CHAPTER 3
PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION IN THE INDIVIDUAL
Overview
This is the first of two chapters that discuss and analyze prejudice and discrimination, with the emphasis on the former. Chapter 3 introduces and defines terms and concepts and concentrates on theories of prejudice. In order to handle the huge volume of theory and research in this area, the chapter is organized around three types of theories: personality‑based theories that emphasize psychoanalytical and psychological processes; culture‑based theories that emphasize socialization and social psychological processes; and power‑conflict theories that link prejudice and discrimination to competition between groups.
Learning Goals
1. Students will understand that prejudice is the tendency to think and feel negatively about members of other groups while discrimination refers to negative acts against people from another group.� Prejudice has affective and cognitive components.
2. Students will understand key concepts related to prejudice and discrimination����������� including but not limited to:� socialization, stereotypes, projection, displacement, psuedopatriotism, authoritarian submission, response set, self-fulfilling prophecy, and social distance.
3. Students will understand that different theories of prejudice propose different causes including personality characteristics, intergroup conflict, and cultural and structural variables.
4. Students will understand and be able to differentiate between the different theoretical perspectives concerned with prejudice, including but not limited to attribution theory, scapegoat hypothesis, authoritarian personality, and power/conflict theories.
5. Students will examine issues of prejudice and sexism from a comparative perspective.
6. Students will explore the debates about the causes of prejudice from different perspectives:� nature and culture.
Outline
I. Chapter Overview
II. Stereotypes
A. Cognition and Categorization.
1. Cognition is the thinking process by which people categorize and analyze information.� People constantly identify and sort information from the environment into categories.
2. Beyond noting group membership, prejudiced individuals will attribute traits to other people [e.g., "Italians are hot tempered."]
3. Once stereotypes are learned they can shape people's perceptions to the point where they only notice information that fits with their stereotype.� This is known as selective perception.
B. Attribution Theory.
1. Attribution theory was developed to describe how humans perceive and judge one another and is based on the premise that we try to make sense of our observations of others.
2. When judging the behavior of people who are close to us or members of our own group, we tend to avoid stereotypes.� We attribute positive traits to internal factors and negative actions to situational factors.
C. Types of Stereotypes.
1. Stereotypes arise from the process of sorting and absorbing information from the environment.
2. The content of a stereotypes flows from the actual relationship between dominant and minority groups and is one way dominant group members justify social arrangements that benefit them.
a. One type of stereotype attributes extreme inferiority to minority group members and tends to occur when the majority group exploits the minority group.�
b. Another type of stereotype is found when power and status differentials are less extreme, especially when the minority group has attained some upward mobility and resources.� In this case, their relative success is framed in negative terms.
D. Gender and Minority Group Stereotypes.
1. Although further research needs to be done, there appears to be a gender dimension in stereotypes.
2. People view women of color differently from "women in general."� In one study, about half of the traits attributed to African American women had a negative connotation.�
III. Theories of Prejudice
A. Personality-Centered Approaches of Prejudice.
1. The Scapegoat Hypothesis links prejudice to the individual's need to deal with frustration and express aggression.� The idea is that sometimes the cause of frustration is not available as a target for your aggression.� When this occurs people displace frustration by finding a substitute or scapegoat on which to vent one's aggression.
2. The theory of the Authoritarian Personality posits that a prejudiced personality type exists and certain types of people require prejudice to function effectively.
3. Personality-Centered approaches have some limits.� Clearly, the scapegoat hypothesis is too simplistic.� Researchers question the methodology that was used in the original study that generated the theory of the authoritarian personality.� One critique in particular is that the original researchers relied heavily on questionnaires to measure authoritarianism and the items were phrased in a way that encouraged people to agree with them.�
4. Personality-Centered approaches do explain some forms of prejudice, however, especially "irrational" forms of prejudice such as cases where people are prejudiced against groups they have no firsthand reason to dislike.
B. Culture-Based Approaches to Prejudice - We learn prejudice in the same way and for the same reasons that we learn other aspects of culture.
1. The Vicious Cycle - Myrdal [1944] proposed that social forces could powerfully reinforce each other over time.� Once a certain condition is assumed to be true, then forces are set in motion to create and perpetuate the original condition.� This is known as self-fulfilling prophecy or a vicious cycle.
2. Evidence supports the idea that the development of prejudice in children occurs, in part, as an outcome of socialization.
3. Research on the concept of social distance shows evidence that prejudice has a cultural component.� Social distance is the degree of intimacy to which an individual is willing to admit persons of other groups.� The most intimate relationship is kinship and the most distant is exclusion from the country.
4. What people think and what they do are not always the same.� Prejudice may not translate into discriminatory behavior and discriminatory behavior may not always be accompanied by prejudice.
5. Culture-based approaches of prejudice have limits.
a. Examining only cultural causes of prejudice may lead us to the mistaken belief that all members of the same society have roughly similar levels of prejudice.�
b. People are not neutral recipients of culture.�
c. In the U.S. we learn norms of fairness and justice along with those that condone unequal treatment based on group membership.� Typically people develop more than one attitude about other groups and these attitudes are not set in stone.
C. Power/Culture Theories - Stress the idea that prejudice flows from competition between groups and serves as a rationalization for exploitation and stratification.
1. Robber's Cave Experiment is a classic study that shows the relationship between group conflict and prejudice.� Specifically, that prejudice was the result of a conflictual relationship between groups.
2. Marxist Analysis suggests that elites control the ideology of a society and that the dominant ideologies are shaped to support the dominance of the elite group.
3. Split Labor Market Theory suggests that three actors exist within in the economic sector of an industrial society.� First, are elites who own the means of production.� The other two groups are different types of the working class--higher-priced and cheaper labor--that are in conflict with one another.� Prejudice is used by higher-priced labor to mobilize opposition to the cheaper labor pool represented by the minority group.
4. Limitations to power/conflict theories include the fact that individuals who have no material state in minority group subordination can still be prejudiced.� Sources of prejudice exist in culture, socialization, family structure, and personality development as well.�
IV. Current Debates:� What Causes Prejudice?
VI. Main Points of the Chapter
VII. Further Reading and Internet Research
Classroom Activities and Suggestions for Discussion
1. Often students may generalize when talking about minority group members.� For example, a student might say, "all the Mexicans in my town drive low riders and whistle at girls."� Open a discussion about such statements.� How do the students know the people they observed are Mexican American?� Which Mexican Americans act this way?� Do Mexican American woman whistle at girls?� Do gay Mexican Americans whistle at girls?� Which Mexican American men supposedly engage in this behavior--old men, gay men, upper class men, lower class men, etc?� Is what particular context do they supposedly drive low riders and whistle at girls--at church, at the grocery store, at school?� While it is not unreasonable to think that some Mexican Americans might drive low riders and whistle at girls, what is incorrect about such wide sweeping generalizations?� How else might students explain what this other students seem to have observed?� For example, what students may have attributed to race may indeed reflect other issues such as gender, class, situation, etc.� How might what they "saw" been altered by their preconceived notions of certain minority groups?
2. Invite guest speakers to speak to your class about issues of prejudice and discrimination.� For example, you might ask members or the NCAAP to join your class.� Or, perhaps there's a local coalition fighting for the rights of fat people, women, gays, Jews, the differently abled, or other minorities.�� You might specifically invite someone who works with immigrants, including refugees.�
3. Discuss or debate which theory [or theories] students feel best explains prejudice: personality-centered approaches, culture-based approaches, or power-culture theories.� What reasons do students have for their decisions?� What are the strengths and weaknesses of each theory?� How might understanding these theories help guide policy makers dealing with issues of prejudice and discrimination?� Or, how might they use what they know to create social change on campus or in their communities in regards to prejudice and discrimination?������