Explanations of prejudice

1. Explanations of prejudice • Authoritarian personality • Stereotyping • Realistic conflict theory • Social identity theory psychlotron.org.uk

2. Authoritarian personality • Prejudice is caused by psychological processes within the individual • Prejudiced people have a particular personality type psychlotron.org.uk

3. Authoritarian personality • Personality traits: • Status oriented • Conventional and conformist • Suspicious & hostile • Caused by: • Harsh and punitive upbringing resulting in repressed hostility towards parents – this is displaced onto ‘inferior’ people psychlotron.org.uk

4. Authoritarian personality • Adorno et al (1950) • Developed attitude scales to measure authoritarianism (F-Scale), anti-Semitism & ethnocentrism • Found significant +ve correlations: • F-Scale w/anti-Semitism: +0.8 • F-Scale w/ethnocentrism: +0.65 • Shows strong relationship between authoritarianism & prejudice psychlotron.org.uk

5. Authoritarian personality • Problems with Adorno et al’s research: • F-Scale consisted only of positive items – response bias? • Theory developed using projective attitude measures – researcher bias? • Correlation does not prove causation – authoritarianism & prejudice may occur together, but it doesn’t follow that one causes the other psychlotron.org.uk

6. Authoritarian personality • Problems with the theory: • Prejudice within a society can change very quickly – e.g. Germany in 1930s, US following Pearl Harbor – not consistent with Adorno’s idea that prejudice always goes back to childhood. • Cannot easily account for prejudice affecting large groups/whole societies e.g. South Africa under apartheid psychlotron.org.uk

7. Stereotyping • Prejudice is caused by psychological processes within the individual, but linked to influences from society • Prejudice arises because people have a tendency to think in ways that minimise mental effort psychlotron.org.uk

8. Stereotyping • Stereotypes = a sort of mental shorthand for making sense of people: • People classified as belonging to groups defined by a single characteristic • All members of group assumed to have same characteristics/behaviour • Content of stereotypes is learned from society (family, peers etc.) • Prejudice is the result of negative stereotyping psychlotron.org.uk

9. Stereotyping • Once acquired, stereotypes tend to be self-confirming because: • We may avoid members of groups we stereotype • We tend to ignore or ‘explain away’ info that is inconsistent with stereotypes • We may act in ways (rude, hostile) that cause others to behave consistently with our stereotypes psychlotron.org.uk

10. Stereotyping • Jane Eliot’s study of prejudice (blue eyes-brown eyes) • Brown eyed children told they were better, smarter, given privileges; • Brown eyes assumed superior attitude; blue eyes started to perform poorly • Shows how quickly stereotypes start shaping attitudes & behaviour psychlotron.org.uk

11. Stereotyping • Greenberg & Pyzczynsky (1985) • White students rated performance of Black debaters more poorly than White if they had heard a racist comment • Stereotypes increase prejudice but only when activated • Minard (1952) • Stereotypes can be suppressed but only when social norms support this psychlotron.org.uk

12. Stereotyping • Stereotypes often accompany & support prejudice but may not cause it • Social processes (e.g. group norms) influence the expression of stereotyped thinking • Jane Eliot’s study is consistent with other theories (esp. social identity) psychlotron.org.uk

13. Realistic conflict theory • Prejudice is caused by social processes occurring between groups of people • Prejudice causes changes in individual thinking (e.g. stereotyping) but these are strongly linked to group processes psychlotron.org.uk

14. Realistic conflict theory • Prejudice arises when two or more social groups compete for the same scarce/valued resource • Inbuilt tendency to favour in-group members; become hostile toward out-group members • Deny resources to out-group thereby ensuring greater share for in-group/self psychlotron.org.uk

15. Realistic conflict theory • Sherif et al (1961): the ‘Robber’s Cave’ study • Competition & conflict artificially stimulated between two groups of boys at a summer camp • Resulted in negative stereotyping of out-group; hostile and aggressive acts toward out-group members • Prejudice persisted even after competition ended psychlotron.org.uk

16. Realistic conflict theory • Questions over the validity of the Robber’s Cave study: • Unrepresentative samples (US American boys; limited numbers)? • Contrived & artificial situation? • Competition does not always create prejudice (e.g. Tyerman & Spencer’s study with UK scouts) psychlotron.org.uk

17. Realistic conflict theory • RCT predicts that prejudice should intensify during times of economic hardship. This confirmed many times: • Dollard (1938) prejudice against German immigrants in US town increased as jobs grew scarce • Jacobs & Landau (1971) US prejudice against Chinese increased & decreased in line with prosperity & competition psychlotron.org.uk

18. Realistic conflict theory • Competition certainly increases prejudice. However: • Prejudice can exist in the absence of competition (e.g. apartheid South Africa) • Competition does not automatically lead to prejudice; it depends on the nature & relationship of the groups involved (Tyerman & Spencer, 1983) psychlotron.org.uk

19. Social identity theory • Prejudice is caused by social processes occurring between groups of people • It happens because of the way our sense of self (identity) is determined by the groups we belong to psychlotron.org.uk

20. Social identity theory • We derive our identity in part from the social groups we belong to (culture, religion, profession, football team…) • Consequently, we feel better about ourselves when we feel good about our social groups • We get to feel good about our social groups by comparing them favourably with other groups psychlotron.org.uk

21. Social identity theory • Prejudice is a strategy for achieving & maintaining self-esteem: • We will tend to be biased towards in-group members and against out-group members • We will pay more attention to criteria that make our in-groups look better than salient out-groups psychlotron.org.uk

22. Social identity theory • Tajfel et al (1982) assigned schoolboys to ‘meaningless’ groups; allowed them to allocate points/money to own & other group • PPs always chose a strategy that would allocate less to other group than to own even when this meant getting less overall for their own group • Shows in-group bias in the absence of competition & with only a ‘minimal group’ psychlotron.org.uk

23. Social identity theory • Favouritism towards in-group: • Levine et al (2005) – Man-U & Liverpool fans more likely to help an injured person if wearing own team’s colours • Football fans – self-esteem linked to team performance; tendency to denigrate other teams/fans (esp. if local); tendency to emphasise other ways of being superior if team doing poorly (e.g. ‘Chelsea fans are glory hunters, not real fans’ etc.) psychlotron.org.uk

24. Social identity theory • Plenty of support for main propositions. Two main problems: • Tendency to favour in-group may be culturally specific, not universal (Wetherall, 1982) • Most studies show bias towards in-group – not necessarily the same thing as prejudice psychlotron.org.uk