CHAPTER 13- PREJUDICE AND
INTERGROUP RELATIONS
Learning objectives:
Identify the differences between prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping.
Evaluate how and why stereotypes and discrimination impact targets.
Debate the innate versus cultural causes of prejudice and stereotyping.
Summarise research on the accuracy of stereotypes.
Discuss how inner processes can affect prejudice.
Explain how stereotypes actually operate and how they can be overcome.
Describe the impact of prejudice on targets
ABCS OF INTERGROUP RELATIONSHIPS: PREJUDICE,
DISCRIMINATION AND STEREOTYPES
Prejudice: A negative feeling toward an individual based solely on their
membership in a particular group.
o Prejudice involves attitudes toward categories of people, which can be
used to judge individuals without being based on the individual’s actions
or personal traits.
The best-known form of prejudice is racism.
o Racism: having negative views toward people based on their race.
o Racism can take the form of overt, blanket statements of disliking and
disapproving of certain groups.
In some settings, people are uncomfortable about their prejudices.
o This creates a pattern that some social psychologists have called aversive
racism.
Aversive racism: Simultaneously holding egalitarian values and
negative feelings toward people of other races.
o Aversive racists believe in racial equality and equal opportunity, but they
also feel uncomfortable around minorities and try to avoid them when
possible.
Eg. When white Americans are talking to black Americans, they may
sit farther away, maintain less eye contact, talk in a less friendly
1
, manner and end discussions sooner than they do when talking to
other white Americans.
Prejudiced feelings sometimes lead people to discriminate against others.
o Discrimination: Unequal treatment of different people based on the
groups or categories to which they belong.
The policy of apartheid discriminated against black people in all
aspects of life, and segregation was extended to hospitals, education,
transport.
Prejudice can exist without discrimination, if people hold negative views but
don’t act unfairly.
o Sometimes discrimination can occur without prejudiced feelings.
Eg. Suppose that the police force sets a requirement that its officers
must all be at least 1.80 metres tall, because it believes that ‘height
equals might’ and that criminals won’t take short officers seriously.
This height requirement would discriminate against women,
because they are generally shorter than 1.80 metres tall.
Stereotypes: Beliefs that associate groups of people with certain traits.
o Refers to what we believe or think about various groups.
o They can be good or bad.
Eg. One might stereotype older people as wise (good) or as slow
(bad).
Stereotypes are sometimes difficult to change.
o This may be because people tend to put exceptions to the stereotype’s
general rule into a separate category, called a subtype.
Subtype: Categories that people use for individuals who do not fit a
general stereotype.
Eg. If a man meets a woman who doesn’t fit the stereotype of the
warm and nurturing type, he can either discard or modify his
stereotype of women, or he can put her into a subtype, such as
‘career woman’ or an ‘athlete.
Prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes are the ABCs of intergroup
relationships.
o The Affective component is prejudice.
o The Behavioural component is discrimination.
o The Cognitive component is stereotyping.
2
, The mind is naturally inclined to sort objects into groups rather than thinking
about each other separately.
o This process of categorisation makes it much easier to make sense of a
complicated world.
Social Categorisation: The process of sorting people into groups on the
basis of characteristics they have in common (such as race, ethnicity, gender,
age, religion, or sexual orientation).
o Categorising people is an easy and efficient way of simplifying the world
and reducing mental effort.
o When people form an impression of a person, they typically use what
personal information they have about the individual, but invoking
stereotypes is a relatively easy way to fill in gaps in this knowledge.
Today, people object to stereotyping and prejudice even if the stereotypes
are reasonably accurate.
o The view that prejudice and stereotyping are morally wrong is a product
of modern Western culture.
Biased judgements based on stereotypes and prejudices are not only unfair
and immoral; in some cases, they can have lethal consequences.
o Eg. If a police officer possessed the stereotypical expectation that black
people are more likely to be violent and aggressive than white people, it
could influence split-second decisions whether to shoot black suspects,
with tragic consequences.
One big difference between sorting people and sorting things is the level of
emotional involvement.
o Eg. When sorting people into heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual
categories, the sorter belongs to one of the categories and feels
emotionally attached to it.
In contrast, someone who sorts fruits into apples and oranges is
probably not emotionally attached to these categories.
Outgroup members (‘them’): People who belong to a different group or
category than we do.
Ingroup members (‘us’): People who belong to the same group or category
as we do.
Most people assume that outgroup members are more similar to each other
than ingroup members are to each other.
o This is a false assumption known as Outgroup homogeneity bias.
3
, o Outgroup homogeneity bias: The assumption that outgroup members
are more similar to one another than ingroup members are to one
another.
One of the earliest studies of outgroup homogeneity used campus groups
at a university. The researchers found that students believed that the
members of their own group had many different traits, values and
activities, but that members of other groups were much more similar to
each other.
People see outgroup members as even looking similar to one another.
o Research has shown that eyewitnesses are more accurate at identifying
people of their own racial group than at identifying people of a different
racial group.
When outgroup members are angry, the opposite is true.
o Angry outgroup members are easier to identify than are angry ingroup
members.
o This finding reflects the importance of keeping track of dangerous people.
Angry members of another group may pose a major threat, so the
human mind automatically pays close attention to them and makes a
strong mental note of who those people are.
Explanation of outgroup homogeneity:
o We don’t have as much exposure to outgroup members as we do to
ingroup members.
So, we don’t have much chance to learn about how outgroup members
differ from one another.
This lack of exposure can have several negative consequences such as
prejudice.
4
INTERGROUP RELATIONS
Learning objectives:
Identify the differences between prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping.
Evaluate how and why stereotypes and discrimination impact targets.
Debate the innate versus cultural causes of prejudice and stereotyping.
Summarise research on the accuracy of stereotypes.
Discuss how inner processes can affect prejudice.
Explain how stereotypes actually operate and how they can be overcome.
Describe the impact of prejudice on targets
ABCS OF INTERGROUP RELATIONSHIPS: PREJUDICE,
DISCRIMINATION AND STEREOTYPES
Prejudice: A negative feeling toward an individual based solely on their
membership in a particular group.
o Prejudice involves attitudes toward categories of people, which can be
used to judge individuals without being based on the individual’s actions
or personal traits.
The best-known form of prejudice is racism.
o Racism: having negative views toward people based on their race.
o Racism can take the form of overt, blanket statements of disliking and
disapproving of certain groups.
In some settings, people are uncomfortable about their prejudices.
o This creates a pattern that some social psychologists have called aversive
racism.
Aversive racism: Simultaneously holding egalitarian values and
negative feelings toward people of other races.
o Aversive racists believe in racial equality and equal opportunity, but they
also feel uncomfortable around minorities and try to avoid them when
possible.
Eg. When white Americans are talking to black Americans, they may
sit farther away, maintain less eye contact, talk in a less friendly
1
, manner and end discussions sooner than they do when talking to
other white Americans.
Prejudiced feelings sometimes lead people to discriminate against others.
o Discrimination: Unequal treatment of different people based on the
groups or categories to which they belong.
The policy of apartheid discriminated against black people in all
aspects of life, and segregation was extended to hospitals, education,
transport.
Prejudice can exist without discrimination, if people hold negative views but
don’t act unfairly.
o Sometimes discrimination can occur without prejudiced feelings.
Eg. Suppose that the police force sets a requirement that its officers
must all be at least 1.80 metres tall, because it believes that ‘height
equals might’ and that criminals won’t take short officers seriously.
This height requirement would discriminate against women,
because they are generally shorter than 1.80 metres tall.
Stereotypes: Beliefs that associate groups of people with certain traits.
o Refers to what we believe or think about various groups.
o They can be good or bad.
Eg. One might stereotype older people as wise (good) or as slow
(bad).
Stereotypes are sometimes difficult to change.
o This may be because people tend to put exceptions to the stereotype’s
general rule into a separate category, called a subtype.
Subtype: Categories that people use for individuals who do not fit a
general stereotype.
Eg. If a man meets a woman who doesn’t fit the stereotype of the
warm and nurturing type, he can either discard or modify his
stereotype of women, or he can put her into a subtype, such as
‘career woman’ or an ‘athlete.
Prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes are the ABCs of intergroup
relationships.
o The Affective component is prejudice.
o The Behavioural component is discrimination.
o The Cognitive component is stereotyping.
2
, The mind is naturally inclined to sort objects into groups rather than thinking
about each other separately.
o This process of categorisation makes it much easier to make sense of a
complicated world.
Social Categorisation: The process of sorting people into groups on the
basis of characteristics they have in common (such as race, ethnicity, gender,
age, religion, or sexual orientation).
o Categorising people is an easy and efficient way of simplifying the world
and reducing mental effort.
o When people form an impression of a person, they typically use what
personal information they have about the individual, but invoking
stereotypes is a relatively easy way to fill in gaps in this knowledge.
Today, people object to stereotyping and prejudice even if the stereotypes
are reasonably accurate.
o The view that prejudice and stereotyping are morally wrong is a product
of modern Western culture.
Biased judgements based on stereotypes and prejudices are not only unfair
and immoral; in some cases, they can have lethal consequences.
o Eg. If a police officer possessed the stereotypical expectation that black
people are more likely to be violent and aggressive than white people, it
could influence split-second decisions whether to shoot black suspects,
with tragic consequences.
One big difference between sorting people and sorting things is the level of
emotional involvement.
o Eg. When sorting people into heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual
categories, the sorter belongs to one of the categories and feels
emotionally attached to it.
In contrast, someone who sorts fruits into apples and oranges is
probably not emotionally attached to these categories.
Outgroup members (‘them’): People who belong to a different group or
category than we do.
Ingroup members (‘us’): People who belong to the same group or category
as we do.
Most people assume that outgroup members are more similar to each other
than ingroup members are to each other.
o This is a false assumption known as Outgroup homogeneity bias.
3
, o Outgroup homogeneity bias: The assumption that outgroup members
are more similar to one another than ingroup members are to one
another.
One of the earliest studies of outgroup homogeneity used campus groups
at a university. The researchers found that students believed that the
members of their own group had many different traits, values and
activities, but that members of other groups were much more similar to
each other.
People see outgroup members as even looking similar to one another.
o Research has shown that eyewitnesses are more accurate at identifying
people of their own racial group than at identifying people of a different
racial group.
When outgroup members are angry, the opposite is true.
o Angry outgroup members are easier to identify than are angry ingroup
members.
o This finding reflects the importance of keeping track of dangerous people.
Angry members of another group may pose a major threat, so the
human mind automatically pays close attention to them and makes a
strong mental note of who those people are.
Explanation of outgroup homogeneity:
o We don’t have as much exposure to outgroup members as we do to
ingroup members.
So, we don’t have much chance to learn about how outgroup members
differ from one another.
This lack of exposure can have several negative consequences such as
prejudice.
4
