Chapter 13 : Prejudice
13.1 : What are the three components of prejudice ?
Defining Prejudice
- Prejudice is an attitude – an emotionally powerful one.
o Attitudes are made of 3 components :
• Cognitive Component : beliefs or though making up an attitude.
• Affective or Emotional Component : type of emotion linked and intensity of
emotion.
• Behavioral Component : one’s actions.
o People don’t only hold attitudes, they usually act on them as well.
- Prejudice : a hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group based solely on
their membership in that group.
o When someone is prejudiced against group of people, we mean he is primed to behave coolly
or hastily toward them and that he feels that are all the same.
o Prejudices have a cognitive elements – a stereotype – an can influence behacior – for example
discrimination.
- We are all potential victims of prejudice only for being a member in an identifiable group whether
based on ethnicity, skin color, religion, gender, origin, sexual orientation , & etc.
o Prejudice is a two-way street.
▪ It flows from minority group to majority group as well in other direction.
- Numbers of people who admit to believing that Blacks are inferior to White, women inferior to men,
and gays inferior to straight have bean dropping.
o Some White Americans regard racism as zero-sum game as actions tom improve welfare of
minority is at expense of majority.
o Many Whites confronted with information that country is becoming ethnically diverse and
that proportion of Whites is declining responds with fear and increased prejudice.
o Online, hundreds of White nationalists express their contempt for gays, Blacks, Mexicans, and
Jews.
- Researches illustrate the major theme of social psychology approaches to prejudice : We are born with
the ability to notice different categories, but experience shapes that ability.
- We make sense of our social world by grouping people according to characteristics that are important
– most notably gender, age, and race.
o We rely on our perceptions of what people with similar characteristics have been like in the
past to determine how to react to similar ones.
o The resulting categories are useful and necessary, but have consequences and might lead to
prejudices or not.
, - FROM CATEGORIES TO STEREOTYPES :
o Stereotypes are describes as “the little pictures we carry around in our heads”
▪ Withing a culture, these pictures are similar.
▪ We tend to categorize according to what is normative
▪ Stereotyping goes a step beyond simple categorization.
o Stereotype : generalization about a group of people in which certain traits are assigned to
virtually all members of the group regardless of variation among members.
▪ The stereotypical quality might be physical, mental, or occupational.
▪ Stereotyping is a cognitive process and it can be positive or negative.
• Stereotyping is a technique that all of us use to simplify ho we look at the
world.
▪ It allows humans to behave like cognitive misers – to take shortcuts and adopt rules
to understand people.
▪ Whenever a member of group behaves as we expect, behavior confirms and
strengthens stereotype.
o Stereotype is based on experience and accurately identify certain attributes of a group overall
which can be adaptive and a way of dealing with complex situations, but if it blinds us from
individual differences it becomes unfair and harmful.
- WHAT’S WRONG WITH POSITIVE STEREOTYPES ? :
o The abuse of stereotyping’s mental shortcuts can be obvious.
o When someone uses a positive stereotype, they are praising and insulting a certain group.
- STEREOTYPES OF GENDER : Everyone holds stereotypes of women and men – some positive and
negative.
o Stereotypes exaggerate differences between the sexes and ignore differences in personality
traits and abilities within each gender and oversimplify.
o Sexism takes 2 basic forms :
▪ Hostile Sexism : holds negative stereotypes of women.
▪ Benevolent Sexism : holds positive stereotypes of women.
• Benevolent sexism lacks tone of hostility to women.
▪ Both sets of stereotypes are demeaning to women because they assume that women
are the weaker sex, and are legitimizing discrimination against women.
13.1 : What are the three components of prejudice ?
Defining Prejudice
- Prejudice is an attitude – an emotionally powerful one.
o Attitudes are made of 3 components :
• Cognitive Component : beliefs or though making up an attitude.
• Affective or Emotional Component : type of emotion linked and intensity of
emotion.
• Behavioral Component : one’s actions.
o People don’t only hold attitudes, they usually act on them as well.
- Prejudice : a hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group based solely on
their membership in that group.
o When someone is prejudiced against group of people, we mean he is primed to behave coolly
or hastily toward them and that he feels that are all the same.
o Prejudices have a cognitive elements – a stereotype – an can influence behacior – for example
discrimination.
- We are all potential victims of prejudice only for being a member in an identifiable group whether
based on ethnicity, skin color, religion, gender, origin, sexual orientation , & etc.
o Prejudice is a two-way street.
▪ It flows from minority group to majority group as well in other direction.
- Numbers of people who admit to believing that Blacks are inferior to White, women inferior to men,
and gays inferior to straight have bean dropping.
o Some White Americans regard racism as zero-sum game as actions tom improve welfare of
minority is at expense of majority.
o Many Whites confronted with information that country is becoming ethnically diverse and
that proportion of Whites is declining responds with fear and increased prejudice.
o Online, hundreds of White nationalists express their contempt for gays, Blacks, Mexicans, and
Jews.
- Researches illustrate the major theme of social psychology approaches to prejudice : We are born with
the ability to notice different categories, but experience shapes that ability.
- We make sense of our social world by grouping people according to characteristics that are important
– most notably gender, age, and race.
o We rely on our perceptions of what people with similar characteristics have been like in the
past to determine how to react to similar ones.
o The resulting categories are useful and necessary, but have consequences and might lead to
prejudices or not.
, - FROM CATEGORIES TO STEREOTYPES :
o Stereotypes are describes as “the little pictures we carry around in our heads”
▪ Withing a culture, these pictures are similar.
▪ We tend to categorize according to what is normative
▪ Stereotyping goes a step beyond simple categorization.
o Stereotype : generalization about a group of people in which certain traits are assigned to
virtually all members of the group regardless of variation among members.
▪ The stereotypical quality might be physical, mental, or occupational.
▪ Stereotyping is a cognitive process and it can be positive or negative.
• Stereotyping is a technique that all of us use to simplify ho we look at the
world.
▪ It allows humans to behave like cognitive misers – to take shortcuts and adopt rules
to understand people.
▪ Whenever a member of group behaves as we expect, behavior confirms and
strengthens stereotype.
o Stereotype is based on experience and accurately identify certain attributes of a group overall
which can be adaptive and a way of dealing with complex situations, but if it blinds us from
individual differences it becomes unfair and harmful.
- WHAT’S WRONG WITH POSITIVE STEREOTYPES ? :
o The abuse of stereotyping’s mental shortcuts can be obvious.
o When someone uses a positive stereotype, they are praising and insulting a certain group.
- STEREOTYPES OF GENDER : Everyone holds stereotypes of women and men – some positive and
negative.
o Stereotypes exaggerate differences between the sexes and ignore differences in personality
traits and abilities within each gender and oversimplify.
o Sexism takes 2 basic forms :
▪ Hostile Sexism : holds negative stereotypes of women.
▪ Benevolent Sexism : holds positive stereotypes of women.
• Benevolent sexism lacks tone of hostility to women.
▪ Both sets of stereotypes are demeaning to women because they assume that women
are the weaker sex, and are legitimizing discrimination against women.
