Main Ideas of Prejudice & Dicsrimmination:

1.The cost of prejudice

-impaired cognitive functioning

2.Where prejudice comes from and is it inevitable?

3.Self-Stereotyping and system justification theory

White vs. Black Job study

-Hypothesis was that majorities(white ppl) would find blatant prejudice more cognitively impairing, and that minorities(black ppl) would find subtle prejudice more cognitively impairing.

- P's (all princeton students) were asked to help a real company develop new methods for making hiring decisions for a challenging job.

-Had to evaluate decisions of a human resource manager.

-P's were either shown applicants with a mediocre GPA from ok college, or with a good GPA from Yale and good experience. 

-The fictional manager recommended either hiring the most qualified applicant (neutral), chose a unexperience white man over a qualififed black one (subtle prejudice), or the less-qualified black canidate was chosen with specific mention of race in notes (blatant prejudice).

-After this prime, P's were given a task that measures cognitive fucntioning (the stroop color-word task).

-Hypothesis was proven correct!

-Majorities and minorities experience prejudice 

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

-Was developed to study unconcious beliefs about gender, race, etc...

-Measures the ease/difficulty people have in rapidly associating different categories.

-Two catagories (black/white) two sets of attributes (good/bad). Pressed right key for word you associate with white, left key for words you relate to black. How easy it is for you to cross-associate is measured.

-This test does not reveal our motivations or even what we feel; they are a product of our exposure to a racist culture. 

Partner Study

-P's first completed the race version of the IAT test- it was falsely described as a word categorizing task.

-Then were told before their next task to wait in the next room while they "helped out" a black or white confederate. They were then given the Stroop task.

-P's who showed up to be more "racist" in the IAT test had a lot more difficulty with a black partner. P's with a white partner relatively stayed the same- their thinking wasn't impaired, no matter how they scored on the IAT.

-This study shows how prejudice interferes with cognitive functioning.

Partner study with black men

-Same study, done with black men this time.

-Implicit prime did not impair cognitive function when working with another black partner. The more ingroup favoritism on the IAT test, the more interference they had on the stroop task with a white partner. The more outgroup favoritism, the less interference they had with a white partner. With a partner of their own race there was no change.

-Results suggest that black people who adopt outgroup favoritism will have an easier time coping in this racist society, in which whites have the most power.

Diversity study

-White males were exposed to either a color-blind message (i dont see race, we are all the same), or a multicultural message (we should appreciate and accept our diversity for the good and the bad)

-Implicit bias was tested with the IAT test. Explicit bias was tested by asking how warmly

(on a thermometer) they felt about certain groups. 

-People exposed to the color blind message showed more implicit and explicit bias. Those given the multicultural message showed only bias on the IAT test (implicit). 

-This test shows that diversity must be faced up to and discussed openly.

Mininmal group study

A holocaust survivor had an idea that people act in non-biased ways when they are individuals, but in biased ways when they acting as group members who hold a certain belief. 

-He ran this test with schoolboys.

-He enhanced the effect in experiments by creating a fake history of the group.

-People acted as group members even if the groups were meaningless.

Social identity theory

-Came up with this to explain the results of the minimal group study...

-sense of self has different levels of abstraction (family, country, job, human, etc.) 

-In different contexts, different types of identity become applicable.

-This extends to unconcious beliefs.

Quan Xanthie study

-P's were placed into groups based on their preference for different paintings by two diferent artists (quan and xanthie) 

-Were given an IAT test but with good/bad and quan and xanthie rather than black or white. 

-Shows that people automatically act as group member and dissociate themselves with outgroups, leading to automatic prejudice

Americans/ Marisats study

The same thing as Quan/Xanthie.

Concave/ Convex study

Babies and Cartoons study

-Children 5-6 months old shown cartoon speaking either their own language, their language backwards, a different language, or their language with a different accent.

-Then given a toy that represents each cartoon character.

-They chose the toy that represented their own language.

-This shows that people have a preference for their own kind early in thier development. 

Is race essential or automatic?

-No, racism is not evolutionary...people did not categorize other people on visual basises in the past.

-But we do think that categorizing people has an evolutionary basis. 

Memory Confusion study

-When people are given other visual cues besides race (color of shirt), they can successfully rely on this. 

-Shows that racism can be counteracted by other ways of identifying people. 

BBQ Gang study

-White people were exposed to film of either black ppl at a bbq or black people in a gang (different contexts). They took an IAT before and after the video. 

-There was a drop in subconcious prejudice after exposure to bbq scene. This shows that race does not have to be the most salient category, and that context is an important factor in racial prejudice. 

Isreali children

-Babies from Isreal and Ethiopia were shown faces of different races.

-Babies who grew up in Africa showed a preference for their own race.

-Shows that children who grow up in diverse environments are more likely to prefer different races equally. Kids in homogenous environments had more of a group bias, proving that contexts with diversity are more  

Victim enhancing 

Complimentary stereotypes