2 Page Reflection Paper on Prejudice and Discrimination

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Chapter 3

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice and Discrimination

Individual prejudice is a set of feelings or emotions that people attach to groups, including their own

For example, someone may have a negative view of the Irish and call them “drunks”

This is a generalized association with an entire group

Several psychological and social-psychological research traditions focus on the emotional or affective aspect of prejudice

The scapegoat hypothesis and the theory of the authoritarian personality

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

Instructor’s Note: Ask students about a time in which they experienced prejudice.

The Scapegoat Hypothesis holds that people sometimes express their frustrations against substitute targets

When the substitutes are other groups, prejudice increases

Researchers have used this theory to explain a variety of political, social, and economic events

For example, the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

Instructor’s Note: Ask students to provide another example.

The theory of the authoritarian personality links prejudice to childhood experiences with stern, severe parents

On the surface, children of authoritarian families respect and love their parents

Internally, they resent and fear their severe and distant parents

Prejudice provides people with authoritarian personalities a way of coping with their conflicted feelings

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

The cognitive dimension of prejudice includes stereotypes about people in other groups

Stereotypes are over-simplified generalizations that are said to apply to all group members

For example, all feminists, Christians, or Southerners

Selective perception is the tendency to see only what one expects to see

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

Instructor’s Note: What is an example of selective perception?

Individual prejudice has an affective dimension in addition to the cognitive

Robert Merton (1968) makes this distinction between dimensions dramatically

Merton analyzed stereotypical perceptions of Abraham Lincoln, Jews, and Japanese

The three “stereotypes” are identical in content but different in emotional shading

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

Instructor’s Note: What is meant by emotional shading?

The affective and cognitive dimensions of prejudice vary not only by race and ethnicity but also by gender and class

For example, the stereotypes and feelings attached to Black men differ from those attached to Black women

Feelings about lower-class Mexican Americans are different from those evoked by upper-class members of the same group

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

Every form of prejudice started at some specific point in history

If we go back far enough, we can always find some instance in which one group successfully dominates or eliminates a perceived threat by another group

Group competition is associated with the emergence of prejudice

Typically, prejudice doesn’t cause group competition, it results from it

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

Prejudice functions to mobilize emotional energy for conflict, justify attack, and rationalize structures of domination

The relationship between prejudice and competition has been demonstrated in a variety of settings and situations ranging from labor strikes to international war to psychology labs

To illustrate, we will examine a classic experiment known as Robber’s Cave

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

Muzafer Sherif conducted his experiment in the 1950s at a summer camp for 11- and 12-year-old boys

Robber’s Cave was conducted in an artificial environment with young boys (all White) who had no previous experience with one another

Thus, the results may be only partially generalizable to group conflicts in the “real world”

Nonetheless, Robber’s Cave illustrates a connection between group competition and prejudice

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Prejudice

Instructor’s Note: What does generalizability mean and why is it important in research?

Many theorists have examined the dynamics of group competition and the results for prejudice and discrimination

Marxist Analysis

Class inequality is a result of the capitalist economic system

Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat

A key reason capitalism continues is because the elites control ideas

This results in group competition and prejudice between classes

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Theoretical Perspectives on Group Competition and Prejudice

Split Labor Market Theory

This theory agrees with the Marxist idea that prejudice and racist ideologies serve the interest of a specific class

In split labor market theory, there are three actors in the economic sector of an industrial society

The elites, the capitalists, and the working class

The economic nature of the competition and the economic self-interests of higher-priced labor are obscured by appeals to racial or cultural unity against the “threat” represented by the minority group

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Theoretical Perspectives on Group Competition and Prejudice

Group Interests

Herbert Blumer (1958) argued that prejudice is activated when groups feel that they are threatened by other groups they see as beneath them

The dominant group is particularly likely to use prejudice as a weapon when it feels that its privileges are in peril

For example, the reaction of many Southern Whites to the Black civil rights movement for the 1950s and 1960s

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Theoretical Perspectives on Group Competition and Prejudice

These theories share the conclusion that prejudice flows from struggles to control or expand a group’s share of scarce resources

No theory can explain everything and there are limitations

For example, Burns and Gimpel (2000) found that opposition to immigration is greater when people feel economically threatened

They also found that anti-immigration prejudice cannot be explained by economic alone and that it persists even when conditions improve

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Theoretical Perspectives on Group Competition and Prejudice

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

The Persistence of Prejudice

Instructor’s Note: Ask students to interpret this figure.

Gunnar Myrdal (1944/1962) produced the idea that prejudice is perpetuated through time by a self-fulfilling prophecy or a vicious cycle

The dominant group uses its power to force the minority group into an inferior status (such as slavery)

Individual prejudices are reinforced by the everyday observation of the inferior status of the minority group

Over a few generations, an internally reinforced system of racial inferiority becomes an integral and accepted part of everyday life

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

The Persistence of Prejudice

Research on the development of prejudice in children confirms that prejudice is learned through socialization

This prejudice may be acquired through direct and indirect socialization

By age 3 or younger, children recognize the significance of racial groups

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

The Persistence of Prejudice

Doyle and Aboud (1995) found that prejudice is highest for younger children and decreases between kindergarten and the third grade

This is related to increased awareness of racial similarities and perspectives on race

Changing levels of prejudice in children may reflect an interaction between children’s changing mental capacities and their environment rather than a simple learning of racist cultural values

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

The Persistence of Prejudice

Further evidence for the cultural nature of prejudice is provided by research on the concept of social distance

Social distance is the degree of intimacy that a person is willing to accept in his or her relations with members of other groups

Research using social distance scales demonstrates that Americans rank other groups in similar ways across time period and geographic location

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

The Persistence of Prejudice

A sense of social distance is part of the cultural package of intergroup prejudices we acquire from socialization

Socialization is the process of psychological and social development by which a person learns his or her culture

It is important to note the importance of the social situation in which attitudes are expressed and behavior occurs

What people think and what they do is not always the same

Robert LaPiere’s (1934) work exemplifies this

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

The Persistence of Prejudice

Many social scientists argue that racism has not declined, but has evolved

This new form of prejudice refers to modern racism, color-blind racism, and symbolic racism

Prejudice can take forms that seem positive such as “affectionate paternalism”

People may treat an adult with “special” care suggesting they are weaker or less competent

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Recent Trends: Traditional Prejudice and Modern Racism

Instructor’s Note: What is color-blind racism?

Some of the strongest evidence that traditional prejudice is declining comes from public opinion research

The figure on the next slide shows data gathered from White Americans who participated in several research studies over a 64-year period

The poll shows that prejudice has not vanished

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Recent Trends: Traditional Prejudice and Modern Racism

Healey, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class 8e. © SAGE Publishing, 2018.

Recent Trends: Traditional Prejudice and Modern Racism

One possible cause of declining prejudice is education

Education is said to broaden perspectives and encourage a more sophisticated view of human affairs

The figure on the next slide demonstrates the role that education may play in decreased prejudice

It is important to remember that correlation does not equal causation

Education and prejudice may be statistically associated, but this does not prove that one is causing change in the other

Recent Trends: Traditional Prejudice and Modern Racism

Similar to education, contact and increased communication between groups has often been suggested as remedies for prejudice

Contact between groups is not an automatic antidote for prejudice

The equal status contact hypothesis argues that, under certain conditions, cooperative contacts between groups will tend to reduce prejudice

Recent Trends: Traditional Prejudice and Modern Racism

Equal status contact hypothesis specifies four conditions under which intergroup contact can reduce prejudice:

Equal status

Common goals

They must interact intensively in noncompetitive, cooperative tasks

Have the active endorsement of authority figures

Recent Trends: Traditional Prejudice and Modern Racism

Modern racism rationalizes the status quo, thereby not just permitting inequality, but reproducing it

Modern racists believe:

They are not prejudiced

Discrimination in American society no longer exists

Efforts to reduce inequality are unjustified and unfair because inequality no longer exists

Any remaining racial or ethnic inequality is the fault of the members of the minority group

Modern Racism: The New Face of Prejudice?

Instructor’s Note: Do you know a modern racist?

Hate crimes are attacks or other acts of intimidation motivated by the group membership of the victim or victims

Targets increasingly include the gay community in addition to racial, ethnic, and religious minorities

Not all hate crimes are reported

Contemporary White supremacist groups commonly use modern communications technology

Hate Crimes

Instructor’s Note: Why aren’t all hate crimes reported?

Hate Crimes

Hate crimes are often fueled by:

Perceived threats, frustration, fear, anger, and scapegoating

An undeserved rise in the status of minority groups

Fear of job loss, decreased income, deteriorated neighborhoods, and inferior schools

The idea that many hate crimes involve scapegoating is supported by the spontaneous, unplanned, and highly emotional nature of these crimes

Hate Crimes

Prejudice is more a result of group competition, rather than a cause

Personality-centered prejudice is difficult to reduce and likely impossible to eliminate

Culture-based or “traditional” prejudice differs not in intensity but in the extent to which it is resistant to change

It is easier for a person to unlearn prejudice through education and contact with members of other groups

The Sociology of Prejudice

The reduction of intergroup conflict for societal resources by reducing inequities in the distribution of resources and opportunities can prove most beneficial for reducing stereotypes and negative attitudes

Reducing prejudice will not necessarily change the situation of minority groups

Individual prejudice and discrimination are not the same as ideological racism and institutional discrimination

The Sociology of Prejudice