Explanations of prejudice

Authoritarian personality Stereotyping Realistic conflict theory Social identity theory

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Authoritarian personality

Prejudice is caused by psychological processes within the individual

Prejudiced people have a particular personality type

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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’

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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.)

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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

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