Theories of Prejudice:Introduction

Review: Key Concepts

• Kovel: racism (institutional)vs. prejudice (individual)

• Malcolm X: overt vs. covertblatant vs. Subtledeliberate vs. unintentional

• Kovel: dominative vs. aversivevs. meta-racism

Psychoanalytic Theory

• Prejudice based on projection of repressed wishes, fears, & negative self-images

• Applies to all prejudices – sexism, homophobia, etc.?

• Applies to all instances?

Psychoanalytic Theory

• Helps explains content of stereotypes, but not prevalence & intensity of prejudice?

• Explains some individuals but not others?

• Authoritarian personality– (Aronson’s “prejudiced personality”)

Chapter 7: Prejudice

The Social AnimalElliot Aronson

Historical Change

• Well-documented decline in overt prejudice & internalization by victims– Kenneth Clark doll experiments– Phillip Goldberg “author gender” experiments

• Covert / subtle prejudice remains pervasive

= “Meta-racism”?

Definitions

• Historical change in definitions of “stereotype”

– Negative neutral

– Emotional cognitive

• Prejudice vs. ethnocentrism

– William Graham Sumner: Folkways

How Stereotypes Work

1. “On” victims

– In situations when stereotypes made salient

– When stereotypes internalized

2. “For” the prejudiced

Stereotype ThreatClaude Steele

• Stanford blacks taking GRE tests– Testing IQ-s vs. testing the test

• Replications:– Women taking math tests– Latinos taking verbal (English) tests– White engineering majors in study of “why

Asians excel”– White guys can’t jump!

Attribution Theory

• Study of social forces influencing how we make inferences about:

– Events

– Others’ behavior & personality traits

– Own behavior & personality traits

“Luck” vs. “Skill”

• Deaux & Emsweiler:– Male success skill– Female success luck

50 replications

• Stipek & Gralinski:– Boys’ math success skill– Girls’ math success luck

“Luck” vs. “Skill”

• Tennis players losing first sets:– Men: luck or laziness– Women: lower ability than opponent

• Turner & Pratkanis:– Women hired for “affirmative action” gave

less effort, performed poorly

How Stereotypes Work for Prejudiced

• Attribution Theory– “Fundamental Attribution Error”– “Ultimate Attribution Error”

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory– “Blaming the Victim”

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Attribution Theory

• Fundamental attribution error:– Own behavior attributed to situations– Others’ behavior attributed to dispositions

(personality traits, values, beliefs, etc.)

• T. Pettigrew: Ultimate attribution error– Others’ successes attributed to situations– Others’ failures attributed to traits

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• Inflict harm

dissonance (tension) with

positive self image

denigrate victim

= “Blaming the Victim”

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

• Carl Word: job interview experiment

– Interviewer subtly elicits expected stereotypic behavior

• Michelle Hebl field replication– “homosexuals”: no overt discrimination– but: shorter & less engaging interviews

Theories of Prejudice

• Economic & Political Competition

• Scapegoat Theory

• Low Status / Relative Deprivation

• Prejudiced Personality

• Prejudice through Conformity

Economic & Political Competition

= “Realistic Group Conflict”

• Real conflict denigration & de-humanization of Other

• Sherif (Robber’s Cave) experiment

+ interdependence as solution

Scapegoat Theory

= Displaced Aggression

• Frustration aggression research

– Kovel: class conflict within white society diminished by displaced aggression toward non-whites (Joe?)

Scapegoat Theory

• Hovland & Sears:

Price of cotton 1882 – 1930 predicts lynchings in American South

Scapegoat Theory

Maintain Self-Image & Status

= Low Social Status

= Relative Deprivation

• Tajfel & Turner: “social identity theory”– In-group identity & pride can raise self-

regard and status over disadvantaged ethnic out-groups

Prejudiced Personality

= Authoritarian Personality

= Right Wing Authoritarianism

• Personality structure organized by subordination to conventional authorities, conservative social values, and hostility toward deviants and out-groups

Conformity

• Prevailing social norms strongly influence individual prejudice above and beyond other factors.

– People change views in accordance with community into which they move.

– Pettigrew: conformity to norms perhaps most important factor