derogatory language in intergroup context: are “gay” and “fag” synonymous? andrea carnaghi...

Derogatory language in intergroup context:

Are “gay” and “fag” synonymous?

Andrea Carnaghi & Anne Maass

University of Padova

-DPSS-

ULB-14/11

ULB-14/11

• In October 2004, the Italian Minister for Italians Abroad, Mirko Tremaglia, commented the defeat of Rocco Buttiglione at the European Parliament by publicly stating:

“Poor Europe. The fags are in the majority”.

Derogatory group label

• DGLs have been tackled from two vantage points within the Social Cognition

• The first line of investigation has addressed derogatory group labels as cognitive representations of ethnic groups (Palmore, 1962; Mullen & Johnson, 1993; 1995; Mullen, Rozell, & Johnson, 2000; 2001).


• The second line of research, consisting of only few, isolated studies, has focused on the impact of derogatory ethnic labels on the evaluation of minority targets (Greenberg et al., 1985; Kirkland et al., 1987; Simon et al., 1996).

our set of studies is on the line of this strand of research


• Greenberg and Pyszczynski (1985, p.156) claimed that “the overhearing of derogatory labels would automatically activate negative feelings and beliefs associated with the group in question”.

• EXP• White-American participants were exposed to a

debate between a White and a Black person who either won or lost the debate.


• the confederate criticized the Black confederate

in an ethnically derogatory (i.e.; "there's no way that nigger won the debate")

in an ethnically neutral manner (i.e.; "there's no way that pro debator won the debate")

Participants evaluated the verbal skill of the target


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evalaution of verbal skill

DGL

no criticism


• participants were presented either with a derogatory ethnic label (“nigger”) or with a label that made no reference to ethnicity (“pro-debator”) but not with an ethnic label referring to the same category (such as “Black”).


• It therefore remains unclear whether the derogatory ethnic label (“nigger”) led to negative target evaluations because of its derogatory nature or because of its reference to a specific ethnic minority group (Blacks).


• Simon and Greenberg (1996)

• VI: Nigger vs. Black vs. No label

• Participants were classified with respect to their level of prejudice towards Afro Americans: Pro-Black, Anti-Black, Ambivalent

• VD: participants’ evaluation on + and – traits (irrelevant to the stereotype of Afro-American)


• Results• Pro-Black: control = Black = Nigger

• Anti-Black: control > Black = Nigger

• Ambivalent: control = Black < Nigger

• No evidence that Nigger would triger any different evaluation of the target

• At least, positive evaluation of the target for the Ambivalents


• TO SUM UP…

• derogatory terms and category labels could be considered, at least in part, as synonymies

• BUT a more accurate analysis may suggest that there are reasons to believe that prior studies may not be entirely conclusive.

Previous studies: limits

• Implicit vs. explicit attitude

• The first limit of previous studies is that they have involved explicit judgments of the minority target

• - are sensitive to social and normative constraints, such as societal norms of non-discrimination

• - whereas implicit measures are, at least in part, free of normative pressures, such as social desirability


• They have failed to distinguish between stereotypic (vs. non- stereotypic) content and valence.

• The distinction between stereotypicality and valence appears relevant in view of research conducted by Wittenbrink and colleagues (1997; 2001) on Withe’ s attitude towards Afro-American


Stereotype: cognitive/descriptive component of perceivers’ attitude toward a group

Prejudice: affective/evaluative component of perceivers’ attitude toward a group

• Question:• Do DGLs elicit more stereotypic view or

higher prejudiced view ?


• No distinction between pure cognitive (or affective) effects of being exposed to a derogatory label from those triggered by a public context of discrimination.

• it is still unclear whether the lack of any effect of the derogatory labels on participants’ reactions is due to a sort of isomorphism between category and derogatory labels or to participants’ tendency to avoid any form of compliance with the source of discrimination.

…our studies…

rely on implicit measure (free-associations paradigm, approach-avoidance paradigm, subliminal semantic prime paradigm)

disentangle cognitive and affective mechanisms

disentangle the effects of mere exposure from those of social influence

Pilot study: free association

• N=50 participants (N=25 w and N =25 m)

experiment concerning the way people freely associate concepts to a given word.

they were presented with a booklet comprising a series of 5 stimulus-words.

For each word, participants were asked to spontaneously report the first three concepts that came to their mind.


Four words were irrelevant to sexual orientation terms (i.e., sun, crapper, American, lion)

The fifth word was always the critical prime-word: category label (i.e., homosexual) or a derogatory label (i.e., fag).

go back to their free associations and judge the valence of each word they had previously reported on a bipolar scale ranging from – 2 (= very negative) to + 2 (= very positive).


• Valence

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valence CL

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• Limits of the Pilot study:

• Valence as unidemsional factor studies on the positive-negative assimetry showed that valence is a bidimensional variable

• Free association paradigm taps a controlled process

Study 1: IAAT

• IAAT paradigm• Theoretical assumption: the evaluative component

of an attitudinal object is also comprised of the behavioral representation associated with that object which

• This behavioral representation is typically compatible with approach or avoidance movements.

• Several studies have shown that approach-like movements are faster for positive than negative attitudinal objects, whereas avoidance-like movements are faster for negative than positive objects

• High reliability of the measure also for social stimuli

Study 1: IAAT

• *Participants engaged in a

categorization task• * flowers vs.

insects • * using Ap for F• and Av for I• * using Ap for I• and Av for F

app

avv

stimulus

PP

Study 1: IAAT

• IAAT

• Response latencies of approach are faster for Flowers than Insects

• Response latencies of avoidance are faster for Insects than Flowers

• High reliability for social stimuli (Italian names and Cheense names)

Study 1: IAAT

• Implicit approach-avoidance paradigm

• Approach: positive items

• Avoidance: negative items

• Approach: faster for positive items than negative items

• Avoidance: faster for negative items than positive items

Study 1: IAAT

• Participants had to sort different items in two classes: social items vs. non-social items

• Non social items: bottle, paper…

• Social items:

• American, Italian, African as FILLERS

• &

• Gay, southern as category labels

• Fag, terrone as derogatory group labels

Study 1: IAAT

• Results:

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approach avoidance

category

derogatory

Pilot & Study1

• these two studies provide consistent evidence for the idea that derogatory and neutral category labels elicit different affective reactions

• they failed to analyze the relationship between derogatory labels and attitude towards a given group with respect to stereotype and prejudice.

Study 2: subliminal priming paradigm

• disentangle the stereotypic content from the valence-based content

• Unaware of being exposed to the target labels

• Automatic reactions


• Heterosexual participants --> lexixal decision task

• Prime 18 ms• masking 1000ms• Target 250 ms• Answer recoded time as dependent variable

• Reaction times as measure of semantic accessibility

• Primes: gay & homosexual = category • Primes: fag & fairy = derogatory• Targets:• stereotypical +• stereotypical -• counter-stereotypical +• counter-stereotypical -• irrelevant +• irrelevant -


• derogatory primes differed from category primes in terms of…

• stereotype

• prejudice

• stereotypical prejudice


• Stereotype hypothesis:

• Compared to Category primes Derogatory primes

• Speed RTs for stereotypical targets

• Slow down Rts for counter-stereotypical targets

• Do not affect Irrelevant targets

• Regardless of the valence of those targets


• Prejudice hypothesis:

• Compared to Category primes Derogatory primes

• Speed RTs for negative targets

• Slow down Rts for positive targets

• Regardless of the stereotypicality of those targets


• Stereotypic prejudice hypothesis:• Derogatory primes: • Speed RTs for negative stereotypical targets • Slow down Rts for positive stereotypical targets• Category primes:• Activate positive and negative stereotypical

targets in a more balanced fashion


• Main effect

• No interaction with the prime equal level of stereotyping for category and derogatory labesl

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-25

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accessibility

stereotypical

irrelevant

counter-stereotypica


• Prime by valence interaction:

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pos neg

category

derogatory


• Sum Up…

• Derogatory group labels affect the perceivers’ prejudice but not the perceivers’ stereotype

• Confirming the Pilot Study and the Study 1, derogatory group labels weakend the strenght of category-positive association


• Limits:

• We relied on heterosexual participants but what about homosexual participants?

• Do they react in the same way?

• Study 3 addressed this issue with the same experimental procedure


Hypothesis 1:

• stereotype held by a dominant group towards a stigmatized minority group massively permeates mass-media and representation of groups are transmitted and reproduced throughout interpersonal communication

• the “cultural stereotype” of homosexuals, as well as the derogatory labels associated with that group, may be just as accessible to homosexuals as it is to heterosexuals

• Titti De Simone : “after all, also us homosexuals have been educated to be heterosexuals”.


• Hypothesis 2:

• emotional reactions of anger are more likely to emerge when perceivers see the target of an offensive action as a part of their own group

• one would expect homosexuals (i.e., the target of the derogatory labels in our studies) to evaluate derogatory group labels, such as fag, as much more harmful than heterosexuals


• Hypothesis 3• homosexual participants may no longer conceive

terms like fag or fairy as negative labels. • Minority groups import derogatory language, originally

created by hostile majority groups, into minority speech, thereby changing the implicit valence of such terms

• Re-framed by minority members in a positive manner thus to reclaim them as terms of pride

• All terms referred to the ingroup, which is positively valued, becomes positively connoted


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pos neg

category

derogatory

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pos neg

category

derogatory

homosexualsheterosexuals

Confirming hypothesis 3

Conclusion…

• 1-derogatory group labels affect perceivers’ automatic evaluation of the target group

• 2-derogatory group labels reduced the positive valenced associations but do not affect the negative-valenced associations

• 3-assymetry between majority group and minority target group

Conclusion

• Poor Europe. The fags are in the majority” (Tremaglia Mirko)

• Fag is not a synonymous of gay

derogatory language in intergroup context: are “gay” and “fag” synonymous? andrea carnaghi...

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