
Group identification - degree to which people see themselves in terms of group membership, and the value and emotional attachment to the group
Minimal group studies - Tajfel et al, 1971 - people are strongly biased in favour of their own group, even when randomly allocated to that group
Self-enhancement - prejudice is an attempt to enhance one's self-esteem by making the group they identify with more attractive (i.e. intergroup favouritism, intergroup differentiation
Uncertainty reduction - in times of uncertainty, we strive to identify with highly entative (coherent) groups, which may also be normatively homogenous and prejudiced
Targets of prejudice
Racism / ethnic-based prejudice -
Minority groups - a group of people distinguished by differences that make them set apart and or subordinated - most often negatively stigmatised, ostracised, oppressed and outcast (Blanz et al, 1995) and are a counternormative group (Moscovici, 1976 and 1994)
Classification of minorities is complex - more about power than numbers
Context is important - anti-immigration post Brexit for example has increased in the UK, but same migrant groups do not face this discrimination in the US
Race - ascribing social meaning to groups based on physical characteristics
Ethnicity - socially constructed categories based on cultural traits that a society deems important, and it is the culture of a group of people, including customs, language, religion and heritage
Racism - prejudice and discrimination against people based on their ethnicity / race - it is taught
Blatant racism - derogatory stereotypes, abuse, persecution, assault and discrimination
McConahay (1978, 1986) - modern racism - how prejudices have changed post-civil rights movement
-> Modern racists start from the presumption that discrimination is a thing of the past - because of this, they conclude that minorities push too hard, these tactics and demands are unfair and recent gains made are undeserved
Symbolic racism - when individuals express negative attitudes towards racial or ethnic groups in ways that are socially acceptable, yet still reflect underlying prejudice (Sears and Henry, 2000)
-> Racism still exists, however, expressed in more subtle ways due to social norms
-> Private and public displays differ
-> individual differences are important
-> Emotions - hostility and dislike
Aversive racism - a form of implicit bias, where individuals who may hold egalitarian values still exhibit negative attitudes, or behaviours towards certain groups in ambigious situations (Gaertner and Dovidio, 1986) - ambivalent racism
Conflict between positive and negative
Some individuals have internalised non-prejudiced / egalitarian values (beliefs), however, still have unconscious negative feelings
Situational norms / justifications influential to whether or not discrimination occurs
Emotions - fear, discomfort, guilt and unease
Sexism
Classism
LGBTQIA+ Discrimination
Religious discrimination
Migrants and refugees
Neurodivergent discrimination
Disabled individuals
Weight discrimination
Ageism - prejudice and discrimination based on age -
Generation X (1961-1980) - sceptical, self-reliant risk takers, who balance work and personal life
Millenial (1981-1996) - hopeful, value meaningful life, diversity and change, technologically savvy
Often socially overlooked and a lack of research reflects this problem (Nelson, 2005)
Implicit association - young and good, old and bad
Institutionalized
Sources -
-> Fear of death - terror management theory
-> Benevolent ageism - incompetent and warmth stereotypes
-> Unique category - ageing is inevitable, and stereotypes may be different from personal experiences
Microaggressions - subtle verbal, behavioural or environmental slights that communicate intentional or unintentional hostility towards stigmatised groups (Sue et al, 2007)
They are common, sometimes ambiguous (Williams, 2020)
Not often intended to cause harm (Mekawi and Todd, 2021)
Myth of meritocracy - belief that success and merit and effort and that we all have the same opportunities, but in reality due to social factors it is not meritocratic
Intersectionality - Crenshaw, 1989 -
our identities are complex and we often belong to multiple social groups
How do these multiple identities intersect and create unique effects and experiences of discrimination
Ways to reduce prejudice
The contact hypothesis - Allport, 1954
Intergroup contact can improve intergroup relations in contexts of:
Equal status within the situation (not coming into the situation)
Common goals (active goal-oriented effort)
Intergroup cooperation - must be an interdependent effort without intergroup competition
Institutional support - authorities, laws, norms or customs
Tropp and Pettigrew (2006) - metanalysis of 515 studies from 1949-2000 - 713 independent samples:
Intergroup contact typically reduces intergroup prejudice
Optimal conditions Allport suggested achieved a higher mean effect size
Allport's conditions are however not essential for intergroup contact to achieve positive outcomes
Types of contact -
Direct contact
Indirect contact -
-> Extended contact - Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe and Ropp 1997
-> Imagined contact - Turner, Crisp and Lambert, 2007
Other methods -
common ingroup identify
propaganda
social norms
media
prevalence
targeting / priming specific emotions
Intergroup behaviour
SIT approach founded on an attempt to explain intergroup conflict and social change
Status - consensual evaluation of the prestige of a group and its members as a whole
-> Permeability - how easy it is to join or leave a group
-> Legitimacy - how justified are status differences
-> Stability / security - how strong / stable are status differences
Social mobility belief system - belief that intergroup boundaries are permeable, and it is possible for someone to pass from lower-status to a higher-status group to improve social identity
Social change belief system - belief intergroup boundaries are impermeable, and lower-status groups can only improve social identity by challenging the legitimacy of a higher-status group
Social mobility (belief system) -> individual mobility to improve social identity -> exit and passing - assimilation into high-status group
Social change (belief system) -> no cognitive alternatives -> social creativity for social identity leads to either -
-> New dimensions of intergroup comparison
-> Redefining value of existing dimensions
-> Comparison with different outgroups
Social change -> cognitive alternatives -> social competition to improve social identity -> civil rights activity, political lobbying, terrorism, revolution and war etc